Hodge Podge

I will admit, right here, front and center that there are things about 1st shift that I like.  More opportunity to see friends is the one that sticks out most.  However yesterday I found or re-found another.

Long, long ago, I used to frequent the first Thursday art walk.   Occasionally alone, mostly with either Clair or Elizabeth and a couple times with Katherine or Joy when her husband Steven had an exhibit up.

Last night I went to the first Thursday art walk, I have not been to it in years.  Granted I mostly went to one exhibit, the lost works exhibit because Char had 30 paintings in it.  In fact fifty artists in all each had 30 paintings they had done in 30 days.

I knew this art would be for sale and I knew the openings were just Wednesday (first Thursday eve so to speak), Thursday and then this Saturday.  What I didn’t realize was that people could be and would be buying them yesterday.  As in taking them off the wall right in front of you as you are looking at the pieces.

Clearly there were people who are more used to this venue.  I got there five minutes into the event, or when the doors were supposed to open and was so surprised to find the place full of people and pieces of art coming off the walls.  One man walking around with a stack of paintings, he had to have had at lease 30 in his arms.  They all sell for forty bucks each and eventually I saw him sit down to sort through them.  The unfortunate thing is the rest of us didn’t get to see the ones in his stack, even if he didn’t end up buying them.  You can even see the empty spots already in my cell phone pictures here of one of the displays.  There was no way to get a photo of the magnitude of these paintings or the people here.  I snapped these two because in some cosmic meeting there was all of a sudden no one standing in my way.

There were lots of very cool paintings and I liked that they didn’t have them separated by artists.  I was also bummed that I couldn’t see all of Chars (or what was left of them) in one fell swoop.  But it does make for a more interesting display. 

After the art walk I went home to make “sample” sugar cookies for possibly my 1st bona-fide order under the business.  The problem with rolled sugar cookies is the amount of time they take.  Making the dough is no problem.  But it has to be cold to roll it out.  I left it in the fridge for an hour and rolled out a small amount to cut a few cookies.  It wasn’t long enough and I couldn’t pull the dough apart.  So back in the fridge they went for another 15 minutes and then onto a baking sheet.  I only baked a few and then had to wait for them to cool and made some icing for them while they cooled.  These are so labor intensive.  They are listed on my price sheet at more than other cookies and under the holiday section.  I will be happy if I get the order because really, I have half the dough made already.  But if I don’t, that will be ok also.

Since I had to run out for butter, I also picked up yarn….five sciens of pink.  Lets see if I can get a blanket done in the next two days, you know in between painting the ceiling at the studio tonight and removing my hoses from the house for winter because, hello, its friggen freezing out there.  If not, I will finish if off for someone else.

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It has been a cookie of a week.  Friday I made five kinds of cookies for an art opening at the soon to be cafe’.
I made snicker doodles, chocolate chip, white chocolate chip, spicy oatmeal-pecan-fruit and pistachio and current shortbread.
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Then yesterday someone asked if I could do something in chocolate.  Here is my newest recipe, adapted from a couple others and the basic in chocolate cookies recipes.  Presenting, chocolate with chocolate chip and chocolate drizzle.  If you like chocolate, these are for you.  I’m not a milk drinker, but these could use milk.

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Multi-tasking on little sleep

Yesterday the best I could muster in the multi tasking department was to have the sprinkler running in the front flower bed while I drank my coffee.

However today was another story.  I was at work until about 2am and had to be up early today to get some baking done.  First stop was to go buy coffee and almonds.  Came back home and brewed a big pot of get up and go.

As the coffee was brewing I whipped up a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough for an order today.   Once the cookies were baking I made a batch of chocolate cake batter and then baked two sheet cakes for an order tomorrow.  When the first cake was baking I made hummingbird food and cleaned up the baking goods  I also whipped up a salad for dinner later.  When the second one was baking I worked out on the elliptical trainer for 30 minutes. 

The cookies will be delivered today and the cake will be filled and frosted and delivered Friday morning.  I may cook down all of the raspberries tonight simply to have them chilled and take less time in the morning, but that will depend if I get out of work on time (you know 11pm.)

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To bad I was only working on four and a half hours of sleep or maybe I would have managed a load or two of laundry or at least running the water in the parched Dahlia bed.

Two plus Three

Beth ordered two cakes from me for today.  Lemon and raspberry with white chocolate frosting and butter cake with chocolate.  Along with the two cakes were three dozen cookies.  The spelling on the cakes is correct, they say “Bertday”.

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Yesterday was a full day of baking.  First the Lemon Cake, then the raspberry filling.  Not sure why I didn’t make the filling before hand, even the day before but I didn’t even start it until the Lemon cake was cooling.  Then I had to wait for the filling to cool but at least while it was cooling I made the White Chocolate frosting.  Once that cake was together and in the cake box I started the butter cakes.  There was extra batter so I made a few mini cakes at the same time.  Chari had fun frosting and decorating this 3 layer number for Vivian.

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Once the butter/chocolate cake was done I cleaned up the kitchen and started three types of cookies.  There were the spicy oatmeal, peanut butter and chocolate chip and chocolate chip with almond.  They were all packaged up and the kitchen pretty much in order before I went to bed.

This morning Chari decorated the rest of the mini cakes for my family that is coming by today and here are far too many cookies left in my house for temtpation.

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