This weekend we will have a bunch of people descend upon our house to eat and sleep and play and I can’t wait. My whole life is revolving around the event, what to cook, what to clean, where to sleep everyone, etc. For the last month we’ve had an ongoing list of all the gory details (much of the stuff needed to get done anyway but got added to the list so that we could pace ourselves).

Despite our carefully penciled lists—first, a column for each week and now a column for each day, and some days have several columns each—my husband still goes about approaching the festivities in his own special way. Which means he spends prime work time tackling projects that we did not even discuss.

Now, lest you think I am criticizing him, let me explain. My husband has a unique way of working, and it is very different from how I get work done. I clean methodically, with a list that I check frequently to note my progress. I adhere to the belief that cleaning involves the basics, like picking up, dusting and vacuuming. John, on the other hand, cleans like a whirling dervish, one who spins off on side tangents.

Like painting the picnic table.

And like painting the kitchen stools,

with the help of all of the (thrilled) children, no less.

I can’t complain because those are both things that really needed to be done (plus, when strongly encouraged to focus, he attacks the bathrooms and floors with the same intense ferocity)—I just didn’t think they needed to be done at this time when so many other things, like installing a screen door, building shelves, and installing my magnetic knife strip, really needed to get done.

But as you can see, he’s done those things, too.

Of course, I’ve been known to stray from the list, too, so I don’t have much room to talk. On Saturday, in the midst of John and the kids’ paint fest, I took shelter in the kitchen to make a margarita cake.

Because that’s a really important thing to do when my to do list is a mile long and boring as a dried up old bone.

Perhaps John and I aren’t so very different after all?

Of course, on top of everything else the weather has to go and give me fits. This week we’re having 75-degree sunny gorgeousness, but starting Saturday it’s calling for solid rain for days. This wet outlook has given me a serious case of the Triple Ds: I am daunted, depressed, and deeply disturbed. I moaned about it to John a dozen too many times (he ought to consider it an intensive course in how to handle a bummed-out me—he could put it on his resume), and wallowed in the depths for awhile.

But then I read this line in Misha’s blog—Rain shouldn’t stop you. There are always slickers and fleece hats. And then set out a towel by the front door—and I started to feel slightly up. I also resolved not to look at the weather anymore (but then I peeked this morning—no change).

So anyway, that’s what’s up with us these days. I’ve been cooking a little here and a little there, squirreling away the finished scones, granolas, marshmallows, etc, in jars and freezers. I hauled the plant pots out of the toolshed and stuffed them with bright colors, (mostly) ridded the front porch of spider webs, and washed curtains and bedding.

It’s starting to feel good around here and I’m beginning to think we need to host weekend bashes more often, because no matter our cleaning-method differences, it appears that both John and I work well with deadlines.

Margarita Cake
More a formula than a recipe, and inspired by—oh, cwap, my delicious bookmark thingy is down. I’ll update as soon as it’s back up.

Add 1-3 tablespoons of lime zest in your favorite plain yellow or white cake batter. As soon as the cake comes out of the oven, brush the top with 1/4 cup of tequila. Ice the cake with buttercream that has been jazzed up with 2 tablespoons each of fresh lime juice and tequila. Sprinkle more lime zest over the cake.

I think this could be made even more margarita-y with the following changes:
a) make it in a layer cake, and after brushing the cakes with tequila, invert them on a rack and brush the bottoms with a hot lime-sugar syrup, and
b) put a layer of lime curd underneath the buttercream (for just the tops, not the sides, of the cake).

P.S. Completely off-topic, but you need to know this: canned apricots and pandowdies were made for each other.

Take a quart of soft-to-the-point-of-mushiness apricots, add a couple tablespoons of cornstarch that has been mixed with a half cup of sugar, heat till thickened and dump in a pie pan. Lay a piece of buttery pie pastry over top and brush with cream and sprinkle with sugar. Bake till bubbly and brown. Take the pandowdy out of the oven, slash it vigorously with a table knife, and return it to the oven for another five minutes.

Cool to room temperature and serve with whipped cream.

“Get up! Psst, get up!”

My eyes pop open and struggle to focus on the clock. It reads 5:59 am. The rousing isn’t directed at me. In fact, it’s all the way at the other end of the hall, one girl to another, but I have spent the last dozen years of my life conditioning myself to wake at the slightest child-made noise.

The stairs creak as several pairs of feet tip-toe down. I groan and roll over. I want my coffee and computer. How long will I have to wait till my tray arrives?

I lay in bed for 15 minutes, listening (there are no noises, hmm) before heading downstairs to investigate. I’m halfway down the stairs when the kitchen explodes in panic, running feet, and frantic voices. “She’s up!” and “Stop! Don’t come down!”

“Okay, okay,” I say. “Can you please make me my coffee? And I want my computer. Now.” To the male parental figure who is feigning sleep on the sofa, I say, “Help them.”

Soon my coffee arrives. And then a little later my youngest daughter, apronclad, shows up with my reading glasses. “Everything stinks down there. We burned the butter.”

When the tray arrives, it is mounded with an impossible amount of food. Four eggs? Or maybe six? There are also two thick slabs of toast, a jar of cherry jam, and a piece of margarita cake. I have to laugh at the cake. My kids sure know what makes me tick.

The eggs are incredible, moist and light, and I am surprised to learn that Papa had nothing to do with them.

Then the littles, giggling with excitement, give me their cards. And the bigs, each bearing a half, deliver their jointly-made card—but wait! Oh my, look at that! It’s a book!

