I’m feeling spacey today. There are reasons for this absentminded, distract-able stupor which I am slogging through.

Allow me to elaborate.

Reason Number One
It’s Monday. Mondays make me spacey.

Reason Number Two
This morning the two Up With People girls left.

They had been living with us for a week, and after eight days of changing around our schedule to accommodate theirs (morning and evening runs into town, some of which were quite late, and suppers at bedtime), I feel a little off-kilter.

The girls were great though, and we were all a little sad to see them go. Marjo (pronounced “MA-rio,” kind of) was from Finland and Joelle was from San Diego, CA. They were up for anything and everything: tree planting at some friends’ house, trying raw milk, biking, and multiple games of memory with the kiddies. It was fun and totally worth it, but now I’m worn out.

Reason Number Three
Marjo just so happened to be a photographer, so Friday night I sat her down and she explained all sorts of camera-y things to me. We talked about things such as “time value” and “aperture,” concepts that twisted my brain up in knots and made me concentrate super hard.

Having a semi-professional photographer at my fingertips for all sorts of silly little questions was a dream come true.

She was a dear to oblige me.

But there’s no two ways about it: playing with my camera makes me spacey.

Reason Number Four
Speaking of cameras, my new telephoto lens arrived on Saturday and I about went crazy with glee. In fact, I was whooping and hollering so much that Joelle decided I was video-worthy. Now, thanks to me, all the San Diegonians will think that Virginian women are so isolated and deprived that they weep with joy and dance jigs whenever the mail truck stops.

This new lens is guilty of messing up my life in a BIG way. Every time I think I might be able to focus on writing or trimming my fingernails or cleaning up the back hall, I spy my sexy new lens and have to go play.

This lens is making me really, really, reallyreallyreally spacey.

Reason Number Five
Last night we went trick or treating for the first time ever. It was the first time for my kids, and, believe it or not, it was the first time for me.

Since Marjo had never celebrated Halloween and was really excited and curious about it, I figured it’d be a bloomin’ pity for her to travel all the way around the world and not get to do the Halloween thing. It just wouldn’t be right.

For a variety of reasons, I’ve always been opposed to Halloween.

A.) Spiritual reasons. I was raised to believe that Halloween was a celebration of evil and that we, as Christians, were supposed to eschew the dark side and instead fill our heads with happy thoughts about Jesus.

B.) The whole candy thing. I don’t mind candy here or there, but a whole glut of candy in the hands of my children seemed a very unwise decision indeed.

C.) The realest reason: it was just one more thing to do and I didn’t feel up to it.

But then, quite spontaneously, I tossed all my ideas out the window and decided—BOOM!—we’d hit the streets come Sunday night.

And once I decided we’d do Halloween, I was all over it. Ghosts and goblins? Let’s terrorize the little sweeties—the scarier the better! Free candy? Yippee! Bring it all to mama, my sweets!

The kids grabbed clothes from the dress-up box. Nickel was a ragged, safety-pinned together spiderman. Sweetsie went as a we’re-not-sure-what. (Some of our guesses include a wigged out nun, a cleaning lady, and a Christmas tree ornament.) Miss Beccaboo transformed into a queen, complete with an iron curtain rod scepter and a paper crown. Yo-Yo was a clown.

And then we were off. It took The Baby Nickel a few houses to figure out what in the world was going on, but then he was off and running, literally.

After an hour of tromping around in the dark, shivering, and munching on candy, I was hooked. Halloween was a splendid holiday! So community oriented! So neighborly! So fun! In fact, I was so gong-ho that I suggested we hit a second neighborhood, a notion that got vetoed by my more sensible husband.

We arrived home with a boatload of candy and bad attitudes. This morning we’re dealing with the after effects, trying to find a balance between a candy free-for-all and the parental regulatory board.

And it so happens that sugar-induced hangovers and grumpy kids make me spacey.

Reason Number Six
We went to bed at ten o’clock last night, but I was awakened a half hour later by a whimpering Baby Nickel. Hoping that Mr. Handsome would rise to the occasion, I played dead. Turns out, Mr. Handsome can play a fine game of dead himself.

Perhaps Nickel will fall back asleep on his own, I thought, rolling over and squinching my eyes tightly shut.

But Nickel kept up his pathetic whimpering and Mr. Handsome kept making like a possum so I finally tumbled my tired self out of bed and on down the hall. I reached to scoop up my little boy and—eeeeew! I was hit by a wave of stink at the same time my hands touched wet slime.

