Kibbeh bil Sanieh: My Last Post for a While

It was a different summer this year. Alternating between weeks full of fun and days drenched in worry and reminiscence. A summer full of transitions and changes. Nine weeks of vacation went by sadly too soon but it has been great to get back into the usual rhythm of my day: waking before the sun, reading, pilates and a quiet breakfast by myself before waking the others and plunging into my busy day. With the kids back in school theoretically I have had more time these past 3 weeks to dedicate to things I have wanted to get back to all summer. But blogging (or blog-following) just can't be one of them at the moment. My heart is not into it. Words represent a struggle for me right now: whether I'm reading a book (fiction) or writing a blog post. All of it may as well be an alien script.

These are busy times for me and I have a lot on my plate: I've got two much-postponed creative projects on the plate, a re-location to plan and execute, refresher-lessons in French and I'm also back in University. Adding three (demanding) kids to that crazy mix makes my days go by dizzyingly fast. After I submitted my Dissertation last year I was on a bit of a roll and really wanted to delve deeper into the subject of my research so I seriously contemplated enrolling in a PhD program . . that desire lasted about 3 months. Many of my friends from Graduate School were going ahead and starting their Doctorates but I felt this was not the right time for me to make that kind of rigorous, long-term Academic commitment. Besides, I would really rather just get back to work instead of being The-Woman-Who-Went-To-University-Forever! So the Certification I'm doing now is hopefully my very last foray into Academics for at least the next couple of years.

The start of a new year is usually symbolic: a time to take stock of what we've come from and where we are going next. While this is not technically the beginning of a new year, the last few weeks of summer have given me time to reflect a lot on all this while I slowly made my way back into my pre-Summer routine. To keep a balance right now, I have to prioritize and so blogging will take a back seat until I can figure it all out.

With that out of the way, I have to tell you that for me the best part of the end of vacation is that Families are back: there is laughter and frolic at the community pool, happy squeals in the playground as friends re-unite after the Summer. Friends returning from their home countries often come bearing gifts. My latest little treasure is a jar of Baharat - the Lebanese 7-spice mix. A unique, freshly-ground blend brought back for me straight from my friend's ancestral village. After being blown away by a Bulgar salad she made one day I had asked her for a recipe. She told me the amazing flavours came from Baharat she had brought back from Lebanon. I felt it tasted a little like Garam Masala but definitely used a different ratio of spices, giving it a different fragrance and edge altogether. When asked to explain which seven spices it contained she said she had no idea what this particular spice mix was made up of exactly: while the base recipe usually contains allspice, black pepper, cinnamon, cloves and coriander she guessed that this one contained not only the classic blend but also crushed rose petals and dried ginger. She explained that the blend is generally exclusive to the family or region that it originates from. I confirmed this through an article here. But I wasn't any closer to finding how to recreate the exact blend at home. It tasted so different from the store-bought mix. Luckily, I received it as a gift. What followed, of course, had to be my very first attempt at making Kibbeh. 

Kibbeh is a Middle Eastern dish made up of ground meat, bulgar wheat, onions and Baharat. It is usually shaped like a croquette and is deep fried yielding a crispy outer shell and soft, meaty centre. I took the simpler route and made it in the form of a baked pie known as Kibbeh bil Sanieh. I followed the recipe here and had enough of the 'outer dough' left over that I shaped it into patties which I froze for later use. All I had to do then was shallow-fry them when needed and this makes an easy option for the kid's lunch boxes on days I'm running out of steam. Or inspiration Or both. 

Now off I go on my hiatus. See you soon! 

Helba - A Dessert for New Moms

Monday is 'my' day of the week. It's the one morning when I don't see anyone, I try not to answer the phone and I do not do anything that can be termed 'productive'. After the man and kids leave early in the morning I usually flop down on the couch with a book and a cup of tea while the baby sits at my feet playing or strolls between the, now empty, living area and sunny playroom bringing me toys or books that we can look at together. Sometimes she force-feeds me bits of spitty rice-cake. She's very lovey in the morning, very docile, and soon goes down for a long nap, leaving me to indulge my slothful agenda.

My friends know this but, the week before last, one of them texted me asking me to come over the next day (Monday morning). "I know it's your day" she said, "but if you come over I'll make you a pot of tea". Bribery sometimes works. My price, apparently, is a cup of well-brewed Earl Grey tea and Za'atar Crackers. Because she is considerate enough to understand what Mondays mean to me I requested her to allow me just two hours of 'me time' in the morning and then I would show up, baby in tow. And so, off I went to see one of my most favorite people in the world. 

