VALENTINE"S DAY EVE: BAKING THE BLONDE WAY

I am all set up to bake. Everything organized and ready. I am making brownie's, fudge, sugar cookies and chocolate covered marshmallows (courtesy of a recipe from Ms. Tee at A Delightful Home. Now just before you start scratching your head and saying to yourself "Can Blondie bake??", I'll have you know I can do anything as long as it comes from a mix. Note the box behind the bowl... Can you believe Ghirardelli now makes mixes? I read it in a blog and then in another blog that saw the original blog and so before you can say Weight Watcher's, we are all going to be in the kitchen (at least us non-bakers!!

I love to cook. I am a cook. Period. I can use a food processor with my eyes closed, make Salmon Scallops with Sorrel Sauce for 12 or whip up poached pears in Cabernet Sauvignon for a romantic little dessert. But hand me a a set of measuring spoons and I am running for the hills faster than you can say Betty Crocker! And I really do think it is all about the measuring. I am one of the most patient people you will ever meet, so I can certainly labor over a delectable confection and wait for it to bake or chill or what have you, I think it's more that I am the rebellious type and refuse to measure anything. To me, that is the joy of cooking (as Julia Child coined). Just throw a little of this in and a little of that, a science experiment if you will. One of my favorite things to make are soups and stews. I can make 1000 different ones just playing with ingredients. I suppose I look like a witch over her cauldron, stirring away as it bubbles over, a toad jumping out every now and then! :-)

So I am baking these goodies and I am making little packages for the girls in which I am also including various other little chocolates (store bought of course, I tried to make truffles once and I will leave the aftermath of that project to your imagination~not pretty), manicure thingies, lip glosses, earrings and some pretty undies (hey, I do the laundry around here...I know when things need to be replaced!). I am also making goody bags for their boyfriend's parents as well as for their actual boyfriends because they would have waited until the 11th hour. And I have a few things for The Husband, well it's no big secret. I bought him pajama bottoms that he like to lounge around in with a sweatshirt at night. He appreciates little things like that and as I said, I do the laundry around here so I know what he needs! ;-)

So while I was slaving away at the stove I snapped a few pictures in my kitchen. Below is my spice rack. Our kitchen was renovated about 5 years after we moved in and I told the carpenter exactly what I need and voila... I can bake...er, cook like a queen. No, it is not alphabetized but I do check freshness dates a lot. In the summer I can tack up stuff from my herb garden to dry from the shelves, it's pretty & fragrant.

These are my cookbooks. Every basic thing I learned about cooking originated from a cookbook. Before Google, I always turned to books for reference. When someone asks me how I learned to cook, I say "If you can read, you can cook". There are exceptions to that of course; experience and repetition follow that. And if you have fun doing it, you will do it well. I actually thinned these books out, you can see the shelves have started to sag! I brought some to the cottage and gave some away. Only after I started blogging did I learn that so many others enjoy 'reading' cookbooks. I think it it is inspiring to see the author's personality come out in their books and I love illustrations. I have my favorites, but I won't bore you. Let's move on, shall we?



Below is a sign I am sure all of you recognize. This is where I bought all my goodies for my baking marathon (grrrr...). Someone from the suburbs once said,"Your Target is weird!" and I thought, wow, maybe it is. So I am asking you. As you know, parking space in the city is at a premium, so when our Target was built a few years ago, an underground parking of sorts was made. It's actually at street level under the store and then you take an escalator up. So...how do you get down the escalator when you have a cart full of goodies?

As you might be able to see, the customers are coming down on the left. "Where could their carts be?" you ask. Well...

Isn't this just the cat's meow!! Maybe it's weird, maybe not. But I hope you all know what an idiot I felt like standing here taking these pictures!! At times like this I hope people think I'm just a tourist from Romania or something, "...and this is the weird Target store in Chicago, Nadia"!!!

Tomorrow we are off to the cottage to bring supplies to Resident Carpenter. After meeting with him we are going to spend the night in South Bend, Indiana. Does that sound familiar? Home to the University of Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish!! Our cottage sits on the Indiana/Michigan border. We are called Michiana. And we are 20 minutes from Notre Dame. South Bend is a nice sized city and so we will shop, have dinner and stay somewhere. I will try to take some cool pictures! Or maybe have The Husband do it!!! ;-)

Happy Valentine's Day everybody!!

xoxo

Janie