The child, bless his heart, was whimpering because he had thrown up all over the bed and then face planted—no, body planted—in the stinky filth.

And thus commenced a three-hour puke fest. The poor child worked his way through one bedspread, several blankets, a couple sheets, one mattress pad, two pillowcases, two outfits, two sleeping bags, and multiple wash cloths and towels.

By round five, he was an old pro. A sweet, but weak, little voice would rouse me from my drowsy stupor with a polite, “I’m ready,” and I’d bound out of bed and whip a bowl under his chin. (At one point, Mr. Handsome mumbled something about sharing a bed with the Road Runner.)

Piles (and piles and piles) of puke-soaked laundry on four hours of sleep make me very spacey indeed.

Happy November First!

The end.

The same time, years previous: Greek yogurt, oatmeal bread

At my aunt’s annual soiree this past September, we made our customary jaunt down to the local bakery for our Sunday morning bread and scones. Once in the shop, I was immediately drawn to the little observation deck that overlooked the oven room. I planted myself at the glass-less window, leaned my elbows on the ledge, and scrutinized the baker’s every move.

I love watching professionals do their thing. They move so smoothly and confidently. I find it soothing.

The baker must’ve been accustomed to nosey people like me and chatted cheerfully while she worked. She explained the steam injector, opened the oven to show me the fire at the very back, and when I asked to see the starter, she even gave me (and the others who had finished purchasing breakfast and joined me at my lookout point) a little impromptu tore of the back kitchen.

Watching people work is the best way to learn something, I think. Why, just the other week I had Miss Beccaboo make bread for the first time. When I started explaining how to knead the dough, she interrupted me. “I already know how to knead, Mama.”

Dubiously I stepped back. She promptly dug her hands into the dough and started to press, turn, and fold like she had been doing it all her life.

“Did Grandmommy teach you that?” I asked, impressed and a little sad that I missed out on teaching my own daughter how to knead bread.

“No,” she said. “I’ve just watched you do it so I know how.”

And then she made a turtle shell out of the dough ball.

But back to that baker—I learned something from her.

Before docking the dough, she waved a flour-filled sieve over the loaves. Once the loaves were dusted à la Amelia Bedelia, she slashed a design and rolled the loaves into the hot oven.

When I quizzed her as to the purpose of the flour, she explained that it was totally aesthetics, an exercise in contrasts—the slashed-open part would brown up prettily while the top stayed a dusty white.

So now I’ve taken to dusting my loaves with flour before docking them.

It’s so simple to do, and it goes a long way towards making the bread look rustic.

This same time, years previous: light-as-air hamburger buns, roasting squashes and pumpkins

I was raised on applesauce (along with a few other things). We ate applesauce as a side dish at suppertime. We ate applesauce smeared atop butter bread for our lunch. We ladled applesauce into popsicle molds and ate it frozen on hot summer afternoons.

Nowadays, there’s still an awful lot of apples getting turned into sauce around here. My children adore the stuff so we put up about a hundred quarts of sauce every summer. Despite our zealous, saucy ways, I must admit that I’m not all that much in love with the stuff. I prefer my apples fresh, or else baked up in a pie, cake, or crisp rather than in ordinary schmordinary sauce form.

It has come to my attention that some people believe applesauce has only two functions: as baby food and as a baking ingredient. I agree that it’s a great baby food, but I have never, ever fallen prey to the notion that applesauce belongs in baked goods.

There are two reasons that applesauce in baked goods grieves me most mightily. First, some people use applesauce as a substitute for oil. This is wrong. For me, of course. I wouldn’t presume to tell you what you can or can’t do. That would be rude.

But folks! If you’re going to eat a cake, then eat a cake, for crying out loud! A cake complete with all the vital components—sugar! butter! white flour! And if you’re not up for indulging, then just don’t indulge! In any case, do not—I repeat, do not—desecrate the real deal with applesauce!

Unless desecrated cake is the real deal for you. In that case, desecrate with abandon. See if I care.

The second reason that applesauce in baked goods grieves me is that applesauce is a heck of a lot of work. After all that cutting, cooking, mashing, drilling, and canning, I’m not inclined to hide applesauce in other baked goods. It’s a food in its own right and I want everyone to see it and appreciate it for what it is: applesauce. No applesauce gets hidden under a bushel basket in this house, no sir! Here, we let our little applesauce light shine brightly.

For both of the above reasons, I’ve been averse to cozy-ing up the words “cake” and “applesauce.” (Though, I must point out, applesauce in cake is very different from applesauce on cake. The former is taboo—or was taboo, as you’ve probably already figured out from this long-winded preamble—while the latter is perfectly acceptable, though slightly Pennsylvania Dutchy-esque.)

