Thought I was gone forever? For awhile I did too. Anybody still listening? I understand if you’ve moved on to sweeter pastures, but I took some needed time to reflect on whether or not I was doing the best thing I could be doing right now with this blog. To be honest, I’m not sure. There are a ton of things that interest me, but unfortunately I haven’t exactly been feeling like the world is my oyster so-to-speak. I realize I’m not the only one who is experiencing difficulty in these economically agonizing times, but I have been dealing with this economically agonizing situation going on six years now. At the same time, I realize things could be worse. However, when you are obsessed about where your next dollar is going to come from, if any, you really start to reevaluate how you spend you time. After six months of thinking, well, I realize I still don’t have any answers (feel free to chuckle).  

What I have realized is that I still hate store bought baked goods, and I still love sweets even though I gained all the weight I lost prior to moving here back (though I lost seven pounds of it again in the last 6 months! Hey, it’s better than nothing. AND it’s great when I get to eat my sweets, and not exercise for an hour and a half like I used to when I originally lost that weight before moving – oh, and sorry for the RIDICULOUSLY long babble-on!). And I still have this blog. I hope I still have my readers, but if I’ve lost some of you I hope to bring you back, and I hope to attract more. I have some ideas to keep you reading, but if there’s anything you’d like to see me write/do (except pat my head and my belly at the same time…it’s just not possible) please let me know. I want to encourage you to keep coming back.

I intend on getting to the comments on the last post before my hiatus for no other reason than they were are such heartfelt responses to a heartfelt post and I feel the need to respond in kind, and then there were those comments that were actually questions that I need to answer. As to the rest of the unresponded comments, I want to let you know that I appreciate them all so much. I struggle with depression, and they really do brighten my day. Unfortunately I sometimes have the darnedest time getting to things, and I’m afraid I’ll never catch up on all those I missed responding to, and I apologize for that. I’m really sorry for not being a good blogger for these past months. Thankfully I feel like I’m on more of an even keel and I’m ready to get back into the swing of things.

Without further ado, I bring you the New York crumb cake. This was FAB! And were I not the insane perfectionist-wannabe I am it probably would’ve only taken a little over an hour from prep to out of the oven.

As I am still the “insame perfectionist-wannabe” it took half the day, most of which was spent breaking apart the crumb topping into exquisite pea-sized crumbs. One of these days I’ll learn not to take it all so seriously, but as it stands I like to do things right…at least once at any rate.

I ardently wish that I could include the recipe here but I am forced to refrain from such a public display of neighborly knowledge in fear of the dreaded CI police. Honestly, I don’t even want to mention the publication’s full name for no other reason than to prevent increasing their PageRank. Needless to say the editor has a propensity for writing prissy op-ed pieces in the New York Times on the evils of us plebes sharing our little scribbles with the world since we don’t have any “real experience, the hard-won blood-on-the-floor kind.” Perhaps I don’t have “blood-on-the-floor” kind, but I do have zest, butter, and batter…among other things.

I’m no expert, and I certainly don’t purport myself to be one. That said, the journey of the inexperienced on the road to experienced I think is a valuable one. I guess the question might be, are all roads to experience worthy? I’d answer yes. If you all end at the same destination, then why is someone who trained at home versus at a culinary institute any less worthy to the family they are serving the fruits of their labor (and experience) to. My Grandmother never took a cooking class in her life. From what I’m told her Mother didn’t know how to cook for all the cabbage in Poland. Somehow, some way, she taught herself. Through the prism of her own inexperience she was able to fail and learn what not to do, which I think can be nearly as important as what to do. She was the best cook I ever knew, and I’m thankful for the road to experience that she took.

I’m sure she had the help of neighbors and friends. There’s a rich tradition among cooks of all nations (and levels of experience) of sharing. Food and sharing just seem to go together. I think most people would agree with that philosophy. This obsession that one publication has with the reprinting of recipes smacks of greed and narcissism. It’s unfortnate that it can’t evolve with the times and enjoy the rewards of sharing. One thing I’ve learned in blogging is word-of-mouth…you ain’t kidding. Mention something in passing on here, and you’ll never guess where it may end up. Dissemination of information is a good thing. That’s part of the reason we got out of the Dark Ages. It’s unfortunate because I actually love the publication in essence. The information provided is fantastic, albeit a tad dry. I have to say that it’s one of the most informative and educational out there. The attitude of the editor needs to change before I become a public advocate for it.

