78. Quilt #4 I think 2012

I think this is the 4th quilt of the year. This one is a baby quilt, about 45x45, for the school auction/dinner/thingy coming up next week. One of the elementary classrooms made the colorful blocks--they are sharpie marker and rubbing alcohol. Then I trimmed them, squared them to 12 inch blocks with the black and white dot fabric, sewed them together, did a bit of stippling machine quilting, and done. It is already out of my hands and at school for the auction. When I arrived with it this morning I was met by the headmaster who said, "You went home and did that last night? Did you sleep?"

And now I know it takes me approximately 3 1/2 hours to make a baby quilt from fabric to finish.

77. Doberge Cake

I've never made one before.

It's Mardi Gras, at least for a little while longer, and I lived in Houston, which is close enough to East Texas and Louisiana to have some spillover. I took French in high school, for instance, but it was Cajun French, taught by this old Cajun woman with dentures that clicked when she talked. The French was the same stuff you all learned in your fancy-dancy Parisian French classes, but you know, it's the little differences.

I know how to make a decent gumbo, having learned from Monique Ricard's dad on a Food Day at school. And the guy I dated most seriously in high school was not Cajun, but Czech (another sizable minority in Texas), but the other guy, well, there was some Cajun involved there.

I've eaten boudin (white only), I've had bowls full of strange things I wasn't sure about but ate anyway. Crawdads and other scummy little creatures and rice and beans and all that.

One Mardi Gras Mme. Mallet brought in a Kings Cake, which I wasn't the biggest fan of. I wanted to do something sweet and over the top for Mardi Gras this year, but I knew I didn't want to go that direction. And I didn't want to make one of my standards. So I googled for a doberge cake recipe, and found one that included the ganache for the top. And I made the damned thing.




Mine was only a six layer--and one of those layers was in pretty bad shape--but it was still filled with the chocolate custard and topped with chocolate buttercream icing. I cooked up the ganache and poured it over the whole thing--it took me several hours of standing up in my kitchen to create this, and by the time I was done, I wasn't waiting for it to chill further. So we ate it. The girls moaned from the living room: "Too much chocolate!"

I couldn't finish my piece. I started to feel dizzy.

It was perfect. Awesomely perfect. Just what Mardi Gras is supposed to be.

The thing is so tall, my aluminum cake saver was too short. So was my tupperware one, which has fit every other cake I've ever made (most fit into the aluminum). This thing was ridiculous. So we upturned my stock pot. The one I make tomato sauce and salsa verde in--the big one. Cleared off the milk and juice shelf in the fridge.

It looked like something exploded--something tasty, but still--in my kitchen. I started to clean up but then thought, no, tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. I can do this penance tomorrow.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif


Edited, for Jules, to add link to the recipe I used for said cake. It takes a lot of time. But it is very very good (and lasts forever--we got probably 18 pieces out of this thing).

76. Kwyltz So Far

The first is one I owe Daisy. Her sister has its fraternal twin. Once upon a time, when I was pregnant with Daisy, I was in a block swap of purple and blue batik patchwork blocks. Later on, I divided the resulting hodgepodge of blocks into two sets, one tat was mostly blue and one that was mostly purple. The blue ones were partnered with a blue batik and backed in pink--that one was finished about 3 or 4 years ago. And I got distracted.

These were partnered with a purple and orange batik and backed in orange. It is now done. Daisy asks me why it's so much "crunchier" than Fiona's. I told her to let me wash it a few times and it'll soften up.A bit of quilting closer up.

This next one was a top I finished when, again, Fiona was little and still enamored with Strawberry Shortcake. Back then there were two girls, no boy, and I envisioned the two of them sharing the attic. I also thought my full-sized iron bed was going up there, too. It's now in the guest room and the two of them have separate spaces in the attic and Billy's headed up there ASAP. So this quilt, flannel, backed in flannel, minimally quilted just to hold it together in the, most likely, frequent washing it will endure, is going to be one of our "curl up on the couch blankets." Jake asked, "so...why do we have a Strawberry Shortcake quilt?" and I told him to feel it and then he'd know why. He's a fan of the flannel sheets and all that.

"Well, we'll use it a while, and then it'll get put away and somebody will take it to college as kitsch," he says with a shrug.

This last one is mine. I haven't quilted it yet--it's next in the queue. It's a one-block wonder, all 60 degree triangles, called "Walking Shoes." That's really just for my own entertainment. I haven't made myself a quilt in a long time...

75. My Homemade Pedialyte

Why do I make homemade? Well, I need it so infrequently that I don't want to keep the storebought stuff on my shelves for years when I can make it out of 3 ingredients I use all the time and one that I keep just for this (potassium salt, aka "salt substitute"). According to my sister, too, it turns out like salty kool-aid instead of the storebought stuff, which she refers to as "battery acid sugar water." That can't be good. I've never had it. But here's mine. The nurse on the help line said she hadn't heard that recipe before, but it sounded like a good one:

1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon salt substitute
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 Tablespoons koolaid mix with sugar (not sugar free and not just the flavor packets--if I didn't have koolaid mix on hand, I would use sugar plain, or I've read ones that use a bit of flavored gelatin powder).
2 quarts of water

Mix all together. I mix the dry with 1 quart of water and stick it in the fridge. When I need more, I cut it in half with plain water from the tap.

