And I don't even like peanut butter

I am going to show you a picture. This picture serves the purpose of proving that looks can be deceiving and that you can't judge a book by its cover and whatever other similar trite adage you can come up with. This cupcake is not a beautiful cupcake. It's a little misshapen. The frosting is not smooth and creamy. You can't tell (thanks to the covering of the not smooth and not creamy frosting), but the cupcakes are also sunken in the middles. When I pulled the first batch out of the oven, I was bummed because they looked so sad and pathetic.

Not pretty, is it?

However... My son said they were phenomenal. His exact word. I agree with him. So I will share my recipe with you, taken from The All New Fannie Farmer Boston Cooking School Cookbook, Tenth Edition (published in 1970, the year of my birth).

Peanut Butter Cupcakes

At their best when freshly baked

Put paper baking cups in muffin tins (16 or more, according to size). Set the oven at 375 degrees. Cream together until smooth

1/4 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup butter

Beat in

3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla

Sift together

1 cup pastry flour or 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/4 tsp baking powder

Add in small amounts, alternating with

3/8 cup milk

Fill the paper cups half full. Bake about 20 minutes.

I doubled the recipe and ended up with 32 cupcakes, just enough for my son's 5th grade class and a few left over for me the family. I frosted them with chocolate butter frosting (homemade, of course - if canned frosting looked like mine, Duncan Hines would go out of business). I'd give you that recipe, except I kind of cannibalized two separate recipes and to tell you the truth, I'm not exactly sure what I did. It may not be aesthetically pleasing, but it sure tastes good!

Nighty-night, sleep tight

So the other day, my daughter tells me she has a library book from school that she wants me to read to her. We didn't have time that night. The next night she tells me she has to return the book the next day, and she really wants me to read it to her. I tell her to get ready for bedtime and then we snuggle up together in her bed and I open the book.

We begin to read. The story opens with a poor little girl, out walking in the snow on a cold night. She has lost her slippers (one having been snatched up by a young boy) and she is barefoot in the cold. Sounds a little serious, but on we read.

Continuing. The girl finds a corner between two buildings to curl up in; she is freezing cold. She is afraid to go home because her father will beat her for not selling any matches. Yes, BEAT her.

I'm a little disturbed now, but my daughter says she has read this book before, so I trudge forward.

The girl has her matches (which she did not sell) and begins to light the matches to warm her hands. In the light of the matches she sees beautiful visions of Christmas trees and warm rooms and wonderful feasts. I think to myself, it sounds like this child is hallucinating.

With the next match the girl sees a vision of her loving grandmother (who is dead) and proceeds to light the remaining matches so as not to lose the vision. A little more disturbed, yet I continue to turn the pages.

And we come to the delightful finale about how passers-by the next morning find the little girl's frozen body with a handful of used matches in her cold, dead hand. (No, the actual text did not say, "cold, dead hand," but it may as well have.)

I looked at my daughter incredulously, my voice slightly choking, at the conclusion of this story, "Emma, why would you ask me to read this story right before bedtime?" She only offered a meek shrug while gazing at me with her own misty eyes. "Your teacher read this to you?" I ask, trying to imagine a room full of 2nd graders gathering for story time only to be slapped in the face with death. The answer, "Yes, but we actually read it in 1st grade." Of course you did.

I consider myself fairly well-read, but I have to admit I had never heard of The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen before this night. I think it's one of those classic tales. I'm sure there's a reason. Don't get me wrong - I am generally not against my children reading stories concerning death and other such serious topics. But a little emotional preparation would have been nice. For me, anyway.

Eva, oh Eva

I fell in love this week.

It was unexpected. It was magical. It was puppy love. Literally.

I mean, who can blame me? Just look at that face!

(This is Eva, who came to visit us this week all the way from New Mexico with my husband's sister and brother-in-law. I already miss her.)

This cat person is slowly being converted.

What a treat to be greeted at the door after a long (okay, not so long) day at work, by an energetic, bouncy little creature who is so happy to see me she is beside herself with joy! Instead of being greeted (if I am greeted at all) by a whining cat whose only reason for dragging his white self off of the black slacks I left on my bed is to see if I would put some meat paste in his bowl.

How yummy to have the little big-eared love bug snuggle up next to me and fall fast asleep. You think that cat snuggles up to anyone? Truly, he is defective.

How convenient that any tiny morsel of food dropped on the floor is instantly sucked up by the little four-legged bissel. The cat? Useless. In fact, he won't even eat his OWN food that HE drops on the floor.

So what is keeping me from giving in to this irrational love feeling? What's stopping me from "accidentally" letting the indoor-only cat outside on a cold night?

It's the licking. So much licking. Can somebody please explain the incessant licking? I don't want my face licked. I don't want my hands licked. I don't want my toes licked. Really, I don't. Do they make a dog who doesn't have this insatiable need to put its tongue on everything? I almost wouldn't mind receiving her little doggy kisses if I hadn't just watched her lick the cat food off of the floor. Ugh. The licking is just too much.

That cat (who at this very moment happens to be curled up next to me, purring) has no idea how lucky he is.

A Tribute

Last week, American author J.D. Salinger died.

I feel the need to mark his passing because I acknowledge a certain indebtedness to this particular author. Not because reading The Catcher in the Rye held any significance for me (to my remembrance, I hated this story when I read it in college.) But because his writing (yet perhaps his only by chance) had a hand in the reawakening of my soul to its forgotten love of all things literary. It was his collection of short stories (Nine Stories) that I happened upon at the local library a year or so ago. I don't have the utterance to express what I experienced as I read this collection. I can only say this -- that it wasn't the stories that touched me, but more simply the writing itself that moved me. Reading this writing was the highest pleasure. The prose was pure poetry. I was hooked. Again.

I read in the university newspaper that many of the author's materials have been donated to the Harry Ransom Center, materials that "offer an intimate perspective of his life." When I saw this, immediately I was intrigued and thought about making a trip to the center to peruse the collection.

But then, I thought, considering what little I have read about this man and his life, wouldn't it be more fitting NOT to go? This person who chose to life his life in a reclusive manner, out of the limelight, whose last published work was in 1965 - would it honor this person to flock together with all the other Salinger devotees to rifle through his personal materials and speculate about his life? I don't believe it would.

So for my part, I will only offer this small, inconsequential tribute. I will remain hooked. And I will continue to be inspired.

Many thanks.