I met 'B.' a little over a year ago when we shared a ride to Ikea on the communal bus. She had just moved into our neighborhood, did not know anyone and was eager to make friends. We reached the store before it opened for the day, giving us opportunity to have coffee together with a few others while introductions were made and she told us where she was coming from. Her name is an unusual one: her father named her after a historical Palestinian town (since then re-named) renowned for it's beauty in Ottoman times. I remember being struck immediately by her gentleness which belies a passionate and strong nature. She has strikingly attractive blue eyes that are warm with compassion and an inner radiance. When she speaks she is calm, her voice comforting. She soothes me.

Where we are located, finding like-minded people is a bit of a fluke. It doesn't happen too often. I was lucky to have found 'B'. She is the one I call when I am wit's end with something one of the older kids have done and vice versa she calls me when she's trying to figure out how to deal with her stubborn middle child. We drink tea or Jallab and share Lebanese treats while we vent, sitting in her little backyard listening to the neighborhood kids frolic in the playground just beyond her yard.

'B.' had a baby earlier this year. Her third child. And it was only natural that I bring her something delicious (and nutritious) when she invited a few friends to meet him for the first time. And so I made Helba - a Basbousa-like dessert made with semolina, fenugreek seeds, shredded coconut and fennel-seeds: all the things that are great for lactating mothers. Fenugreek is a very good galactagogue, a fact few women seem to know, but needs to be taken carefully because it can have a severely lowering effect on blood sugar if taken in excess. Years ago my OB-Gyn advised me to steep a heaped teaspoon of fenugreek in a cup of boiling water for 15 minutes and drink it up just before nursing, repeating as many times as I wanted to during the day. I followed this advice religiously and would drink up to 5-6 cups a day. I used to sweeten it with a spoon or more of honey but over the years (and 3 children later) I've acquired a taste for fenugreek tea and can drink it completely unsweetened. Fenugreek has lots of other health benefits that you can read about here.

Helba, in Arabic, means fenugreek. I found this recipe quite by accident over a year ago when I was looking up things I could make ahead for myself before the birth of the baby. I didn't know what to expect and was actually a little wary because fenugreek is very bitter and I thought the 2 tablespoons this recipe asks for would go a long way. So I was pleasantly surprised at how utterly delicious this dessert was. Especially cold, straight from the refrigerator. I made a large tray for myself and each morning a small square of this scrumptious treat was often the first thing that I reached out for. I have made it several times over in the past year, sometimes using more fenugreek and substituting whole wheat flour for the all purpose flour. The WWF substitution did not yield the best results but I still ate it all! I know it's super rich and so this kind of thing would not otherwise make an appearance at my house too often. But my justification is that us new Moms need to keep up their strength and a little indulgence in those early weeks is just okay!

Carrot-Date-Sultana Cake for Baby's First Birthday

The day is done: we have been partied out. The last of the dishes cleared, leftovers put away. Kids in bed. And now the inevitable long stretch of quiet that follows.

I've spent the past hour uploading photos from my camera, re-living our day, and smiling at the recollections. As a third-time-around mom I knew this bittersweet day would come: my precious baby would become a toddler and I would sit here, stumped, wondering where the past year went. This time the wistfulness hits me harder. How can anyone stand moving beyond this phase? 

I am not prepared for this: with the baby I've been far more relaxed than I was with my older children. I've tried to treasure every moment, every developmental stage; every smile, babble and squishy-cheeked bit of deliciousness. There were days when I felt I could not get anything done because we'd had a rare bad night or two but I was perfectly content to hold her close, breathe in the smell of her sweet, downy head and sit immobile for an hour or two while she napped. For the first months I carried her almost all the time. Her Reflux was just an excuse: the truth is I loved wearing her in my moby wrap, cherished the option of being able to kiss the top of her head each time I tilted down my chin . . .  of drinking in her moments of quiet alertness and of deep sleep. When she became older I would carry her on my left hip, hugging her to me with my left arm, as I went through my day and attempted to perform my daily chores with my other free arm. . . when I went out to visit friends they were ceaselessly amazed how, in the midst of our chatter, she would suddenly rest her head against me and croon herself to sleep. The loud crooning was my cue to begin patting her back or to walk up and down the room a few times and gently rock her. She was the only baby at play-dates who did this. Who fell asleep in this adorable, funny, quirky way.