Daisy makes a face but she drinks it.

74. Donuts

I made donuts today. I used a recipe in a reprinted cookbook, identical to an ancient (well, 1940s) one that sits in my parents' kitchen. It, in general, makes lousy cookies and some creepy things (there is a recipe for possum & stuffing, for instance), but it is the source of my waffle recipe and now my donut recipe.

Jake grew up making donuts. I have never made them. Like fried chicken, donuts were something you purchased, not made. We made other things (like waffles, for instance) but we didn't fry anything.
(note: glass milk bottle, aluminum pitcher, unbrushed hair: just a glimpse of life in Chez Kennedy)
I didn't use a deep fat fryer--we used to have one but it was purged long ago. After I made the soft light dough and cut the donuts with an upturned glass and an icing tip, also upside-down, I dropped them into 3 inches of oil in a 3 quart saucepan, with a meat thermometer attached to keep it between 350 and 365 degrees.
h(note: this is as clean as the stovetop ever is. Mark this down, red letter day)
I have an electric stove, and I know many cooks look down their noses at it, but I've never found it to be a problem (except when you want a large pot on the back burner, but that's the stove's design, not the fuel source). I turned the burner to medium high and if the oil got above 365, I eased it half-off the burner. That was it.

I made a cocoa icing from the same ancient cookbook. Cocoa powder, butter, confectioners sugar, vanilla, and coffee. Perfect.(note: the cookbook is next to the donuts. I didn't even realize I'd done that when I took the picture!)

Jake kept some plain, and shook some fresh from the oil in a container of cinnamon sugar. The other third or so got iced. I have leftover icing in the fridge. I might spread a bit on toast tomorrow morn.

This could quickly become a New Year's tradition.

73. Bourbon Slush

I make some things. This is one of them. This is a method, more than a recipe, since I don't think I've made it the same way twice and this is from memory, in fact. So here goes.

7 cups water
3 cups bourbon
2 cups strong tea
12 oz can frozen lemonade
6 oz (or 12 if you forgot and got the 12 oz can) can frozen oj
1 1/2 cups sugar

Combine the day before. Freeze. Let sit out a bit before serving. Some folks put it in a glass and pour white soda over it. Some folks drink it straight.

My mom's has about half the bourbon and less water--it's more fruit juice and sugar, basically. It's snow cone for grown ups. My version is snow cone for grown ups that makes you slur your words and lose at mah jongg.

72. Christmas

Once I've recovered from Christmas, I will post some photos of the things I wrought this Christmas season: 3 afghans, a table runner, placemats, a circular quilt, minky dot pants, doll clothes, fleece blanket, 2 magnet boards, an embroidered picture of the book cover for 21 Balloons. But for now, I am simply reflecting on the insanity of doing all of this in December.

I had a stressful autumn, and I kept putting off Christmas until later. I made little bargains in my head: I don't have to make Advent banners this year, so I'll have more time...Fiona's older and can help on some of the tasks...and other total BS that we tell ourselves to keep us from screaming every moment of the day.

Thanksgiving came with an inflamed masseter jaw muscle and no ambition to do anything. December began. December ticked away. I had doll clothes done, and two afghans ready to seam, but really? Nothing. And then it was December 16.

I made a nice little list. I am never happier than when I'm making a nice little list. I had it all worked out. I would get it done. Of course, this didn't account for visits from friends or sisters (both of whom I very much wanted to sit and chat with, and did so, knowing I would pay for it later). It didn't account for showering or cooking meals or running to the pharmacy at the last moment or any of those things. It was solid sewing from start to finish. And a little spray painting.

But I got it done, all but one of the afghans, and that I finished at my leisure on the 26th and handed to the recipient (Jake's brother Sam and his wife Michelle).

I knew I had lost my mind when I had the prep work done for a set of placemats for my mother-in-law, and I looked at it and thought, "this should be a quilt. A round quilt." And I went for it. Wha?

So this year, for Christmas 2012, it is getting underway in February. Because it really only took me a few hours to make that round quilt. And it's insane that I waited until the morning of the 24th to start it. Insane. I could spend a week in February and get 4 quilts done and feel better about myself and about life and my jaw muscles and all that. Wouldn't it be nice to sit still the last week before Christmas?

I get better at Christmas every year. I adjust and learn how to make things better for myself and folks around me (Jake, kids, our families, friends). This one, however, came at great expense to my sleep schedule and mental stability. And that's just crazy. Like the whole semester has been.

But things are looking up in many directions, finally, and I have to start this in February. No more denial, no more superhuman feats of sewing.

2010 was the year of the quilt. 2011 was more generalized. I do better when I have a focus. 2012 will be the year of the traditional quilt. I need to go back to the basics of quilting. I need to go to Luckenbach, Texas. If you understand that, good for you.