snugger

You make chocolate ganache covered cupcakes and deftly (and not so deftly in some cases) apply small balls in the shape of their initial. But sometimes all this effort is just not enough to make them happy…

Was it the orange suit? Or the fact that as you’re only a month old, you’re actually not going to get to eat any of the cakes? (Well, not directly anyway).

Whatever it was, I’m sorry baby. We love you you know.

Elizabeth Jane Marshall. 22 June 2007.

Happy Birthday you cutie you.

I’m not overly fond of South Park. Which is a bit like saying that my dad is not overly fond of broccoli. In fact, it’s a hideous understatement. But even I could not resist this toy, found courtesy of button.

It’s kind of scary how accurate it is, although Gary’s hair doesn’t quite stick to his head like that, him having mad professor grade curl going on (even when it’s only a cm or so long). I’m also missing a rather obvious bump on the front, but black is slimming you know.

And please don’t miss the irony of the teddy bear. I couldn’t resist.

I mean really raining. None of this namby-pamby drizzling that evaporates before it hits the ground. Actual drops of rain soaking the garden.

If the plants could get out of their beds I’d probably be seeing them go by in a mega-happy conga line past the window, led by the fledgling lemon tree.

Good Friday indeed.

Thank you God.

(And please let some of this be going into our dams. Double thank you.)

It’s obviously a societal thing. If you have a baby, you want things with teddies on. I mean, don’t you?

Um, no. Not all of us actually want everything to have teddies on. Some of us have gone as far as to knit a black jumper and booties (pics to follow when I’ve managed to sew them up) to counter all the pastel-teddy stuff that is otherwise floating their way.

Now, there are certain members of my family that will argue that I like teddies (well, stuffed toys). I shall not deny it. Indeed I cannot deny it. I have a soft spot for soft toys. I have even made soft toys. And shall continue to do so. But I would counter-argue that a soft toy and a picture of a soft toy is a different thing. Just as a vase of fresh flowers is a wonderful thing, but a painting of a vase of flowers doesn’t have quite the same effect.

I’m also not saying that I abhor all things with teddies on. I bought a rather nice wrap with a bear and rabbit on it, and a towel with Paddington Bear (who is of course, a teddy, really). But one can go too far.

As I have been told many times though. Babies grow out of things quickly, you won’t be looking at the things for too long. But still. The selfish part of my nature is pained that society’s stereotypes are being enforced on my child before it’s even been born, and unless I spend a lot of money and/or time buying or making the clothes/blankets/whatever I’d be happier with, there’s nothing I can do about it.

And why is this even annoying me? I don’t know. Perhaps it’s the jealous maternal instinct kicking in already. The desire to keep my baby safe from, well, everything.

And of course that includes aggravating, but ridiculous, things that will have no bearing on their life whatsoever.

Probably.

Reading this post over at Yarnstorm reminded me of one of my pet peeves.

Why, oh why do people label food as wicked? It’s not exclusively used for chocolate (I’ve seen it used in the context of potato wedges in one of our cookbooks, as well as ice cream), but that is most frequently what it’s used for.

Let’s have a look…

According to dictionary.com, wicked is:

1. evil or morally bad in principle or practice; sinful; iniquitous
2. mischievous or playfully malicious
3. distressingly severe, as a storm, wound, or cold
4. unjustifiable; dreadful; beastly
5. Having a bad disposition; ill-natured; mean
6. spiteful; malevolent; vicious
7. extremely troublesome or dangerous
8. unpleasant; foul

With the exception perhaps of number 3, all of those definitions speak to me as describing an animate object (though 4, 7 & 8 could be for both animate and inanimate). Something with a will of it’s own. Last time I checked, neither chocolate nor potato wedges were alive and kicking. Neither were they unpleasant or foul.

Perhaps the term has come into use because it’s common knowledge that if something is bad for you, you will invariably want to have it. Therefore marketing food as wicked means it’ll sell better? I’m not a marketing expert so I wouldn’t know. (Though I also wouldn’t put it past a marketing department to come up with something like that).

Perhaps really, they’re using this definition of the word:

9. Slang. wonderful; great; masterful; deeply satisfying

I have definitely tasted both wedges and chocolate that fall under that description.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure that the majority of the population see it that way. Or perhaps I’m just stuck in an archaic time warp thinking that words don’t change their meaning. Perhaps I really am the only one that hears that food is wicked and think they mean it’s evil.

