Happy Day Gator Girl

The 18th birthday of one of my student photographers at the newspaper was recently observed and I made her a cake. She thinks she's all that now .....

And she is!

Double layer vanilla cake with Italian meringue buttercream frosting inside and out, topped with fondant zebra stripes "tie-dyed" flowers, and other touches.

Dreamy Orange Cuppies

Two weeks later and I'm back at "Deja Vu - A Unique Boutique" with Dreamy Orange Cuppies. Vanilla cupcakes with orange gelatin (like mum's poke cake), topped with two-tone frosting of half orange butttercream and half marshmallow fluff, topped with fondant blossoms. 

Think Creamsicle on a hot, summer day. Mmmmm. 

Freedom Fancies!

I teamed up with Deja Vu - A Unique Boutique to sell some Freedom Fancy Cuppies on the Friday before July 4th. Did a little internet and word of mouth announcement and ... everyone seemed pleased, and I definitely need to make more next time. Woooweee. They went fast. Think all the women downtown were stressing over holiday plans ... and luckily I supplied a bit of chocolate to help them out.

I try to do my part in this crazy thing we call life. Chocolate matters, people.

Chocolate cupcakes with a whipped chocolate ganache filling, Italian meringue buttercream frosting, and some fondant stars and stripes. 

Fire in the Sky

    

Sometimes ... words aren't good enough.

Just a crappy cell phone pic, but it's all I had on hand, and I couldn't ignore the art on the horizon.

Waiting for Baby

Today I delivered a cake for a baby shower in Albion, Ill. Noah's Ark was the theme, and I used their decorative plates as my inspiration, making an ark, critters, and a banner out of fondant and gumpaste. Everyone was floating along quite nicely on a sheetcake of half vanilla and half chocolate.  It was frosted with Italian meringue buttercream.

I cannot forget to thank my niece Danielle, who spent a lot of time and attention on cutting out the small letters for the banner .. and hand-rolled a lot of TINY white eyeballs. She made countless contributions. We had a blast.

And I certainly do not want to forget to throw kudos to the hubby, who was smart enough to stay completely out of the way. (Besides, I've seen what he does with fondant. It ain't purty.)

He's the One

Today I deliver goodies for a little boy's first birthday. Sixty cupcakes in white and chocolate, with Italian meringue buttercream and fondant polka dots in turquoise and lime green.

Mom wanted a small cake for the birthday boy as well, and it also is half white/half chocolate with Italian meringue and polka dots.

I got fondant crafty making a numeral one, and some whimsical items including a dragonfly, mushroom and inchworm.

The Call of Cones

Recently I was driving this beautiful stretch of smooth highway (hard to say these days in Illinois), heading from Wayne City to Mt. Vernon. It is a lovely drive, all green grass and old trees, with an occasional hole in the verdant curtain revealing a quaint farmhouse or ambling side road. There had been an earlier light rain, and there would be the intermittent swooooosh of an oncoming car, its tires sending up a gentle mist from the pavement. All this had me in the chill zone, so it took a few moments for the realization to hit me.

Wait. Um. Huh. Did I see ... wait a minute, was that actually a log cabin with giant ice cream cone corner turrets? I found the nearest ambling side road and turned around.

Yes it actually was.

There it stood, not just one building, but two. Atop the roof corners of one were matching, massive plastic ice cream cones. Coooooooool. In between were letters that spelled out "Cactus Jack's Burrito Shack." And it sat before a small lake, which was dotted by other small, wooden buildings decorated with license plates, and I swear I saw a llama and some other petting zoo-like critters in a large fenced-in area.

I couldn't help it; despite the fact it looked closed I started sniffing around. Call it reporteritis. I only had my cellphone camera with me, but took shots of some very nifty, rustic metal art adorning the grounds and tried to peer in the window.

