She still does, in fact, bake cakes

How to summarize the last nine months or so? Lets see. Finn turned 4. Conor graduated kindergarten. Summer was largely unstructured and hugely enjoyable, and She made a lot of cakes.

But instead of the unpleasant prospect of abasing myself before the readership with pathetic and, lets face it, rather transparent, excuses for not writing, I'll do what I do best and draw attention to other people's misdeeds.

Lets take our friend Joe. Good guy, great father, and devoted husband who is planning a 40th birthday party for his wife. His call to the cake hotline three days before the party goes something like this:

"Hey, Lisa, y'know Kari's party. It would be great if you could make one of those cool cakes."

"What kind of cake? What's the theme? For how many people"

"Oh, I don't know. Something cool. Maybe in an italian/cowboy/hoedown theme. And could it serve 150?"

The eponymous She took this all in stride and, after a quick run to Costco to purchase approximately 2 1/2 US adult male heart attacks worth of butter, put together the the Hoedown Italiano cake. The bottom layer is yellow cake, the middle chocolate, and the top was made of both such that when you slice it there's a checkerboard effect. In keeping with the theme, the bottom layer was patterned after cowhide, similar enough to the Dell box that Michael Dell himself is seeking a slice in return for use of his IP, the middle layer is patterned after a bandana (and looks fantastic), and the top is done in fondant in the colors of the italian flag. Because our love for cheap italian stereotyping has no limits, the top of the cake is a spaghetti and meatballs motif, done in buttercream, ferrero rocher and ollalieberry jam.



















The party was a blast. Kari loved the cake, the kids all danced to the country band, and Finn learned that mixing warm sprite with vigorous do-si-doing leads to projectile vomiting.




Finn, as you can see, is ever ready to help.