They had cut out our faces from some old photos and glued them on the pages. My daughter decorated the pages, and my son wrote the poetry, riddled with misspellings (for example, “poems” is spelled “powoms”).

So this is what they had been doing last night when they were holed up in my son’s room for hours on end.

Here, I’ll give you a sample:

When It Was Messy
There was a time
back in our prime
when it was a mess
we had to confess
when it was just cleaning
and also the weaning
and that’s the story of
mom and us.

And this one:

Here we are all
cozy and small.

Quite suddenly, my eyes spring a leak. My children’s goofy, round faces beaming up at me from their heart-shaped picture cutouts—it pierces me through. They are growing up and all too soon this will all be just a memory, waaaaaah!

I blow my nose, wipe my eyes, hug my daughter (who had promptly pressed up hard against me as soon as the tears started to squirt), and read on.

This is us
so why all the fuss.

And,

So long, farewell, auf
wiedersehen good-bye.
Good-bye, good-bye, Mom.
We all love you.

They finished off the letter with their names and a torrent of X’s and O’s.

So, for a little post-letter analysis. According to my children, I
1. Fuss a lot.
2. Am obsessed with cleaning.
3. Equate messes with sins and make my children confess them.
4. Need to take a chill pill.
5. Have taught them they are past their prime at the wise old age of nine. (And what do they think of me? That I have half a leg in the grave?)
6. Nursed babies for as long as they can remember.
7. Traumatized my children when I weaned them. (I mean, really! How many kids talk about weaning in their mother’s day cards? Anyone? Anyone?)
8. Have encouraged so many viewings of The Sound of Music that they now can no longer simply say good-bye, but instead have to sing-write it, and in German.

This same time, years previous: warts and all

I did it! I did it! I did it!

I found the rhubarb cream pie that I’ve been looking for my whole live-long life!

Oh. You didn’t know I was on that particular quest? That I was lying awake at night, bemoaning my lack of creamy rhubarb pie knowledge? That every time I glanced at my rhubarb patch I took to wringing my hands and sighing so deeply that the very breaths seemed to come from my ovaries? That I was paging through countless recipe books, calling my rhubarb guru friends, sobbing in my mother’s (unsympathetic) ear over the phone, plucking my husband’s sleeve and whispering piteously, “Cream and rhubarb, rhubarb and cream, oh shall I never get it right!”?

You didn’t know all that was going on?

Well, that’s fine.

Because it wasn’t.

I was at peace with the hundred and six rhubarb recipes I have tucked happily under the elastic waist of my yoga pants. I didn’t think I needed more.

But then I opened up the food section of our local paper and there was a recipe for rhubarb custard pie from the Amish Cook. Usually I find her recipes too sweet, too bland, and too boring, so I just gave it a quick glance and made like to turn the page. But then I paused, pondered the ingredient list—cream, sugar, flour, eggs, and rhubarb—really pondered them, and then quickly tore out the recipe.

I’ve had other rhubarb custard pies before, and I’ve liked them all well enough, but they always seemed to be too something—eggy, bland, watery, sugary, etc. I doubted the Amish Cook’s recipe would be any better, but decided I’d give it a go. It wasn’t like I didn’t have plenty of rhubarb on hand or anything.

To make a long story short, I love, love, love this pie. Though, and this is the only fault I could find with it, it is clearly NOT a custard pie. It is a cream pie, as in a CREEEEAAAAAMMMMMM pie. Velvety smooth and lustrous, the creamy part melts on the tongue while the juicy bits of rhubarb squirt delightful bursts of flavor with every bite. All of that cupped inside my favorite rich, crispy, buttery crust? Ooh-la-la. Now if you’ll please excuse me while I go cut my THIRD slice of pie.

I actually had a little trouble with the crust the first time. It didn’t get brown on the bottom and there’s nothing more disappointing about a pie than a pasty, leaden bottom crust. I made two more then and was so concerned about getting them brown enough that I charred parts of the edges (the parts of the edges that I did not take pictures of).

The bottom line? Don’t under bake the crust and don’t over bake it. You want it to get just right—golden brown all over. But then you knew that, right?

I’m sitting here reflecting on how very creamy this cream pie is and it occurred to me that it’s very similar to a dreamsicle, but with rhubarb instead of orange. Doesn’t that sound lovely?

In any case, this pie is a dream incarnate. A creamy dreamy cream dream dream.

Rhubarb Cream Pie
Adapted from the Amish Cook‘s column in our newspaper

The rhubarb didn’t seem like it would be enough to fill a 9-inch pie even after I added an extra cup of fruit, but it was. It’s a more thinly filled pie, yes, but it’s so rich and flavorful that that’s as it should be.

1 9-inch butter crust
2 ½ cups diced rhubarb (the rosier the better)
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons flour
2 eggs, well beaten
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream

Line the pie pan with the crust and crimp the edges. If you want to blind bake your crust to help it get a little more color, do it now. (This is optional. Do whatever you need to get a golden brown crust.)

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour and sugar. Add the eggs and whisk thoroughly. Add the cream and whisk some more.

Dump the diced rhubarb into the pie shell, pour the cream mixture over top, and bake the pie at 375 degrees for about 30-45 minutes. You’ll know it’s done when the center of the pie no longer jiggles when you wiggle the pan and the crust is golden brown on the edges and bottom.

Cool to room temperature and then chill in the refrigerator before serving (though I’ve been known to eat it piping hot).

This same time, years previous: naked pita chips