Pretty soon my gaze matched that of the manager's, who was there doing inventory. Either because he was impressed by my delight or overwhelmed by my craziness, he let me in for a tour. All I can say is neat-o. Awesome techie kitchen, much of which was in plain view for customers, sturdy wood plank floors and a very earthy, artsy atmosphere. I was in a rush to get to St. Louis to pick up my hubby from his 10-day vacation (in the Florida Keys with his British father and uncle), so I couldn't linger, though I wanted to.

Mr. Manager, whose name escapes me, was very excited to have me return, and loaded me up with multiple menus and items of interest. Seems the whole joint started as a project of some Arizonians, whose story can be read here in the 2008 archives of The Southern. I'm told they have returned to Arizona, but the Shack survives and welcomed by regional diners.

I'm getting a posse together to go there, and may  do a story and photo shoot. I'll keep you posted. Meanwhile, if anyone has some history with Cactus Jack's, let me know!

Tilly Tales - Sushi Girl

During the Christmas 2010 season I was gifted with a puppy. Not just any puppy, but a puppy of mammoth proportions. Perhaps Godzilla Puppy. Except her name is Matilda.

The day I received her she was at 9 weeks of age already four times bigger than my sister's full-grown and very spoiled Jack Russell terrier. I wanted to take Matilda to my sister's house on Christmas Day to show her off, but was afraid she would eat her dog, or perhaps just peruse him as a snack. He's the nervous sort, so it would not have promoted feelings of goodwill, let alone holiday cheer.

Oh, I wanted her, and how. A Great Pyrenees mountain dog. Majestic looking creature with regal bearing and a luxurious white coat. Eventually.

I had been introduced to the breed several years ago by a couple whom I was interviewing in regard to their very successful venture into breeding, training, and leading into herding competition their clever and agile Border Collies. They had sheep for the collies, and to protect the sheep they owned Great Pyrenees. They were surprised, as was I, when one of those quiet and loner dogs, Amanda, seemed to become infatuated with me and trailed me throughout the day. When I said goodbye, this massive dog rose up on her hind legs and put her forelegs on my shoulders and licked my face. Doggy hug, big style. 

At the time she came to live with us, Matilda — Tilly for short — looked like a polar bear cub, all fluff and innocent eyes. I would set her in my lap, and because she was so big she matched me gaze for gaze. I would coo at her, and she would blink her innocent eyes ... dark with black-rimmed eyelids, yet with snow-white eyelashes. You notice and find endearing these little details, finding yourself filled with love and adoration for your infant ward, and nonplussed by the little puddles that appear here and yonder (and sometimes to the shock of sock-clad feet as they stumble to the bathroom at night).

I would let Tilly lie beside me on the sofa when she was just that wee pup, and she took up one cushion. At 18 weeks she looked like a teenage version of the Coca-Cola mascot, and took up the middle cushion and most of those on either side. She would stretch. She would pat me with her huge, heavy, Pupzilla paws. She would chew. And chew. She's still chewing. A lot.

Oh, and she likes sushi.

I have a nice, little fishpond in the back yard, dug by hand and stocked with two humble goldfish about 10 years ago. It has been a source of great peace and tranquility over the years, with the addition of a little waterfall, and the steady propagation of the pond's inhabitants. Much work and patience has gone into it, including a center dugout in which the fish could sink deep enough to over-winter. This little oasis is created within a heavy duty, industrial strength liner. We also have a nine-year-old lab/chow who has occasionally dipped into the pond's healing waters during the summer months and left nary a scratch. It was equally relaxing to watch Raleigh wade elegantly into the pond, her black fur floating in the cool water, the goldfish swimming about her in lazy circles. Sort of like a very organic Esther Williams scene; the only thing missing were the synchronized dives of ribbiting bullfrogs.

When Tilly discovered the pond in January while the water was still free of ice, it was with a stumbling, awkward belly flop. But the fish were so content in their mid-winter slumber at the bottom they simply stayed put.

