Ding Dong

Take 2...not bad...but many iterations to follow.

When my son's fiancé asked me to make their wedding cake, I did not hesitate, "Nope. No thanks. No. Nah. 😕😕😕 Certainly not. Nuh uh. : / I cannot. Are you serious? I reject this premise. Sorry. Noooo sir-ee."  

Then she explained that it wasn't a cake for the guests but a heart-shaped one they would cut for photos and share with each other on their wedding day. 

"Ohhhhhh... uhhhh.... noooo.... welllll... your wedding is a year away, so.... [cut to Brittany Broski tasting kombucha for the first time meme, lol]." Creatives gotta create and I do like a baking challenge: see evidence here, here, here, here, or (ha) here. 

But what kind of cake? They said I could decide but it should be some version of chocolate (like my cupcakes). So I did some research AND THAT'S WHEN I DISCOVERED THE PERFECT CAKE AKA a DING-DONG CAKE. I will let you google that. Two words: ermine frosting. 🤯Whoa! You're welcome. 

But what makes this cake so perfect? Well well, I have been calling my son a ding-dong since he was a toddler (among others things). The inside joke value here is basically five stars, amirite?! (I fully acknowledge and respect that you may be neutral or only mildly amused by this nonsense while I laugh with abandon at what is likely only hilarious to me). Anyway...

It tastes AMAZING. They LOVE it. One problem: *record scratch* now I have to figure out how to decorate a wedding cake. *deep sigh* Okay, yes, I sound like a big baby. Anyway, dear friends, if you have any cake-decorating tips or tricks, do tell, because (to use an accurate nickname) noob. 😉

Big

Do you know The Giant's Causeway myth? Here's the gist: we men can be big babies and who saves us? 

Yup, it's women—the women who (roll their eyes and still somehow or at least 59% of the time) love us. 

We spent an afternoon hiking throughout this uniquely scenic area along the north coast of Northern Ireland. Although we did not have time for the official visitor centre, we loved exploring this geological wonder. We also hiked to view "The Devil's Middle Finger" whose name reminds me of a favourite dad joke: dear middle finger, thank you for always sticking up for me. 😄

Afterwards, we ate the best scones with jam and clotted cream at The Nook, a pub nearby. I'd never had clotted cream before! 🤯 Dear friends, what is this dream fluff and why is it sooooooooooo good?! Hmm, maybe it's the 643 grams of fat in each dollop? Worth it. 

Let's be honest:

I took your suggestions
and bought some instant coffee. 

most cupcakes are more like HALF a cupcake. It's a terribly injurious misnomer. 

Mine? More like mugcake. 

And now it's time to chugcake. 😜

Dear friends, a joke to boost your Friday in this sorry world...

What do you call an island populated entirely by cupcakes? 

Desserted.😊

Help Yourself.

Thanks, Grandma. 

My life-long relationship with food? Dysfunctional. Someday we may delve into that topic. 

Anyway, current status? Complicated, and healthy-ish, but perhaps not in the (caloric) way you might be thinking. Let me explain.

A Gen X kid (aka 8/10 times without parents), I taught myself how to "cook" all the 70s-80s savory classics: mostly fish sticks, oven fries, KD, tuna casserole, chili, and other box/ package/ can-opener inspired meals. (I still firmly believe that most meals should be cooked in one pot and eaten as leftovers for days.) Except for rice-Krispie squares—marshmallows are fun to melt—childhood me never learned to cook anything sweet.

 

After years of attempting to feed my kids (no comparison to my wife's abilities), cut to becoming an empty-nester (about a decade ago). Equipped with more time, knowledge, and skills than childhood me, I decided to join that elusive club of people who made food others actually enjoyed. In most cases, people ate my culinary concoctions with more resignation than reverie. So, always a creative, I began to experiment. I failed. I succeeded. I learned how to make chocolate-chip cookies that are infinitely more popular than I am. 

