A momentous occasion.

Tomorrow this whipper snapper is 100 years young. My grandfather who has outlived most of his peers, all of his siblings and many more will be feted today like nobody's business. As I type, my mother and most of her siblings are in Santo Domingo rigging up wayyyy too much delicious food for a birthday party this afternoon. People have flown in from out of the country, driven into the city from the outskirts of Dominican Republic and if I know my family like I know my family then they will be partying way past my grandfather's bedtime (which is a very early 5-7pm mind you).

I'm hoping one day someone actually sits down with him to cobble together my grandfather's life story. From sitting around trying to catch the grown up gossip as a kid I've picked up a few interesting tidbits. Hopefully in revealing them I won't be disowned. *kidding!* I know he's been married three times (the last was my grandmother with which he had 6 children). He lived in New York as a young single guy then returned to Dominican Republic, the cosmopolitan man having been to the big city of dreams. Abuelo was involved in developing agriculture with the Dominican government. My mom tells me that before it was cool to be organic he had a set aside plot on the land he managed, just for his family's produce that the workers were instructed to not spread with chemical fertilizers or insecticides. He said even back then that those chemicals would be the undoing of agriculture.

He has 13 children and even back in the 80s/90s we would all keep count of the dozens upon dozens of grandchildren he had. Now we're keeping count of the great grand children instead. I also know that my grandfather was known for his hot blooded temper and that it only slightly calmed down with age and diminished hearing (which I imagine would pretty much calm down anyone). He loves baseball and politics, two subjects which are a sure way to unleash that healthy temper on anyone daring to disagree with views. Until his eyesight got worse he was the most avid reader of cowboy novellas I've ever known, devouring many a week then exchanging them for new ones at the local shop.

He's made about as many mistakes as we can all make on a journey 100 years long. Yet, he was always willing to extend a helping hand to anyone in need many times in discretion to preserve a person's dignity, grew up with a shrew of a stepmother that shipped him off to an uber strict boarding school yet while strict did not transfer that to his kids. He's been loyal to a fault, both to family and friends. Most of all he loves his family fiercely. So today he'll be surrounded by the seed he sowed and I can only hope to get to such an advanced age surrounded by family and friends that see beyond my imperfect human nature to what God has been able to accomplish through that life.

Happy Birthday Abuelo. Felicidades Abuelo y que Dios lo bendiga con muchos mas.

Another round of photographing the kids.

Yes, it was Father's Day around here just like everywhere else in the US. This year my kids were very amped up about sharing their surprises with Mr. Maricucu. To the point that they kept almost spilling the beans had it not been for Mr. Maricucu's placating "You guys don't need to be telling me that right now. Let's wait until Sunday." They made him cards, gave him a couple of gifts and let him sleep in just a tad even if it was me convincing them that 7:30am was not a good time for gifts.

Of course, every year I update Mr. Maricucu's office photos along with his Daddy memory book. This year instead of the DAD photos with the wooden letters like the years prior, I went for straight shots of the kids. In part because I really wanted to capture their faces and mostly because whenever the letters came out it was a round of "I don't want to carry the D, I want the Y (which we never use). How come HE gets to carry the A. Well then I'm not gonna smile." Oh yes, good times, good times indeed. If I were just a tad wealthier I'd prepay my children's portraits to a great photographer for the rest of their lives and just capture the informal shots. But I'm not rich so I get the joy of receiving direction from my little herd while gritting my teeth and trying to engage them.

Today I introduce the final cut. An 11x14 collage of the shots that actually came out decent and were framed for Mr. Maricucu.




And yes, it's totally killing me that in about a month the collage will not be current with the new child headcount. I'll live though. But for now this collage represents three days work on some of the hottest days in the last couple of weeks, trying to shoot them quickly in the early hours of the morning. All while hearing, "are we done yet????? You said one picture [I said one nice picture]. Why do we have to take these photos? I want to go play on the slide." Never mind that on Father's Day it was all, "look Daddy the pictures we took for you." So we finally got one decent individual shot of each kid and at least a few of them together if not all together. That will be the next post, the outtakes which are just so not funny in the moment but I'm sure will get funnier as the years go by.

Things that make you go hmmmmmm.

Oh yes, I went there and likely dated myself severely. But really this is just another one of those random bits of info that never leave my brain. Before you consider it a positive, remember that in order for me to retain all this useless random information it comes at a cost of retaining important information like where I left my keys or the fact that the dogs need to be let out.



A while back when I had but just a wee baby with tiny little feet that wore (and kicked off) tiny little socks, picking them out of the laundry was not a big deal. His lilliputian garments stuck out like a sore thumb in the sea of Mr. Maricucu's and my clothing. At that time I read a tip in some magazine from a mom of several boys. She mentioned using a sharpie drawn dot on the boys' socks to differentiate which belonged to what boy. She started off with one dot for the oldest and as socks made their way down the line of hand me downs she would add another dot for the next child that corresponded to their birth order. Handy for sorting laundry and handy for kid identification. Hmmmm, I thought but then filed it away under tips I likely would never need.

