Whenever Cody starts spouting off law school blah blah my eyes glaze over and I nod catatonically. I really want to care. Really I do. But a lot of it just doesn’t compute. It’s safe to say he keeps talk of federal jurisdiction out of our conversations and I don’t bore him with the finer points of why you must slowly sweat your vegetables before adding them to the soup.

Fast forward to Friday night.

I received an email with an attached contract that I needed to sign for a new gig I’m about to begin (SQUEE! shh.). I started to read it over and wouldn’t you know it, my eyes glazed over and my brain started to shut down. So I called Cody in from the other room.

“Hey dude, wanna read a contract?”

Boy did he. He read that thing like I read Perez Hilton. Focused. Intent. Interested.

And when he was done he let me know that according to this contract I was under obligation to do something I didn’t want to be doing and that there was no way out and no way of changing it once I signed it.

Really? It said that? Because all I saw was “blah blah money blah blah”.

Anyway. He said that I should write what I wanted added into the contract and send it back to be added in.

Me? Write what? But I don’t even…I but I, how do I?

Cody flippantly said “I’ll write it.”

I thought “Ha ha sure he will, like he’ll really write a clause into a contract for me so I can protect myself.” And then it dawned on me. “HE CAN WRITE A CLAUSE INTO MY CONTRACT SO I CAN PROTECT MYSELF!” In that one moment it dawned on me that all this time my husband hasn’t been with me he’s been learning how to write legal garbage to protect people like me who don’t get legal garbage.

SWEET!

You see, Cody’s school brain has been growing and getting infinitely smarter. I just don’t see his school brain much. But I do see his home brain a lot and sorry to say it hasn’t gotten quite as smart as his school brain has, so it’s easy to forget just how book smart he is.

My mom is a computer programmer. It’s easy for me to forget that my mom is a class A computer geek until I see her surrounded by some of the supreme uber dorks she works with typing seven hundred words a minute in insane computer languages.

Then there’s my dad. He could tell you the ins and outs of any piece of furniture he sees. How well it’s made, where the wood came from, how it was put together. He could even reproduce it down to the exact detail if you gave him enough time.

My sister knows every dog and cat breed ever to be ever, and the pros and cons of every single one.

I have another friend who eats breathes and sleeps music. The other day at lunch I asked her why everyone sucks at singing happy birthday and she went into stuff about octave jumps, seventh notes and funny pitches. Who knew?

And then there’s me. Any one of you who know me in real life probably know better than to ever ask me a baking question again because chances are I GAVE YOU AN EARFUL and you could have cared less about half the stuff that poured out of my mouth. I am fluent in bake speak. And I speak it liberally.

So what about you? What language are you fluent it? What question could I ask you that would set off your “speak”? What are you dorky at? An expert at? Even if it’s something as small as knitting tea cozies, tell me. Tell the world.

You know, just in case someone needs a perfect tea cozy. Or whatever.

Over at Linoleum Dynamite you’ll find a chocolate cake recipe. It will take you all of seven minutes to make and will only use one bowl. Never made a cake from scratch? It’s not scary, promise. And it’s worth it, promise. Your Valentine would think the world of you, promise.

There is a science to baking. A science that I am trying to learn. I would like to pass on what I’ve learned in my limited yet growing knowledge on to you. I’ll start with cake basics. Because that’s what I made today. Duh. (You too can learn all this stuff. Try this book, this one, this one, and don’t forget about this guy.)

When making a cake you want all of your ingredients at room temperature. This is why many cake recipes will call for warm or hot water to be added. This is an easy way to cheat is if you don’t have time to bring all of your ingredients to room temperature. Why do this? Well, because when the ingredients are already at room temperature the the batter won’t have to warm up before it can start baking, leaving you with a more moist, tender cake. (Think of room temperature ingredients as cake foreplay, once it gets into the heat of things it can go straight to doing its job.)

Secondly, lining your cake pans is paramount. Look! I made a video to show you how! Spray your pan, measure your parchment and spray again. You should never have another stuck cake again. (Parchment is different than wax paper, it is coated with silicone and can withstand higher temperatures, nothing sticks to it and it won’t leave behind any strange flavors.)

Third. Oven thermometer. My oven can be off anywhere from 25 to 50 degrees depending on the weather. Don’t trust what you set it at. Trust an oven thermometer. Even if you have a digital convection oven, use an oven thermometer. Trust me.