And that's it. Insert record-scratch sound here. I perfected these cookies and that's all I made for years; it's still my go-to. I call my recipe, 'Small Cookies are Stupid,' because they are. 

But this taught me something more meaningful than recipes. Cooking sweets for others boosts my mental health. My cookies make people happy; happy is not my default mode, but making people happy? Pure dopamine. 

Cut to the pandemic. Remember those tragic and trying 24 months when most humans became more we-orientated than I-orientated? But then thanks to politics and social media 30% of humans went batshit? Sigh. Who didn't need extra dopamine during those days? So I mastered my Grandma's cupcake recipe. And gave them away again and again and again; I made them for my own birthday party this week. Why? Gifting cupcakes boosts my personal growth, and increases my life's purpose and meaning. It bolsters my self-acceptance. It lifts my heart too. In short, everyone is rewarded; IT'S A DOPAMINE PARTY!

Dear friends, happiness is fleeting. But mastering something simple and sharing it with others? Help yourself. 

Grandma's Chocolate Cupcakes

Cream together

- 3/4 cup soften salted butter

-1 c brown sugar

-1 crushed banana

-1 large egg (or 2 small)

-1/4 c cocoa

Then add

-1 c hot coffee 

Mix together, then add

-1 2/3 c flour

-1 tsp baking soda

-2 tsp vanilla

-a pinch of salt

-1/2 c chocolate chips

Beat until combined. Sprinkle chocolate chips, then bake at 350 (Canadian) for 15-20 minutes (large cupcakes will need about 30 minutes). If you'd like to ice them, I use a coffee glaze. Mix

-1/4 c cocoa

-1/4 c melted salted butter

-1/2 c icing sugar (to taste)

-1/4 c hot coffee

-1 tsp vanilla

Then, be happy. 

Things one should never outgrow:

a large dipped cone from Dairy Queen (especially when the temp is 36 degrees). 

Either way, delish.

Coconut Ginger Scones
Scone pronunciation debate: I say scone 
rhymes with Post Malone, not Elton John.
But who cares? Either way, delish. 

I make scones now. Why? Honestly: baking makes me happy. 

It reminds me of travels to heavenly little bakeries and coffee shops in Edinburgh, Galway, London, Montreal and more. And that bakery smell? C'mon. It connects me to friends who bake, people I admire, creatives I want to emulate. It's mindful; it helps me achieve flow. It shifts my mind from melancholy. It makes me simultaneously smile and feel nervous: in baker form I'd say my inner critic is more Swedish Chef than Gordan Ramsay but who knows who will show up? It's sensory: I know when the dough feels ideal for baking and that dopamine-hit-moment is niiiiiiccce. It's creative and lets me communicate something I was never properly taught how to be (but want to be): a nurturer. It feels great to share baking with others: people damn near melt. Baking spreads love. 

Dear friends, I suggest you make scones. 

Honestly, they're dead easy: especially here in Canada (during Winter). I realized early in my scone-making how important cold butter is to the recipe's success. So, in a nod to my grandparents and this country I love, I freeze my butter outside my back door (no metaphor intended), plus I chill the batter out there too (again, no metaphor). Not in Canada or a weirdo? Just use your freezer. And if not scones, bake whatever salts your butter (metaphor intended). 

Chop 

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter & set outside the back door (or place in the freezer)

Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 c granulated sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp baking powder

Mix wet ingredients in a small bowl

• 3/4 cup coconut milk (substitute heavy cream or milk, if preferred)
• 1 large egg
• 2 tsp vanilla

Set aside

• 1&1/2 cups shredded unsweetened coconut
• 1 tbsp ground ginger (or equivalent chopped fresh ginger)
• (substitute chocolate chips, berries, nuts, dried fruit, spices, lemon zest, etc.)

