Unexpectedly Expecting

Smorgasbord

1. The brunch turned out great. As did the buns. I ended up baking them on Sunday morning because I figured out, after re-reading the recipe, that it wouldn't really be such a big deal. And it wasn't. They were a big hit, and I actually made another two pans worth yesterday because I ended up with two full patches of dough. All in all, I made about 50 cinnamon buns. And so far I've probably consumed 10 of them. That's kind of gross, ain't it?

2. Our fish keep dying. Jimmy is quite bummed about it. We have now gone through about 10 fish. The names of those who have left us: Tressel, Brutus, Cookie, Spotty McDotty, Phil, Ginger Snap, Ringo, and Beanie. All died. We have also said good-bye to Lulu Diamond Fishy and Twin, whom we returned to the pet store because the clerk convinced us they might be murdering all of the other fish. Sloopy went back, too, because he was about to be a Lulu victim. The store people can't figure out what else we could be doing wrong. Our water has been tested many times; it's fine. We keep the temperature set right, we're careful not to overfeed, we change the filter, we buy the "hardiest" fish in the store, we condition the water, we siphon. But even since Lulu's departure -- she was the main instigator, we thought -- three fish have croaked. Now we have two left. Solider -- named such because he often can't figure out how to get out of a hallowed- out rock. Get it? He can't get out of a rock. -- and Betsy. Each time a fish dies, Jimmy gets very sad. He told me yesterday, when Ginger died, that the tank was the "worst birthday present ever." I tend to agree. What a headache.

3. In five days, I'll be running the Detroit Free Press half-marathon. I hope I'm ready. I'm pretty excited. It's a very fun race, and for once, I'm trying to use my selfish athletic pursuits for a good cause. I'm raising money for a charity through Marathon Mission. I really hate asking people for money, and I haven't done a very forceful job of fund-raising. Still, something is better than nothing. And it's been good motivation. I can't really sit on my butt (too much) when I know there is a (small, but who's counting?) pile of checks on my desk from family and friends assuming I am working hard for their donations. Really, though, the training has been almost entirely enjoyable. Running in the fall is lovely. The leaves on the ground, the humidity gone, weather  that's not too cold (usually) nor too warm (except the week it was near 90). The long runs, especially, just feel indulgent and refreshing and gratifying. Sure, my hips and feet and back ache afterward, but during the actually run, I feel a sense of peace and accomplishment and deepness of thought that I rarely feel in any other situation. I recommend it whole-heartedly.

4. Should I eat one more cinnamon bun before I drive off for the rest of the day? I mean, what kind of person would I be if I left two nearly full pans alone for 12 hours? It's my duty. I'm up to the challenge.

Attention Betty Crockers: Sta needs your help!

So this Sunday, I'm hosting a brunch. I've been wanting to host a brunch for some time, and this weekend, my parents will celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. That's right. Forty years. It's kind of surprising to people considering I am only 27 and my younger brother is 25. That's because my parents got married in 1967 when they were 21 and 23 years old. Then they waited 11 years to have kids. That's right, 11 years. I have no idea what they did during this time. They didn't travel, not much anyway. They didn't move around. As far as I can tell, they lived just as they do now that all their kids are gone -- meaning they got together with friends to play cards, they went out to dinner with my Aunt and Uncle, they sat around at night watching prime time TV, and they traveled to the occasional MSU game in East Lansing. I think it's kind of cute that they waited 11 years to have sex. They're pure like that.

Anyway, I'm throwing a brunch in their honor. I'm very excited. I went all Martha Stewart and picked out some table decorations from Target. I planned a menu. Last night I even mopped my kitchen floor. That's when you know I'm serious. Now, it's just a matter of doing the actual cooking. I'm pretty comfortable in the kitchen these days, but pulling off events like this always throws me off. It's the timing. How the heck do most women prepare five dishes at once without totally destroying their kitchen or ignoring their arriving guests or ruining one of the dishes? It's a delicate balance, I tell you, and one I haven't figured out quite yet.

