A sweet slice for Saturday morning

Day 19 of March Slice of Life Story Challenge

 Whipping eggs with sugar, stirring in flour and cocoa, chopping pecans and chocolate, mixing, tasting, wiping some chocolate powder from his chin - my hubby makes a delicious sight to watch when he bakes. 

Since both of our baking princesses moved out, and the evening baking sessions became rarity, my hubby grabs for a whisk and spatula himself. 

On Thursday evening, when I was out enjoying a ballet, he and my youngest messed around in the kitchen to bake chocolate-pecan brownies with chocolate frosting. This was for us only to see, because yesterday evening Mimm, a backpack over her shoulders, a sleeping bag and a pillow tucked into a bag in her left hand, carried the collaborative sweet result to a sleep over at school.

Not a bite left at home, my hubby decided to fix the mistake. 

Not hard for you to guess what I had for breakfast this Saturday morning.

Have a sweet Saturday!

Week in the life: Tuesday

On Monday I took some pictures. On Tuesday I didn't remember to take any pictures at school, even though I had my camera with me. This makes no pics from 5:45 to 17:00.

The Tuesday was not a regular school day. We had four lessons and then student-parent-teacher conferences.

I like the fall conferences because besides helping to set a direction for the rest of the year together the students already have many positive things to share about their learning. The conference also brings out  the student personalities more. Most are as confident as in class, others suddenly become shy and don't want to say a word. Parents and children left the conferences with smiles.
My favorite meeting was with a student who seems to catch everything on a go but now she admitted that some things are challenging for her. I am glad she isn't just cozy and comfortable, that she feels challenged and is willing to work hard.

When I got home and unpacked, I remembered my camera. So here is the rest of the day, or some of it.
Surprisingly I was the first one home. Mimm had a dance training, Kerstin had to go to a theatre in the evening so she had stayed in town, and hubby was still at work.

I have tried to adapt the habit of keeping kitchen counters clean. Occasionally I feel successful but most of the time the spaces fill up quickly. Having flowers to take up space isn't a bad option. Yesterday the counter also held candy and a pineapple that my hubby had received for his birthday, a home-made juice bottled in a wine bottle that is too tall to fit in the cupboard, kitchen towel and apples. The clay head is a permanent countertop habitant. Having a mirror against the wall seems to double the clutter. Yet, I like the mirror. On fine days it mirrors the trees through the kitchen window.

A habit I am trying to quit is eating before making dinner. Yesterday the fridge was rather empty but not empty enough. I made a cheese sandwich. At least it wasn't my turn to cook. My hubby had agreed to take care of the dinner. Grocery shopping was also on his to-do-list.

One way to eat less is to drink more tea. I highly appreciate that I have frozen peppermint leaves. I wonder how many tea pics do I end up by the end of this week.
The kettle is rather old and I would like to get a new one. But since it is functioning fine I won't buy one just because the new one would look better. With an ancient (well, 15 year old) toaster I had a clever trick. I took it to the countryside where it still serves us well. May-be the same destiny waits this kettle.

 With no-one home yet and with my hubby's turn to cook, I felt guilt free opening my laptop. The picture is more about the apple.  I have a bad habit starting to drink tea or eat a snack, then going off doing something else and then discovering the almost cold tea and half-eaten snack. Fortunately this apple didn't have to wait long.

I like when my husband shops and cooks. He is a very good cook and makes delicious apple pies. Yesterday he used the jars of beetroot soup bases my sister and mom had made recently. He just had to chop some potatoes and add a bit meat.
I don't like my kitchen very much. When we bought the apartment we didn't have any more money left to buy a new kitchen so we kept what the old owners had had. I'd like to have something lighter. I am ready for a new kitchen but I have some excuses for not doing much about it: I lack home the design gene, no one in our family is skillful enough to fix up the kitchen by ourselves, it takes time and money to renovate the kitchen, I can't decide whether I need or want a new kitchen.
The good thing about the kitchen is an old sofa that we were supposed to get rid of and was temporarily stored in the kitchen. Everyone loves it, so now it has dropped its plan to leave.
While my hubby cooked, Mimm had arrived home and now we sat on the sofa and she told me about her day, school life and musical practice, about what her friends had said and what some cartoon characters had done.

