I Am Ironman

Malia’s birthday is a few weeks away, and as such, this evening was her birthday celebration at my parents’ house. Over the past few weeks, she has begun to dig into the massive tangle of movies that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It started with her watching a few Spiderman movies so that she could see the newest one in the theater with some friends and have the necessary background info needed to understand the plot. From there, she began delving into the beginning of this massive franchise, going back to the early Ironman and Captain America films. 

Somewhere along the way, she decided that she wanted an Ironman cake for her birthday. And this may seem hard to believe seeing that Matthew wore his Ironman costume every day for about three years, but I have never made an Ironman cake. I made Ironman cupcakes as part of the Avengers birthday party Daniel requested many years ago, but never an actual cake. Being that she is a teenager, and a highly opinionated one at that, the design was entirely in Malia’s hands. I tossed suggestions at her and showed her pictures of cakes posted on Pinterest, but the final decision concerning design came about after Kevin suggested she use Lego. 

The cake was one of the simpler ones I’ve decorated because all I had to do was frost it red and slap Ironman on top. But it was still highly effective and super fun! The cake itself was Malia’s favorite combination-vanilla cake with raspberry filling. And seeing that it was a traditional egg cake, I used a cake soak to make the layers extra moist and delicious. Egg-free cake is too delicate to hold up under a generous application of simple syrup which is why I’ve never tried it before, but let me tell you, I’ve been converted. It really did make the cake delightfully moist. It was enjoyed by all, and Malia and I came home with just enough cake left over for us to enjoy another slice tomorrow.

We will be sending Matthew pictures of this cake. I kind of suspect that Malia’s choice was influenced by the fact that Ironman is one of Matthew’s all-time favorites. And the fact that one of her first words was, “Ah-mah!” Meaning “Ironman.” She misses him and while her deep dive into the Avengers movies is the main motivation for this year’s cake theme, I suspect that it was also influenced by the fact that little things like this remind her of her big brother.

Genesis of a Neurosis

Ok. Full Disclosure. I have a serious issue with spiders. Growing up I was just fine. I live in an unfinished basement and that meant lots and lots of spiders. I didn’t let them take over or anything, but if I happened to come across one, it was no biggie to just smash that little (or big) creeper and be on my way. But then, when I was in high school, my friends and I decided to go see a movie and me, being super-duper smart in that moment, didn’t think to ask what we were seeing. I knew my friends had the same values I did and wasn’t concerned that I would end up in a theater watching a bunch of naked people running around or anything like that, so I just went along with the plan. We ended up seeing Arachnophobia and even then, at the outset, I didn’t have a problem. Unfortunately for me, partway through the movie there was a scene where one of those arachnids crawled into a guy’s ear. Havoc ensued and that was the death knell for my peaceful coexistence with spiders.

You see, we watched a lot of Star Trek at my house while I was growing up. And there is this whole plot line in the 1982 Wrath of Khan where a super creepy bug thing crawls into people’s ears and takes control. There is one scene where one of those critters crawls back out amidst blood and death and it very seriously creeped me out. Pretty much traumatized me for life. I could never watch that movie again. Even as an adult, I can’t watch it. And earwigs? They are on my zero-tolerance list. Not only do they look an awful lot like that giant Star Trek bug, but they have the word “ear” right in their name. Which of course, reminds me about bugs crawling into ears!

So, when I watched a spider crawl into an ear while sitting in a dark theater surrounded by my teenage cronies, all of a sudden that cast arachnids into a whole new, super creepy, childhood trauma kind of light. And I have never been the same. There was an occasion when I was living in that same basement, albeit a different room, after I graduated from college and came home late and night to find a massive spider on the bedroom wall. The beast was huge! And I knew there was absolutely no way that I was taking my eyes off that thing to let it crawl who knows where until I fell asleep and left my ears available to occupy. No. Freaking. Way. But I also knew that if I crushed it with one of my shoes, I would never be able to wear that shoe again without some serious heebie jeebies coming into play. And so, what did I do? I scampered across the hall, grabbed one of Rachael’s super chunky shoes, and killed that spider dead. The thing was so big that I heard it pop when I smashed it. [insert full body shudder here] It was seriously disgusting. 