I'm hoping to make it work by doing a lot of the prep cooking work on Saturday, when I will also do the bulk of the house cleaning (read: moving around of dirt to make it less noticeable) and table setting. That's also when I plan to make these. I've wanted to cook these cinnamon rolls for months now, ever since I found this Web site. But there has never been a good reason, and I can't just have seven pans of highly caloric pastries lying around or, you know, I'll eat them. But the time has arrived. This is it. And my plan is to tackle them Saturday. But I need two things -- your help and advice.

In the advice department, I'm wondering how you think I should store and reheat the buns, which I baked Saturday, to make them fresh and toasty warm on Sunday morning. They'll have frosting all over them, so just sticking them under the broiler... well, maybe it would work, but I'm no Rachael Ray here, I don't really know. Do you think it's better to get them assembled but actually bake them Sunday? If so, will sticking them in the fridge all night toughen the dough or something like that? I have no idea. In the help department, well, it's not imperative, but if you're reading this and you're my friend and you know me in real life and you have nothing to do on Saturday afternoon.... wanna come over and bake some cinnamon rolls? I'll let you lick the pan. And even take a pan of your own home. And we can braid each other's hair while they're in the oven. So come over!

Seriously, though, I'll looking for replies here, so if you think you can help me, please do so! After 40 years of enduring one another, my parents really deserve a warm, gooey cinnamon bun. Help me make it happen.

Mistakes I made last night when making dinner for my in-laws

1. Using six egg whites in the dessert instead of six egg yolks. Small but important distinction there.

2. Believing Rachel Ray when she recommends cooking her Chicken, Prosciutto and Garlic-Herb Cheese Rolls for 10 to 12 minutes because, "after pounding, the chicken will be thin and cook quickly." Following these directions, I discovered, leads to plopping completely raw-on-the-inside rolls of chicken down on everyone's plate. And that is just not tasty.

Everything else -- you know side dishes, salad, etc. -- were delicious.

In fact, the salad was so good, I must spread the wealth. This is my father-in-law's, mother's salad. And as the perky-but-misguiding Rachel Ray would say, "YUMM-O."

Mandarin Salad

1/4 cup sliced almonds

1 TBSP and 1 tsp sugar

romaine lettuce torn in bits (or a bag will do)

2 med. stalks celery chopped (about one cup)

2 green onions thinly sliced (about 2 Tbsp)

1 can (or 1.5 if you're like me) mandarin oranges drained.

Cook the almonds and sugar over low heat, stirring constantly until sugar melts and almonds are coated. Cool and break apart. Store at room temperature.

Place lettuce, celery and onions in a bowl. Add orange segments and almonds. Top with sweet and sour dressing (see below) and toss.

Deliciously sweet and succulently sour dressing.

1/4 c. veggie oil

2 Tbsp sugar

2 Tbsp white vinegar

1 Tbsp snipped parsley

1/4 tsp. salt

dash of pepper

big dash of red pepper sauce (such as Frank's)

Shake all ingredients in a container with a tight lid. Refrigerate until needed. I made a double batch because we like our salad swimming in dressing round these parts.

Progress report 2 -- "A cry for help"

Here I sit. And sit. And sit. And read one more blog. And click to one more page on the Interweb. And sit. And read. And look out my window and think, "Wow, what a lovely morning. I should go for a run. Or ride my bike down Catalpa, it seriously can't be that scary. Or ride my bike to the gym, where I should swim laps. Or lift weights. Or do something that will help me not die when I try to complete a triathlon in about one month."