Fourth. DON’T OPEN THE FREAKING DOOR. Every time you open the oven door you lose 25 to 50 degrees of heat. Which means the oven has to recover that heat before it can continue baking as usual. Recovery=longer baking time, drier baked goods and *gasp* fallen baked goods. KEEP THE DOOR SHUT. If you must check in on your food, get a baking stone and keep it in your oven at all times. It will retain heat and help your oven recover faster from all of your nosiness.

Fifth. Let your cake cool all the way before you frost it. Unless you like mushy piles of cake be patient. Good frosting is made mostly from what? Butter. And butter melts when put on something warm. Melted butter is slippery. Get my point?

The last thing I can think of is flour. Maybe you’ve seen cake flour. Cake flour has a lower protein content than all purpose flour and all purpose flour has a lower protein content than bread flour. Cake flour will give you a very light, tender cake. All purpose flour will give you a sturdier, denser cake.

Cake is the result of a bunch of tiny air bubbles formed by steam trapped inside the protein of the flour. How tough those air bubbles are depends on how much protein is in your flour. Let’s say cake flour is like a bubble blown with bubble gum. Soft and easy to break. (Soft, tender cake) All purpose flour will give you bubbles that more resemble a latex balloon, thin, but harder to pop. Bread flour ends up being more like a rubber ball. Much harder to pop and therefore chewier and denser (think french bread).

If that analogy doesn’t make sense to you I’m sad, because it totally makes sense to me.

So there’s my cake knowledge. Go forth and prosper. And check out the recipe at Linoleum Dynamite. I drew a happy face on the finished product.

My sister knew from a very young age that she wanted to be a vet.

She has worked at the same animal hospital for over ten years.

I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be a gardener, in the symphony, a physical therapist, a dance therapist, an artist,  a ballerina, a writer, a Porche driver, a professional soccer player, a speed skater and beauty queen.

Here I am at 25, a stay at home mom with an idle degree in graphic design. (While the SAHM title is honorable, it’s not exactly rocket science, OOH! Astronaut! I could be an astronaut!)
Whoo! For dreams! goals! and ambitions!

I want to go back to school, scratch that, I will go back to school. And when I go back I’ll become a web designer, a pastry chef, a photographer, an ASL interpreter, and I’ll also get my nursing degree and a degree in social work all while going to medical school on the side. Maybe I’ll even hit law school when all that gets boring. Oh, and there’s all these other people who tell me I should be a writer. Both novels and children’s books.

Oy.

I have this little voice in the back of my head that says “By the time you finish any of those you’ll be so OLD. Besides, you’re a big fat quitter, so quit while you’re ahead.”

SHUT UP VOICE I SAY!

But it’s true, I want to be good at so many things but want to be good at them immediately. The only thing I feel like I’ve ever been good at immediately was baking. Now if everything else in my life could come that easy I sure would appreciate it.

Even little things like Dance Dance Revolution. Do you have any IDEA how frustrating it is to practice a song for over an hour only to have your HUSBAND BEAT YOUR HIGH SCORE ON HIS FIRST TRY?

C’mon universe, GIVE ME SOMETHING!

I so want to be something, to do something with my life. To have mad wicked skills at all sorts of stuff. Musically, athletically, academically, craftily. I’ll keep on trying, and in the mean time…

Will someone else tell please decide what I should be when I grow up?

How did you decide what you wanted to be when you grew up?

And when will I get really good at Guitar Hero?

For those of you out there who wanted to know about all the cooking I do, is this the post for you.

Let’s go to a time when I was quite pregnant at the state fair. I decided I wanted to win ribbons, validation.

My mom had won ribbons for her photography, my dad had won ribbons for his woodworking.

I could make a pretty wicked cookie so I ran with it.

My Granny bought me a Kitchenaid for my birthday and I never looked back.

I totally won, 11 big shiny ribbons, most of them blue.

I branched out, never even knew I had it in me.

I expanded my baked horizons and realized I had a gift. I was a crummy cook when Cody and I got married. (CRUMMY.) I could burn chicken and somehow the middle would still be bloody and raw. I could burn chili to the point it tasted like the pot it was cooked in.

But one day it clicked, and I haven’t trashed much of anything since. In fact almost everything I touch turns to culinary gold.

(TOOT TOOT, that’s my own horn, hope you don’t mind.)

Take my Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

Chocolate Fudge Cake

Pizza

German Chocolate Cake

Baguettes

Blueberry crumb muffins.

