Hummingbird Tongues

Earlier this month
I got the bright idea to get some fabric to lay down on my kitchen counters
while photographing food.

It sounded good in theory.

Our granite counters are pretty busy
and one can only photograph a mise en place on a cutting board so many times.

The advantage of a cutting board is that you can easily wipe it off if you get stuff on it
and it doesn’t wrinkle.

I know that now.

Those things didn’t occur to me on a drizzly Sunday morning
while I stood in a sewing shop
running my fingertips over fabric.

I was thinking that I should call my grandmother
a woman who created countless smocked baptismal gowns for her many grandchildren
and almost every single dress I wore for Picture Day in elementary school.

I loved those dresses.
I loved all of them except for one.

It wasn’t so much the dress that I disliked
but the pantaloons she made to go with it.

My mother was over the moon about them
however she did not have to wear the pantaloons to school for Picture Day in 1991.

I wasn’t a stupid kid.
I tried to reason with my mom that
you wouldn’t even see the pantaloons in the photo
so why did I have to wear them?

“Because your grandmother made them to go with the dress. You will wear them.”

And I did.

At least I didn’t suffer alone.
She made a matching dress
and pantaloons
for my older sister.

You can bet I took comfort in the fact my sister looked like Little Bo Peep, too.

In the more recent past
I left the store with a few neatly folded stacks of fabric
and a desire to learn how to sew
(not pantaloons, I’ve had all I need of those).

I pushed thoughts of sewing out of my head
and tried to stay focused on the task at hand–
the task of making a red velvet cake.

Back to the whole great ideas in theory
white cloth
while making a lovely, calm background
also gives photos a bit of a ’sterile’ feeling.

Like I lined things up on a hospital bed
perhaps.

I assure you
that this was in my kitchen
and there was no hospital bed crammed in there.

SCALPEL.

Ok,
this photo isn’t really helping.

The red gel on the knife is actually red food coloring
and I used a lot of red food coloring in this cake.

I found it interesting that Wilton has red food coloring in two types:
‘No Taste’ and the other kind.

I opted for the tasteless one
because I’m crass like that.

Actually, I had never used this much food coloring in a cake
and not being familiar with the regular taste of red (?)
I decided to go the safe route.

Not safe enough! Muahahaha!

Egg whites, food coloring, and vanilla mixed together.

Thankfully
not every shot in this set had what looked like hospital linens or blood in it.

See?
Nice and safe.

I chose another recipe from Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Heavenly Cakes.
Her red velvet cake called for some cocoa whisked in the flour.

Some red velvet cakes are simply butter cakes with food coloring
while others are chocolate cakes tinted red.
I’ve made several butter cakes lately and wanted something different
so a recipe with cocoa sounded good.

Beranbaum’s recipe also uses a mix of oil and butter

and some buttermilk,

googley-eyed smiling face optional.

I added the dry ingredients to the mixer

and let it do what it does best.

Food coloring, egg whites, and vanilla added to the mixture:

Grisly.

After mixing:

This picture is the perfect example of a point in time
when a personal photographer would have come in handy.

They could have captured my carefree happy baking face
turn into my I HATE BAKING AND CAKES AND YOU face.

Those particular faces are stored very close to each other in my expression cache
since one usually changes into the other quite rapidly.

After all that work
the batter did not appear to be nearly red enough.

Flapping around in the kitchen
trying to save the cakes,
trying not to get splatters of food coloring on the new fabric,
I used the entire bottle of red gel food coloring
and the liquid bit I had rolling around in a drawer.

I don’t know if using Dutch-processed cocoa powder affected the coloring
or if the cakes would have turned out fine after baking
but these were special
and I did not want to goof them up.

Colorwise
they turned out just fine:

Pretty and red,
I almost didn’t want to ice them
but every Southerner knows
you need cream cheese frosting with your red velvet cake
(even if your nice natural light for photography is slipping away).

Cream cheese, butter, and sour cream ready to go.

I went with the recipe and added white chocolate
although I don’t like what it did to the texture of the frosting at all.

It was almost rubbery.
Cross that frosting recipe off the list…

Next time I’m sticking to the basics.

I made many, many, batches of this frosting
and I am done with the taste of cream cheese frosting for the next few years, thanks.

Here you can see my makeshift turntable.

A cake stand on a spice rack suits me just fine.

This was the first layer of the first tier.

Due to the special occasion
I decided to make a tiered cake.

The top tier filled and ready for a crumb coat.

Last month
Nishta hatched a beautiful plan of pairing cakes and cocktails with Valentine crafting.

I could take or leave Valentine’s Day
(one too many lonely February 14ths.
Probably because of those damned pantaloons.)
but Nishta put the best possible spin on the whole event.

Nishta knew of U.S. soldiers in Iraq who were in need of some love and encouragement
and asked if I would be interested in teaming up with her
to gather some Valentine notes and care packages for them.

Both of my grandfathers were in the Air Force,
my brother-in-law is in the Air Force,
and my uncle is in the Army.

The faces of ‘the troops’ are the faces of my family
so of course I was thrilled to help.

Thankfully, I did not have to worry about shipping the cake:
it was just for people to eat while channeling their inner 10 year old and making cards.

We got permission from the (amazing) bar to bring in some crafting supplies
and Houston turned out in force with cookies, candies, DVDs, toiletries
and yes,
we made Valentine’s Day cards.

The cake with some of the crafting supplies and care package items.

Big ol’ slice.

Truth be told
I did not like the cake.
The frosting was weird
and layers were kind of dry.

Hub gobbled it up
and several people gave it a thumbs up
so I’m glad I didn’t inflict something (too) horrible on people showing up to help soldiers.

In addition to the red velvet cake
there was also Victoria’s king’s cake
made with a recipe from Brandi.

It shrouded itself in darkness in every photo I managed to take of it
so as punishment
I ate it.

It was only fair.

There were cookies from Brandy Graesser

and from Plinio Sandalio
(some to fuel Valentine-makers and others to ship to the troops!).

The fantastic nibbles to eat at the event enticed Hub to come out for the evening.

He doesn’t usually come to the weekly cake nights
(he lives under that rock called medical school)
but Hub came along for the event.

I tried to get him to make a Valentine for the soldiers.

“They do not want a Valentine from a guy.“
“What?! How do you know?”
“Because I know. Guys don’t make Valentines. You can make some for me.“
“Guys do too make Valentines.”

Like the pantaloons,
it was a losing battle
so I gave him the stink-eye
then made some extra cards to make up for his lack of Valentine’s Day spirit.

We filled a giant plastic bag with Valentine’s Day cards to the soldiers in Iraq
and Nishta even let me send my ugly ones.

I’m better at making cakes than Valentines.

Many beautiful cards and notes went in the care packages
but I found my favorite Valentine’s Day card before the night was over.

I marched over to Hub
card out in front of me.

“SEE. Guys do too make Valentines!”

I hope the soldiers smile at the Valentine’s Day cards
(even/especially at the ones from dudes)
devour the cookies
and find relief in the care packages.

Happy Valentine’s Day, soldiers.
Houston is thinking of you.