Combine ingredients

• add frozen butter to dry ingredients and combine using two forks or your fingers until partially integrated
• drizzle wet ingredients and mix by hand until it comes together (sticky more than shaggy)
• add 1&1/2 cups coconut & ginger (or substitute) and mix; avoid overmixing
• if needed, add more coconut milk or flour to make dough more sticky than shaggy
• press dough into an 8-inch disk and set outside back door to chill (or refrigerate)

To bake

• cut 8 inch dough disc into 8 wedges
• brush with coconut milk & sprinkle on brown sugar
• bake in pre-heated oven at 400 for 20-26 minutes 

Things one should never outgrow:

Click here to read more about
the above tragedy.

How did I not know about ICE CREAM FOR BREAKFAST DAY?! Apparently, it's TODAY (the first Saturday in February) and as I write this, IT IS CURRENTLY PAST 4 PM. 

I feel like Eeyore. 

Nevertheless, I recall Eeyore's famous words, "This is bullshit."

Truth be told, let's be honest, even perhaps (dare I say?) woke. Capitalism invented all of these and other types of days to sell us something and exploit us mercilessly and I am absolutely here for this particularly delicious and hopefully chocolate instance. Why? Because ice cream is the answer to all life's problems. Am I right?

Therefore, my friends, I wish you ice cream for breakfast TOMORROW, or for supper tonight (a great idea) or whenever. Scoop, there it is! 

(P.S. Thanks to Kathy G for inspiring my alarm, and this blogpost.)

In the Field

A farmer friend turned 50 last week and to minimize interrupting his ongoing harvesting, we and some friends surprised him and joined his family to have supper in the field. We sat in lawn chairs next to a folding table situated among the razed straw and chaff at our feet. Nearby the combine waited, its hopper overflowing with grain, a bountiful yield this year. On one side of our "dining room" the yellow straw stubble twisted around curves snaking up along the tree-lined field into the horizon, and behind us stretched a wide valley filled with poplars, their yellow and orange leaves falling silently. Scented like ripened barley, the air smelled as pleasing as our friend's chocolate birthday pie. 

The experience conjured some long-ago memories of my brothers, my parents, and my grandparents—all farmers—during those early years on fields I haven't visited for decades, among people long gone. As the youngest child, I had few duties on those busy and oftentimes chaotic Fall days and evenings, yet (like always) I observed and I listened and learned the meaning of physical labour, the satisfaction of hard-earned accomplishment, the patient ache of waiting for the weather to change, and how to put my needs second. While we ate in those fields of my youth (my father's one eye on the sunset), it often felt like something I did not know how to name then: appreciation. 

Friends, if you can, thank a farmer. 

The Power of Cookies

About 15 pounds ago, I learned how to make cookies. Last month I decided that if I ever wanted cookies again, I would have to learn the ancient secrets of cookie-making. Why? It’s my wife’s fault. She doesn’t bake anymore. Now before you label me sexist, in no way do I think baking is woman’s work. It’s just that she happened to be the one who made exceptional cookies, muffins, and other delicious what-have-you (or in my case “what-have-you-not”) and I miss all that stuff more than my adult(ish) children. Plus, she is into health and fitness and other mythologies that I struggle to accept.

So, after like two years of waiting for cookies to magically appear, I was struck with a novel thought that some might deem common sense, but not me: bake them yourself David. And so it began. My first batch was decent. But my second and third attempts were impressive and THEN NOW? Well, let’s just say there’s enough butter in my incredible soft and chewy chocolate chip cookies that after 13 minutes and 54 seconds in a 350-degree oven, they all melt into ONE GIANT COOKIE called insert-heavenly-music-here. Actually, I named them Cookie-Monster cookies because, ME LIKE COOKIE. Also, while eating them they fall apart in the same signature way that cookies get catapulted all-sorts-and-such when Cookie Monster unsuccessfully snarfs them down them because (SPOILER) Cookie Monster has no throat.