A baby's first year is a real roller-coaster of emotions and experiences. The whole year can feel like the longest day of your own life. But I still didn't want to rush it. To those with two children or just one child, 3 can seem like a scary number. An out-of-control, chaotic number. But it isn't. Motherhood, the third time around, is that much sweeter. That much more fulfilling. And so much easier. I may have had a few niggling doubts about how I could possibly open my heart to one more little person. But that first moment I held her in my arms, surrounded by my other children, cleared every uncertainty from my mind. "She completes us" I texted back to a friend who had sent a message congratulating me on her birth.

Now, a year on, our little 'apple' (nicknamed by older siblings) is a bundle of energy: walking room to room pointing one little index finger up and shaking her fist to make herself heard, eyes twinkling, bestowing infinite smiles, laughing her new cheeky but darling little laugh as if she's just discovered that the world is a hilarious place, gumming every wire in the house, or quietly (and adoringly!) following her older sister around.

We celebrated her birthday simply. I invited a few close friends over. There was far too much food, too much noise and two cakes too many. I  baked a fruit-sweetened, sugar-free smash cake just for her (Recipe found here): a rather sorry attempt at making an apple-shaped cake which, quite sadly, I forgot to take photos of before she began wrecking it. However, she loved it and enjoyed it tremendously as you can see. 

She had no idea what was going on, but she knew something was up. And that it was something good.

So she weaved her way between our guests, moving from one room to another, laughing at everything and even enduring all the torture bestowed upon her by her elder sister: being carried, jostled, made to wear party hats and over-sized sunglasses along with a pair of ratty fairy wings. She kept going for hours and hours, at last falling into deep sleep as soon as the last of our guests said goodbye.

Happy Birthday, my sweet girl.

Watermelon Sorbetto

 

Summer sneaked up on us. . late-April was deceptive with it's sudden stormy showers and cool evening breezes. For a while we grew complacent, duped ourselves into believing these mild days were here to stay. But then, just like that, the nip in the air was gone. Now early mornings are often motionless, hot. By noon the sun is glaring and the heat stifling. 

Soon appetites will begin waning and the kids will beg for things that are cool and scoop-able. The best way to indulge my children's summer dreams: this delicious sorbetto. 

The sorbetto is made with fresh watermelon juice and a whisper of lime to add a hint of tartness. The amount of sweetness is just right and does not overpower the fruit's natural flavor. David Lebovitz recommends throwing in some mini-chocolate chips for fun (to mimic watermelon seeds). I've never done this but maybe I will the next time I make a batch. Personally, I don't think it needs any chocolate: there couldn't be a simpler, more delicious dessert to round off your meal.

This sorbet is best made in an ice cream maker, but I often skip that step and freeze the mixture directly in popsicle molds. The recipe can be found on Page 112 of The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz, or because I am too lazy to type it out you can find it here.

Masala Chai for Needy People

I've wanted to get back to this space but it's hard to be a foodie when you've lost your sense of taste and smell. 

January started off great. I had awesome things happening in my kitchen: there was a lot of cooking and experimenting going on, a bucket-list of food-related projects I wanted to do this year, a lot of early-morning baking and photography in the soft, lovely light in the playroom just off my kitchen. . . Then the flu struck me down. Followed by repeated, debilitating, episodes of allergic rhinitis. It was almost April before I could shake all of that off and be my normal self again. 

But I still can't smell anything. I get faint whiffs of things at times, but mostly nothing otherwise. My sense of taste is creeping back and food is no longer unappetizing. However, I can only tell that what I'm eating is sweet/salty/sour/hot. I don't get all the other subtle flavors. Not only has it been depressing to eat in this state but it has been that much worse to cook and never know what is really going on with what I've made. I can't always be sure if food is seasoned properly or, quite simply, if it even tastes good. I hold things close to my nose, inhale deeply. Nothing. 

It has been a hazard too:  I've forgotten pots of oats simmering on the stove some mornings while I dashed around doing other chores and only noticed the smoke rising from the kitchen when I (luckily) walked by much later . . . or I badly scorched things in the oven.. I once failed to acknowledge a rotting, rank head of cauliflower in the crisper for several days .. And then there are the things that I missed being able to breathe: the rain, flowers, the baby's skin, fresh bread, chocolate . . Without my sense of smell to rely on, I have been quite lost. 

