I didn’t have my camera with me for most of our 4th, but I did manage to take this sweet photo of my cousin with Claudine. She and her husband came over for brunch and a little stroll around our neighborhood. We later drove to our weekend (I mean parent’s) house (ha!) and after Claudine was tucked into bed for the night, Mark, Mia and I drove to get some ice cream and searched for some fireworks. We eventually saw some through the treetops coming from the beach and we pulled over, opened the door to the back of the wagon, and sat in the trunk to watch the colorful bursts. It was nice to be able to spend some one-on-one time with Mia, just like the old days when it was just the 3 of us before Claudine was born. But Mia kept saying things like “Claudine would really like this” or “Claudine should be here because she really likes ice cream”. So I guess even Mia thinks of us as being complete only when all 4 of us are together.

We made this small, 9″ chocolate cake for a friend last night and decided to leave most of the surface undecorated except for a shell border at the base. We really liked how smooth the cake looked. This morning I snipped a few purple johnny jump-ups (which are edible by the way) from our balcony for simple adornment. Mark’s been telling me that I’ve been eating a lot of buttercream lately. Um, thanks, Captain Obvious, but what else are we going to do with leftover buttercream?

Thanks for all your comments to the last post. I feel better today (actually, I don’t really feel like such a great mom today, but that’s a whole ‘nother long post). I think part of my problem, and one that I’ve always struggled with, is that I’m super goal oriented and I’m a bit scattered in my interests. For some reason I have a strong need to do everything, and so I don’t ever focus on just one thing, and what often ends up happening is that I don’t get anything done. Mark’s the opposite of me. He can be quite content with the situation on hand, whereas I start pacing around looking for the next challenge. I suppose that’s why it works for the most part. I would probably KILL another me!

I’ve been feeling a bit insecure the last few days. I seem to go through this cycle every few months where I get a bit down and begin to question the path we’re on when things get a little slow. Some of my smaller work projects got unexpectedly pushed back a few weeks which was welcome relief, but as much as I try not to, I start to get very antsy if I’m not working. I know that in a few short weeks I will get slammed as all my projects, big and small, will most likely start at the same time, so I’m trying to spend this unexpected free time drawing and sewing and not dwelling on the slow progress of things. How does one learn to relax? Is it something you can learn? I can’t stop my head from spinning with a million business ideas and projects and other things I want to accomplish. Mostly because I have this big responsibility to provide for my kids and I’ve convinced myself that climbing the corporate ladder is not the path to achieve this, at least not for me. Still, sometimes I get tired of “just getting by”. I thought by the time you reached your mid to late thirties you would have it figured out. Trying to figure out what you want to do when you grow up, at this age, is getting a bit old I must say.

I finally got around to making Mia a shirt today from an old Diesel top that doesn’t fit me anymore. The stripes and the coloring are pretty great so I’m happy to be able to repurpose it into a little shirt for her, like this dress, particularly because I’m not buying new clothes for the kids this summer. I have to say, even though I’m just a few pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight, I have no idea how I ever fit into these tiny tiny clothes. What the hell happened?

The wedding cake was delivered today, assembled on site, and probably long gone by now. Even though Mark has done a handful of simple wedding cakes during his time as pastry chef, this was the first one we did together. Can’t say it was free of minor disagreements and bickering, but I suppose that goes with the territory when you’re in business with your spouse. I think we’re pretty happy with the way it came together, though of course you always want the buttercream to be smoother and the bead borders to be more perfect, but all in all, the cake looked like, well, a wedding cake. We just hoped it survived the trip from restaurant refrigerator, up a steep flight of stairs to the outdoor patio without any incident. I swear you could put a dent in the buttercream if you just looked at it wrong! I now know why so many wedding cakes are covered in rolled fondant - it’s certainly smoother and sturdier, but fondant just doesn’t taste very good and we’re all about the taste.

I’m still convinced that I’ll be able to rock the icing flowers when I get around to practicing a few, but there’s nothing more festive than fresh flowers on a wedding cake. We used spikes filled with water inserted into the cake which made the dome flower topper fairy easy to compose. In addition to the cake flowers, I put together a half dozen smaller bouquets (posies, if you will) to place around the base of the cake (which I really hope the waitstaff did! They seemed a bit clueless as to what to do with the cake). Can you tell that I also want to be a floral designer? Mark and I joked that we could be a one-stop wedding shop: cake, favors (we also delivered cookie favors), floral arrangements, and graphic design for invitations, favors and place cards. And since we were (are?) both musicians in a former life, might as well throw in musical entertainment. Ha! I can’t really think of anything more stressful, actually!

We have quite a few odd-looking cake scraps leftover from trimming the sides and leftover buttercream, so I’m actually enjoying some cake right now. I must say, as nervous as I was about the whole thing, I do feel like we accomplished something today.