That said, this is one of the best crumb cakes I’ve ever tasted. And, if you desire the recipe, use my contact form (Contact tab at the tippy-top of the page) to contact me. You never know what I might just blurt out in an informal email conversation over coffee. Just like Grandma used to do

For the last two weeks I’ve been trying to finish this post. I want to write this so I can move on to….well, I guess sweeter things (at least as much as I can “move on” under the circumstances). This is another one of my personal posts, so if you’re not interested skip til tomorrow (hopefully I’ll have something of use to all the dessert freaks out there then, despite it all I still bake, I have to assuage the grief somehow so why not with sweets).

My Aunt Barbara died May 29th, two weeks ago tomorrow, from cancer. That’s her holding me when I was a babe (good grief, I had fat arms even then!). The guy kissing my head is my Uncle Bob, who passed away March last year, from God knows what but probably some complication due to the medication he was on all his life for manic depression. Along with my Grandfather last September, that’s three family members in a little over a year. *big sigh*

I don’t even know what to say anymore. There’s just this giant welling of feeling that I can’t even describe when I think about all of this. I feel a literal flooding of emotion that starts in my belly and rises to the top of my head. And I HATE crying. I hate it with a passion. The reasons why would be a much longer post, and more navel-gazing than I’d rather do on this blog (even though this post appears to be nothing but). Still, I have to talk about the barrage of loss I’ve been experiencing since it has kept me from blogging in over two weeks.

I’ve done a lot of offline writing about this, and while I’d like to give everyone some words of wisdom or signs of the softer side of humanity, the overwhelming feeling that I’ve had has been one of anger. I’m mad. I’m mad, mad, mad, mad, mad. I’m mad at the unlived life of my Aunt, dying at 54. I’m mad that the life she did live was at times poisoned by unfulfilled dreams. I’m mad at the fact that the mental illness of my Uncle (in the picture) has wrought a chasm so wide and deep within our family that it keeps us so far apart from each other like so many dots that make up the picture of our family tree, even when we’re standing next to each other. I’m mad. Mad-ness. This is what overtakes me when I’m so very hurt.

I don’t necessarily believe in fate or kismet. I like to see signs of some overreaching, beneficent hand that spreads the threads of our lives out into some glorious universal tapestry. I’d like to believe that and I try. That’s why the irony of my happening upon a favorite book just in the last week before my Aunt’s passing is not lost on me. Harlan Ellison’s Angry Candy, a book of short stories that were written against the backdrop of a whirlwind 2 1/2 year period of mourning over precious friends passing. This book of “Angry Candy,” the bittersweet memories and regrets that are always inspired by the loss of those who matter and the inevitable anger and “rage against the dying of the light,” this is the book that ricocheted quite accidentally into my life at THIS time, while coming up with some favorite writers to flesh out my Flickr profile of all things.

It’s taken these two weeks to just get through the introduction of the book. Harlan was mad too. I found this comforting when rage started to turn to guilt for not feeling a more proper emotion. His anger was at the loss. Not seeing the smile of a loved one, or being able to call them up on the phone and talk about….whatever. While I feel that anger too, I’m also mad that her life wasn’t better. Not to say that it was miserable or anything. She had a great husband, my Uncle Danny, and two kids, my cousins Ryan and Alex. But I know she wanted more from life, and that she worried. But the fact of the matter is that I’m selfish, and I wanted more for her, but since her life was cut short before she could achieve…whatever she happened to hope for herself, why the hell should I expect more out of life for myself…why do I deserve it more than her when I don’t. Gah. Talk about navel-gazing.

I’m going to leave you with a quote from the introduction to Harlan’s book, “There is little anyone can say that makes sense and doesn’t read as arrant foolishness. Dead is dead, and we all feel as if we’ve driven cross-country without any sleep or break, when someone we need is taken away.”

Here we have it folks, the first in what I’m sure will be an orgy of evidence to prove that klutziness is in fact genetic. Many of you may have looked at this picture and thought, “There’s she goes again.” But it wasn’t me! This “Oops!” belongs to my Mom. I guess it runs in the family.

I wanted to say something. I wanted to give you all a reason as to why you haven’t seen hide nor hair of me for over a month. There isn’t really one reason, it’s been more of a conglomeration of joys and sorrows that are part of any life. For those of you who just come here to bake and don’t give a damn about my personal life please move on or brace yourself for more than you probably ever wanted to know about me.  

I was sick as you may know, but then the Holidays came. I’m a FREAK for Christmas and had to decorate the house, and bake, and shop for a present for my Mom, and…. Well, you get the idea.

