Monday, May 8, 2017

Anabelle and Daddy Ad-veeeeen-tures! Yeah! *Jazz Hands* Day 18 –August 5

Scavenging Hunters


Unsurprisingly, another late breakfast was in the cards for us.  I made omelets, while she watched some show on HGTv.  They’re all the same. People with more money than sense buy a house without checking if anything is wrong with it…then rapidly realize they need both more sense and more money to get it sold again.

Anabelle worked some more on her social studies online answers, mostly Olympic questions to battle the onset of depression in the kids due to the election questions.

She also finished up her creepy asylum book report.  YAY Horror genes!

Then both of us worked feverishly to assemble a shopping list. Her being new at dinner planning and me being a guy were tremendous hurdles, but we got one together.

We needed to make a couple quick stops before hitting the supermarket. The first was the post office to mail hard copies of my blog to a couple of loyal readers. Yes, I am that much of a self promotion addict, that I will gladly help those who choose to ignore technological advances to keep reading my stuff.  More importantly, I’m loyal to where I got my first encouragement.

A bit of Hallmark ornament shopping followed and we hit the supermarket.

We remembered everything…well almost everything.  What fun is a dinner party without a last minute store run, anyway? 

Before crazy hungry could hit, we enjoyed each other’s company, and a Shop Rite salad bar and sushi picnic in the car. 

Upon returning home and cleaning up a bit we set about creating a dessert.  We’d made brownies together many times and figured tackling a cake would be similar.

Naïve, aren’t we?

Rosa always used a little hand held electric mixer for baking and other needs.  We combed the entire kitchen for it, moving stuff to allow the opening of cabinets never seen before by members of my family.

Calling Rosa didn’t help as she was on a bus…and also on another continent.

We ended up busting out the mammoth mix master, possibly never used before, that we got as a wedding gift.  Half way through combining ingredients, Rosa called to let us know the little mixer was inside the rice cooker.

If only we were making a rice cake!

The marble cake came out more of a smear cake than marbled, but considering it was still tasty and we didn’t coat the kitchen in batter, I’m putting it in the win column.

We chilled the baked goods and watched the real Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  Anabelle bumped into ten minutes of the Tim Burton one on TV and needed a cleansing.

We greatly enjoyed some leftover Aji de Gallina (Thanx honey!) and the film as well.

Yes the cake making activity spanned the entire lunch to dinner gap. I said we were new at this.

Once the two cake layers were chilled we filled them using an entire can of chocolate frosting.  I think Willy Wonka may have affected us a bit.

Anabelle was determined to have both blue icing and butter cream icing.  The combination of the container of food coloring with the natural color of the frosting yielded a gorgeous teal hue not normally associated with food items.

The brightly colored dessert back in the fridge, we went on to one of our usual pastimes:  the “What are we doing game.”  It can last for hours and often has no winner.

Eventually, we called and chatted with Rosa for a bit. Anabelle’s missing her heightened; she decided to bring up all red garbed superheroes for August to welcome Mami home with her favorite color.

That night, recent events triggered a crazy flood dream.  Not a leaking roof or a replay of the basement mess.  No this one showed how panic driven my subconscious was by featuring a Nile River sized torrent gushing down the street in front of our home.

It is any wonder I normally stay up late enough to eliminate REM period memories due to exhaustion?




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