Last week we gathered for my daughter-in-law’s birthday celebration.

I’d asked my son what she might like for supper and he said “Mediterranean.”

Also: pasta with Asian influence.
Also: just pasta in general. 

I went with Mediterranean, Virginia-style ‘cause I’ve never been anywhere near the Mediterranean so I don’t know of what I speak — or cook: chicken shawarma, Moroccan carrot salad (I could live on this stuff), kale tabbouleh, homemade cottage cheese, olive muffalata (from Costco), leafy greens dressed in lemon and oil from the olives, and herbed flatbreads. 

The colors were spectacular — so many herbs! so much green! — and the flavors were dreamy and fresh. Which begs the question: why don’t I cook like this more often?

The dessert was a surprise. 

I’d never made a cake for my daughter-in-law, and for weeks I racked my brain about what kind of cake would be fitting. My daughter-in-law has extensive and varied interests (and the energy to match), but no single idea rose to the top. 

And then I saw photos of candles, and knew that was it.

That girl is a light — calm, steady, warm, inviting, bright. She lights up our family in so many wonderful ways. So I made her a whole bunch of candles (and then I told everyone to bring her a candle for a gift). 

I realized, too late, that the short fat candle looked more like a roll of toilet paper.

The cake itself was carrot, probably because this was over Easter and I had carrot cake on my brain. (Later, it occurred to me that it’d be fun to do a bunch of different kinds of cake, but by then I was running out of time.) I used cutters to make cake rings and then stacked them up, using a new (best EVER) cream cheese frosting to sandwich them together. I cut cake out of the top layer so there’s be a little hole for a tea light.

For the small votive cake candles, I used birthday candles, not tea lights. Just stabbed them into the cake. 

The wax drips are made from a white chocolate ganache. I was nervous that the chocolate would seize up (white chocolate has always been tricky for me) but I had zero problems. I dribbled the chocolate over the edges of the cakes, chilled them, and then repeated — over and over again. 

My husband cut a board for the candles to sit on, and my younger daughter brought the flowers, and voilà — we had cake candles for the birthday girl.

P.S. The white chocolate and cream cheese combo was spot on.
P.P.S. I made sour cherry and white chocolate scones with orange zest this weekend and drizzled them more of that white chocolate ganache. The combo worked.

New Favorite Cream Cheese Frosting
Adapted from Vaughn’s recipe at the NYTimes.

1 stick (4 ounces) butter, room temperature
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon lemon zest
300 grams confectioners sugar
1 pound cream cheese, room temperature

Beat the butter until creamy. Add the salt, zest, and sugar, and beat very well. Add the cream cheese, an ounce at a time, beating all the while. (Incrementally adding the cream cheese is key to getting luscious results. Don’t shortcut this step.)

White Chocolate Ganache

2 ounces heavy whipping cream
6 ounces white chocolate chips

Put the chocolate and cream in the top part of a double boiler. Once the chocolate has softened, stir until smooth. Drizzle over cakes, scones, biscotti, etc. 

When chilled, the ganache will become firm, but it will never harden. 

This same time, years previous: multigrain sourdough, currently, perimenopause: Jo, age 52, strawberry syrup, the coronavirus diaries: week seven, the quotidian (4.29.19), graduated!, besties, back to normal, the quotidian (4.27.15), learning to play, church of the Sunday sofa, Sunday somethings.

Quotidian: daily, usual or customary;
everyday; ordinary; commonplace

Cottage cheese and corn: a five-star combo.

Grill weather’s a-coming!

Pork ribs.

Comfort food dressed up.

Buckboard (shoulder) bacon: sooooo good.

Our Puerto Rican friends’ family came to town, and then out to our place.

Ombré.

The final hour(s): Go, Cory, go.

Eartags: just waiting for my husband to get up the guts to punch the holes.

Fern and Petunia 3.0 (not shown) arrived and the cows were intrigued.

The chickens, too. In the morning, they huddle outside the pigs’ door and cluck them awake.

Snip-snip.

Helping dig her great grandfather’s grave.

Six hours, tight sqeeze.

This same time, years previous: milk training, do you fight with your spouse?, my new kitchen: completed!, feeding my family, gado-gado, beginner’s bread, wrangling sheep, the quotidian (4.14.14), deviled eggs.

After my younger daughter moved out, my husband gave her room a thorough once-over: patching holes, painting, replacing blinds, washing screens, and organizing the closet. 

I washed the windows. 

