Baking Italian Book Fair

Several things are swirling through my mind. So, it's just like any other day. This week's tasks include many random things that I need or want to do. As Fall approaches comes with it the school book fair. Every year I spend the majority of my free time helping at the book fair which means I'm spending hours counting pennies only to tell children they are 35 cents short and cannot buy that ridiculous pen. Interestingly this ceases to humor me as kid after kid repeats the process. Probably because they behave with this child desperation, they NEED that dumb pen, but when they leave without it they have already forgotten how important that pen was minutes ago. I know that parents if they are like me, will be relieved that their children didn't bring home another piece of crap to junk up the house. I shouldn't be so cynical it's those pieces of crap that help bring in the cash for the school's library little by little those add up. Still it's a crappy pen. As my morning and afternoons are spent counting pennies I can't help but think of other things that I need to do.

Our church has a bake sale this weekend and I volunteered to make some goodies. Last year I brought 2 pies and they were gone before I put them on the table. I wanted to make some more yet I can't think of where to store them so Keith won't fill himself silly with them. I had planned on baking ahead but pies in this house have a life expectancy of about 3 hours. What I love about making pies is that it's super easy. I mix up my secret ingredients dump it into a crust and bake. Love the quick tasty baking. I thought about freezing them, and I just might be able to squeeze 2 in the freezer but that's all. Rather than waste my brain power trying to think of ways to keep my husband from devouring all the pies I'm trying a new plan: cupcakes. People get excited about pies but they also dig a pretty awesome looking cupcake. I have far too many bottles of sprinkles and other pretty things to put on cupcakes so why not use it and have fun? If I can devote one day to making nifty looking cupcakes then I'll be set. Of course there will need to be decoys, I always need decoys in this house for any baked good, which is easy to do with cupcakes. My goal is to come up with some great cupcake topping ideas, you know things such as: Swedish fish, cotton candy, marshmallows, etc. I think that the more wacky the better because kids DIG crazy sugar loaded cupcakes. I'm trying to go for a target patron here and kids are the best way to go. The pies, they are for the grown ups. As I'm thinking of spectacular ideas I still need to make price tags and food warning labels. Ahhh, I do love the allergy world we live in. Speaking of which, all of these allergies has me thinking I should make something for those folks but I never seem to follow through. It may have a lot to do with not being willing to make something I've never tried and hope it turns out yummy. If you know of any good gluten free (w/o weird things like xanthan gum in it) then tell me, I might be able to squeeze a small batch out this week. I got the vegan thing down but not so much the gluten free.

Also I want to learn Italian. We're thinking of a trip to Italy for Holy Week next year and it might be useful to know some of the language. We'd get ripped off just for being American but I'd like to minimize that as much as possible. Besides with French as a past language learned I should be in decent shape for the basic understanding of some of the verbs. Then again I am an idiot with language so it might as well be Norse. I'm looking for language classes at the local community college and I just can't help thinking about being in class with Joel McHale.

Comments

Judith said…
Italiano! That sounds FUN. My limited Italian is gained during those trips to the il bagno at Macaroni Grill. "Grazie. Scusami..."

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