But wait, there’s more… I dropped my camera. I swear, I started balling. I can’t remember when exactly this happened. I was taking a picture of something for the blog and I don’t have a proper tripod (stupid me bought one from this guy for $15 but it didn’t have the plate that’s supposed to be the middle-man between the camera and the tripod). I foolishly left the camera perched on the tripod  and started to move it and the camera came tumbling off hitting the ground. Initially I gasped a sigh of relief because it powered up. BUT, the lens wouldn’t move – I couldn’t zoom in or out, it was stuck. I started crying. I couldn’t/can’t afford to buy a new camera and this is my last ditch effort to try and make a career for myself before resigning the rest of my life to Seven Eleven. But the end of the day I had had a couple of glasses of wine which gave me the courage to do the unthinkable… I twisted the heck out of the lens. Thankfully it worked and the camera seems ok now, but I was kind of thrown for a loop.

This gets to something else. Money. I’m sure most, if not all, of you out there are probably experiencing the same thing. I was laid off in 2003. I was a QA Engineer for a software company and haven’t been able to find a proper job since. This whole situation sucks big time and nearly every second of every day I’m trying to come up with some “get a working poor’s wage quick” scheme. I wanted to have a good holiday and just tried not to think about it too much…until after Christmas. Well, it’s after Christmas. Blogging is the only way I know how to try and get some kind of income coming in, and at the very least it’s something I can put on my resume.

Then of course, there’s the washer. While trying not to think about my dismal financial situation our washer stopped draining. It works, but apparently the pump motor gave up trying to drain the water out since there was a gi-normous ball of lint stuck in it. Yep, because of said dismal financial situation, I took it upon myself to personally take apart the washer AND the pump motor (since calling a repair person would give me a heart attack). I took the motor out twice, or was it three times? I can’t remember. All I know is the first time was with a screwdriver, but thankfully every time after that I had a electric screwdriver which made things go a bit quicker. Things didn’t go any drier though and I got lots of water all over the place drainging the machine by hand. Because my clothes had been sitting in dirty water for three days, I ended up having to wash them three more times before they smelled right. I’m happy to report that I was able to buy a new pump off of ebay for the bargain price of about $56 including shipping. I feel like I’m getting a deal because a new one from a appliance part shop is a minimum of $117. One thing good about this whole experience is that it’s given me more confidence in myself that I can probably fix just about anything around the house if given the proper instructions – THANK GOD FOR THE INTERNET!

Lastly, another emotional thing that I have been dealing with ever since September is the death of my Grandfather. I’m not sure when exactly we found out, but he had cancer in his back and he passed away on September 16th. Here’s what I wrote in my journal on August 7th,

Today’s baking agenda included Caneles, Pecan Sandies, and a Babka. I’ve gone through over half of my butter already.

I’m baking all of this stuff because my Grandfather is dying.

I’m writing all of this and I can feel the strained non-emotion radiating in each simple, “just the facts ma’am” statements.

I can’t afford to be sad right now. I can’t be sad. I have to hold it together; I can’t express the tempest inside.

This journal is supposed to be about my baking odyssey and this is how it starts. My Grandfather is dying and the only thing I feel I can do for him is…bake.

There’s so much lost between us, but there’s still a part of me that knows a part of him and the only way I know how to connect those parts is through a trail of cookies, pies, and babka.

This is the one and only positive male experience, the only positive father figure I’ve ever had in my life, growing up never really knowing the father I last saw when I was eight and am two years glad to be rid of the abusive stepfather who replaced him.

There was window of time when the relationship and the foundation of things I still try to cling to within myself bloomed between my Grandfather and I.

Thankfully my Mother made my Grandparents an important part of my life and I can remember their presence from the beginning of my memory.

My parents lost their house when I was three and we moved in with my Grandparents. My Mother divorced my father when I was five. I really don’t remember anything of him. According to my Mother he was a kind, beautiful person who was destroyed by alcoholism. To me he was just a shadow, or something that you can’t quite see in your peripheral vision. His absence was never really felt until recently – funny, it took almost 30 years for the loss to surface but it finally did.

All of that is besides the point. The point is that time when our lives were in upheaval the things I do remember were good ones and they were largely in part due to my relationship with my Grandparents, especially my Grandfather.

So that is what I’ve had rolling around in my noggin for the last couple of months. Other than baking, I never did end up having a good talk with him. There was a lot more going on with my Aunts and other family crap which got in the way a bit, but the fact of the matter is I wasn’t that little eight year old girl he last saw when I moved away. And a two week visit here and there doesn’t connect the dots of our lives. So much had happened that he didn’t know about, that I wouldn’t even want him to know about, but I just didn’t know how to talk to him anymore. I baked instead.

All of these worries I’ve been trying to hold together in my head and still have a nice holiday. I just stayed away from my computer and I’m sorry to any loyal readers out there. I hope you all had a great holiday and will have a wonderful new year.

Oh, and the pic is of my Grandfather and me a long time ago, practically in a galaxy far, far away…