These flowers and this cake will be a wedding cake tomorrow afternoon for a reception in Williamsburg. 2 tier square lavender cake with lemon curd and vanilla lavender buttercream. Various white flowers as cake toppers and decoration.

You know, icing a cake is a lot like spackling. I wonder if construction workers would make good cake icers.

For some reason I have had a fried calamari craving for a very long time. Every time I order it in a restaurant I end up disappointed because it’s usually too soggy, greasy, or both. So while shopping the other day I made a bit of an impulse purchase and bought a 3 pound box of frozen squid for just 5 dollars - how could I pass that up? The only drawback was that they were not cleaned. Usually that would be no problem, as I’ve cleaned many a squid in my life, but this time they were the absolute smallest squid I have ever seen. Seriously, some were no bigger than my thumb. I spent close to an hour over the sink peeling off the skin, squeezing out the beak, cutting off the eyes - not too appetizing, is it?

I originally thought I’d make some kind of Mediterranean squid stew, but we had a marathon session with the sprinkler on the sidewalk and got home after 5:00. I had no choice but to fry it and try to satisfy my craving in the process. My experience with fried calamari goes all the way back to my days at Zoë, a popular restaurant in Soho that I worked at for many years. Sure, I worked in pastry, but the fry station was practically next to me, so I watched them fry batch after batch every single night. I even jumped in when they got really busy. And during a slow night all the cooks would keep in shape by doing the “calamari dance”, which emulates the vigorous shaking of the bowl as the ingredients are mixed prior to frying (yes, these are the things that keep restaurant cooks entertained). Anyway, their calamari is always super crispy as well as super tasty thanks to their special marinade and sauce. This recipe is based loosely on theirs. And yes, my craving is gone - for now.

Crispy Calamari (serves 4)

1-1/2 lbs. cleaned calamari (3 pounds uncleaned)
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 cup milk
1 cup flour
1 cup cornstarch
Oil for deep-frying

Clean the calamari, if necessary. Slice the bodies into 1/2-inch rings, and mix along with the tentacles in a large bowl. Mix in the garlic, soy sauce, salt, pepper, and milk. In a seperate bowl mix the flour and cornstarch. Set aside until you are ready to fry.

Heat plenty of oil (4 inches deep) in a heavy pot, or a deep-fryer if you have one. It should be very hot before you begin frying. When the oil is ready add the flour mixture to the marinated squid and mix well with your hand. Each piece should be coated with flour. Make sure that no pieces are stuck together with any kind of gluey mixture - just break it up and coat with flour again. Shake off any excess flour and add some squid to the fryer. Fry, stirring occasionally to keep the pieces separate, for a few minutes until it is golden and crispy. Remove from the fryer and place immediately on paper towels, then sprinkle with additional salt. Fry the rest of the squid in batches, taking care not to cook too much at once or the temperature of the oil will drop too much and it will end up very greasy. Serve immediately with your favorite dipping sauce.

I also made a quick minty salad using some of the leftover squid that night (the 3 pound box made a lot of calamari). Good thing my family loves squid.

…but only because I felt like Claudine was so behind in her gross motor development for most of her first 17 months. She never learned to crawl (and still can’t, although sometimes she tries and it’s pretty funny), walked late, and just seemed generally unmotivated to move. This was a baby who couldn’t pull up to standing or sit up from laying down until she was well over a year. I’d put her on her back on the floor to see if she would move and she’d just lay there. For an hour. Not rolling over or scooting or…anything. And this wasn’t at 5 months, this was at 11 months. She’d always been a mellow baby, and her ability to put herself to sleep by herself from a very early age without crying or fussing was the stuff of envy, but I also thought she was truly lazy. Most of the time I was too busy to really take note of her delays, but there were moments when I was really concerned that something was wrong. Maybe, just maybe, that bad car accident that we all closely escaped from when she was just 6 weeks old rattled her head more than we knew. The paramedics checked her out and she seemed ok at the time, but how could we really know? Why wasn’t she moving?

But you know, maybe all that laying around on her back was spent concentrating on listening to people speak because she is having a language explosion right now at 19 months. She actually walked by Mark yesterday and casually said “bye bye Daddy. See you later”. Wha??? She’s constantly surprising us like that. She can identify letters of the alphabet, sing the beginning of the ABC song, and name shapes like oval and triangle. She goes about her day narrating everything she does. Mia developed pretty much at the same pace, but because she seemed to do everything early, it didn’t take us too much by surprise.

Now, I know it’s annoying to hear other people talk about their kids all the time so I’ll stop. But I’m really proud of my little girl (who looks about 4 in that first photo, doesn’t she??)