Once again, life gets in the way
Sorry everyone, I owed you a post on Friday and was a no-show.
Life has intruded, in the form of a WIP that's kicking my ASS. And a husband. And two children.
Which, btw, the Princess turns six on Wednesday, so I will be unavailable most of that day too. We're taking her to Bristol where she can pick out something at Toys R Us and build her own bear at Cribb's Causeway, which is a big mall--the only one anywhere nearby, as far as we know. And I'm going to bake her a yellow cake from scratch, since they don't have yellow or white cake mix here (I don't like chocolate cake. So nobody in my family gets chocolate cakes. I'm cruel that way.)
But, I do hopefully have a really fun guest blogger for you on Wed.--so check back.
Also, the publishing interviews have started coming back, so look for Treva Harte's here on Friday.
The WIP is around 25k words now, and I think it's finally starting to really swing for me. I actually think it's all very good--probably the best thing I've ever written--but I'm finally really getting into the meat of it, the book's first big setpiece after all the initial action and turns and twists. Poor Megan, everything is falling apart around her.
And critting, and trying to come up with a story idea for next year's Ellora's Cavemen anthologies, which I don't know if I'll do or not. I find short stories very irritating and difficult to write. My mind keeps coming up with new twists and turns and before I know it I've plotted a long novella.
I'm also planning a barbeque for the last Saturday of this month, and I need to come up with a dessert. I'll probably make another cake. I'm trying to do an Real American Cookout, you know? Complete with A-1 sauce, which my Mom sent to me and which I hoard like gold. But that's the kind of hostess I am, that I'll share on this occasion.
I love giving parties, I really do. I used to do it all the time. For the hubs' birthdays, for the Princess's birthdays (Faerie never had a birthday in the States.) Really, for any reason I could come up with.
Haven't had one here, really, except for Faerie's first birthday when we still didn't have furniture.
How about you? Parties? Dessert suggestions? Feelings about particular cakes?
21 comments:
I don't care for chocolate cake either - but everyone else does.
So I comply to the Borg.
March is Chocolate Cake month - and them I'm FREE.
Ah, Bernita, you truly are my soul mate. I've never met another person who doesn't like chocolate cake.
I like chocolate; but chocolate cake doesn't taste like chocolate. It just tastes dry and brown.
Yeah; no choco cake for me. I love chocolate, too, but I'm with you on the dry/brown.
I like chocolate frosting on a yellow cake, but no chocolate cake. I'm talking in the past though, since I can't eat such things anymore. :) The best dessert is still cake and ice cream, especially with kids. My two loved plain cheesecake growing up. Parties were big. They seem nothing but a hassle now as the years have passed.
Bless you, Camille, more no-chocolate cakers! So I can stick my tongue out at the hubs and show him it isn't just me. :-)
Oh Bernard, chocolate frosting is a whole different thing entirely. I do love it on yellow cake.
Not a fan of cake and ice cream, though. But I love cake and custard, esepcially ginger cake, a fattening addiction I picked up here and have not permitted in months because of the approximately million calories per serving.
I just call that having your priorities strait, December.
I love chocolate -triple chocolate cake with dark chocolate icing and chocolate milk to wash it down.
I love my chocolate cake with creme cheese icing. The secret to making it moist and taste yummy is putting a small amount of sour cream in the mix. Really it works.
Lemon cake is another favorite though. :)
It's hard to find a chocolate cake that, if you ate it with your eyes closed, you could tell it was chocolate. I worked in a restaurant that had a gorgeous dark chocolate and Cointreau torte with ganache instead of icing. It would have converted all you chocolate-cake haters. It was a mayonnaise cake--weird, because I liken eating mayonnaise to those things they make people do on Fear Factor--but hey, it works.
For a barbeque in the summer, I always loved pineapple delight, a chilled custardy, buttery, whipped creamy, pineapply, graham crackery thing that is so rich you can feel your arteries clog up on the first bite. Ahhh. Or tiramisu with extra booze. Yum.
Don't give parties much, because I'm kind of a lazy friend. Being lazy, I don't have so many, and hence the guest list is always a bit thin. One thing I really miss about back home in Edmonton was the huge Sunday family dos, with twenty people all crammed into the dining room, and three uncles falling asleep in front of the TV at 7:30.
Oh well.
I don't like chocolate cake either. But I'm not a cake fan, period. I prefer pie.
I do a fun summer dessert that layers fresh strawberries, pineapple and bananas on top of cream cheese and a graham cracker crust, topped with whipped cream.
I like cake. Period. :) Most kinds. Especially ice cream cake... mmmmmm. I like hosting parties as well, but it seems when ever I spend a lot on being prepared, I get canceled on a lot. I had one of those parties where you throw a party and a lady comes in and sells something (candles) and the candle-lady canceled! Ugh, what a horror.
I like doing fun things with Jello, like layers of different colored Jello, or a big brownie with whipped cream, cherry and chunks of cherry jello in a big bowl.
