Category Archives: Around the house

Bug Birthday Cakes on Window-sill

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Soon my son was turning 15 and since he went to Boston to celebrate, there wasn’t going to be much of a party. . . basically his favorite dinner with cake and ice cream. A few days before the big day, I saw some wonderful Nordicware “backyard bugs” cake pans in the discount store.  I looked them over.  No, he’s too old, I thought.

When I asked him what kind of cake he wanted, he said chocolate cake with chocolate icing. Then he hesitated and said, no, just plain cake. No icing. I thought of the bug mold and how good they might look unadorned with icing.

The day of his birthday, I raced back to the store hoping the pans would still be there. After all, it wasn’t that long since he’d asked me for a dinosaur cake. Here’s how they turned out. Chocolate cake from scratch. Yum. And when my son and his friends saw them, big smiles graced the faces of the tall and lanky, almost-grown 15-year-old kiddos.




The Art of Mold

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Today is soup day. And mold day. First I write a bit of poetry and end up titling it Shipwrecked in Soup. Then I remember some of my favorite photos not yet posted:  Mold! Mold in the soup pot, mold in the coffee cup. All pictures, except coffee cup, are shots of my big soup pot when I finally had nothing better to do than get it out of the fridge. It had been there for two months. When I opened the lid, as soon as I saw the beauty that had unfolded inside, I grabbed my cell phone. Yep, I was so excited I didn’t grab my camera. 

Art Takes Time: The best of cell-phone photography

This mold is compliments of the slow demise, under refrigeration, of my famous turkey tomato vegetable soup Art takes time. In this instance, a certain lack of commitment, or perhaps the commitment to let things sit and do their thing. The art of soup-pot mold was something that would never have happened when I was married.

My Kitchen My Way: Benefits of Divorce

It’s modern times. I’m separated. I discover I can leave a pot in the fridge for as long as I want, without harassment or feeling guilty from the “please-process-this” looks from my soon-to-be officially excommunicated husband. It is a wonderful freedom. Same thing with the coffee cup. I was painting an upstairs bedroom and left it on the ladder before taking a few days off. I needed a break before tackling the trim. No one checking on me, my progress, the quality of my painting, or what food dish I might leave behind. Far the the kitchen, a half-full cup of coffee unattended for a few days, and what do you get? Voila! Beautiful shapes from out of the air, beautifully formed, beautifully magical, mysterious mold.

P.S. I’m going to start shooting RAW soon and I am so in love with the mold, I plan to “cook up” some more in the fridge so I can get quality images. If you have any mold shots, please share. When you’ve had enough mold, you can read Shipwrecked in Soup, Shoes in the Bushes, Bologna Perfume and I stood up to die at writingwithoutahelmet.com.

Cereus opening

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Do you know the night-blooming cereus?  It is a flower most strange and magical. It blooms for a few hours, only at night. By morning it’s wilted.  It has a mild, almost-lemony fragrance and, when completely opened, it is the size of a human hand with fingers spread wide. The bud starts from the side of a leaf that looks like a succulent. The size of the stem and blossom when mature, dwarf the leaf and the leaf’s stem. This image is the beginning of the opening, which usually takes about a half hour. More cereus images to come.