Anyhow. What I’m trying to get at is that—big bite of crow here—I put applesauce in a cake and loved it.

It’s all Deb’s fault. Deb posted a recipe for applesauce spice cake and she did not try to mask it with any health nut terminology. No indeed. Hers was a full-blown cake complete with icing and butter and brown sugar. It tempted mightily.

And then I recalled the adult applesauce that I had made the other night. See, in an effort to get myself excited about apples in sauce form, I had simmered chunks of cored, unpeeled apples in some apple cider, with a couple sprigs of rosemary and a cinnamon stick thrown in for umph and some browned butter stirred in for richness. The sauce was classy and sophisticated, but no one liked it except for me. (There was the little problem with the apple peels, I must admit. I hadn’t cut the apples into small enough pieces which meant that large flaps of apple skin were a predominant feature. But hey, what are our chompers for anyway?)

In any case, I had a bunch of leftover sauce in the fridge and when Deb’s recipe popped up and I recalled my rosemary-infused chunky applesauce, I was a goner. I had no option but to make the cake.

So I did. I immersion blendered up a bit of the sauce till it was creamy smooth and tossed it in with the brown sugar and eggs and spices and baked myself up a lovely applesauce cake.

If it’s at all healthy, it’s a total coincidence and completely inconsequential.

It’s cake, is what it is, and a darn fine one at that. Simple, homey, comfortable, and absolutely autumnal, it begs to be eaten in front of a crackling fire, thick wool socks on your feet and a fleece blanket draped over your shoulders.

One more thing before I give you the recipe: the cake’s name. I have to do something about the name. I’ve been calling this cake Applesauce Cake because that’s what it is, but the name does not own up to the cake. This is not a cake with some applesauce in it. This is an applesauce cake. But the name “Applesauce Cake” does not convey that fact.

So I can not in good consciousness call it an applesauce cake. It must have a new name. Apple Spice Cake? Apple Infused Cake? Apple and Spice Cake? Sauced Apple Cake? Saucy Apple Cake? Saucy, Spicy Apple Cake? Applesauce Spiked Cake? Rosemary and Cinnamon Applesauce Cake?

Good grief! This is going nowhere. I’ll have to bite the bullet, back down, and call it what it is. If you have any better ideas, please let me know.

Applesauce Cake
Adapted from Deb of Smitten Kitchen

The apple-ness permeates the moist cake in a most beguiling fashion, and the spices are mild. The first time around I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t taste the rosemary outright (and you all know how I love rosemary and apples together) so the second time I allowed a few rosemary needles to get blended up with the apples. Also, the second time around I doubled the cinnamon and increased the ginger, two changes which I wrote into the recipe. If you want less spice, cut them back to 3/4 teaspoon and ½ teaspoon, respectively.

If desired, you can make some rosemary applesauce for the cake (or to eat with your syruped-up Sunday waffles): wash and core a couple pounds of apples. Do not peel them. Chop them up into bite-sized chunks (or leave them bigger if you plan to blend them up) and put them in a kettle with about a half inch of apple cider on the bottom. Toss in a stick of cinnamon and a couple sprigs of rosemary. While the apples are cooking, brown a couple tablespoons of butter in a separate saucepan. When the apples are tender, remove the cinnamon and rosemary and stir in the browned butter. Serve the chunky sauce as is, or blend it up.

One more note: the cinnamon in the frosting is a very fine idea indeed.

½ cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar (I used dark)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon salt
1 1/3 cups applesauce
Cinnamon cream cheese frosting (recipe follows)

Cream together the butter and brown sugar. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat some more. Mix together the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and then add them to the creamed butter mixture. Blend gently to combine. Stir in the applesauce.

Pour the batter into a greased 9-inch springform pan (or a square 9×9 glass pan). Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes. Cool and frost.

If you’re not going to eat up the cake within a couple days, store it in the refrigerator. Otherwise, show it off on your most fetching cake plate.

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

This frosting is gorgeous, pale brown with darker brown speckles.

3 tablespoons butter, softened
5 tablespoons cream cheese
1 cup confectioner’s sugar, sifted
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon cinnamon

Cream together the butter and cream cheese. Beat in the vanilla and cinnamon and then add the confectioner’s sugar.

This same time, years previous: garden inventory 2009, pizza with curried pumpkin sauce, sausage, apples, caramelized onions, and sharp cheddar (it wins the award for longest food title)