So then I started bragging to people about my cookies. Anyone with basic deductive skills likely knows what followed. PROVE IT they said. And so I did. And then I did again. And again. And then one more time. Finally, I realized they were manipulating me into making cookies. So I stopped. Then began the gentle inquiries attempting to deflect from the way they USED ME. For example, some asked, “Do you make other kinds of cookies?” My response: “What, like raisin? NO. Raisins don’t have the right flavour, and more importantly, vibe. Basically raisins are sad grapes. Cookies don’t need that kind of negativity.”

Whoa. When did I get so bitter? A sudden realization struck me, a cookiepiphany, if you will. Cookies are more than the sum of their ingredients. They bring people together. They could end global conflict. Therefore, I must make more. AND I must share them. AND SO MUST YOU. Right?

Things one should outgrow?

Do the math people. Chances are 1 in a really big number in the millions. Chances are even better that this practice makes our old math teachers very, very sad. Why not buy happiness this way instead?

Groceries

Skulks into the grocery store late on a Friday night.

Grabs a basket.

Scans the area.

Avoids eye contact.

Bags a few oranges.

Maybe some coleslaw.

Travels quickly.

Continues to scan.

And then, there it is: the ice cream freezer-case display.

Hones in.

Scans.

Begins to sweat.

Rapid heartbeat.

Eye-twitching.

Scanning, scanning, scanning…

Attempting to lock…

WHAT? There is no heavenly hash ice cream with its dreamy chocolate and creamy swirls of marshmallow?

WHAT?

Bummer. But this tub of chocolate chip fudge cookie-dough will fill the emptiness too.

Rushes to the cashier check-out.

And. Then. It. Happens.

Someone you know is in the line-up ahead.

Briefly consider other aisle (but that would be rude because eye contact has been established).

Place your groceries on the turnstile.

Attempt to conceal the ice cream with the bag of coleslaw specifically chosen for this purpose.

Fail.

That someone-you-know stares at your ice-cream and then looks at you with a sad little weak smile.   

Sheepish feelings.

Chit-chat.

And. Then. It. Happens. Again.

Someone you know joins the line right behind.

The food shame becomes too intense.

Your head explodes.

You want to say friends are coming over or I’m buying this for my spouse/dog/budgie/the food bank but then guilt rises up and finally you just confess to EVERYONE WITHIN HEARING DISTANCE what exactly you are buying and that you do indeed know that there is no possible excuse for purchasing this luscious tub of sugared lard-butter but it is what it is.

The person behind you pulls something out of the grocery cart.

It’s an 8000 gram bag of chips and a front-end loader of dip.

You have NEVER felt more love and kinship for another human being in your entire life. 

Am I right? 

Pass it on.

I will. I promise. 

There was a knock. But no one was there. Instead, this, on my doorstep.

Everyone should live in a neighbourhood like mine.

(Directions for a good life: pass it on.)

?

Worms & dirt donuts? Whoa. Clever.

So why not...French Toast Donuts? Lemon Poppy-seed Donuts? Pop-Tart Donuts? Ice-cream Sundae Donuts? Irish-Cream Donuts? Rice-Krispie Square Donuts?

If you ask me, those are quite deep frideas.

Sorry.

"Treat everyone as if they are carrying a box of donuts." ~Josh Hara

Things that deserve the stink-eye:

Whoa. I'm 99% sure the world does not need this and yet, I'm 98% sure the world needs this.

Things one should never outgrow:

Although still delicious, pop rocks don't look the same as they did when I was a kid because, well, Breaking Bad. Nevertheless, although addictive, they are thankfully not blue meth, and therefore I believe they are still part of a healthy breakfast (lunch, supper, whatever). Folks, it's just common sense. And even though I'm no longer eleven, it still sounds like laughter feels when I put them all in my mouth at once. Highly recommend. (No pun intended there Walter White fans.)

Wordfuse (Fatigue Edition)

Yenning for some. Because we all wake up feeling like these some days.

May Long

What's so tremendous and immense about a northern Canadian May long-weekend?