But then I sit. And sit some more. And think things like, "Well, if I swim, it will ruin my lovely manicure, and my lovely manicure is only 48 hours old, and darn it, I don't want it ruined quite yet." And things like, "If I ride my bike down Catalpa, some crazy driver will definitely smash into me from behind, or they'll run me into a parked car. And it's Dream Cruise week. How will I ever cross Woodward on a Trek? I won't." Or thoughts like, "My calves hurt. How can I possibly run? How can I ever make it a few laps around that track when yesterday I couldn't even go three miles without walking?" And thoughts like, "Hmmm, maybe I should be eat more of that deliciously evil peach crisp I made last night against my better judgment. That was a scrumptious breakfast. Now it could be a scrumptious snack." And thoughts like, "Hmm, I only have four more days with The Queen, which I rented last night. I need to watch it before it's too late!" And thoughts like, "I only have a hundred or so pages left of the book I started yesterday, Elizabeth Berg's Say When. Why don't I just go finish that? Lay around a little? Don't I deserve it?"

Help!

I need a brain transfusion.

I am in so much trouble on Sept. 8.

What Happens When I Bake

Though the last four years, I've slowly grown to love to cook. I relish cook books. I love my pots and pans. I want another apron.  Cooking shows are my porn.

I am not what you might call "a good cook," and I know that. But I enjoy the process of mixing and measuring and stirring so completely, that I don't really care.  I cook more because I love the time spent in the kitchen forgetting about everything else in life than for the goodies that time produces. And the few times my results do turn out yummy -- the times when they illicit real, heart-felt compliments, and you can always tell the difference -- those times are just the icing on proverbial the cake.

But sometimes, things go so horribly awry that it's just ... well... funny. Or maybe embarrassing. But I'm going to stick with the more charming, "funny."

Like today. Today I decided to make this cake, a recipe I have eyed for a few weeks from a blog I really love. I made her lasagna about a week ago, and it was scrumptious. I got real compliments for it. (A nice, backhanded, "Honey, this is legitimately good!") So today, I thought, it's time to make that cake.

Everything was going alright. The cake was in the oven (set just as she said to 350 degrees, timed for 20 minutes), the frosting was ready in the saucepan, and I was cleaning up the massive mess I'd created when I split some cocoa powder on the floor, stepped in it with my bare feet and walked all over the kitchen. Then, with about six minutes left to go on the timer, my oven went ballistic. It beeped over and over and it flashed letters on the clock screen. Something like FR, FR, FR.

That's when I noticed my entire house was filled with smoke. You can't tell much in this picture, but believe me.  Had our smoke detector been plugged in the way it is supposed to be, we would have been beeping awake the entire neighborhood.

I pulled the cake out of the oven, turned it off and ran around opening windows. Then I looked at my slightly charred creation and wondered what to do. Was it ruined? Who can tell? I mean, sure, it was a charcoal black color, but who is to say that's bad? So I poured the frosting all over it.

Apparently, you are supposed to do this very carefully, a concept I cannot really grasp. Because my frosting wasted no time spilling right over the edges of my sheet cake and waterfalling all over my oven. It even went down the side of the wall.

By then, Jimmy had awoke upstairs, no doubt to a cloud of smoke above his head.

"Baby?" He called groggily.
"Yeah?"
"I think our house is on fire."
"No, I took care of it!"
Silence.
"Um, what does that mean?"
"Honey, just go back to sleep, it's OK!"
"Are we burning?"

I went upstairs to assure him our house was still standing, even though it was sort of hard to see that through all the haze.

He wasn't the only one worried.

But a half hour later, with most of the smoke clearing out, I tried my creation. One small square of burnt cake for me.

And you know what?

It wasn't awful. I ate it all. And besides the thin layer of crusty burntness on the bottom, I have to say, it was tasty.

Maybe I'll rename it...  Sta's Special Smoked Sheet Cake.

Mario, meet my buddy the orange cone.

Last night, after back-to-back meetings in the afternoon and a sprint session in the kitchen to whip up some Hot German Potato Salad, the Adorable and I drove across Metro D to visit our friends Jim and Rachel (not their real names), another recently married couple.