And then I texted my mom to see if she’d like to be in charge of designing and setting up the room. We’d pay for everything, I explained, but she’d be in charge of finding the various components and arranging them.

Now for those of you who don’t know, my mother is queen of cozy home decorating. Not that she would ever call herself a decorator, mind you. “Decorator” is far too tawdry, too worldly. My mother approaches decorating via Thrifting and Homemade, and then she tweaks and fiddles and rearranges and improves things, things that no one else would even know needed improving, like it’s some sort of Olympic sport. (This obsession of hers — though I think it’s more Gift than obsession — started when she was a child and would rearrange the living room furniture over and over until her father got tired of not knowing where to sit and told her to STOP.) 

Her endless capacity for home improvement boggles my mind, but the end result is something else, truly. Always at her house, there are fat “new” chairs to be sat in, homemade artwork to be looked at, bejeweled lampshades, razzle-dazzle pillows, and so on. It’s all very (very) lovely, but when it comes to my holey chairs and ratty blankets and dented lampshades, I just don’t care. Or at least I don’t care enough to get my panties in a twist and do something, anyway. 

And so that’s why I texted my mom. I wanted a nice room — a room that I wouldn’t have to think about for the next 20 years — and when it comes to taste, my mom’s is tops.

“I would love to,” she texted back. “Tell me all requirements. Also, room dimensions.” And she was off.

Over the next few months, she thrifted and Amazoned and shopped and sifted through her own wares and Facebook Marketplaced and Craigslisted. She repeatedly popped in to measure and make scribble sketches on bits of scrap paper. I got emails with pictures of bed frames. She bargain with sellers, checking in with us (“her people”) before landing a deal. She organized furniture pickups and drop offs. She sent me photos of various rugs — It’s wool, Jennifer, WOOL. You have to feeeeel it. She asked me to confirm colors and doublecheck measurements. She purchased extras and made returns. 

And then, after about six weeks, she and Dad backed their truck up to the porch and thus commenced The Great Bedroom Redo of 2025.

While Dad installed the curtain rods and Mom cleaned the thrifted dresser, I sat on the floor, chatted with them, and occasionally ran to fetch a tool. Watching the room get built right before my eyes, was magical.

I felt like a princess.

Over the next several weeks, Dad built and mounted a row of clothing hooks, and Mom painted over the screw holes. She painted over the screw holes, squeeee!

They swapped out the closet’s cheap metal latch for a black one.  Plants showed up — and then disappeared again. (“They didn’t do anything for the room,” Mom said.) I’d get emails instructing me to order that mattress pad and this specific fitted sheet. “Do you have extra pillows or should I buy some?” Mom asked. “Buy some,” I said. I was called upstairs to pick bedding and decide where the towel racks should go. 

And then we got word that our first overnight guests would be arriving at the end of the week. “Ok to come hang a mirror?” Mom texted.

And then the next day, “I’m in a panic about changes. . . so I’ll have to come over. . .” Apparently the lighting wasn’t quite up to snuff and she needed to trial shades and lamps.

You can always change it later, she said, and I laughed, reminding her that however she left the room was how it was gonna be for the next several decades.

I’ve made the kids check out the room whenever they stop by. “It looks just like Shirley!” my daughter-in-law shouted, and “Why couldn’t we have done this when I lived here?” my younger daughter said. (To which I snorted and said, “Because you were in it.”)

Want to guess what the total cost of the room redo was? Twelve hundred. Mom seemed a little worried, like she may have overspent, but my husband roared, “Are you kidding? That room is gorgeous! It was totally worth every penny.”

“And then some,” I added.

Every time I pass the room on my way down the hall, a giddy lightness zips through me. Here sits a simple, put-together room, welcoming and ready for whenever we might need it.

Thanks, Mom and Dad. What a gift.

P.S. My husband’s sister and brother-in-law, the new room’s first guests, declared the bed comfortable (whew), and the room lovely.  

P.P.S. Yesterday my mother stopped by to drop off a new different comforter that she’d found at a thrift store, and then meticulously washed/patched/whatever. It’s butter-soft, much more pleasing to the touch than the current bedspread, but she’s worried the coloring might be wrong for the room. And so it goes…

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (4.8.24), how to make clabber, how I trick myself into writing, the coronavirus diaries: week 57, the coronavirus diaries: week five, kickboxing, missing Alice, a trick for cooking pasta, scatteredness, millet muffins, oatmeal raisin cookies, answers, yellow cake, this slow, wet day.