Pecan pie, apple almond crumb pie, chocolate toffee cookies and chocolate chip cookies

Cinnamon rolls and brownies

And in case you’re thinking “Huh, I’m sure she uses a mix somewhere in there.”
You’d be dead wrong my friend.

Everything is from scratch. Everything. Don’t believe me?

Apples for my apple pie.

And I cracked, shredded and pureed my OWN COCONUT for a coconut cake.

A four layer coconut cake.

That’s right, bow on down.

So here’s a tricky little problem that comes along with baking.

Your kid reads cookbooks and tells you what you can make her.

(And if you want recipes you’re pretty much out of luck, I’m too lazy to write them out, let alone type them out. Okay, maybe someday I’ll do it. Okay, so I know my brownie recipe off the top of my head, so here goes, don’t tell me I never did you any favors.)

The Best Damn Brownies You’ll Ever Have

Melt one stick of unsalted butter and eight ounces of chocolate (milk, dark, semi sweet, take your pick)

Pour into a large mixing bowl and whisk in a cup and a half of sugar. Then whisk in four eggs, each one at a time.

Mix in a teaspoon of vanilla and fold in 3/4 cups of flour and a quarter teaspoon salt with a large spatula.

Bake in a 375 degree oven for 45-50 minutes. (Oh yeah, spray an 8×8 pan with cooking spray and line with parchment leaving a one inch overhang on two sides. Use the overhang as a “sling” to take the brownies out when they’re done)

See how horrible I am at writing down recipes? Good luck if you actually try them, promise I didn’t botch it up on purpose. They really are the best damn brownies ever.

********

Remember to catch up on the last couple posts, don’t want to leave you in the NaBloPoMo dust when the most twisted love story ever continues tomorrow.

Three parts to this post, hang with me please I need yo’ help.
First-I am the saucy pecan pie baking champion of Indiana. First place. All the way. Boo ya.
Secondly-
Those “childproof” doorknob covers I use to keep the toddler in residence in and out of where she needs to be?
Little bugger figured out how to break them off the doorknob. She let herself out today while she was supposed to be napping and turned on the food network while Cody was in the shower.
Giada anyone? No? You’d rather take the napping toddler?
Yeah, me too. (Not that Giada’s not a looker.)
*ahem* My question and thirdly-
Do you have potty trained children? I’ve learned to trust my friends in the computer more than books on shelves and I need your help. Here’s the key points of the issue…

• the moosh peed in the potty the other day. The big potty, right after being put on it. She did it so she could wear her pretty new Cinderella panties I’ve been waving in her face for days as incentive to quit peeing her pants.
• She then peed in the Cinderella panties and the Belle panties that replaced the Cinderella panties.
• Now any mention of going to the potty sends her screaming into a corner.
• I lost my magical incentive with the Cinderella panties.
• I can’t bribe with candy because she hates candy. (I know, huh?)

Where do I go from here?
Do I quit diapers cold turkey and hope she figures out peeing your pants stinks?
Do I just hang tight and wait until she wants to?
Do I get a Potty Time DVD?
Do I start drinking again?
This is the last thing I have to freak out about. Bottles, binkes, big girl bed. Check.
Potty training?
help.
please? (oh, and starting to drink isn’t really an option, so don’t suggest it.)

Is this what you were expecting?

Sorry to disappoint but I was only referring to the dazzling awesomeness that was me in my Cardio Salsa class and my Hip Hop class that I started this last week. Way to go on the dirty minds though ladies! Didn’t know you had it in you.

And as far as the liquored up pie?

Awesome.
Cody’s not to pleased with me that I’m going into this to spank the competition. It is after all a church function. But spanking is my goal and hopefully spankage will be the outcome. I have a reputation to uphold…

…must win more ribbons, must turn into scary old ribbon lady…

There’s still apple pie to make tomorrow, but right now I’m tired.

I was choked and drowned like a rat by this little chubby thing all day.

‘Night, fools. Send me all your good pie spanking karma vibe things.