Now that I’ve laid bare the origins of my very own arachnophobia (I think it’s kind of ironic that the name of the movie ended up being one of my actual fears), let me tell you what happened today. I was having a massage and as usual, the room was dim and quiet, very relaxing, very peaceful. Then all of a sudden, my massage therapist freaked out. She jerked and began cussing and while I was face down and couldn’t actually see her, I could sense her shudders and revulsion. She then proceeded to tell me that a spider had just dropped down from the ceiling onto my back. Which was sans clothing since I was in the middle of a massage. And what did I do? I calmly laid there and didn’t even freak out while she grabbed some tissues and killed that creepy bugger. Luckily for me, it was small enough that I couldn’t feel it crawling around. Because if I had, there would be absolutely no way that I could have held onto my calm demeanor. Even as I type this, all the hair on my arms is standing up and I’m wondering how in the world I managed to avoid screaming at her to, “Get it off me, get it off me, get it off me!” But at the time I was cool as a cucumber. And that’s what counts, right? 

So today, I feel like I accomplished a great feat. I faced…sort of…a spider and came out the champion. I wasn’t the one who actually killed it, but neither did I panic because it had a straight shot from my naked back to my exposed ear. 

As a conclusion to this peek into my disturbed psyche, I didn’t tell Rachael about the shoe until about ten years later. We were both married and had little kids by then and to her credit, she just laughed and asked which shoe I used. That’s one pretty amazing sister. 😂

Pretend Pyrotechnics

An excessively mild winter followed by even less precipitation than normal and scorching temperatures over the past weeks means that the risk of wildfires is even greater than normal this year. With that in mind, the governor has banned fireworks for this holiday season so that we don’t set the entire state on fire. So in lieu of real fireworks, we created a zero-risk alternative right here at home. While the pancake version might not be as awe inspiring, they were definitely tasty! And there was no risk of flames getting out of control.😉

Forecast

According to Matthew, this is the predicted weather in his mission field.

Apparently, it is pretty hot. 😜

Small World

This past week was the transition between mission presidents in Matthew’s mission. Matthew has been a bit anxious about the change as initially his entire mission would be spent with Pres. H and there was a lot of trust and love there. But now that Matthew has met Pres. M, he is at his ease with a new mission president who he describes as funny and happy and loving. When they met, Matthew immediately asked for a picture with him. Why, you might ask? Because last week, he got an email from Ally, his best friend, who is currently in the MTC. Apparently, Pres. M taught her class in the MTC and knowing that he was heading to Arkansas as Matthew’s new mission president, she had to take a picture with him and send it off to Matthew. President was pleasantly surprised by the connection and was more than happy to comply with the request.

Matthew’s second small world moment this week also involved Ally. Aliese, Cory’s youngest daughter, was in the MTC prior to heading to the Texas Fort Worth Mission, which coincidentally is the same mission in which Nathan served. Ally found her while they were both in the MTC and again, sent Matthew a picture.

So, it has been a small world week for Matthew. And sometimes I think those moments make him feel just a little bit closer to the friends and family he loves, even though they are far away.

She Ate America

The 4th of July is on Saturday, so this week feels red, white and blue all over. Kevin decided that he wants homemade ice cream for the actual holiday, and I was quick to comply because not only has it been a long time since we’ve made ice cream, but right now we can use actual dairy products! But the ice cream won’t be in patriotic colors, and I found that I was feeling a bit deprived by the lack of food coloring. So today I whipped up a batch of spritz cookies and made good use of said food coloring to make some patriotic cookies. 

But there was a learning curve to making tri-colored spritz cookies. The dough obviously needs to be soft enough to work in a cookie press, but when it was freshly mixed, it was so soft that the colors mushed all together and I ended up with a purplish tie dye effect, which was not what I was aiming for. Being a fairly experienced cookie baker, I chilled the dough and then shaped it into logs which yielded better results in that the tie die was now red, white and blue. I was happier with that but thought if I popped the dough in the freezer for a few minutes, I could get more clearly defined colors. While that approach worked, the dough was too stiff to actually come out of the press, so I ended up needing to wait about half an hour for the dough to warm back up to room temperature.

The end results were rather surprising for me. The very first purplish cookies were my least favorite because as lovely a color as it is, purple just doesn’t evoke patriotic thoughts. The last cookies with the clearly defined areas of red, white and blue were next in line going from least to most preferred. I thought I would like those the most and was somewhat surprised that I didn’t. My favorite cookies were the ones created in the middle of this adventure, the ones with three distinct American colors in a variety of tie dyed and speckled forms. 

As for Malia, she got to lick four beaters and scrape out three cookie dough bowls, so she was a happy camper. She says that she ate America.

Benefits

While she generally dislikes being the lone wolf cub left in the den, Malia has discovered that there are perks. Like the fact that she doesn’t have to fight Nathan over who will get to eat the last of the fruit salad right out of the serving bowl. 