After struggling with this for a few weeks I reminded myself: cooking is intuitive. I've discovered it's possible to trust my instincts and to rely on visual cues. Most of the time this works in my favor. During this phase I had stopped reading food blogs in addition to abandoning my own - what's the fun in reading about food that you can't truly experience? But I'm warming back up to it all. . . starting by hanging around on Instagram again. . scanning my Google Reader for all the interesting posts I've missed these months . 

And so I start out my mornings with a steaming cup or two of Masala Chai, consumed by the liter during the day, catching up on my reading. 

This isn't really a precise recipe, but it is how I usually make my tea. I play around with it most days, omitting one thing or the other. Never really knowing what this tea *really* tastes like, guessing instead by the zing of ginger on my tongue and the heat of the black peppercorns at the back of my throat. This Masala Chai is wonderful when you have a cold, or a sore throat. A thermos-full prepared by me often does the rounds of my neighborhood each time a friend feels under the weather. 

Masala Chai

(makes 1 cup of tea)

1 clove

3-4 black peppercorns

a few pieces of cinnamon bark

2-3 green cardamoms

a pinch of fennel seeds

2" piece of ginger

evaporated milk

Crush everything together in a mortar and pestle. Bring 1 cup water to a rolling boil and throw the spinces and ginger in. Simmer 2-3 minutes. 

Add 2 tea bags (black tea), tags removed, or cut open two teabags and add the loose tea to the boiling water. Remove from heat, cover, and let steep 3-4 minutes. 

Place back on the stove, uncover, add desired sweetener and evaporated milk. Heat through but don't boil, strain and serve. 

Shakarkandi (Spicy Sweet Potato)

Lahore, beloved. My adopted city. 25th largest in the world. Steeped in history. The food and cultural capital of the country, a city of crowded tree-lined roads and pulsating bazaars. Lahore gets under your skin, makes you fall in love with its faded elegance; winding, bumpy, messy streets, its shady gardens and even the noisy hum of its bazaars. 

Walking through the narrow, colorful alleys of dupatta gali in winter, your senses are constantly teased by the wafting, pungent aromas of samosas and masala chips frying or saccharine-sweet tea brewing as your ears adjust to the sounds of women chatting with their companions or bargaining with vendors over the loud and incessant sounds of electricity generators humming, filmi music blaring, and dozens of sewing machines buzzing in unison. As you stroll, stopping to glance at a fabric or a sample of embroidery, a vendor will call after you, "Would you look at this? Touch and feel how smooth it is .. it came in just yesterday .. I have the best price ..  but wait! At least look! You won't find this anywhere .. O Baji! (sister) Stop!". He may jog a short distance behind you, fabric in hand, convincing you to stop and consider. Or his pleas will be taken up by his competitors, "You want a Pashmina shawl? Is it winter fabric you want? I have this new Marina fabric ... just look!". You might stop, after all, curiosity getting the better of you. Or, if you are like me, you will want to get away from the dizzying bright displays of sequins and bangles, glittering embroidery and all that noise and step out to the street - wind your way between impatiently honking, stalled traffic and head over to where the smoke is rising from a thela (push-cart) displaying baked sweet potatoes and clementines decorated around a heap of hot charcoal. 

Photo Credit: www.dawn.com

"Dass rupay ki Shakarkandi (10 Rupees worth of sweet potato)", you request the thela-waala (peddlar/street hawker) and then watch as he dumps a sweet potato into the mound of coals, pokes it a few times, digs it out and places it on a layer of torn newspaper in his left hand while he quickly slashes it with his right one, cubing it, he shakes a zesty spice mix over it and drenches it with a few generous squeezes of clementine juice with his coal-blackened, sooty hand. He then sticks a toothpick or two into the cubes of the steaming sweet potato, wraps the newspaper around them and hands the package to you. Throwing caution and all thoughts of hygiene to the wind, you dig into the unbelievably delicious Shakarkandi, mouth burning. What a high. 

For me, Shakarkandi is synonymous with freezing, foggy winters in Lahore when the sun doesn't shine for days and days: this simple little snack chases all the blues away.

One quiet morning, as I moved around my kitchen in silent nostalgia while I prepared vegetables to steam for the baby's meals that day, it hit me: It's so easy to make Shakarkandi at home. Why had I never done this before in all these years? There is no long list of ingredients. All you need is: sweet potatoes, clementines, chaat masala. The latter is not a fancy ingredient, it's a simple spice blend that you might easily find at your local South Asian store. If not, here's a recipe to make your own.