Whatever the case, let’s assume for the sake of my rant that wicked = evil, and that most people would read it that way. What does that then say? Your food is very naughty. It is making you eat it so that you feel bad. It is making you eat it so that you put on weight when really you don’t want to. It is the axis of evil in your life! You are powerless against the mighty will of the Kit-Kat!

Um. Whatever happened to personal responsibility? Your food is inanimate. It cannot make you do anything. If you ignore it you will starve, if you consume too much you will gain weight. If people can sue companies for giving them hot coffee, why not sue companies whose food made them overweight?

Please, don’t take that as a real suggestion.

Ok, and just to make sure you realise I’m a complete nutso about this particular topic, I’m going to introduce a quasi-religious bent to it all. Feel free to wander off now, though it’s almost over, promise. Two of the major chocolate producers here in Australia have in the last year or so introduced a new range to their product lines. One is called ‘Heaven’, and the other ‘Eden’. So we have a product named for the two places on, or off, earth where everything is perfect. As it was intended to be.
But you’ve been led to believe that it’s inherently evil.
Mmm hmm.

This is not a conspiracy theory, I’m just saying that it’s kind of insidious.

Ok, rant over. I believe we have one square of Green & Black’s mint chocolate left in the house. And I believe I’m going to eat it…

I must admit, buying toys for oneself is fun. But buying toys for your unborn child is even more fun, because you can delude yourself that they’ll love it as much as you do. Though who wouldn’t love a velvety soft Babar?

(I guess one of the critics mentioned in the above wikipedia article probably wouldn’t, but that’s their loss, the sourpusses)

Anyway, as Gary quite rightly pointed out to me, it would be odd to have a Babar toy if the child has no reference to who Babar actually is. And then helpfully told me that he had a 25% off voucher for a children’s book at Borders. (The man has a will of iron. His new year’s resolution was to buy no books for 6 months, but he gets Borders vouchers emailed to him every week). I really, truly, did not need an excuse to spend more money on books (I just bought 6 for my course and an extra 2 for good measure), but seeing as we have in the past flippantly discussed a “Library Acquisition Plan” (I kid you not, these are the kind of people we are), nearly 6 months pregnant seemed a fine time to start on it. I mean, just last night someone told me that pregnancy is the time of your life when you can really be self-indulgent without feeling horribly guilty about it.

Speaking of which, I was hoping to be very self-indulgent by knitting a black jumper for Snuglet. I had a nice easy pattern picked out from this book, found an Australian online yarn shop that had the correct yarn (why faff with substitutions when you can use the right stuff for twice the price?), and sat back contentedly to wait for my package.

The universe is conspiring against me. I received an email today to say that they’re out of stock of the black, did I want something else? They did recommend another yarn, but it had a much higher wool content and anyway, I’m a beginner. I want to know that it’s going to work without too much fuss. So I went with chocolate brown instead. I’m still getting the other yarn in black though, so there. Black booties are better than nothing.

For some bizarre reason, some unknown spamming source has picked on this post to leave “comments”. Why that post? It’s obviously because I mentioned ninjas.

Bother.

Now I’ll get spammed on this one too.

Just forget I said anything about secretly cunning people who like to dress in black.

Anyway, I don’t want to follow your links to “online pharmaceutical stores”, and I don’t think anyone else does either. I realise that the chances of this humble request are likely to fall on deaf ears (or plungers, or whatever you use to pick up sound vibrations), but perhaps you could CUT IT OUT?

Thanks.

*with apologies to The Flaming Lips

1. When your food processor lid doesn’t like to come off once you’ve put it on, that’s annoying (I realise that that is not strictly about cupcakes, but it’s related, promise)

2. It’s good to have various sizes of paper cases floating about, so that you can always use the same ones, and keep wondering why you bought the others

3. Adding vanilla scented caster sugar and vanilla essence is really not overdoing it

4. Even though the lid is sticking and being generally very annoying for a very new appliance, you will be glad you used your food processor, and didn’t mix the cakes by hand. Especially when you’re meant to be studying, not baking.

5. My oven takes 20 minutes to bake cupcakes, not 15

6. Cupcakes are best eaten in their naked, un-iced state 12.5 minutes after they’ve come out of the oven. They’re a little crispy around the outside and warm and soft on the inside

7. 125g of unsalted butter is not enough to make icing for 11 cupcakes

8. It’s always worth getting out the Dr. Oetker icing bag. You have to justify that purchase somehow

9. Sprinkles are generally a nice touch

10. Lemon icing is good because it counteracts the sweetness of the cake. Plus, if you use real butter in the icing, it’s already a nice yellow colour which you don’t have to faff with