Morning o' cooking

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The boys and I went on a mission this morning: coffee for me; swim noodles with which to make birthday party light sabers (gotta battle safely); a cake pan in which to cook a chocolate birthday torta for my mother-in-law. Ultimately, we succeeded on all fronts though were initially delayed by the five Starbucks employees actively working, yet equally actively as not, behind the counter who seemed unable to manage the one man in line in front of us, thus making us wait a good 4-5 minutes before even placing our order. This was fully baffling to me, and even Jack asked, "what's taking them so long?!" In any case, I got what I needed, we bought green, blue and gold noodles for the light sabers, and this beautiful cake is now chilling in the fridge.

chocolate cake with chocolate-sour cream frosting and raspberries

I also made some roast carrots, pizza dough, caramelized onions and homemade pizza sauce. It was just too hot (94!) for another day at the beach. Then again, the AC went kaput here and it was probably too hot to be cooking over a gas stove and a roaring Wolf oven, but I'm intrepid in the kitch!

Hot day, gorgeous sunset

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Whoa, we spent about four hours on the beach this morning, and by noon, I had to call it a day. I love heat but sitting on sand and baking in it really saps me. The kids fished, kayaked and boogie-boarded and just had the best-ever time but I spent much of the afternoon happily inside. Can you believe I've finished another chapter of a book I started months ago? Yippee! Consider the Fork by Bee Wilson is such an intriguing read. It's all about the evolution of cooking techniques and kitchen utensils, large and small, and Wilson makes what could be a rather dry subject truly engaging. While cleaning up from dinner tonight, I was struck by the sunset which both came and went at an urgent pace. It was stunning to watch.

here goes the sun

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and it's gone