Characteristically, it's
1. cold (our tomato plants froze plus it snowed south of where I live. Sheesh.)
2. and yet hot enough for summer shorts and bare feet (even if it isn't because, chutzpah) and
3. it's light until at least 10 o'clock and that just means more lingering, here and there, because, extra time for
4. a backyard campfire and picnic with witty & thoughtful friends plus
5. it's still too cold for bugs.

This particular Canadian May long-weekend it was also uncharacteristically
1. one big generous Swedish farmer guy with lots of rocks and
2. rock-picking
3. and aging train tracks and
4. peeing outside and
5. freshly planted seed across prairie horizon lines and
6. my wife trying to charm another farmer and
7. one really old chain-saw that still worked (?)
8. plus the blondes (my son & his girlfriend) fixed my broken shovel,
9. one great conversation about parenting and regrets and swear-words and still unanswered questions contrasted with
10. an enthusiastic slip n slide design,
11. this question: some escalators are flat, right?
12. a Mad Men series finale about redemption and reinvention and all the beautiful tragic comic flaws we humans embrace and deny and overcome and then return to again and again and then
13. the sad loss of Mary, a lovely, lovely woman who defined neighbourly and whom I have adopted as my secret surrogate 91 year old grandmother for a decade, and those
14. teenagers who want to talk (!) nursing philosophy, John Candy movies, and the power of hanging with the right people, and a few
15. caramel and sea-salt s'mores and
16. live-tweeting and
17. Jake the Snake?
18. and the first production meeting for this genius concept: the campfire channel and
19. time to think and
20. there's still the rest of today.

Things that deserve the stink-eye:

I bought these much-too-expensive Cracker Jacks so I could enjoy me an innocent little time-travel-trip back to my boyhood but instead all I got was:
a. about 6 peanuts.
b. a cheap sheriff sticker (instead of the sheriff badge like I deserved, I mean come on).
c. annoyed because I wore my sheriff sticker but it must have fallen off after about ten minutes and then I couldn't find it and thus I didn't get to be the sheriff for very long.
d. about 1000 calories and bummed.

Sometimes being a grown up is unnecessarily hard.

Swim it out.

Do this. It rocks. 

What builds muscle mass and improves endurance? What protects us from joint stress and strain? What helps alleviate arthritis? What improves cardio-respiratory fitness and burns calories almost as efficiently as cycling? What works almost all our muscles? What is effective when we're old or injured? What cools the body (and the mind)?

Ice cream (especially root-beer floats).

I wish. Actually, if you were thinking eating of any kind (instead of swimming), sadly that is incorrect, but I like the way you think.

This year, one of the hottest I can recall, I have gone swimming in

a.       a pool.

b.      the ocean.

c.      with a bear, literally (thankful he kept to his own side of the river and left fairly quickly).

d.      in that shimmery-shade-of-sugary-blue glacial water.

This was weird. I seldom swim. For me, clothing is rarely optional and water and I haven’t always been in a trustworthy relationship. Yet, in that water whether it was salty or freezing or a little too populated, I couldn’t help but unwind. And it made me wonder:

1.      Maybe flying is actually floating.

2.      Maybe swimming washes away more than we realize.

3.      Maybe swimming resets perspective.

4.      Where else can you pee your pants in public?

5.      Maybe swimming makes us young again.

6.      Maybe it’s impossible to be unhappy in the water.

“For whatever we lose (like a you or a me), it’s always our self we find in the sea.” –e.e. cummings

Go swim. 

Just so you know, the answer is no.

Can I eat just one of these?

This pumpkin chocolate-chip miniature muffin (or it's regular-sized version) may not look like much to you.

But. It. Is. It's too much.

Speaking of too much, my wife makes these and then oddly, expects me not to eat them. She says have ONE or even TWO.

But that's nuts.

I need at least THREE or NINE. I just do. Doesn't she understand that they're all dense and pumpkin-y? And muffin-y? And they have chocolate? And they taste like if pumpkin pie mated with pudding and clouds?