Vincitori e Perdenti

Vincitori

For Pasqua (Easter) I decided to make a coconut cake. I had a recipe from my grandmother, but I was not pleased with it. My results did not turn out like Grandma's: Grandma's cake = rich and moist, tastes like coconut; my coconut cake = sawdust, tastes like sawdust.

I Googled "Italian Coconut Cake, even though coconut is not indigenous to Italy. After all, coconuts could have been carried to Italy by swallows (African or European) gripping them by the husks.

My Google results took me to a web site called New Italian Recipes (hey!), to a recipe with a warning label: "Let's don't kid ourselves, this coconut cake recipe is decadent." Just what I was looking for.

The recipe calls for all kinds of cooking that involves whole-fat dairy products, sugar, eggs, and coconut. I baked the cakes, and made the syrup, the filling, and the icing, and assembled all into a teetery, slippery, sticky tower of coconutty goodness. The results were fantastic. The only thing I might do differently next time--and I can't wait to try this again--is add a liqueur to the syrup and soak the cake in it instead of just drizzle. Otherwise, it was Perfetto!


Perdenti
I roasted a leg of lamb last year, and what with the coconut cake and all, decided to go easy on myself this year, so I bought a spiral sliced Holiday Ham. A brilliant move on my part! Not so brilliant were the biscuits I made to go with the ham.


I used to be a very good biscuit maker having descended on both sides of the family from accomplished biscuit makers. However, at some point between the cake (above) and the biscuits, I forgot that the flour was not self-rising. I peeked in the oven a couple of times to check on my biscuit progress: they were baking and browning, but they were not rising. Hmmmm...I-wonder-why-oh-yeah-now-I-remember. The result there was more of a Passover biscuit, a couple of days too late. Mom to the rescue--she picked up some brown-and-serve rolls on the way over, and all was not lost.

I decided to save the Passover biscuits for the birds, and a couple of days later I entertained myself by hurling them (now like clay pigeons) into the woods. Once again, I didn't really think things through. Matt, the border collie, fetched every single biscuit back into the house. Fortunately they were too hard for him to eat, so as he would try to slink past me, hiding a biscuit the size and density of a saucer in his mouth, I would engage in a little tug of war and retrieve it from his snarling jaws.

On a happy note, I did make a more successful batch of biscuits on Sunday. "Light" and "fluffy" did not really come to mind, but they did rise, and the family did eat them. I think I will go back to self-rising flour.

My Mom is an Olympic Champion!

Yes, it's true. She won the 100-meter run in the Tennessee Senior Olympics, finishing in 18.69 seconds. I will post a picture later, with more results. (The Commercial Appeal did not spell our name correctly: it's Stricklin.)

Congratulazioni Mom! Ti amo!

I Gave to the IRS

Pretty much says it all. :)

Blogging via text message. I love a good gadget!

More Critters That Want to Live In Villla Pellegrini

I know this fellow isn't really in focus, but I do not claim to be a photographer. Last year, about a thousand of these moved in to our attic. I felt really guilty about the annihilation, since there is a shortage of honey bees--I really did. But when they started spilling by the dozens into L's bathtub from the vent fan, enough was enough, and we called Pest Control. There is no telling how much honey is in our wall, waiting to rot in the summer heat. I'd rather not know for now. In the mean time, the Magnolias in the front of the house are crawling with honey bees. I am delighted to see them, as long as they find their own space.

Bluebirds of Happiness?

This lovely couple showed up on the back porch at Villa Pellegrini. I tried several times to get a picture of them, but every time they showed up, and I ran for the camera, they would see me through the window and fly away.

Then Mrs. Bluebird took a notion that she wanted to nest inside Villa Pellegrini. Her determination reminded me of Mrs. Bird in P.D. Eastman's The Best Nest. Not to mention the way she wagged her husband around making unreasonable demands.

She flew repeatedly at the window and pretty much stopped paying attention to me on the other side. At first I worried about her crashing into the glass over and over. We have had several birds meet their maker against the windows, leaving bird smudges on their way to the ground.

Then she just got annoying. She made her way all they way around the house, trying window after window and enlisting Mr. Bird in her quest. They have come back each day this week and spend several hours--generally from sunup to around 10 or 11am taking turns crashing into the windows, looking for a way in and completely undeterred by repeated failure.

So should I take it as a compliment that these symbols of happiness want in my house, or is it some kind of strange omen?

A Before and After

One of my favorite things on other blogs are Before and After's of furniture makeovers. There are some really creative and talented people out there and I have taken it upon myself to become one--in my spare time.

My first attempt was with this cheval mirror I bought from a fellow off Craigslist. In a stroke of beginner's luck, I got the thing for a fair bit less than he was asking, and he delivered it (to my office no less), AND I wrote a check for it. Which of us was more naive? What I've since learned about Craigslist is, that it's a sellers market for most anything really worth having. You have a small window of time to contact the seller and show up on the doorstep with exactly the amount of cash they are asking. Some folks will hold the thing for you and go in order of inquiries, others it's purely first come, first serve. Since I have a day job, I don't generally do well with the "first come, first serve." I have found that most people will help you load the purchase in your car.

The "Before" photo is actually the one from Craigslist.

With my usual fervor when I get excited about a new venture, I researched the heck out of how to paint this thing. I was a little dismayed to learn that to get the look I wanted, it really boiled down to technique and skill.

I went way overboard on the sanding/stripping, partly because I thought I had to, and partly because it was a nice stall tactic for prolonging when I actually had to break out the paintbrushes and make a committment.
Here is a Before/After of my practice antiquing with sanding and glaze.

When we got our surprise snow day in early March I fired up the space heater in the garage and went to work. In the end, I was very pleased with the results. I had no idea with I was doing at first with the antiquing glaze. I wanted a heavily aged/antiqued look and finally got it with a lot of light sanding, soft cloth rubbing and do-overs with the glaze. I channelled the mirror: If I were in an attic getting moved around and banged up, where would it show? Toes, edges, and prominent spots. That is where I focused the sanding.

Here it is in the booth with Chr doing a little "Ta-da!" in the reflection.