The snow is gone, we're all driving and living life normally again. And I know all my friends roll their eyes when I say this, but ... I miss the snow!
I love how the snow completely changes the world, how it makes us look at our lives again and think about how we do *everything*. I do admit, though, that while I wish the snow was back, I also wish the neighborhood all had snow shovels and all used them. That was a big issue with getting around - I could have done so much more if I could have walked, like back in the Midwest. Or if I'd had my creaky old cross-country skis - those were, unfortunately, down with Mom and Dad! Have to rectify that!
After the snow finally melted here, I made it to the parents' house for a belated Christmas. Mom and I spent a morning making rosettes, but I didn't get any pictures. This year's baking seemed ... fretful.
First, we realized that the deep fryer had lost its temperature knob. But even if we'd had the knob, not sure it would have helped much, as all the temperature numbers have rubbed off over the last 50+ years. The fryer was Mom's before she was married, the parents decided, so it's about 54 years old. Mom paused once during our work and said "I wonder how many rosettes I've ... " and I said "made?" but she said "Eaten!" My goodness, yes - 80 years old, how many rosettes in that lifetime?
Second was ... not enough lard! It really wasn't deep enough. So we added in all the Crisco we had - I know, I know, so wrong. But we weren't going to stop and start later, so we did this and hoped for the best.
Well, we thought we had the mixed oil at a good temp, so we got the irons out and realized we had only the two-pronged handle ones, we're not sure where our single handles went. So we popped a star iron onto one of the handles, dipped it into the batter, and plunged it into the fryer - only to have it crisp up and meld itself to the iron immediately! Yes, a wee bit hot ....
While Mom cleaned off the star iron, I heated up a flower or traditional (for us) rosette iron, and after the oil cooled a bit, I went at it. I think the rosette iron is the best one, it gives you the most cookie per cookie. :) Those little stars, hardly a mouthful! Hee.
Soon we had everything in balance, finally, and I was able to get at it and soon had about 60 rosettes done.
It took us 3 hours to do all this, and we were quite exhausted, due to all the fits and starts we had in getting going. Goodness! Looking at the pile of rosettes, I didn't think they were enough, so I'm probably going to head down there again in a few days (with lard!) and do a new batch now that we've got it all sorted out. We need a few more for nibbling, because we're giving away so many to friends.
Now it's 2009, I'm back home, and getting ready to do a big job: rearrange the living room for a dedicated crafting area, a dedicated windowshelf for the cat (for bird watching), and the sewing machine out on a dedicated table. Oof. It's hard to do any work like this in a house so small and already packed to the gills with stuff, so minimizing is also a key goal in 2009. Right now it's like that old slider puzzle with the squares you slide, one at a time, with only one square open. Only I don't even have that open square, really - I guess the kitchen floor is my open square?
Hope to have finished living room photos within the week, eek!
