It's that time of year again

The time of year when I can't say no.

There will be a Christmas market at the boys' school next Thursday and Friday.

Which means I'll be spending the entire weekend in the kitchen.

By Sunday evening, the candy thermometer and I will be best friends and I'll have two or three sugar burns on my hands and there will be 20 jars of salted butter caramel and 80 sachets of caramels, toffee, truffles and whatever else I can come up with.

You wish you had my social life, don't you?

Not being able to say no used to be a lot more fun than this.

Voluntary Damnation

aka - I like Martha Stewart.

I really do. Maybe not her personally since I don't know her. But I like her magazines a lot. And her recipes. Thanks to Martha, I always save the leftover olive bread and chorizo baguette from fondue to use for croutons. And I never arrive at a dinner party without a delicious hostess gift to offer.

Anyway.

It was the Boys' school fair yesterday. They danced and sang and played games and won rinky-dink prizes and ate too much sugar. It was as it should be. I'm a pta member so I was supposed to have helped with a lot of things but I didn't have time for anything but work last week so I didn't do anything. To make up for it, I spend 8 hours in the kitchen on saturday making cookies. I made Martha's Outrageous Chocolate Cookies, Lemon Bars, Chocolate Meringues, and Chocolate Drizzled Spice Cookies.

They were all wonderful, as is usually the case with Martha's recipes. Although the meringues were not crispy enough - it was really humid on saturday and I should have left them in the oven longer. But that's not Martha's fault.

Anyway. Everyone loved the cookies. People tend to love the things I make in general. Not because they're amazing, but because they're different from what most people here make. A dozen people came up to me yesterday to gush about the lemon bars. "Just perfect." "Sublime." "Not too sweet and not too sour." "A se damner!" Which I'm translating as 'worth voluntary damnation'.

I'm thinking no lemon bar, even mine and Martha's is worth a trip to hell so next time I'll go heavy on the lemon or light on the sugar.

I'll post the recipes only if you take full responsibility for the souls of those you make them for.

Someone push my off button

Have you ever had one of those experiences where you're floating above your body, watching and listening to yourself, powerless to keep yourself from doing or saying that thing that's about to make you cringe? Let me illustrate.

I was at a PTA meeting at the Boys' Catholic school. Very nice people, very relaxed meeting where we had been discussing the set up and profits of the Christmas market. We were drinking tea and eating galette des rois. Bascially the meeting was over and we were just chatting. Yeah, that makes it less cringesque.

One of the members is pregnant (with her 5th [!] child). Someone asked her is she was planning to breastfeed. Someone asked me if I had breastfed mine. When I told them I weaned the boys at 2 1/2, I got an evitable, "2 1/2 years? Oh my gosh that's so long. What about their teeth?" This is the standard comment amongst populations where breasfeeding typically stops at 3 or 6 months, tops. Which is fine. People have always been respectful of my choices here, including where, when and how long I nursed. Anyway.

So I responded with my standard, "No, teeth aren't a problem. They can nurse without hurting you with their teeth. And they know that." Really? But still, blah blah blah. A lot of moms have a thing about the teeth thing. So finally, exasperated, I said, "You know, it's like with a straw, you don't have to put your teeth on the straw when you use one." Yeah, but still the teeth thing. Just couldn't let it go. So finally, REALLY exasperated, I said, "Oh come on, I can think of at least 2 fairly mainstream sexual acts that involve sucking things without the use of teeth."

At least the pregnant mom laughed.

I don't think they're going to include that in the meeting report.