 

Wordless Wednesday

Heidi Swanson's Bran Muffins

I loved the ease of having the kids home for the holidays. The days blended into one another and three weeks flew by too fast because we were busy moving and settling into a new house. With so much to do, the lazy mornings I had envisioned and looked forward to just didn’t materialize most days. However,But it was so good to be able to wake up just a little later than my usual 5 a.m. and peacefully enjoy breakfast in the quiet hour I got to myself before the others started waking up. There were no early morning chastisements, hurried breakfasts, rush to catch the school bus. No trails of strewn clothes left behind or balled-up pyjamas found on top of beds. No realization a split second later (and the ensuing anxiety) that either child forgot a water bottle, a book-bag, library book, a hat, money for field trip/school photo/book order. Because they leave for school at 6:40 a.m. and are up and maddeningly chirpy at 6:00, the kids go to bed fairly early on weeknights. Usually they are already asleep before 7 p.m. which means we have to wait until the weekend to eat dinner together as a family. At least holidays change all of that. So accustomed we are to not seeing each other past 6:15 p.m., there is much giddiness and meal-times are loud, messy, exciting.  It’s sad when all of that comes to an end. But, to be honest, by the end of three weeks I was a little twitchy. So overwhelmed with all the things I still needed to sort through without the kids (finally) underfoot, yet excited to reclaim a few hours of relative under-stimulation each morning.

The night before the first day back in school, I stood in the kitchen with my copy of the beautiful Super Natural Every Day  by HeidiSwanson propped up on my messy kitchen counter, laid open to page 47, Bran Muffins. Working with what I had on hand I whisked eggs, yogurt, coconut oil and maple syrup together while I conversed with the man (husband) and a visiting friend, a sleepy baby balanced on my left hip. When I felt I needed the use of both hands the baby would be passed to the others – seemingly happy, her droopy eyes belying the frisky, jerky movement of her hands and limbs. Back and forth she went, observing every movement as I scooped the thick-ish batter into the muffin tin and, before I popped them in the oven, dotted a few with a teaspoon of strawberry jam, some with chopped dates and left the rest as they were. Not expecting these muffins to be very palatable (come on, bran = blah most of the time) I assumed they would need embellishments. How wrong. These muffins were moist, delicious, and hearty with just the right amount of sweetness and a faint crunch (the crunch from the crushed cereal in the batter lasted only up to a day but the muffins were very moist three days later). No embellishments needed. Perfect with a tiny smear of barely-salted butter (for me), and for breakfast-on-the-go for the kids. These muffins saved me this week.

A few days ago I had cheerfully uploaded this photo on instagram. The caption said, “Kids back in school. Enjoying the quiet this morning”. How presumptuous and audacious. Of course that was an invitation to jinx myself forever.

Just when I thought I was going to unpack our last few boxes in peace and then put up my feet and read a book, maybe: everyone got sick. Including me. Falling like dominoes, starting with my girl, ending with me. So, this week was all about sleep-deprivation and exhaustion. I feel a bit like a wrung-out mop. Or dish-rag. Whatever is worse. But at least these muffins kept me nourished while, according to my boy, we (he and I) were “living the life” today i.e. sitting up in bed convalescing reading and chatting.

If you’d like to make these muffins, here’s the recipe. I used things I had on hand so I substituted coconut oil for the butter, a blend of whole wheat and all-purpose flour for the whole wheat pastry flour, and yogurt for the buttermilk. I’ve made quite a few things out of this book over previous months (more blog posts to follow) and I find Heidi’s recipes very easily adaptable. The recipes themselves contain suggestions for substitutes and I’ve found that I can use seasonal fruits, a blend of flours and different alternatives for butter without my alterations compromising the end-result. I’m excited to try more recipes from this book over the next few weeks as part of my target-one-cookbook-a-month plan for this year.

Bran Muffins

Makes 12

(Mildly adapted from the original recipe) Super Natural Every Day by Heidi Swanson, Page 47

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup plain, full-fat yogurt

½ cup coconut oil

¼ cup maple syrup

½ cup oat bran

1.5 cups plain, unsweetened bran cereal, crushed (I poured it into a zipper bag and crushed it with one hand while I carried the baby)

½ cup wholewheat flour

½ cup all purpose flour

¼ cup natural cane sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp fine sea salt

Preheat the oven to 400F. Generously butter a standard 12-cup muffin pan.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, yogurt, coconut oil and maple syrup. Sprinkle the crushed cereal and the bran on top, stir, and allow the mixture to rest for five minutes.