Let Him Eat Cake! (And Frosting)

When Matthew was first diagnosed with a plethora of food allergies and I hit the internet to try to gather some tips on how to deal with the new situation in which I found myself, I discovered that there were many food allergy kids who had never had a birthday cake. They had Jell-o every year or Rice Krispy treats stacked up in a tower or whatever else their moms could come up with. And for me, someone whose mom made sure I celebrated each birthday with a cake in whatever flavor and shape I wanted, it seemed like the saddest thing ever. I decided right then that my child would not be so deprived. Milk and egg allergies be d****d, I was going to learn how to make a birthday cake for my kid. (Yes, I almost swore just now. It is a mark of just how vehement my feelings are on this particular topic.) And so, in tandem with learning how to cook nourishing and kid friendly meals without all the offending ingredients, I set to work learning how to bake an allergen free cake.

I remember that Nathan’s birthday was just a couple of months away, and there were many trial runs as I tried a variety of different approaches to the cake conundrum so that Matthew could celebrate with his big brother. Allergen free substitutes like commercial egg replacers were far fewer in number and much harder to find back then, so there really was a whole lot of experimentation. Many people told me it couldn’t be done. In fact, lots of people told me you could make cupcakes but not a bigger cake because the batter was just not stable enough without eggs. Skeptics be d****d, I was determined to make it work. And eventually, I did. It took time and there were some colossal fails along the way, but out of sheer determination and a refusal to accept that my son would not have cake on his second birthday, I managed to find success. Let me say that it is definitely harder without eggs. It’s just the nature of the chemistry of cake. But it can be done. And Matthew had the cake to prove it. 

With that tidbit of backstory, you will understand that as I’ve faced my most recent margarine conundrum, being able to make frosting is high up on my list. Because let’s face it. That Kermit cake would lose a little something without the frosting. So yesterday I made a tiny test cake (egg free using the homemade margarine) and frosting using my normal recipe (also with the homemade margarine) to see if it would work. And the end result was ok. Not fabulous, but definitely passable. And with some time to get used to the differences, I think it will work just fine.

The texture was a bit weird, which was initially rather off-putting. Rather than being fluffy or creamy, the frosting was sticky. That stickiness made it hard to smooth out, but when I ran my offset spatula in hot water and then dried it, that little bit of residual heat smoothed the frosting out beautifully. I didn’t take a lot of time to make it pretty, but that lower melting point of the coconut oil did make the frosting respond well to a bit of heat. Due to that lower melting point, I was concerned that the frosting would not be stiff enough to create a dam for filling, but that was not an issue. The frosting provided plenty of structure. I was also concerned that the stickiness would be unpleasant on the tongue, but surprisingly, it was not. Yes, it was definitely a bit different, but the flavor was fine and the difference in texture was negligible when paired with the cake. The frosting did develop an oily sheen on the surface when left on the counter in a container overnight, so storing in the fridge and letting the cake come to room temperature before serving would probably be the way to go. I didn’t try piping the frosting, but based on my experience creating the filling dam, I suspect it will work just fine. Unlike my usual buttercream, it was spreadable right out of the fridge today, although it would likely need a few minutes at room temperature to make it soft enough to frost a cake.

Overall, I’m calling this a success. While the texture is slightly different, so is the texture of an egg-free cake. And it’s not a deal breaker. As with the cake, I suspect that some time spent working with this rendition of frosting will help me figure out all its little idiosyncrasies and learn how to make it work for me. And realistically, I will likely search out a few different recipes and extend the experimentation. Because anyone who knows me well knows that’s what I do any time I’m not 100% pleased with the end results of a food endeavor. The whole try, try again mantra is pretty well ingrained in my psyche.

So, with cookies, cake, frosting, yeast bread, and pie crust successfully tested, I feel like this homemade margarine really might be a workable option. It also melts nicely on the griddle when making pancakes and such. It has its caveats, of course, like the fact that it doesn’t last as long in the fridge due to the lack of staggering amounts of preservatives, but I can work with that. I just store it in the freezer until I’m ready to use it. Making the margarine is a bit finicky and definitely more work than just driving to the store, but we do what we have to do, right? I’m figuring out all the best tips and tricks and what not to do’s to get the most consistent results possible. And over time, like all our other allergy adjustments, it will become a normal routine. Not that I won’t continue to keep looking for an option that we can buy, but at least we have a solution to the butter dilemma.

RIP Nucoa. You will be missed.