Bite-Sized Wisdom – Part I

Tanya is another friend with whom I divulged my plan for Operation: Recipe Swap before it became a reality.  She had a cautious response, asking me, as a good friend would, my motivations for doing this.  I explained to her, like I’d explained to others, that (a) this was a survival skill one really should have, but more than that, (b) I want to connect with all those women who exchange recipes and food ideas.  Especially because I lead women’s ministry, I want to understand the joy women seem to get from sharing their kitchen ideas.

“As long as you’re not doing it to prove anything,” she said. “It doesn’t make you any less of a woman because you can’t cook, you know.”

A Canadian Conversation

Two men, one young, one old, and a woman, middle aged, sit at a table on the far side of the library. The only reading material they have between them is an Outdoorsmen magazine. They’re not looking at it. They’re laughing at a picture on a cell phone. It’s of the woman, sitting on a 5 gallon pail, outside an ice fishing hut.

“You look like a squaw having a baby!”  The image keeps them hooting for a while.

After the laugh, the old man gets up scratch his back by rubbing it back and forth on the outside corner of a wall.

“You look like a bear,” the woman says.

“A black bear,” the other man specifies.

“Spring has sprung, eh?” says the back scratcher.

First Successful Solo Bake

I stared at the recipe Christa put up on the Operation: Recipe Swap Facebook Page for banana muffins.  There were less than 10 ingredients and no words I couldn’t understand. Newly empowered with knowledge from Lynn – muffin batter should be lumpy – I could do this.

Back to the Future with Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Dear Betty,

I am a neophyte when it comes to baking.  I shouldn’t have volunteered to bring a cake for Friday night’s event and then showed up with nothing! I realized after the fact that it must have increased your stress level.  I am SO sorry.  If that ever happens again, I will at least go to the store and get something to replace it.  I honestly didn’t even think about it till afterward… and then I was horrified.

In your debt,
Loreli

And so I learned the hard way that, when baking, to leave enough time to either make or purchase a replacement if it doesn’t turn out.