Stir the dry ingredients together in another bowl and sprinkle them over the wet ingredients, stirring till just combined. Scoop the thick-ish batter into your muffin pan and bake 18-22 minutes. Cool in pan for 5 minutes before turning the muffins out of the pan to cool on a wire rack.

Rose Levy Beranbaum's Perfect All-American Chocolate Butter Cake

"Someone I loved once gave me 

a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand 

that this, too, was a gift" 

The Uses of Sorrow by Mary Oliver

I have a hard time saying goodbye. But I'm not sad that 2012 has reached its bittersweet end.

It was a challenging year, on the personal front, for both the husband and myself: a bad year for friendships, a year of some very tough trials and of facing harsh truths about certain loved ones . . . focusing on the positives I'd say I may have lost a few illusions but I gained a lot of perspective. It was a year of testing my limits and finding that I still do okay. That things may overwhelm me at times but I stand strong enough to see them through. I learned a lot this past year.

Life tends to be wonderful and infuriating at the same time. A lot of great things have happened too: it was a rewarding year as parents, a year of big (and good) changes, being blessed with new friendships and many, many wonderful moments . Through all the tumultuousness food has been constant and consistent in its ability to make me feel calm and grounded. Whether I'm standing in my kitchen chopping vegetables to add to a steaming pot of soup, coercing egg-whites into shiny whiteness to make the perfect meringue cookies, rolling out discs of dough that sizzle on a hot, oiled griddle, or breathing in the aromas from the tray of warm, freshly baked banana muffins that I've just placed on a cooling rack: the soothing repetition of these rituals I perform as I move around my kitchen is a healing balm.

Increasingly, baking and cooking are the only things I really, really love to do. I can't always get in the kitchen for baking marathons any more but I'm trying to carve out the time to do so whenever I can - and to end the long silences on this blog. I have been hanging out on Instagram recently and some of the baking I do makes its way into my newsfeed there. Two of my blogger friends from the BWD group and I decided we would pick a random cookbook each month and bake/cook as many things as we wanted from it throughout that month. Whoever decides to blog about the experience is welcome to do so, but there is no compulsion. There are no other rules and the only requirement is that we post photos on instagram using the hashtag #inspiredkitchen . This challenge provides the perfect opportunity for me to go through my vast and ever-increasing collection of cookbooks. For December we picked 'Baking With Julia' by Dorie Greenspan. But more on that later.

For now I want to wish you a year full of  inspiring, wonderful, happy times. And I want to leave you with this chocolatey, airy but fudgy cake from The Cake Bible. It's the perfect cake to ring in the new year. I found a recipe link for you here. Happy 2013!

Birthday Treats

A little someone turned 5 a few days ago. The celebration wasn't a big one but the anticipation was huge this year. It wasn't for the cake and goodies or even for birthday gifts but for the fact that she was turning **five**. I still don't know what the big deal about being 5 is, but the magnitude of relevance attached to the number is evident from one of several conversations overheard around here these past few weeks:

Daughter: "So, I'll be the mommy and you can be my two daughters"
Friend #1: "No, I'll be the mommy because I'm bigger than you : I'm 5"
Daughter: "Well, I'm going to be five next month so I can be the mommy"
Friend #1: "I'm five and-a-half"
Daughter: "You are not bigger than me. (stands next to friend so their shoulders are touching)We are the same size - see?"
Friend #2: "I'm also five! I want to be the mommy!"
Daughter & Friend #1: "No you are not. You're just three and-a-half. You're a baby. Babies can't be the mommy"
Friend #2 (beginning to have the-mother-of-all-meltdowns): "I'm not a baby! I'm not three! I'm five! I'm five!!"
Daughter & Friend #1: "You are NOT FIVE. You are JUST three-and-a-half"
Friend #2: "I AM FIVE!!!" 
Daughter & Friend #2: "Fine!! Then we are not playing with you!" (And they stomp off, leaving me to deal with a wailing, feet-stamping, miserable 3.5 year old)

Did you just get emotionally drained reading all that? Because I did, just retelling it. Imagine re-living this same conversation at least a couple of times each week. Do you think such unwarranted self-importance deserves a sweet celebration? I don't.