I decided to take a picture of the soup. It really made my husband's eyebrows go up. He wondered whether I was becoming the person sharing my every bite with the rest of the world. I assured it was just a one time project for my blog and no other social media.

Tuesday is a Slice of Life day. It takes time to write the post and comment on others. I can't imagine not writing. I can't remember what I did before I started blogging. While I sat behind the screen, my hubby and daughter played Mario Cart.

I was the first one ready to go to bed. At 9:00 o'clock I was in my PJ-s. Looking through the lens I thought that my bedside table was rather sad holding only PD books. Even though I have been to the bookstores and libraries I have difficult time choosing something to read currently. So I took "The God Of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy from a book self for a reread.

The last picture of the day I took with my phone.


The two days have left me with some thoughts:

• it feels unnatural to take pics of mundane things, but I approach this task as an experiment
• I am surrounded by people most of the day, yet I don't take pics of them
• the light in my home is too dark and yellow, fine for living but not for taking pics
• my pics have grains and noise but I have no clue what to do about it 
• I don't know enough about my camera and I feel photography illiterate
• I can't find the manual and I am afraid to mess up the camera if I just start playing with it
• it seems to me that I am rather predictable in my routines
• I wonder whether this project is more suitable for someone whose life is not so bound to school and home and who has more creativity in her life
• I will never get better at taking pics unless I take pictures, lots of them 

The challenges of keeping healthy eating habits

About a month ago I wrote about implementing healthy habits.
It's about time to report how things are going. When it comes to exercising and writing I feel pretty good. I won't provide the assessment criteria or any specific data. I wonder if I created a portfolio, stepped on scales, or counted the words, or kept a spreadsheet with minutes, or took a test, my conclusion would be different.

The greatest difficulty for me is to keep the healthy eating habit. I try and try, but there are so many challenges on the way. I believe that once you read my slice, you understand me, and don't judge me.

First of all, I am surrounded by food trolls. I used to call them baking princesses, but I have come to realizations that they are trolls in disguise. The trolls just take over the bodies of my daughters. And now they have started taking over the bodies of my coworkers. Almost daily someone brings in something sweet. I would have to be a robot or under a protective spell to resist chocolate chip cookies or apple pies. I sometimes wonder if there are courses on how to say no to the cookies. Do they give a refund if I gobble up the last cookie on a plate?

Second, I have discovered that I may have a malfunction in my nervous system. Scientist claim that my brain controls my actions. I am not sure. My brain sometimes shouts out loud "Don't eat that cinnamon bun!" My hand and mouth simply ignore it. Maybe I have a separate food brain in my stomach that is in charge of the hand-mouth coordination. I hope that there aren't any doctors reading this slice or I might end up as a case study in a medical journal. Or maybe it's an alien invasion to my body and I am already listed in X-files.

Third, the food speaks to me. Especially chocolate. One evening I found a small chocolate on a kitchen table. I decided to escape from the food and went for a walk. When I returned, the chocolate was still there. I quickly turned off the lights and rushed away. In vain. The chocolate cried and begged to be eaten. I am a softy (belly and heart) and couldn't be cruel to crush the chocolate's dreams. I wonder where could I study the language of vegetables and beans. Or maybe the vegetables and beans need more practice in mastering persuasive arguments.

I have heard that some people have a cure to resist temptations. It's called a willpower. I seem to get it in tiny packages. Just enough to exercise but not enough to combat sugars and fats. Where would I get some more? If you have any left over, you can send it my way. Or if you have seeds of willpower and instructions to grow it, would you mind sharing?

