The power of persuasion... or perhaps magic

After several rounds of, "Are you sure you don't want mommy to make you a special cake? Are you sure you just want a square cake?" my boy offered a suggestion: The Magic Tree House. Duh. Why hadn't I thought of that? He loves the books and wants to read them all so that he can have his name on the school library "tree house". We are on #17 and have a looooong way to go, because many of the books come with a fact tracker that teaches you all about the time period and place that Jack and Annie visit. And my boy loves him some facts.

When he made the suggestion, I went to the wonderful world of Google images to see what other moms had done. I am not on Pinterest (believing it will only make me feel inadequate), and I do not steal ideas from other people, but I do look to the Internet to get my creative juices flowing. And flow they did. There was one cake, clearly made by a professional, that was three dimensional - a tree house supported by a trunk and decorated with cute little books at the base. Amazing. But I had no idea how to support the weight of the cake. Part of my philosophy is that the entire thing must be edible, and it seemed I would need to use cardboard to distribute the weight. Another picture featured a ridiculous amount of fondant (which I never use) and explained that the tree was a vase covered in fondant. Vases are certainly not edible.

Lying in bed one night (Husband: "I do not want to talk about the cake. This is your thing.") I thought, why wouldn't I just lay it flat? Why does it need to be three dimensional? There is no way we'd be able to transport that! Again, duh. So I set off to the drawing board. Translation: wandering the bulk food aisle with rough sketch in hand. The trunk is fashioned out of rice krispie treats, because why not. At the time I was still trying to figure out how to make the tree stand up, and I remembered seeing Cake Boss use that technique. Of course he wrapped the treats around a PVC pipe for stability, but remember - all must be edible! I molded the mixture into a trunk shape, let it cool, and then covered it with melted chocolate, using a knife to make tree-like swirls. The cake itself is a simple chocolate cake cooked in two loaf pans. I thought I would stack them, but when they came out of the oven I realized I should have just used a square pan. Because low and behold, two loaf pans = one square pan. Oops. But it looked better with just one, so I saved the other loaf for "extra". My frosting was a masterpiece with no disasters this year! (Finally, right?) I added cocoa powder to make it brown and swirled in cool whip for ease of spread-ability, thinking to myself that I should totally patent this recipe. The rope ladder is laffy taffy and wafer cookies - I had originally planned to use licorice rope, but when the bulk food lady told me they didn't have it I turned around in a huff and found the laffy taffy. The chocolate wafer cookies had to be cut into smaller pieces to simulate the boards, and I also sliced the gummy leaves in half because their weight caused them to slip off the side of the cake.

All in all, I am pleased with the result. I tried to think of a way to create Jack and Annie but just didn't think I could pull off tiny humans. And there are no cute fondant books, but hopefully the kids will get the idea. I honestly have no idea how we are going to cut into the rice krispie trunk without making a complete mess. Oh, and if some kid doesn't like chocolate, they are out of luck. It will be J's first friend party and we invited his entire Kindergarten class, most of whom RSVP'd yes. Should be interesting.

Anyway, thanks for reading - here's the finished product:

The mix tapes

I have trouble letting go. This is a fact, not a dramatization.

Recently I read a great book about decluttering, called The Joy of Less by Francine Jay. It talks about why it is important to live with less, how it helps not only our personal stress level but also the planet at large. And of course I was gung-ho to revisit my year(s) old goal of getting rid of the crap in our house. You see, we used to move. All the time. Every year or so. And with each move came the question, "Do I really need X? Is it worth lugging across the country and back? Will it even FIT in our next place?" It was a helpful and healthy way to routinely examine what we had and to purge what we no longer needed. There were always exceptions to the rule, like the fact that I moved several boxes of books from place to place, books I had read and never planned to read again, books I got at a used bookstore and thought sounded great but merely sat on the shelf, books I inherited from my grandmother and couldn't bear to give up... you get the idea. Oh, and the boxes and boxes of teaching stuff, which I only recently decided to donate after years of collecting dust in our basement. Nevertheless, it was, for all intents and purposes, a good way to keep our stuff in check. Then we moved here. To this house that is bigger than we truly need, with an amazingly huge basement full of nooks and crannies for storage. Oh, and we had two kids. Who added to our crap exponentially.

