Small Adventures are Still Adventures

Recently, a friend referred to me as adventurous.  I had to laugh - I'm as risk-averse as a person could be.  I have no interest in sky diving, mountain climbing, or any of the activities normally considered adventurous.  I lack the thrill-seeker gene and get no adrenaline rush from things that excite others.  I am an extreme advanced planner and hate spontaneity.  "I'm a lot of things," I told her, "but adventurous is not one of them."   

"No," she insisted, "you are a very adventurous person.  Small adventures are still adventures."  I realized she was right.  I'm a risk-averse, non-thrill-seeking, advanced-planner who actively seeks and creates small adventures all the time.  

Case in point: there's a new-ish gourmet donut shop in town, so in April I suggested that for our May MOMS Club brunch, we order a bunch of different donuts and do a formal taste-test with scorecards and crown a winner.  Everyone liked the idea, so that's exactly what we did.  I made up a scorecard.  Each donut could earn up to 3 smily faces for appearance, 5 for flavor, and 2 for originality.  I printed enough scorecards for everyone, then headed over to Red Devil Donuts to select some of their most interesting and appealing donuts for our taste-test.

We started with The Ozzy, described as a red velvet donut with blackberry glaze and chocolate drizzle. It was very pretty and smelled great.  We awarded appearance and originality points, then moved on to tasting.  While it was yummy and fresh, there was no discernible blackberry taste.  The chocolate taste was very mild.

We moved on to The CHP, a cake donut topped with maple glaze and Applewood bacon.  We had quite a bit of discussion about this one.  We loved the fresh, soft, and sweet cake donut, the flavorful maple glaze, and the perfect balance of salty/sweet that the bacon provided.  We all agreed - this was a really good donut.

Our third donut was The Curse, described as a raised donut with peanut butter icing and chocolate covered pretzels.  We spent some time debating whether these are 'chocolate covered pretzels' or not (barely).  We liked the donut, but there was a bit too much of the very-sweet frosting and the chocolate/peanut balance wasn't quite right.  We felt the whole pretzels made it a bit difficult to eat and would have preferred them broken into pieces (and actually covered in chocolate).      

Next up was The 50/50 Bar.  According to the menu, it is a vanilla creme filled long john dipped in orange glaze.  Um... no.  It was not filled; the creme was globbed on top.  It was not dipped; the glaze was clearly drizzled.  This could have been a beautiful donut.  I gave it one happy face out of three for appearance and that was very generous.  Now that I'm looking at the photos, I'm wondering what I was thinking awarding it even one.  

I'm not sure why, but I hate pastry creme, so the big globs of it on the donut were extremely unappealing to me.  I loved the orange glaze though.  The others liked this donut more than I did, as everyone else thought the creme was tasty (though all wondered why it was on top instead of inside as advertised).     

Our fifth donut was The Cricket, a chocolate cake donut with mint green icing and mini chocolate chips.  I had the highest hopes for this one.  I love mint and I love chocolate and I especially love them together.  The green was so pretty, but the where are the mini chocolate chips?  I count exactly three standard-size chocolate chips.  We each took a bite.  What the heck?!  It's not peppermint, it's spearmint.  It was so weird (and not in a good way).  What a disappointment when I'd been expecting this to be my favorite.    

The final donut was The Ultimate Sin, described as a chocolate cake donut with chocolate icing, chocolate creme, and one truffle topped with a shake of cocoa powder.  Our first observation - this is a really ugly cupcake... and it's missing the cocoa powder.  It was very difficult to cut into small pieces because of the very dense truffle hidden in the center.  When we tasted it, we were disappointed once more.  I hated the creme (everyone else said it was fine), but the donut itself did not have a deep or rich chocolate flavor like we'd expected.  

We totaled up all the points.  Here's my scorecard.

Time to declare the overall winner!  Starting from the bottom, the loser was The Cricket with an average of 4.5 points out of 10.  In 5th place was The Ultimate Sin, with an average of 5.0 points.  Fourth place went to The Curse, with 6.0 points.  In 3rd place was The 50/50 Bar with 6.5 points.  There was a tie for 1st place between the Ozzy and the CHP, both of which averaged 7.5 points.

We had a blast with this!  It's always going to be fun to get together with friends and eat donuts, but turning it into a taste-test added so much to the experience.  We'll definitely be doing something like this again.  

Small adventures are still adventures.

My Creative Dad - Intarsia

I've mentioned several times that my dad is a very talented woodworker.  He's done a huge variety of wood-related projects over the years (furniture, cabinetry, picture frames, shelving, etc.), in addition to large-scale projects like home additions.  But his favorite hobby is intarsia.

Intarsia is a woodcraft in which the artist uses different sizes, shapes, and species of wood and fits them together to make a picture.  There is no staining or painting - all color comes from the choice of wood.  It is a very time-consuming and exacting art.  The results are stunning.

My dad has made hundreds over the past 15 years or so.  We have around a dozen or so on display in our house, plus another handful that are seasonal and come out for Christmas.  My parents have a couple dozen of his pieces on display in their house as well.  The last time I visited, I snapped pictures of a few of my favorites.  Remember, all the color is the natural color of the wood.

