"Duet"

I have to bake a cake. Through my own stupidity, or possibly unthinking generosity, I said I'd bake a carrot cake. That's 3 cups of grated carrots, and I don't have a food processor. I don't have carrots either. Or cream cheese for frosting. Or enough confectioners sugar. Or cake pans... (Making a list, checking it twice...)

My sister Gail came up with the idea to smash Aries birthdays together and have lunch. After a flurry of emails and phone calls, I warned Mom 8 - 15 people are coming over tomorrow. I suspect Mom is now in her own flurry of activity, picking up her piles of recent auction buys -- or she's yelling at my brother to pick it all up. There's a lot of noise currently going on in my head while I imagine everyone jumping into action.

"Duet" is a great description of how Gail and I fill our roles preparing a family meal. We each know our parts well, while menfolk park themselves in front of the TV or gather around some mechanical thing outside. I count it as a personal victory to have transferred potato peeling to men, but the rest of it is on us as we dance our parts in the kitchen, sometimes breaking out in an actual musical duet as the mood strikes us. Gail has a good voice when she applies herself. Both of her sons are quite gifted musically too.

I told Gail about Jane's recipe for rutabagas, but Sis says "NO!" Obviously we're both scarred by our bumper crops of rutabagas in childhood. We're going with asparagus instead, which has the added benefit of being the only cooked vegetable we're allowed to eat with our fingers if we choose to do so. Thanks Emily Post!

Happy birthday to Riley, Mom, Timmy, and Richard! Plus happy birthday to Craig, John, Lynne, Carly, and all of the Aries Marinos. Have I remembered everyone? I know there's a bunch of Aries pals in the blogging world too, but forgive me if I don't look up everyone's birthday to remind myself. There's a cake that needs baking. Just count yourself in my general wishes for happy Aries birthdays, and a happy weekend to everyone else!

P.S. I wrote this post this morning, then went shopping and borrowed necessaries. I thought this art would go fast, but alas, it took longer than intended. I stopped to get the cake is in the oven, which required breaking almost every rule I have about cooking. The first of which is to avoid appliances like a plague. It's far better to make an entire meal with one pan and one spoon. Carrot cake requires the food processor, mixer, carrot peeler, knife, spatula, bowl, spoon, beaters for the mixer, cutting board, cake pans, cooling racks, cake plate... This is ridiculous! On top of that, it requires me to break my other essential motto -- measuring is for cowards. (Okay, maybe I just don't like being told what to do?) AND NOW, I have to wash all that stuff so I can make frosting!

P.P.S. I was thinking "never again" while I was cleaning up, and licked the beater. OMG is that good!!! Maybe I'll forget about the mess and do it again another time?

CORRECTION!

The birthday party went great and the cake was a hit. Everyone laughed when my sister read this blog while we were sitting around after lunch. However, I had said the men wouldn't help, but as you can see, my brother Chris is in the kitchen scooping out seeds from a cantaloupe. Photographic evidence that men can and sometimes do help! He's even demonstrating composting, by putting the melon guts in the appropriate container.

My brother Brian also helped by preparing the asparagus. I said I would blog about that, but he said "No! People will think I'm a wuss!" So I said I'd blog his response instead, which for some reason is more acceptable than actually snapping the ends off of asparagus??

I'm not allowed to show pictures of cute children, so I'll just show evidence of their presence instead. My niece and my nephew's daughter had a bucket of chalk in the driveway and demonstrated artistic skills run in the family :)