Fast forward seven years. I have tried to declutter the house; the last time I was inspired by a magazine article and got nearly through every room. But, as per usual, I gave up before it was finished. As my husband told me once when I was trying to come up with a six word memoir to describe myself: HAS BIG IDEAS, NO FOLLOW THROUGH. Yep, that's me. This time I was inspired by Jay's book and promised I would actually do it. Follow through. Complete the task. I made myself a six week schedule that allowed for missed days and proudly displayed in on the refridgerator. Did great the first week. Carted a bunch of stuff down to our church for their annual rummage sale. Week two? Not so much. Week three? It's Friday and I have very few proud X's on the calendar. It is the week I am due to take all of the stuff out of our den and make room for the boys to have a study/computer space. The plan was to move P into the back bedroom, me into his old room in a space entirely devoted to writing (with a futon for the rare guest) and use the downstairs den for the boys. Not for the upteen piles of papers, books, and general clutter that currently occupies the space.

But I digress (sorry, I do that a lot.) This post was intended to be about mix tapes. Yes, mix tapes. During week one I went through the cupboards in our family room and came across the boxes of tapes that I have henceforth been unable to part with, tapes that hold an unbelievable amount of memories and can still be enjoyed in the tape player of my van. Yes, my van has a tape player - how completely awesome is that? So, I set off to listen to each tape one last time and then toss it in the trash. Don't worry, I still plan to keep the notebook that outlines the songs on each tape (plus the songs from each tape I ever made for anyone else - I was the queen of mixes back in the day).

Listening to the tapes has brought all sorts of emotions to the surface. I remember loving the songs, remember sitting at my boom box and cuing up each one, the whirring sound evident on my earlier tapes (before I figured out how to avoid it). I remember playing each tape for the first time, marveling at my mixing abilities. The transitions, the mood each mix created, the clever covers made from cut up magazines. It is painful to think that these tapes will no longer be part of my life, but it is time to move on. As part of my "big idea" I plan to recreate each mix on my iPod, but I doubt that will ever happen. Currently there are several tapes in my car, some listened to, some in the cue. But so far none have made it into the trash. Despite the fact that the sound quality is terrible and some of the songs are barely audible, they are still such a huge part of my history. Throwing them out feels like tossing out an entire decade. Friendships I had - people I held close and vowed to never let go of, but who have been reduced to the occasional Facebook like. Moments of self-love and self-hate that ricocheted back and forth like a tennis ball. My complete obsession with songs like The The's "Slow Emotion Replay" and Gin Blossom's "Hey Jealousy", with artists like Morrissey, The Judybats, and Nine Inch Nails. The tapes were how I expressed myself.  Sometimes as an adult, I feel listless, without purpose and passion, Each day spent doing the same thing: meals, laundry, homework. I miss the creative requirements of picking just the right song, of blending genres in a way that made you think, of telling a story with music.

One of my Twitter friends turned me on to 8tracks, a website that is like mix tapes for the modern world. But it's not quite the same. The feel of the tape in your hands, pushing play and letting yourself get lost in the ride. The van is stow and go; perhaps I can hide a few tapes in there and bust them out when I'm feeling particularly nostalgic. And who knows, maybe someday I actually will recreate some of the best mixes. People can change, right? Right?

From monster truck to, "Just make me a square"

My youngest knows how to push my buttons. To quote him exactly, "And your zippers too." And he knows how much I get into the annual cake making extravaganza. So this year, when he announced that he just wants me to make him a square cake, I wasn't entirely surprised. But I was a little heart broken. His birthday party is next week. It's his first friend party and I am excited to have the chance to show off my mad cake making skills to a new set of parents. Nope. Just a square. No fancy design, no elaborate concoction made from the various treats in the bulk food aisle, nothing.