After a fabulously adult dinner of flank steak, asparagus, salad, red-skinned potatoes and my HGPS, we relocated on the couch and flicked on an old friend -- Nintendo. Not Super Nintendo. Not N64. We're talking the original, old-school model with the stiff, square controllers that feel so small and fragile and simple in a world of newer, fancier, button-joystick-trigger-laden controllers. We're talking the original Mario Brothers, with the theme music that is as familiar to any child of the 80s as the Care Bear Stare. BA-DA-BA-BUH-da-DAH--da. You know the rest.

It's funny how the game just comes back to you. I haven't played Nintendo (or No-End-Do as my Aunt called it) since, oh, maybe 1993. Approximately. Honestly, I have no recollection of when I played for the final time. In college, my roommates and I were slaves to Super Nintendo, sometimes staying home from the bar or waking before class to play Donkey Kong. And in my youth, my brothers' obsession with video games meant we never waited long to convince "Santa" to bring us the newest fangled machine. As soon as the next great achievement in video game counsels came out, we said goodbye to our old machine and stashed it under piles of photo albums and old cassette tapes in the back of the entertainment center.

But the decade away from Nintendo wasn't enough to wipe the memory of where the secret mushrooms, pennies, vines, tubes and warp zones were. As we took turns passing the controllers back and forth, the non-players served as tour guides, shouting out the location of important goodies as we recalled them. "Wait, go back! There's a vine there! Just hit the hidden penny and then step up on it and hit that block!" We warped ourselves all the way to level 8-2 before we fell into trouble.

We are so mature. I love being a rejuvenile.

All in all, it was a great day. The dinner party was fun. Both of my meetings were motivating, energizing and productive. And even the thrown-together potato salad turned out mostly edible. The day's only blemish came on the way home, when the dang highway was shut down. Remind us never to leave home again without first consulting M-DOT's Web site. It's just too risky. You never know what highway could just up and close at any moment here in the D. And let me tell you, if the highway you need closes, you're as good as fucked.

We reluctantly trekked home down miles and miles of a two-lane, pothole-ridden, stop-light intensive road, breezing by the beautiful landmarks of urban sprawl -- strip malls, gas stations, subdivisions and auto garages. We tried to time the lights to make them, but the ingenious engineer who plotted them out must have failed to coordinate those suckers because we stopped at almost every one. A 20-minute breeze on the highway turned into a near 45-minute tour of the East side, not exactly what I wanted to do at midnight after a long day.

But hey, leave it to the M-DOT to suck you right out of Mario Land and place you firmly back in the cold realm of adulthood.

Dinner before 5? Insanity!

Amazing. It is 4:58 and I actually got myself together to make the Adorable dinner before he had to go to work. I have no idea how  said dinner will actually taste, but hey, I'm just proud he's not going to eat another TV dinner. I'm also proud I did not crash my car on the way to the grocery store, as I woke up mid-nap with the sudden urge to cook and still had that drowsy, I-can't-quite-hold-my-head-up, or-keep-my-eyes-open feeling the whole way there.

I made Stir-fried Asian Beef and Noodles frommy trusty Betty Crocker Cookbook, except that since I watch too many Rachel Ray shows, I no longer measure anything or follow actual recipe directions, so who knows how close this is to what Betty had in mind. (Check out that entry. Love how there never WAS a real Betty. She's just a figment of a bunch of marketing suckers' imaginations. And yet, I love.)

I used apple cider vinegar instead of rice vinegar or regular cider vinegar in the sauce. I also started with way too many rice stick noodles, so I had to remove some from the wok and adjust the sauce ingredients (beef broth, honey, sesame oil, crushed red pepper, soy sauce, and the vinegar) on the fly. The veggies were supposed to start frozen, but apparently Westborn doesn't believe in freezers, so my veggies started fresh. And I thought I had carrots at home, but alas, I did not.

I think it turned out well enough, anyway. The Adorable appreciated. And I'm gonna chow down.... right after I finish my interrupted nap.