Jaws.

I love developing new recipes and products.  Lets my creative juices out for a good flow.  Lately it's been more like a messy flood, and there doesn't seem to be an end in sight.    

For my friends and fans and providers of willing tongues, this is likely a good thing.  But lately I've been attacking the sales people that come give us estimates, the workers who follow behind them to do installations, the staff at my hubby's work meetings, and just about anybody else who will hold still long enough for me to offer something.  

Poor things.  

If this were a scientific test of the psyche of the immediacy of human addictions, I'd have a 98% success rate.  

After being tortured and wounded by what they didn't know they were missing, they find themselves signing up for more.  Some returning later.  Some having to have it doled out right on the spot.  And this isn't like falling off a horse and getting right back on thus conquering fear or displaying our human domination over the animal kingdom.  No, this is more like swimming with sharks.

So consider yourself warned.  If you get too close to me, you might lose a limb, but you'll go down with a smile on your face.  

Mocha Viennese Shortbread (1 dozen)

$8.00

A little coffee, a little chocolate and a little almond, and coated on the bottom with a little more chocolate.  Perfect with our Mocha Fudge Cheesecake or Mocha Fudge Cake or our Chocolate covered Espresso Bean Chocolate Coffee Ice Cream and coffee or tea.  

Someone, but not me.

I'm sure that it's a good thing that I do not need to be a farmer.

I am the gardener in our household.  Our yard is too minimal for more than one tree, but one we have.  The rest of our dwelling is surrounded by ​bushes, perennials and whatever annuals I take in to my head to put there.  Low care, heat and drought tolerance are the keys.  If they need attention, they're not likely to get much from me.  And even less from my spouse.  He doesn't come equipped with a green thumb.  More like a green freckle.

One year at the suggestion of my youngest, we turned the sandbox, which had fallen in to neglect from disuse, in to a strawberry field.  No maintenance and we get fruit out of it.  ​Perfect.

Last year, due to unforeseen unforeseeisms, I never cleaned up the necessary and inevitable mess in the yard.  Too many things going on inside that demanded my attention so the yard just had to wait.  And as spring moved in to summer the dead parts of our perennials became compost.  And I felt good about helping the earth, sort of.  After all, I reasoned, perennials are just that, meant to come up year after year, without help, without nurture, without me.  And one year wouldn't hurt them, would it?  

​So I forgot they existed.

The rabbits liked it.  For a while.  Dandelions galore.  But then they got large.  I mean really massive.  Like the kind that could eat New York.  But not where my husband mowed the lawn.  Just in my part, the garden.  The rabbits were too frightened to go near them, so bunny dinner they were not.    

That's when I realized I would have to go outside and do something.​  

I got out my machete and baseball bat, in case of wild animals, like ginormous beetles.  

After about a half hour I gave up and decided to let them ruin the earth.  Perhaps it would turn in to the Sci-fi thriller, War of the Worlds, where aliens take over after having been planted here ages ago, ​and then die because they can't handle our germs.  After all, winter will come again and kill everything, including 2 foot tall dandelions.

​So what does all of this have to do with baking?  I've been thinking about growing something this year, besides weeds.  Like lavender to put in scones, or our new White Chocolate Dipped Lavender Shortbread.  Things that I would use in my sweets.  And I'm wondering how much protection these plants require.  How often will I have to water and weed them?  What natural fertilizer should I use, how much and how often?  How much sun, or not, do they need?  What soil is best and how large of an area do they need to thrive?  

And what happens to them when I forget they exist?  

That's when I remember how much I love grocery stores and console myself with the fact that I'm helping someone else grow something.  Someone who is not me.  ​

​​White Chocolate Dipped Lavender Shortbread

Really?

We really shouldn't be complaining.  Really.​

Winter in Minnesota lasts forever.  Forever being six months.  This year appears to be worse than normal, pushing spring out the door and down the street just as far as it can.  I've heard varying predictions of 2 to 8 inches of the flaky stuff.  ​ So far I've only seen dandruff.  

But what can we really expect?  After all, we live in the Upper Midwest.  The weather and wind currents come down from Canada.  So what do we think ought to happen instead, hmm?    

I'm not a native to this state.  Looking in from the outside, I thought Minnesotans were made of hardier stuff.  You know the types, the ones that fill Garrison Keillor's stories of Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, and the men good-looking and the children are above average.  Where did all of them go?  Certainly they wouldn't be complaining about another day or two of snow.  They'd be scoffing at the rest of us weasily types, who stay indoors, turn up the heat, stand at the window and whine.  ​

Don't get me wrong.  I love the heat, the sun, even the humidity.  I'll happily take that for as long as I can get because I know winter will be back.  With a vengeance.  ​And all too soon.

But if it's cold out, I can bake things like Chocolate, Cherry and Walnut Cake and no one complains about how hot the house is because I'm baking.  ​

So, take that, Minnesotans.  ​I'm happy it's cold.  And you just might be, too, if you're coming to Saturday's Tasting Party.  The colder it is until then, the more I'll have ready for you!

Chocolate, Cherry and Walnut Cake* (8-10 servings)

$18.00