***A special thanks to Jenny for the refresher course on how to Photoshop your head onto someone else’s body in 19 easy steps***

Let me preface this post by telling you that I am watching the travesty that is the Seattle auditions of American Idol. If Paula, Randy and Simon could hear me sing in my car I would be on to Hollywood. Unfortunately by some cosmic force my amazing singing ability shuts down as soon as the motor is off or someone decides to ride along with me (that someone includes the moosh who regularly yells “NO! DON’T SING!” from the backseat, thanks baby). I have accepted my fate, Princess Fiona only got to be a princess in the day, I only sing like a rock star alone in my car. I am fine with this. Some people (mainly people in Seattle) haven’t accepted their fate, maybe they don’t even have the gift I do of being able to Rock the Casbah in their cars, and they proudly display this ON NATIONAL TV. If you saw “the hotness” at the beginning of the show you’ll know what I’m talking about. Sure they want their 15 minutes to be on TV, so do I, which I why I linger and strike a pose as I exit my bank each week, there’s three cameras on me as I exit, how could I not? I got my 15 minutes last year when I worked my butt of to win a baking championship and ended up baking moist warm cakes for the cute newsboys on the afternoon news at FOX13. No embarrassment involved, except when I told the really cute newsboy that the cakes may just taste like burrito due to someone thinking it was a good idea to explode their JoseOle in the microwave backstage moments before I had to use it. On with the post.
I will never have to resort to standing in line for days to get my big break as the next American Idol. I did something so smart I didn’t even know how smart it was when I did it. I married a man with a brain and ambition. Six years ago he said he wanted to be a lawyer, I signed up to come along. Not only is he in law school he’s doing really well. Grades just posted yesterday and he’s in the top 20% of his class. Hot damn. I’m proud of you baby. And if the moosh comprehended how smart her daddy really was she’d be proud too. But to her you’re just the guy who reads The Little Mermaid and teaches her about farts and armpits. Come to think of it, that makes me pretty proud too.
I did good.

I started a seven week hip hop class tonight at the local YMCA. Thankfully all the time and money spent dancing when I was younger and all the talent I accrued was stored somewhere in this body to resurface this evening. I was afraid I’d be the one on my butt, the one where the teacher would say “didn’t you notice that this class requires previous dance training?” But alas, I rocked it, and rocked it hard. Today was also a good day due to this:

Yes, sweet, sweet success with not only the baking stone but also the food processor which did 100% of the dirty work of kneading and mixing. My baking confidence is slowly returning with a vengeance.

Here’s another good smidgen from today:

the moosh loves grapefruit, to her it is the holy grail of the fruit family. She can polish of an entire unsweetened grapefruit, juice and all, in under five minutes. And when you offer her one she does the happy “yay!” dance most normal kids do for chocolate cake or the chance to jump out a window. I could offer her a chocolate chip cookie on top of ice cream smothered in hot fudge and whip cream and she’d still take the grapefruit. She likes grapes also, but more for their ability to conform to her OCD tendencies.

Allow me to share my first experience using my baking stone, it wasn’t nearly as glamorous as I made it out to be in my head and several entries earlier.

I made ciabatta from Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook and first I have to tell you how I crossed the line in purchasing a Martha cookbook.

Cody and I went on a date one night to Barnes and Noble, it was shortly after my victory at the Utah State Fair and I was looking to expand my horizons. As you may know, I’m a packaging whore, make it look pretty and I’ll probably like it. That’s what those Martha geniuses did with this book, it’s very pretty. The first page I opened up to was her ciabatta, I was going to post a picture of it to compare my final product and then I realized I didn’t want to cry any more than I already have.

My belief is that a cookbook should have photos for everything in it and that those photos should not be “food styled” with holly berries and crap of the sort. Martha knew this about me and made the photos in her book impossible to resist by people like me and is what also led me to warn people like you about her book.

My other cookbook mantra is that 5 of the first 6 recipes that I look at have to be ones I’d actually want to make and ones I’d actually enjoy. Martha hit one out of the park with that criteria too. I didn’t actually buy it at Barnes and Noble, Martha forgot that I’m fairly cheap and priced her book at $40, bad move Martha. I went home and bought it brand new off ebay for $13, including shipping, dude I love ebay.
I’ve made about 20 things out of it, all of them turning out fairly impressive, some turning out so good I consider abandoning all responsibility and opening a cafe, then I remember all the responsibility involved in that and go back to my daily life. The ciabatta was my holy grail, I was going to perfect my yeast skills, acquire a baking stone as soon as I could and I was going to make this ciabatta. I was so high of all my other successes out of Martha’s book I knew there was no way she could outsmart me with this recipe.

Dammit Martha, you did me in.

I don’t know where her millionaire prowess overtook my humble ambition. At some point between the first two hour rise and the transfer to the baking stone something went horribly wrong (see for yourself).

The parts that weren’t associated with the charred blackness that were created in mere moments were actually pretty dang tasty. Too bad it was only 15% that wasn’t marred by char. And also, despite the final loaves looking like a little piles of bread cement they were actually incredibly light. All in all it wasn’t a complete failure, it was just an ugly failure, and that to me is failure because if it’s not pretty who’s going to be tempted to eat it in the first place? Not me I know.