I have a week to change his mind.

Last year, he was very much into monster trucks. We read about them, talked about them, played with them. Having some prior vehicle experience from oldest's bulldozer, I knew roughly what needed to be done. The boy loves chocolate, so I made a chocolate cake in two loaf pans and arranged the pieces to resemble a truck.

Then I used the miracle frosting (which no longer exists) to make it blue. The inspiration was Big Foot, and despite using the largest possible chocolate donuts for the wheels, they still were not quite big enough. According to boy expert anyway. I used fudge cookies for windows and the about to be crushed cars, and chocolate graham crackers for the dirt. To make the truck look tough, I raided the leftover Halloween candy and found a bag of skull and bones. (Yes, we still had Halloween candy in June.) Perfect. Some fruit roll ups for stripes, weird little wafer things for headlights, and Twizzlers for tail lights. The truck was epic. EPIC.

Which is why I don't get it. Why would he not want me to make him a specialty cake this year? Should I simply override his wishes and chose a design for him? That seems a bit underhanded, but I just don't think I can arrive at his party with a boring square cake.

What's a mom to do?

Enter the Creeper

This year's birthday cake was a no-brainer. The boys are obsessed with Minecraft. They play it every chance they get, odd elevator music emanating throughout the house. P eagerly devours strategy books and talks non stop about things that go right over my head. I was on board with the Star Wars obsession - I learned the character names and could appreciate the story lines. Minecraft? Despite the obvious learning aspects of building things and tapping into the creative parts of the brain and all that, it is mind numbingly boring. Maybe it's a kid thing. I don't know. Needless to say, when P's birthday approached and I asked the yearly question, "What will the cake be this year?" and he said, "A creeper" I didn't even bat an eye. Minecraft is all squares. Easy peasy. No complicated, two cake design this year. No strange colors or multiple trips to the bulk food candy section. One square, some green food coloring, and ta-da!

If only it were that simple. The amazing frosting that I discovered two years ago? It has been discontinued. There was much shaking of fists and gnashing of teeth in the frozen food aisle and on the family room couch after subsequent smart phone searches. No more cool whip frosting.

*DEAR KRAFT FOODS, IF YOU SENT THE DATA MINING HOUNDS AFTER ME AND DISCOVERED THIS BLOG, PLEASE BRING BACK THE COOL WHIP FROSTING, THANKS A BUNCH.*

Once I calmed down and realized I would have to go back to (gulp) making my own frosting, I searched for a decent vegan recipe. The boy can't tolerate dairy, so I figured if there was no cool whip frosting I might as well make something he can eat without gassing out the entire room. The recipe called for dairy free margarine, confectioner's sugar, and coconut milk. I followed the directions. Seriously. Every step. And my frosting looked like this:

Look familiar to any moms and dads out there? Like the stuff that comes out of your kid when they aren't capable of digestion? I'm guessing the margarine started to separate or something horrid like that. But it tasted okay, so I slapped it onto the inner layers and set out to make frosting batch number two.

A good little scientist, I altered one of the factors, swapping the margarine for butter (olfactories be damned!) and came out with something with a slightly better consistency but still paling in comparison to the creaminess of the cool whip frosting. That and the color was just not right.

Face in the fridge. Ah-ha! A nearly empty container of cool whip. I scraped batch number two off the cake, folded in the cool whip and added a few drops of neon green. Ta-da! Batch number three a success.

*DEAR KRAFT FOODS, NEVER MIND. I FIGURED IT OUT WITHOUT YOU. PLEASE KEEP MAKING COOL WHIP AND I WILL JUST MAKE MY OWN DANG FROSTING. THANKS FOR NOTHING. OKAY, THANKS FOR THE COOL WHIP.*

Meanwhile, the husband helped out by cutting rip rolls into squares to resemble the pixels in the video game. Remember rip rolls from last year's minion? A fabulous find. This year I was pleased to find two different shades of green, a gift from the cake fairies. For the face, I used fudge cookies, which are not quite square shaped or black, but close enough to create the desired effect.