Summer sport with distractions

I pedaled as fast as I could, trying to keep up with my sister, avoiding tree trunks and rocky bottoms of dried out puddles. There was no time to admire the serene beauty of the forest. Bird-listening, heather-admiring, pine-smelling, and moss-stepping were not on the agenda. Burning calories was the goal.
"Look! There's a chanterelle. Can we stop?" My sister obviously had more energy and time to observe the surroundings. As soon as she spotted the little yellow spots off the road, her basic food-gatherer instincts kicked in.
"No. Not now. Right now we are doing sports. You're supposed to help me get fit, shape my figure, shed the guilt for eating the last piece of chocolate. Keep pedaling." I was aware that I was kidding myself with the power of the bike ride. It would have taken thousand hours of biking, swimming, walking and some time-reversing magic to get me back in the shape I dreamt off. I recently read somewhere that happy people don't lose weight easily because they have less motivation to change their eating and exercise habits. Happy people can also be fit, and maybe being fit would make me even happier. So whether it was 5, 10 or 15 kilometers we would accomplish, it would still be better than nothing.
I was pretty sure I heard a small whimper.
"Fine. We'll pick the mushrooms on our way back." I knew there was no stopping my sister, when she wanted to pick mushrooms. It didn't matter that mom's friend had recently sold us three kilos of chanterelles, that my sister had carefully cleaned and then sauteed in butter. For once there was enough, so she allowed me to taste some straight off the pan, instead of smacking me with a spatula, when I tried to steal some. I knew my sister would never leave the golden taste-bud-pleasers hiding in the moss. I knew this because last time she had picked some mushrooms on our bike trip, even when she had nowhere to put them. She had taken off one of her crocs to store the little treasures  and pedaled home with one foot bare.
She had explained to me once before that finding and picking the mushrooms was the best part of the process. For most people it's the savoring of the taste in their mouth that constitutes pleasure. Once, about fifteen years ago, when I was in a hotel in Munich, people recommended me to order something special. At that time I was not familiar with the names of pasta sorts nor knew names of mushrooms. When people suggested ordering farfalle in chanterelle sauce I had no clue what to expect. I couldn't even imagine what delicatessen I would get. My hopes were high. When my plate arrived, I was rather disappointed, because what was offered was a common home food from my point of view - simple macaroni with mushroom sauce. I have tried to lessen my culinary ignorance since. I also have come to appreciate more and more that in the country side I get to eat simple delightful meals that others order in the restaurants for high price.
I kept my promise. My bottom numb from the cycling and legs wobbling underneath, I helped my sister as much as I could. There wasn't much, but just enough for a small mushroom sandwich aka chanterelle bruschetta.

mushroom picking 2011

summer yummy

There are two types of food bloggers. The first ones cook amazing food and take amazing pictures, and eventually go on TV or/and publish a book. Good taste buds and an artistic eye combined with practice-practice-practice contribute to their success. The second ones are the wannabes, who follow the recipes, make something, and take pictures to record the food. My sister and I are proud representatives of the second group. We have our moments (my sister many many more than I do) when we make amazing food and take amazing pictures, and post them on our blogs. But often we just adore what others do, or sometimes try recipes and make things that have no resemblance with the originals. It usually happens with the recipes that have been titled fool-proof. Most of the time we cook no-hassle, tried-out-for-years meals that don't need a cookbook. But we need cookbooks - for their pretty pictures, for dreaming, for mood-making, for the delicious promises, for our occasional star-moments. We love our cookbooks so much that we don't mind transporting some of them to our summer house. (The pic is arranged, we don't place the books on a shrine, even though some of them would deserve it.)

Obviously there can never be too many cookbooks, but with time we had become picky and for a short while thought that all new books were just bland copies of earlier ones. Until this Estonian blogger Ragne published her first book. Sorry, friends, it is in Estonian, but you can see from the picture how it has this inviting simple-life-is-beautiful look.

