Birthdays and Treasure Hunts

If you are in any way at all a regular reader of this blog, I congratulate you. I am not a regular writer, and blogs that are devoid of content for months on end tend to be ones that are read only by spouses, close friends and people who hit the "next blog" button on blogger. Still, if you are in fact a regular reader, you've probably freed yourself of certain expectations, like regularly produced, thoughtful content, and also any sense of chronology. For example, the wedding cake below was crafted well after the birthday cake shown in this photo - not that I needed to tell you, as if you are reading this blog, you probably tried at least one of them. So the birthday cake was pretty tasty, despite being made largely by the blog author, with the assistance of Finn and Conor for Conor's ninth birthday. It was very heavy on the raspberries - a raspberry sponge cake, with raspberry buttercream filling and raspberry icing (and a white chocolate buttons on top). The cake was well earned, as earlier in the day the birthday boy and five of his friends embarked on a five mile treasure hunt around the neighborhood and culminating at Pendragon books. Many thanks to our friends in the mysterious Thomas Avenue Treasure Hunt Society for their ingenious course plotting.

And not to get all Tevye here, but the years do fly by remarkably quickly. Happy incredibly belated birthday, my beautiful boy.

She bakes wedding cakes

Cakes are a hobby. Birthday cakes for kids are fun - there's a wide range of possible themes, kids tend to be pretty forgiving on the decor as long as the pokemon/mario/sleeping beauty is somewhat recognizable, and if one screws up so extravagantly that the cake is unsalvageable (not that this happens to the eponymous she, but perhaps to others), there's always going to be another birthday next year. Wedding cakes are a different story. There's pretty much one theme (unless you're one of those people who gets married at Disneyland), brides have a reputation as being a little less than flexible in terms of what they want their cake to look like, and aspirationally (if not statistically), there are no do-overs. So if you're going to make a wedding cake, you'd best get it right. And of course, she did.

Even if making wedding cakes was not something that she had wanted to do, this was a favor long in the coming. She made this cake for Christine, who introduced the cakemaker to the author of this blog, and Martin, a nice young German fellow who is rather obsessed with cowboy culture. As a compromise between Christine's ideas (classic wedding stuff, maybe with the color purple involved) with Martin's (last wedding cake at the OK corral), Lisa came up with the attached. The cowboy hat is a fondant covered rice krispie treat edged with gum paste. The purple bands around the cake are from the pattern of a leather gunbelt and holster that Martin sports around town. Not with an actual gun in it, of course, this being Berkeley and all.

Anyway, aside from the jitters arising from a neighbor's kid taking a bite of the frosting just before we had to deliver the cake, all went well. Bride and groom seemed happy, and sixty wedding guests ate pretty much the whole thing, including the hat. Good omen, that.

Teachable Moment

I think that's the term that more patient parents use whenever their children do something particularly vexing. We have our share of such moments around here, though they are not equally allocated on a per child basis - Aoife has few, due to, among other things, her limited language skills and mobility hindering significantly her efforts at sass and destruction, Conor has them fairly frequently, though given his propensity for reading while walking, brushing teeth and (turn away, safety mavens of america) skateboarding, it appears he may just not be teachable on that point, and Finn, sweet Finn, strings just enough moments of charm between his constant teachable moments that we have not yet succumbed to the temptation to send him to boarding school. Although sometimes it's close. All that being said, we are excited for summer in the Hennessey household. Aoife's plans include learning to walk and talk, Finn's include making cookies every weekend, and Conor intends to read for at least two hours a day. We're also going to the pool daily and spending nights on the street with the denizens of north Thomas. So, though all have different plans, they are united in their love for the summer, and the consequent end of school. But not so all children. One girl in particular, Ms Amy G, is enough of a fan of learning that for her summer birthday she requested the one thing she couldn't have - school. While we were not able to break into any of our local elementary educational institutions to host her party, Lisa did manage to put together a fairly nice school themed cake. I'm quite partial to the teacher's apple - it's a giant rice-krispie treat, sculpted, covered in fondant, and painted to look like a red delicious, and even my notoriously school averse boys appreciated the fondant pencil and crayons. Amy's mother (a tenacious attorney come tenacious teacher) paid the high compliment of only begrudgingly handing it over to her daughter, pointing out that this kind of cake is wasted on 8 year olds. I'm not sure if I totally agree; it's a fairly magical cake, and no one appreciates magic like an 8 year old.