Freaky Friday

Red Velvet Cupcake

Do you remember the movie where the child and parent switch bodies and live the other person's life?  Well that has happened at our home as of late.

In the past week and a half I made a butternut squash & apple soup, molasses cookies, and, last night, cupcakes.  This from a man who never cooks (the running joke is that when I cook we go out!).  To be fair, it isn't that I can't cook because I can-as long as I have a recipe in front of me.  I just don't usually cook because I'm married to someone who cooks much better than myself (and most others) and doesn't need a recipe to work from.

It's funny how things can drive you to do something.  The soup came about from a new restaurant that we lunched at one day.  They served an apple butternut squash soup as an appetizer.  I had never had it, and it was so good.  I wanted to see if we could recreate it so I could have it whenever I wanted.  And, now I can.

The molasses cookies were a lightning strike moment.  There is a soup place (not the same place as the apple butternut squash soup, go figure) that sells these molasses ginger cookies.  Ross and I will split one every so often when we eat there.  While we were at the Bethlehem Garlic Festival getting seed garlic for our vegetable garden (you plant garlic in the fall) we perused a sugar house's booth.  They had blackstrap molasses.  I had the "Aha!" moment that I could make molasses cookies myself.  They were good.  The next day Ross kept helping himself to a cookie every time he went through the kitchen.  Payback!

The cupcakes...
The genesis of the cupcakes starts with Ross playing with Max, then Ross running backwards from Max, and then Ross falling down and hurting most of his right side (and thankfully not falling on Max).  Last night, as he sat on the couch aching, he asked what's for dessert.  We've been together for almost ten years.  I don't think that question was ever uttered to me in all that time!  Not one to let my guy down, I picked up the laptop and started looking for a dessert.  I chose a red velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting recipe.  I looked at the ingredients and was mentally thinking what I would need to go get at the grocery-cream cheese, confectioners sugar...  I started going over the ingredients list with Ross.

I have this joke about a woman's purse that it is a gateway to a second dimension.  It's one of those things a woman can put her hand into and pull out just about anything, and I mean anything.

I guess Ross' cupboards are the same.  I didn't have to go to the grocery store for one thing (not cream cheese, not sour cream, not powdered cocoa, not even red food coloring-though the recipe called for a bit more than what we had).  Ross continually leaves me speechless.  Well, I whipped him up a batch of red velvet cupcakes, and they seem to be a hit.  Of course now I'm thinking I better stop while I'm ahead.  If I keep this going he might try to make this Freaky Friday thing permanent!

On another note, we had visited our local potter earlier this summer, and he mentioned that he made pie plates.  Ross and I both looked at each other in astonishment.  How did we not know this?  Of course, to our chagrin, he did not have any at that time as someone had come in and bought every single one he had.  Guy, our local potter's name is Guy Wolff, told Ross to bring in his favorite pie plate and he would make him one to his specifications.  Well, every time we remembered to bring the pie plate we never made it there or he wasn't there himself.  Today we finally got there with Ross's pan and to our luck and amazement Guy had several plates already made that were quite similar to the one Ross brought.  We bought two; the one with the cross hatches was closest to Ross' favorite in size and wall slope while the second was sentimental to me.  It is glazed with the outline of Mt. Tom Pond which is a state park down the road from our house.  The design includes an outline of the pond, Mt. Tom itself, and the tower that sits upon it.  The park sits in three towns (Washington, Litchfield and Morris) which are listed in the border around the pan.  So why is this so special?

First, Ross and I have lived in two places since we moved to Connecticut.  The first was in Washington and the second (our current home) sits in both Morris and Litchfield. These are the three towns listed on the plate.  Second, this park is really close to our home.  We pass it several times every week.  It is part of the landscape that I consider our home.  I look at it every time I pass it.  In every season it is beautiful (my most favorite is at Christmastime when this one lone person on the other side of the pond lights up a single pine tree that sits on the water's edge).  Finally, I have fond memories hiking there with Ross.  Note that we took our blog profile picture while we were on the top of the Mt. Tom tower.  The view from the top is breathtaking.

As I said the pie plate was sentimental to me.  Add to it that our favorite potter made it and Ross is destined to add his own charm to it from years of baking, and you have an heirloom in the making.  I bet the pie made on this plate will taste just a bit sweeter, at least to me!