I handed my gift over to my sister on our first summer day together. Oh, we savored every page, indulging ourselves with delightful pictures, choosing possible future treats. Days passed before I dared to follow the first recipe. My sister stayed with me for the moral support.

Simple to start with:

2 dl of wheat flour

2 dl of barley flour 

2 tsp of baking powder

0,5 tsp of salt

0,5 sp of sugar

Mix it all together

Then add:

50g of butter softened at room temperature (or quickly softened not melted in the oven, as we did)

2 dl of sour cream

Mix it all into a dough with your hands, roll it into a ball and put in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

I met only one tiny obstacle. The original recipe included dandelion leaves and goutweed for filling. The chef had fortunately added in a small print that any weeds can be replaced with herbs. Now came the best part - I lightly stepped out of the house into the sunshine, walked across the lawn, and picked fresh thyme, parsley, basil and dill from my sister's herb garden. It was perfect, like a scene from a movie where Italian, French, or Greek  country life and cooking are cherished. It was better than a movie, it was my life.

I rolled out the dough into a semi perfect circle, cut into semi equal 12 sectors, sprinkled them with 100g of grated cheese and  two handfuls of chopped herbs, rolled the sectors in croissant style, placed them on the cooking pan and baked for 30 minutes in 180 degree oven.

When the rolls were out, we (the small summer family) waited just a bit before the first bite. Our stomachs purred with pleasure. Hands were reaching out for a second serving, when I stopped everyone, so I could take a picture. Others were too hungry to allow me to experiment with styling, angles, or light. I got rid of the clutter that usually creeps on to my pictures, made sure I got one of the pretty plates, and pulled a flowery mug closer to the plate to add a romantic touch. 

This was certainly one of the positive wannabe moments. The rolls were so delicious that I made them again few days later, and I am not afraid to share the photo with you.

May I proudly present,

Da-daa:

Breakfast herb rolls 

A special cake for a special occasion

Friday, April 26, 2013

600 g of margarine for the pastry and 600 g of butter for the cream – not exactly a light spring cake.

Several steps to follow and many hours for making the cake – not exactly a quick and easy task.

Heavenly taste and a special occasion – exactly the right cake to make.

I have seen the Napoleon Cake in many versions and with different recipes in several of cookbooks.  I use a special recipe I got from my cousin’s wife years ago. I was eighteen, stayed with her for the whole time when she was making the cake, and wrote down word-by-word what she said.

Looking at the yellow stained pages of the almost falling apart old journal, I make a mental note to rewrite the recipes from there. It goes on the one-day-I-will-list. I should probably make a cookbook for my girls with all the recipes that our family likes.

Four years has passed since I made the cake last time. Dad’s seventy fifth birthday was the special occasion then. I think I remember. I think I am ready. I hope that the cake will turn out as well as four years ago.

Put 5 really big cups of flour into a bowl

Add 600 g of cold margarine cut into small

Use your fingers to make a crumble

Put half a cup of sour cream in to a smaller bowl.

In the same cup you had the flour in, whip together 2 eggs, a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of citric acid. Now add water so the cup is full. Pour it on the sour cream and mix.

Now add 1 teaspoon of baking soda and quickly add to the first bowl. Make the pastry dough and put it into the fridge.

When I was eighteen, there were not many cookbooks. I couldn’t dream about using a computer and doing a Google or Pinterest search, or visiting blogs or magazines. I knew that computers existed but hadn’t seen one, my family didn’t have a phone and we had a tiny black and white TV. I had my mom’s old cookbook with very few pictures that I worked through during my last year of high school. Even though nowadays I can buy pastries or dough at the store, I prefer making my own. Over the time I have collected many cookbooks, magazines, and recipes from the vastenss of internet. I know that I have passed the baking gene on to my daughters.

Back to baking.

Divide the dough into six sections and roll each out and bake until golden.

