Angel Food Cake

We went strawberry-picking yesterday morning. Our local pick-your-own just started up this past week, the berries were insanely bountiful, the sun was shining... It was just lovely. The girls ate them while we picked, and continued to eat piles of them in the car, starting before we even got out of the parking lot. They probably ate a few little spiders along with the berries, but whatever. (Also, very cute aside: Mimi's method of "picking" was to take berries out of my flat and go put them in Josh's.)

Strawberries don't keep very long so I wanted to make a shortcake or angel food cake to go with them. I decided on angel food cake, and figured I'd try baking one myself since they have like 2 ingredients in them (OK, 6) and I happened to have a lot of eggs in the fridge. I chose this recipe at random, I suspect they're all pretty much the same.

The one thing holding me back: separating the eggs. It grosses me out in such a big way. But I decided to pull up my big-girl pants and deal with the nauseating goo and glop, and I did it! I baked an angel food cake! From scratch!

The second-best part of making angel food cake is balancing it on a bottle while it's cooling.



The best part is eating it.



The cake came out great. I was surprised by how well it came out, by how "normal" it tasted -- meaning, how much it tasted like it came from boxed mix. :) If you ever feel the need for angel food, please bake it from scratch. Aside from separating TWELVE eggs (please don't make me talk about it anymore!), it seriously takes barely any more effort than making it from a box. It is so stupid-easy. And as I was wisely reminded by a pal on FB when I lamented the fact that I'd be SEPARATING A FREAKING DOZEN EGGS (OMG why will you guys not let me stop talking about this??), you can just always buy a carton of organic egg whites.

And also, am I the only person who thinks angel food cake sort of smells like wet dog? Anyhoo... Still delicious, wet dog and gross-out goo and all.

Happy(?) Birthday to Me

So, I had a birthday last week. Unfortunately, it came right after a long weekend, which meant the girlies were all burnt-out and miserable, which in turn made Josh and me a bit burnt-out and miserable. Long weekends just don't work well around here, the first 2 days were fabulous and fun-filled, and on Day 3 they were ready to go back to school and get back into their routine. It always seems to go that way.

So when we went out for dinner on Memorial Day to celebrate with them (Mexican! And ice cream!), all hell broke loose. By the time my piece of chocolate cake showed up with a candle, Josh had already forcably removed Delma from the premisis and I was left at the table alone with Mimi who was being very bossy and demanding that I draw circles on her placemat. Saddest little birthday cake candle-blowing ever. And all the naughtiness meant we had to nix the trip to Ashley's for ice cream. Sigh.

Then the next day was my actual birthday... Josh asked Delma's teacher to have the girls make me a card, but she forgot. We got a sitter and went out for a fabulous dinner, which was so great, but the waiters were supposed to do some special birthday thing and they forgot. More sigh. And also the gift Josh got me showed up in the mail for me several days before my birthday in an unmarked package so I unwittingly opened it with the rest of that day's mail by myself, so, you know, very nice but anticlimactic.

Like I say every year: There's always next year!