But I melt.

Because this is my little girl who is not a baby any more but also not quite the 'big girl' she would like to be. I am filled with amazement and pride as I watch this little person grow into who she will be one day and my heart fills up with love at the sight of her. Very much her own person from the moment she was born. I love how strong she is, how sure of what she wants. I admire that about her. There is no one quite like her: bossy, fiercely loving, thoughtful, compassionate, independent, deeply sensitive beneath her bravado, creative, silly, talented, funny ... on the move all day long. Being her parent is sometimes so challenging because we tend to lock heads: each of us as stubborn as the other. Some days I just want to throw in the towel and go hide in a cave. Parenting is just so hard. Why didn't anyone ever tell me that?

But it's so wonderful too. You know what they say about how having children makes you feel like you are watching your heart walk around outside your body - that is how I feel when I look at my kids. Literally, at times, it's a physical ache. I can't even get through a blog post about them without getting deeply emotional. So! Let's talk about tea parties and cupcakes!

The cupcakes I made for my girl are actually based on Ina Garten's highly popular Beatty's Chocolate Cake. I picked the recipe because my daughter is a big Ina Garten fan and watches The Barefoot Contessa on Food Network with an avid interest akin to which  most other kids watch cartoons. I left the recipe mostly untouched aside from omitting the egg yolk from the frosting and decreasing the amount of espresso powder in the frosting to only 1 heaped teaspoon. The cupcakes were for kids so I was uneasy about using a raw egg yolk in the frosting and I don't think it suffered from the omission. In fact, I believe it's the frosting that makes these cupcakes. It's quite delicious - especially after the reduction of the espresso powder as recommended in several of the 1589 (no, I did not read them all!) reviews on Food Network. I also consulted this comparison of chocolate frostings on the Crumbly Cookie blog while I briefly contemplated using a different kind of frosting for these cupcakes just in case I was unable to substitute/omit the egg yolk. It seems from the photos on Crumbly Cookie that the addition egg yolk must add more texture because her frosting seems to hold a better shape than mine did. But I don't mind because I did not intend to pipe shapes with it. That said, I'm intrigued to know if you have tried using an egg yolk in a frosting recipe? Does it make a difference? Is there a substitute?

Now because I subscribe to the 'less is more' school of thought, I had to make the birthday cake using an entirely different recipe. You might argue that I didn't need to make a birthday cake at all when I had 24 cupcakes on hand and only 7 guests (all family!) other than the one friend my daughter wished to spend her birthday with. But this is me we are talking about. And me at 3:30 a.m. when I'm faced with choosing between Beatty's Chocolate Cake and Dorie Greenspan's Cocoa-Buttermilk Birthday Cake. Ever indecisive and unable to risk shaking the husband awake or texting a friend at such an early hour to ask the quintessential 'what shall it be? Ina Garten or Dorie Greenspan?' question I had to just go with it and bake both. Madness, yes.

This cake - well, let me say I am not sorry I baked it. I read the P&Q on the TWD website and I saw that it (especially the buttercream) got mixed reviews but, honestly, I just love this cake. It's the perfect birthday cake. I especially love the buttercream - it's not saccharine like buttercreams tend to be and I did not find it to be either grainy or gritty. I had no problems at all whipping it up and it was fairly smooth with a very faint, but not unpleasant, crunch from the chocolate malted powder. The recipe asks for malted milk powder and I had chocolate flavored Horlicks on hand so that is what I used. I did add the optional melted and cooled chocolate in the cake batter and even though the cake was slightly on the drier side it would be just fine if made as a layered cake, with thick layers of frosting in between. I didn't do layers so each slice consisted of a whole lot of cake and not enough frosting. But, like I said, this is easily remedied. The cake improved while it sat around and was completely gone by the 3rd day so I can tell you that it keeps well, covered and placed on the counter, for 3 days. If it lasts that long. The recipe can be found on Page 256 of Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or here.

I was completely washed out by the end of the day. But you know what, she loved it all. The cake. The cupcakes. Her 'tea-party for two' with her best friend... so the lack of sleep, tiredness and everything else seems of little consequence.

The highlight of her day, though, seems to be this little snippet I overheard:

Daughter to her friend: "I'm 5 now. You can't tell me any more what to do because I'm the same age as you"

Happy Birthday, my lovely one. May you have many more.