Ideally I should roll the dough into circles or rectangles. Getting thin blobs on the baking sheet doesn’t worry me. Shaping the cake later, leaves the cut off strips as a reward for the hard work.

I prefer baking the sheets of dough one by one. It takes more time and patience, but they bake more evenly.

Let the layers of pastry cool completely.

Make the cream.

Take 600 g of butter that has softened at the room temperature. It should be soft, soft, soft. Whisk it with 1 ½ cup of sugar until pale and fluffy.

Take on liter of milk and heat it until it starts boiling. Stir and watch that it wouldn’t stick to the bottom of the pot or boil over.

In a cup mix 4 large spoonfuls of sugar and 4 large spoonfuls of flour, add water, and stir until smooth and creamy.

Carefully pour it into the boiling milk, stir until the cream thickens.

Let it cool. Then mix it with the butter fluff.  Put it in the fridge.

Now I remember why I make this Napoleon Cake so seldom. One time I burnt my first liter of milk. It took a long time to get rid of the stink. One time I didn’t let the milk cool and mixed it with butter too soon and the butter melted. Last time I wasn’t careful enough and the warm mixture became lumpy, I had to sieve it, and the mess was revolting. My sister and I often laugh that even the most carefully written instructions, especially the ones that claim to be fool proof, don’t necessarily work. We sometimes joke writing a cookbook “How the Cakes and Pies Really Look Like.” It’s great to have a sister who also bakes and cooks. She will bring the materials for sushi and wraps for the party.

This time the cream turned out beautiful.

Make a layered cake with 5 pastry sheets.

Spread jam (black current or plum) and cream on the first layer.

Then alternate the layers and cream,

Break the last pastry sheet into flakes and spread it on the top of the cake. Put the cake in the fridge for hours. It tastes best when it stays in the fridge overnight.

We plan to eat the cake the same evening. Rich and tasty it is perfect for my daughters 18^th birthday.

I think I need more than one piece of a cake to accept the truth that my first child is an adult.

The sun always shines on Sunday

When the sky is covered with thick gray clouds, the wind is fierce and bullies the trees, and pouring rain claims to stay for a day, I know that my Sunday morning breakfast is vitally important. The moaning and complaining over the depressing weather would kill the Sunday joy. Some magic is in order.

Get a bowl and a whisk

mix some eggs, milk and flower

add a pinch of salt and a spoonful of sugar

pour a thin layer of batter all over a hot greasy pan,

fry from both sides until golden brown,

put on a plate,

top with grandma's raspberry jam,

and Voila!

You have a smiling sun for a Sunday.

Don't listen to the scientific specialists who say that pancakes have no nutritional value. Listen to the wise moms and grannies who know that the traditional Sunday (or Wednesday) pancakes have very high emotional value.

A summer day in a life of my younger sister

A Summer Day in a Life of My Younger Sister 

or

Live and Let Others Live Their Life as They See Fit

She headed to the wilder side of the garden and picked some fresh raspberries and blueberries for our muesli. (I poured the yoghurt.)

We had breakfast together.

(I did the dishes.)

She climbed the ladder like a talented acrobat and finished coating the last three boards of a new small house for our mom. (I held the ladder.)

We went swimming together.

She collected seven ripe green and yellow zucchinis from her vegetable patch. (I helped her to carry them.)

She peeled, chopped, and fried the zucchinis and garlic, added some chicken stock, salt, pepper, parsley, and basil. She stirred in smoked cheese together with cream and pureed the soup to smoothness. (I grated some Parmesan.)

We ate together.

(I did the dishes.)

She finished crocheting a second ear for an amigurumi rabbit and sowed the cute critter together. (I took a nap.)

We went swimming together.

She brought the lawn mower from a shed and gave the front lawn a trim. (I moved the leaning chairs.)

We went swimming together.

She watered the cucumbers in the greenhouse, weeded the flower bed in front of the house, picked a basketful of green beans, pulled out some old overgrown salad and gave it to neighbor’s chickens. (I read a book. I boiled the beans. I grated the cheese.)