The boy was pleased. Always the litmus test. Does the cake actually resemble the desired thing? Yes? Success.

But who will make the cookies?

I come from a long line of excellent bakers. My mother's cucidati (Sicilian fig cookies) are a hit at every family party. The recipe was passed to her from her grandmother and even though I am sure mom could make the cookies by heart, she pulls out the yellowed index card with my great-grandmother's illegible writing every time. The cookie base is an incredibly basic yet somehow complicated recipe that yields the popular cucidati as well as giuggiulena (rolled in sesame seeds) and plain 'ol "white cookies". Many a Sunday afternoon has been spent rolling the dough into various shapes under my mother's watchful eye. Not too big, not too small, don't play with the dough. (She actually made my nephew cry once.)

It is obvious were my mom got her baking skills and regimented, slightly dictator-like method of instruction. My maternal grandmother made a kick ass meringue that she whipped by hand with a fork and mouth-watering, eat-them-til-you-burst sfingi (basically a small deep fried doughnut covered in powdered sugar). When I was little I would stand by with the shaker full of sugar, meticulously covering each warm sweet sfingi with a generous sprinkling after they came out of the fryer. Which I could never distribute to my grandmother's liking. Ever. Not like it should matter what the sugar looked like. But it did. A lot.

The baking style of my paternal grandmother was a bit different. She was famous for her apple pie (I dream about it every time I sink my teeth into a slice of not-grandma's apple pie) and chocolate chip cookies. Grandma C was much more laid back, letting me eat the perfectly curled apple peels as they fell onto the paper towel and baking up birds' nests out of the leftover dough. (My mother carries on this tradition - yum!) When she passed away I inherited her mixer and fell into hysterical sobs the first Christmas I pulled it out to make cookies.

My point is this: the baking gene should be strong in me. But it isn't. Despite having grandma's mixer and countless attempts, my cookies never really turn out. I'm not saying the results are inedible, they're just not that great. I struggle with the execution - the recipe following, the exact measuring - it's just not in my blood. I'm more an experimental chef who would rather cook to my own beat. That simply does not work when baking. Mom is worried that no one will take over her role as Sicilian cookie maker extraordinaire. Already the high-fat treats of my childhood are long gone (did I mention Grandma L made utterly amazing cannoli? I didn't? Well she did. A-MAZING). My sister doesn't really like to bake, although she is pretty good at making truffles. I think mom is secretly hoping that my brother's wife will carry on the tradition. She is a fantastic chef and loves to celebrate our heritage. But she doesn't like to bake either. Somehow it skipped our generation. None of my cousins seem eager to inherit the yellowed index card and responsibility for making twenty dozen cookies for every holiday, wedding, graduation, and anniversary party.

Sometimes I wish it could be me. Keeping heritage alive is important, and I want my children to be proud Korean-Italian-Americans. But it seems all I've inherited is the fussy controlling behavior of my mother and grandmother. J loves to help me bake, and I try very hard to let it go when he sloshes the batter all over the counter or ends up with more egg on his hand than in the bowl. To not nit-pick if the frosting doesn't look just right because, let's face it, my cookies are not that pretty to begin with.

At least I make a mean sauce.

Looking for the pony

My dad loves to tell this joke:
A pessimist and an optimist both wished for a pony for Christmas. When the big day arrived, the pessimist woke to find a beautiful horse under the tree. Negative person that he was, he immediately began to second guess his wish, worrying about how much work the animal would require, whether he would fall off while riding, and where he would keep his new pet. The optimist, on the other hand, was greeted on Christmas morning with a giant pile of manure. He promptly rolled up the sleeves of his pajama shirt and dove in, digging around while happily proclaiming, "There's got to be a pony in here somewhere!"