Winter progressed, and with it came bone-chilling temperatures. After one of the big freezes, when the sun had come out long enough to melt the tops of frozen puddles, I looked out the kitchen window and realized ... "I see no ice on top of the pond. Wait. I see no water!" I ran out to find two sets of claw marks along the liner, and one very large ice cube at the bottom of the pond. Fortunately that day the temperature was above freezing, so in a desperate attempt to find my fish, I hauled out the garden hose and began filling the pond with water to loosen the ice. Tilly watched with great interest, and not one bit of shame. She sniffed her claw marks, looked at the ice cube, then looked up at me with what seemed like a grin that said, "Dang, look what I did!"

The damage became evident as the bottom of the ice cube began to melt and release its contents. All my fish were dead, or at least sleeping very quietly on their sides in the bit of water that remained in the pond. I stood there looking at them and counted. Twenty-one. Our plight was broadcast on the web and my cousin from New Hampshire advised that I should let them stay there a day or so because they might just thaw out and be revived.

Yeah, right. 

But the truth is I couldn't bring myself to yet scoop out the fish and dispose of them. And where does one put 21 dead goldfish? It was an oddly pretty but macabre scene that afternoon — bits of snow framing the pond, the sunlight glinting off the water's surface, as well as the golden-scaled bodies that bobbed about the mini icebergs.

The next morning I stepped out the front door to head to our old schoolhouse/barn to feed the dogs and found Tilly sitting just beyond the stoop, chewing and going "mwaa mwaa smack smack" on a goldfish bigger than my hand. And then she saw me .... and did that "JOY!" jaw drop of recognition, the fish impaled on her teeth. She began to bound toward me with gleeful abandon, tongue lolling to the side, goldfish braces adorning her mouth. I screamed and ran back in the door.

Later, when brave enough to go to the schoolhouse I found Tilly nestled in her bed of straw, a bit of orange fin stuck in the corner of her mouth. Ironically, she was also chewing on the toy, hard-rubber shark we had given her.

Oh, but I still love her. Every last violently expanding inch of her. She is developing many interesting talents as well. In the beginning, she would sit beside me on the sofa with her head cocked in curiosity as she watched the television, particularly during the dog food commercials (ah yes, her appetite ... hmmm).  But because she is a mountain dog, now the size of a Vespa, and because I make cakes and other confections, she is an outside dog. Not that it has interrupted her television habit, however. One night, I felt a bit guilty as the Little Caesar commercial came on, knowing it was one of her favorites. I looked longingly toward the living room windows only to see Tilly's profile there. Apparently all she needs do is stand on her hind legs and prop one foreleg on the windowsill and she has the best seat outside the house. All she really needs is a recliner.

It was a bit surreal ... her lovely white head framed within the window, the white snow and the black sky in the background, the soft glow of the outdoor pole light shining upon her face. And for just a moment, she turned her gaze to me, and I swear she winked and gave a sly smile.

Kinda like Godzilla.

The Fishpond

Sooooo ... we have this little ornamental fish pond that we created ourselves and set up in true hillbilly style. It has been a nice source of entertainment and frustration over the years. Last year we counted more than 20 goldfish - not a bad population considering it began about 10 years ago with 2. There was, however, a catastrophe earlier this year, and we lost our fish friends. It has been sitting muddied and dejected so far this summer ... until yesterday. I was urged by my nephew to clean it out and try and repair a hole and bring the little oasis back to life. He did a very good job directing me from higher ground whilst i was buried shin deep in the soupy organic mix that remained. But during the back-breaking scooping of muck I was shocked by a flip-flopping scaly body. One lone fish survived the holocaust!! It was truly a joyous moment. Nephew and I did a lot of jumping and squealing and tried to show off to husband and brother-in-law. They were less impressed.

Today it is full and clear and my makeshift pump and filter (involving a standard sump pump, length of garden hose, a large flower pot and a bunch of lava rock) are sending the water cascading out and over my pile of rocks meant to simulate a waterfall. I can't wait to add some water plants and other plantings to dress it up!

To read what necessitated the rejuvenation of said water feature, read the Tilly Tale. She was a bad, bad girl.