We ate together.

(I did the dishes.)

She read the weather forecast, put on an orange safety vest and headed to the seaside. She rowed the boat while our uncle and aunt let the fishing nets to the sea. (I climbed along the coastline and took 35 pictures.)

We went swimming together.

She made us some fresh peppermint and lemon balm tea. We drank it from our flowery cups, watched the pictures I had taken, and laughed together. 

Food from the forest

“Just in case we might find something,” my sister says and stuffs a little plastic bag and a knife in her pocket.

Mushroom picking is not on my agenda. I eat mushrooms but somehow I am the only member of our family who has not got infected with the mushroom hunting excitement.

“I plan to walk,” I answer and we head to the pine forest near the village.

“When I walk for an exercise I need company and I chat. Picking mushrooms is like a meditation. I could stay in the forest for hours,” my sister explains as we stroll on the pine needle covered path.

The majestic slim Scotch pines are standing tall and stretching toward the sky. The straight brown trunks are bare and you have to lift your eyes high to see the green toppings. Since the pines are not needy they grow on a dry sandy soil and not much grows underneath them – dry silvery reindeer moss, green red stem feather moss, low blueberry and red bilberry bushes. In some lower spots there are lonely small birch trees. The ground is sprinkled with dried pine needle twins, crooked twigs, and brown small cones that have sprung open like wooden blossoms.  There is plenty of space between the trees and you can see far. We walk listening to the whisper of  the wind and an occasional chatter of a chaffinch.

“There’s one!” my sister sprints off the path, squats down, cuts and lifts up a small yellow funnel-shaped mushroom.  This is a mushroom that every child can recognize – a golden chanterelle.

My sister doesn’t return to the path. Instead she makes zigzags and spirals walking in between the trees.

“It has been too dry lately, so the chanterelles are hiding. Last year when it was rainy it was so much easier to spot them, and there were many in a small area. It seems that we have to walk quite a bit.  Come on, help me,” my sister invites me.

I am a person who likes to stay on a safe path. Off the path I turn around once and already feel disoriented and lost.  In this open space there is no way my sister can get out of my sight. So I step off the path. The nature woven carpet is soft.

I spot something yellow.  It turns out to be a thin yellow bark flake.  Another yellowish spot is a dried birch leaf. The chanterelles are playing hide-and-seek.  I walk slower and survey the ground more carefully.

“Here,” I call my sister when I finally find what I am looking for.  It feels good. I imagine that the three chanterelles chuckle. Even though they hide they know what their destiny is, and they actually look forward to their gourmet culinary journey.

“May-be I will come chanterelle picking with you again,” I say to my sister when we eat butter-fried chanterelles on Parmesan-thyme crust covered with smoked-cheese and cream sauce.

Sweet boredom

My daughters are on holidays and when they are bored they bake and bake. 

This week it was twice. 11:00 o'clock. In the evening. When I was in bed already. One cake wasn't even fully eaten when they started with another.

They don't see a problem in making deathly delicious chocolate temptations. They are young, slim, sporty teenagers with speedy metabolism.

They say I don't have to take a piece if I worry about my figure. They don't realize that I eat because I worry about their figures. I have to save them from the extra bites. Acceptable excuse for eating? Do I really need an excuse? 

not so desperate housewife

Picture the most stylish housewife you know wearing an apron with springy floral design, getting ready to bake muffins in the sparkly clean spacious country-style kitchen. Well, I didn't look anything like that in my tiny slightly cluttered kitchen, except for the apron.

May-be I was inspired by Nigella's morning show. May-be I felt guilty for sending the rest of the family away for a weekend. May-be I was just looking for an excuse to eat something sweet. The motivation really didn't matter when the end goal was a patch of chocolate muffins.