Kraft.com has a free magazine, recipe database and weekly dinner idea email that they send out. It's rather easy to ignore their recommendations of using their brands and use whatever. Perhaps you should browse there for ideas.
I don't normally like chocolate that much in general. (I know, I know, don't kick me out of the girl's club!) But I do like Red Velvet Cake. Of course, I discovered it when I moved to the South and then it took me about three years to figure out that it's a type of chocolate cake. I wonder what that says about me.
For BBQs, I do this candy salad thing made from frozen Snickers, Cool Whip, Granny Smith apples and a couple other things. It sounds appaling and looks similar but tastes absolutely fabulous. Shoot me an email or something if you want the recipie.
Oh dear, V95! I think I'd go into some sort of sugar shock from that meal! :-)
Oh that's an idea, Vicki! And I loooove lemon cake. It's one of my favorite desserts.
I agree, kis, about the cake and about the revoltingness of mayonnaise. The hubs loves it; I can't even stand the smell of it. GROSS. I do love tiramisu, but dislike pineapple. Again, hubs loves it. Princess loves it. But yuck for me. :-)
Did you see my apple custard meringue pie recipe a while back, Annie? I'm not a big fruit pie girl but hubs loves it. (Except lemon pie. Love lemon pie.)I do love other kinds of pie though, chocolate pies especially. And Jello pies, where you mix the Jello with Cool whip. Yum, I used to make those all the time.
Hey, pass the recipe on, by all means!
See my comment above about the Jello pie, Michele. I think they called it dream pie, or something? Cool something pie? It's on the website. The strawberry one was especially yummy.
Heh heh, Lorelei! Red devil cake is very nice indeed, mmm-hmm. I just might email you about that recipe--I can't use it at the moment as Cool Whip is unavailable here, but it sounds great for parties!
Cheesecake from Juniors in Brooklyn be the only cake fer me. Iffin yer gonna do the BBQ up Merican style, then all you need fer dessert is a big bowl of lime Jello with the funky fruit cocktail inside it. Yoy know, the kind that the unpopular aunt always brought for thanksgiving dinners.
STOMP.
I don't dislike choco cake; but I don't like it either. However, a red velvet cake is delish. Those do have some cocoa, but it's like a 1/4 Cup or something. They are moist and yummy and I make one every Yule to feed the party guests.
I used to throw a bash for all the quarters and cross quarters, including a full on ceremony and a pot luck. The past few years, what with getting home at 8pm and house improvement projects, I don't even do Summer Solstice. But I always have a Yule party. Cuz I can. And people always bring deserts and I gain like ten pounds. :)
Brownies are better than cake. Plus you can cut them smaller; less calories and they go further. I love doing parties. The last one I did was Thanksgiving Dinner for a visiting baseball team. I can cook turkey for 30, but making dinner for The Boy and I while The Man is gone...we ate nachos a lot.
My birthday is coming up soon, and I have to say I love chocolate cake! Hubby knows what to buy to make me happy. :)
I love to do crafts at my kids parties. We got some jewlery boxes and had the kids paint and decorate them with beads and sparkly things for my oldest's party. My youngest, we took pictures of the kids and printed them off on our inkjet. Then I had them make picture frames out of popcicle sticks, decorate them, and I glued the pictures in. Lots of fun and not hard to do.
Yeah, thanks SM, I'll make the dessert the woman everyone hates makes. :-) I'm not a Jello fan, actually. I like the pie where you mix it with Cool Whip before it sets, but aside from that, not really. Thanks though! :-)
Written, I did slow-roatsed pork for last Yule and I'm totally doing it again. You can't get the spirit of the holiday more than with a big platter of roasted meat. :-)
I do love brownies, Seeley. And I agree. I can do a big dinner standing on my head, but when it's just me or just me & the kids I'm super lazy.
Aw, Christine, how cute! My brother did Christmas tree decorations like that in school when he was a kid, with the popsicle sticked in the shape of a star.
Not like chocolate cake? Thats...that's...just plain terrible!
I love parties - when we were kids we'd have cheerios (small bright red sausages), little cupcakes with hudreds and thousand sprinkles and pretty decorations, gingerbread men and chocolate crackles (rice bubbles and chocolate held together with kremelta - a NZ thing)
I hear you about short stories. My Middlemarch series started life as a short. I usually aim for a situation with just the hero and heroine and a very short time span. Using first person or just one character's third person POV helps keep things short as well.
Good luck with the party and the writing. Off to add more words to my current WIP
For a BBQ if you're already going to have a different cake (banana being my favorite and wet as can be, I can't stand dry cake, or anything else, for that matter), why not go for something midwestern. How about some Special K bars. Similar to Rice Krispie Treats, only with peanut butter mixed in to the marshmallow, and corn syrup, too ('cause you can never have enough processed sugar), and a thick slathering of melted chocolate across the top.
If you want the exact recipe I can dig it up.
Chocolate all the way, baby. And the more icing and fudge the better.
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