 

This USA piece is about 5 feet across.

 

I'm blown away by the colors and patterns in this fruit bowl.

 

Isn't the cornucopia amazing?

 

His designs come from a variety of sources.  He buys some patterns from Judy Gale Roberts and creates his own patterns from coloring books and photographs.  One of the coolest was the Trouble intarsia he made for Trevor for Christmas 2011.

I've made exactly one intarsia project in my life.  It was a very simple Winnie-the-Pooh that I made for a friend's baby shower gift back in 1993.  I know I have a picture of it somewhere, but I haven't found it yet.  After working on such a very easy project with so few pieces, my appreciation for my dad's amazing artwork rocketed.  He makes it look so easy, always a sign of talent and many years of practice.

Happy 65th birthday Dad!  I love you.

Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and....

At least once a month, a friend hands me something unusual and asks, "Can you use this in your crafting?"  It's never normal stuff, like fabric scraps, or glitter, or egg cartons.  No, it's weird stuff.  Like this:

 

It's a full box (12) of extra large rubber finger tips.  And by "extra large" they mean "far too big for human use."  Someone at a friend's work purchased this huge size and couldn't use them. Since she didn't know any giants, she passed them along to me.

They sat on the back corner of my desk for at least 8 months.  I knew there was a craft in there somewhere, but I just couldn't find it.  One day, I was tired of them sitting on the desk, so I opened the box and lined up 4 of them in plain sight where they would inspire me.    

Within minutes, I knew what to make.  I grabbed the paint and did a test run to see if acrylic paint would stick to the rubber.  Yes!  I grabbed my beloved microtip scissors and carefully cut little triangles out of the bottom of the four finger tips.  Then I painted them.  One red, one pink, one green, and one orange.  When they were dry, I added googly eyes.

I rooted around the craftroom to find some yellow cardstock and a clear lid to make a quick accessory.  Then I lined them all up to take this picture.  

Obviously, the Pac-Man needs work.  Eventually, I'll probably think of a cute way to make a Pac-man that will stand up.  I might need to resort to clay or something similar.  In the meantime, I'm really happy with my Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and .... do you remember the orange ghost's name? It's Clyde.  Just a little '80s trivia for you.  If you got it right, you're totally tubular.

Happy Birthday Suzanne!

Today I'm joining the rest of the Flamingo Scraps Design Team in wishing Suzanne a very happy birthday!  Each of us made a card using Flamingo Scraps supplies.

Do you recognize the supplies I used?  They're leftovers from the six months I've been the Flamingo Four Coordinator!  Here's a rundown:

• November Flamingo Four:  I used the Clam Bake Glimmer Mist to give some color and shine to the paper that holds the sentiment.

• December Flamingo Four:  A little grey paint transformed the Maya Road chipboard frame into a resting place for the initial.

• January Flamingo Four: The only item still left from January was the sparkly Pink Paislee Vintage Vogue button.  It adds fun shine to the card.

• February Flamingo Four: The base of the card is Heidi Swapp "Vintage Chic" patterned paper.  There's a subtle ledger print on the B-side, which provided nice, straight guidelines for writing my message on the inside.

• March Flamingo Four: The yellow and striped papers are Pink Paislee's "Indigo Bleu."  I love the colors and subtle patterns.

• April Flamingo Four:  The S is from Pink Paislee's 'Parisian Anthology' Corrugated Alphabet.  This was only the second letter I've used from the package, so expect to see these pop up plenty of times in the future!

I had so much fun challenging myself to use up the leftovers! It was tempting to skip a month (I'm looking at you, January button...) but in the end I think the card shows a perfect marriage of Flamingo Scraps products and my style.

You can see all the other designers' cards over at Flamingo Scraps.  Be sure to wish Suzanne a very happy birthday when you're there!   

Whole Orange Cake

I've mentioned our prolific orange tree many times.  This year, there are more oranges than ever before, which just didn't seem possible.  We eat oranges morning, noon and night. We've given dozens away.  The tree is still full.  It's May.  As far as problems go, it's a great problem.  

Last year, I discovered a recipe for Blender Quick Orange Bread that literally uses the whole orange, peel and all.  I was extremely wary about a bread made from orange peels and pith, but it was delicious and I've made it several times since.  Then I discovered another whole-orange recipe, Orange Cookies. Also delicious.

Now that I know that orange peels and pith do indeed make delicious baked goods, I was really excited to find a recipe for Whole Orange Cake in the March 2013 issue of Sunset Magazine.  I went outside and picked some good-sized oranges, washed them, cut them into chunks, and threw them in the blender.  Then I measured out 1.5 cups.  

 

The batter came together quickly and easily and smelled really good.

 

The house smelled amazing while it was baking.  The cake looked perfect when I removed it from the pan.  It was hard to wait to add the glaze.  

 

The verdict?  Absolutely fantastic!  Another great recipe to add to my file of what to do with a bumper crop of oranges.  

Anyone have any other great recipes using oranges?