Cut, melt, stir. I thought I heard the violins.
Measure, chop, mix. I was sure it was the harp.
Whisk, pour, fold. Cello quartet joined the music.
Taste, scoop, bake. The music continued.

There was plenty of time to do the dishes before the oven bell rang. The string family stopped playing. I saw the car pulling to the parking lot. Drums, drums, drums. Now I began a race with the seconds like in Masterchef. I heard the voices and steps on the stairs. Would I get the muffins out in one piece? Skillfully I placed the muffins in a small basket lined with flowery kitchen towel. The door handle moved. I wiped the crumbs from the table and pulled off my apron. I loved to see the sniffing noses on the doorway.

The choir of angels sang for the rest of the evening.

I wouldn't have made a TV show or a cover of a magazine but I certainly had made heavenly muffins. I was the goddess of my kitchen.

Baking princesses strike again

Thinking of my waistline's date with spring I wiggled myself out of making traditional Wednesday pancakes. The trim and slim body owners in my family could not live with this injustice and joined their forces. At the sight of flour, butter, sugar and cinnamon, I escaped from the kitchen. I hid in the living room, and pretended nothing was going on. I was successful at that until the oven bell rang, the door was opened and seducing smells lured me to the kitchen. The baking princesses had brought out heavy weaponry. Apple crumble and vanilla ice-cream demanded me to surrender. I did.

Contributing to the happiness of the World

"Mom, I really need to use the computer," says Mimm (6) heading towards the computer, when her destination is supposed to be bed.
"No, no, no, no. We will go to bed. Especially if you want me to read a longer bed time story," is my initial response.
"But, mom, I need to write something really quickly, or I'll forget," is Mimm persistent.
That sounds too much like my words. Well, how long does it take for her to write? I can give her few minutes. We'll just read a shorter story.
"Fine. What do you need to write?"
"A pancake recipe."
"Why?"
"Because, what if you are not at home, and my sisters are not at home, then I would have to make pancakes all by myself. I don't know how to make pancakes. So I need a recipe. Will you help me?"
By now she has a word document open. We go through the list of things we usually use for pancakes, she types most words independently, I spell few of them. Then we print the recipe out and she attaches it to the refrigerator door.

We will be making pancakes today. We (all the girls of my house) have made pancakes almost every Wednesday since Mimm wrote that recipe more than two months ago. I do realize that pancakes are not exactly proper dinner, but seeing the raspberry jammy smiles gathering around the dinner table on Wednesdays, it is a right choice. Maybe if every child had a chance to eat pancakes on Wednesdays the World would be a happier place.

4 muna = 4 eggs
3 supilusika täit suhkurt = 3 spoonfuls of sugar
3 tasi pima=3 tassi piima=3 cups of milk
3 tasi jahu= 3 tassi jahu = 3 cups of flour
1 natu kene sola = natukene soola= little bit of salt
sega= mix
kum pan= kuum pann= hot pan
õli=oil
taiken=taigen= batter
küpseta valmimiseni= bake till ready

(we adjust the batter with one extra egg and more milk when necessary)

Ooey, gooey

"Ooey, gooey, sweet, and chewy," played a tune in my head when I unwrapped two marshmallow walnut chocolate chip cookies for dessert at school.
"Child labor?" inquired my friend from across the table.
Yep. Everyone in the building knows that the cookies I bring are always baked by my two teenage daughters. What can I do when a culinary inspiration hits them in the evening? Who am I to stop them from bringing joy and delight to the whole family? Aren't we supposed to support creation, experimentation, collaboration?
They have played with various flavors, ingredients, and techniques to make treats of trance . Crumbly, tender, chunky, sandy, crunchy, crisp, cakey - I have had to expand my cookie texture vocabulary. Even though the cookies do not always turn out Martha Stewart style perfect and photogenic, it doesn't matter. So far we have eaten all the cookies. Including the crumbs.
"Ooey, gooey, sweet, and chewy," the tune plays in my head even now. I have one cookie left.