Oh Martha, fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice…not gonna happen.

For those of you who know me know that I like food and that I occasionally like to cook food. If you’ve ever been in my kitchen you’ll know there is a shrine to my Kitchenaid mixer in one corner and an entire shelf dedicated to all things miraculous and wonderful as it relates to baking. As a result of various gifts to stores that sell these magical trinkets I have acquired a fairly impressive collection of specialty items used for the art of cooking, mainly baking. This Christmas was no exception. About a year ago when I dove headfirst into this little hobby of mine I really had nothing fancy to my name. My grandparents did give me a Kitchenaid for my birthday to assist in my quest to become the next Champion Cookie Maker of the Utah State Fair, a lofty goal set when I was 7 months pregnant. My first personal investment into “serious” cooking was a Silpat, I was in love from the moment it gently released my blue ribbon winning macaroons from it’s silicone grip. I then furthered my collection with various gadgets and high end baking vessels. I devoured any book or show on the subject of baking and kept a mental shopping list of what I would buy if I were given a “donation” to my new found love. The shopping list became shorter as a Christmas and a birthday passed. The items that top the list after today are things likely never to be seen in the average woman’s kitchen because after one heck of a day, previous items 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 have been checked off. The first item was a baking stone, a heavy porous stone on which to bake artisan breads to a crispy, chewy crust with a soft center and pizzas how they’re supposed to be. Hand in hand with the stone were items 2 and 3, a wooden peal and a palm-held rotary cutter. The next item, vital to almost any advanced baking recipe, was a digital scale. I did my research and today was the day I packed up my little family and set out to acquire all the goods needed to produce an amazing pizza for dinner. I was going to get my stone from Sur la Table (see link to right) and the only one in Indiana is pretty stinking far away, but I was prepared for the journey. I have described my emotions of walking into kitchen stores in graphic detail for some, to go into a store stacked floor to ceiling, back to front with nothing but high end, specialty cookware is only paled by the birth of my child, my wedding day and you-know-what. To walk in today with money to spend was just dirty. I must have circled the store 15 times, caressing everything as I passed it. (Side apology and gratitude to Cody, he kept the moosh entertained and from breaking stuff while I was on cloud 9, thanks dude, you rock.) I finally made my purchases and we headed to Trader Joe’s (if you don’t know what Trader Joe’s is ask around, you’re likely to get a response much like the Cheesecake Factory response) to acquire the needed edibles for my pizza that was going to be nothing less than spectacular. (Another side note, the fifth item on my list was a food processor, I ordered one from Amazon earlier this week and it was set to be delivered today or tomorrow…it’s a Kitchenaid, it’s red and it has a 12 cup capacity…cut to Cheesecake response.) Since the Kitchenaid had a chance of not making it today I bought Trader Joe’s fresh herb and garlic pizza dough. I also got some pomodoro sauce, sliced baby bella mushrooms, sun dried tomato chicken sausage and freshly shredded Parmesan cheese.
Oh this pizza was going to be good.
We made it home, unpacked to goods and fed the moosh a snack (her new favorite, whole wheat mini pitas with almond butter, she thinks it’s cake). I made a grand to-do about pulling out the stone out of it’s box in preparation for the holy work of preheating the oven.

The stone was c-r-a-c-k-e-d. No, not cracked, b-r-o-k-e-n, in half, completely.

Cody knew I was a woman on a mission so he sent me back out sans moosh to replace the stone I had waited so long for. For those of you who live in Salt Lake this store is Heber distance from my house, not a quick trip. But with the harmonious support of WhoopWhoop the Mooey I made the journey. I didn’t get back until almost 8 pm, my high hopes of a perfect pizza were shot. Imagine my surprise when I walked in the door, stone in hand and intact, to Cody putting the final flourishes on a pizza that smelled so good I could have eaten it raw. It was too late to use the stone (it has to be preheated with the oven) but he had done everything right. He used the Roulpat and my Silpin to roll out the dough, he used my silicone basting brush to oil the pan (olive oil no less). To see my man, the father of my child, my hunkahunka, properly using my beloved kitchen utensils to make me dinner-there are no words, only naughty thoughts (sorry dad).
The pizza was amazing, the stone is set for Ciabatta baking tomorrow morning and I’m going to sleep like a moosh after I update my list of future kitchen items.