While I don't consider myself a full-on pessimist, I am certainly not an "Always look on the bright side of life" person either. I worry. A lot. And when something good happens, I have to shut up the voice in my head that's questioning when it will all fall apart. It's difficult to stay positive in an industry full of rejection, especially when you look around and see others enjoying success, and you can't help but wonder if it will ever happen to you. But I am buoyed by the support of the writing community, both locally and online. People lift each other up. And not in a "I'm only doing this in hopes that you will lift me up in return" sort of way. They are genuinely supportive. And it is hard not to let that seep into your bones and change your outlook on life.

My part time job involves helping community college students with disabilities. I often work with a small handful of adults in the nursing department, a competitive and cut-throat program that is designed to make sure you can handle the pressure of a demanding career. The group is constantly stressed out. And I know that it would be easy for them to quit, easy for them to say it's simply too difficult. But they don't. They show up every day, pour over their notes, and give every exam their all. They support each other in sweet little ways, like the guy who passes out sticks of gum or the woman who has been planning their celebration dinner after graduation. It inspires me. Just as my fellow writers inspire me.

Yesterday was my second pitmad contest. As I watched friends and strangers re-tweet my pitches from morning till night, my heart filled with joy. It wasn't a successful contest in terms of agent attention, and I'm not gonna lie - the pessimist in me was loud and clear, telling me I would never get my book published, and that I should just quit now because the road ahead is way too long and difficult. But this morning I'm listening to the optimist. Who encourages me to drive forward, insisting that eventually we will find that pony.

Journey to Tofu

I have been a vegetarian for almost 23 years. My last hamburger was consumed in 1990, when I casually mentioned to the guy I was dating, "I'm thinking about giving up red meat."

"That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard" he said.

The gauntlet was thrown.

My reasons at the time were warm and fuzzy and fueled by teenage angst. I no longer wanted to be the cause of animal suffering and death. My bedroom door was covered in animal rights quotes and the Smith's "Meat is Murder" became my personal anthem. After watching a documentary on how chickens are processed for meat, I was ready to go full veg. The parents weren't exactly thrilled, especially my mother who announced that she would not be cooking separate meals (she still makes me a meat-free sauce, so I guess she was bluffing). During the summer of 1991 we hosted two English soccer coaches, one of whom was vegetarian. He convinced me that athletes could survive without meat and gave me the confidence to go forward with my new lifestyle. That November I ate my last turkey dinner on Thanksgiving, and as part of  my New Year's resolutions vowed never to let anything past my lips that once had feet and a face. (There is still the occasional  piece of fish in my diet, technically making me a "pescetarian".)

Shortly after my commitment to go veg, my mom suffered her first of two near fatal heart attacks. Suddenly it was more about taking care of my health than protecting innocent creatures, although I like to believe that it is a little bit of both, plus a conscientious way to reduce my environmental footprint. But I won't get preachy. Everyone has a right to make their own lifestyle choices. Which leads me to the meat of this post. (Sorry, can't resist a good pun.) My husband eats meat. Not frequently - we only have it at home if he cooks it, which isn't very often. That was our compromise. And when we had children, I agreed to expose them to both diets and let them choose. P started out veg, and he's lactose intolerant so we avoid dairy. Or try to anyway. His favorite food is pizza. Slowly he's trying more and more foods and has discovered that he does want to eat meat. J is a different story. Not a huge fan of vegetables or tofu, he devours meat in all forms. Regularly proclaims his love for it and that he is a "meat-eater!" in case I wasn't paying attention. His favorite food? Hamburgers. (The irony is not lost on me.)

J loves to push my buttons, and my diet is prime for the poking - like the other day when he was sampling chicken noodle soup at the store and said, "Mom, I really wish you ate meat. This is really really yummy." But I am supremely confident in my choices. My body is healthy and my conscience is clean. Our kids make choices about food with open minds; they know where it comes from and that different people make different decisions about what to eat/not eat. And if at some point in their lives a girlfriend tells them she is thinking about giving up red meat, I will suggest they offer up more supportive advice. Unless of course that girl is like me, and the little piece of criticism could launch a life-altering decision.

Food for thought.