Fast forward to the current day and I find my growing children are outgrowing stuff at a faster clip than before. Also, with different brands fitting more snug or loose than others, their white undershirts had become a minefield of various sizes just for one boy. Then I remembered the tip and brought out the sharpie. One dot each for their birth order and presto, the shirts were easily identified by Mr. Maricucu and the boys. I even did the little girl shirts too although no one would mistake the lacey camisole in 2T for something that would fit anyone else in this household, at least for the next couple of weeks. Then, since I was on a roll and Hanes/Fruit of the Loom insist on labeling their underwear in microtype that wears off the first wash, I took the sharpie to their boxer briefs too. Just another thing to tick off the nonexistant list. I can rest easy now that my 6 year old will no longer come out sporting his 4 year old brother's undershirt like a belly dancer nor the four year old hand holding his brother's boxers around his waist asking me what I did to the laundry.

Strawberry Shortcake

No, not that Strawberry Shortcake, although I am a child of the 80s and did love her as a kid. I'm talking about the awesome dessert that apparently was being withheld from my tastebuds for years. Yeah, I've had the sponge cake and strawberry version but believe me, it's nothing compared to a traditional shortcake with its sweetened cream biscuit, in season berries and a bit of good whipped cream. I just don't know what Martha's people were thinking when it came to portion size. These shortcakes ended up being quite large (not that my family was complaining). I could easily see making them half the size and ending up with 16 instead of 8.




So a good while back I had the large surplus of North Carolina berries hanging around and while we ate about 3/4 of the flat and additional quarts straight, I knew I wanted to try at least one strawberry shortcake recipe. Now if you've read my blog before you know I have a thing against recipes that leave me with orphan egg yolks or whites. Can't stand 'em and will usually avoid them with a few exceptions I might post later in the year. So that removed a few recipes from the running. I also didn't want to have to roll out dough for a simple shortcake. Those two factors and wanting a tried and true recipe for the shortcake left me with Martha Stewart's recipe and I'm glad to say she didn't disappoint even if her portion sizes are out of whack. Even better, I was able to whiz up the shortcake in the food processor avoiding the witching hour kiddie meltdown meeting up with my hands in dough. Win-win situation if I do say so myself.

Strawberry Shortcake
adapted from Martha Stewart

6 cups strawberries (1 3/4 lbs) - washed, hulled and quartered
3/4 cup + 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons granulated sugar - I'm saving you the mishap of dumping the sugar all in one spot. The first quantity is for the berries, the second for the shortcake and the last bit is for the whipped cream. For those of you who read the instructions after you've dumped in the ingredients already (like moi).
3 cups all purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces - Here I will commit baking heresy again and mention that I use salted butter for all my baking. I would incite the baking police to take me away but I'm already on the lam for the belly shot police from a while back.
1/2 cup + 1 1/2 cup heavy cream - Again, divided first for use in the shortcake and the last portion for the whipped cream to serve between the layers. If I come across as an overbearing motherly type I apologize. However I don't think I can do anything about it.
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract


So this recipe requires just a teensy bit of planning. Remember you must macerate the berries with the sugar first in order for the sugar to draw out the berry juices and soften them slightly. If you'd like, splash in a bit of white wine with your berries and sugar. My aunt used to do this and the results are quite delicious all on their own.

Dump the washed and quartered berries in a bowl along with the sugar. I suggest you hold back on the sugar a bit and taste the berries. Mine were in season and quite sweet so I only used about 1/2 cup of sugar. You may need more or less depending on your berries.




Give them a stir and set them aside.




Now onto the shortcakes. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. In the food processor add the flour, baking powder and salt. Pulse to mix the dry ingredients.




Next, add the cubed butter and pulse again until the pieces of butter are about pea sized. You can certainly do this step by hand and use a pastry cutter instead of the food processor. Whatever works for you.






Once the butter is cut into the dry ingredients (this is just like making biscuits) mix the heavy cream and the two eggs in a measuring cup. Pour the heavy cream/egg mixture over the dry ingredients in the food processor and pulse until the mixture forms large clumps (Martha says 25-30 times but she's precise like that).






Mine went a little further since I was distracted but it was just fine.




This is where Martha and I will have to disagree. She wants you to scoop out 1/2 cup portions of the dough onto a parchment lined pan. I grabbed one of my favorite dishers and scooped out rounded scoops about 1" apart on the baking sheet. Next time though it's going to be a half scoop so about 1/4 cup of dough (and reduce the baking time accordingly).




Bake the shortcakes until they are light golden brown, about 20 minutes. It was devastatingly hard not to crack into one of these early. However the food mafia, aka my kids were keeping me honest.






By the time you come back to the berries you'll see the magic that has happened. Soft glistening berries, the sugar all dissolved and melded with the strawberry juice into a heady syrup.




Here is where the photography took a back seat. When the troops are awaiting dessert, their gazes longingly reaching over the breakfast counter, I don't have it in me to make them wait too long by snapping away at the food. Well, that and they begin to say, "momma can you please stop taking pictures of the food????"

The whipped cream. You can certainly whip the cream by hand (I recommend chilling the bowl in the freezer first) or pull out the stand mixer. I wanted to make this short and sweet so I threw the heavy cream and sugar in a glass bowl and hit it with the stick blender. Come on, I can't be the only one that remembers the infomercials where they take the skim milk and use a stick blender to whip it into "whipped topping" all in front of a fit-for-Ron Popeil audience. When the mixture starts to foam, add in the vanilla and finish whipping until soft peaks form.




Finally, assembly. After the shortcakes have cooled for 10-15 minutes, slice them open with a serrated knife so they don't crumble on you. Top each bottom half generously with both berries and their syrup. Then a little whipped cream, the top half of the shortcake, more berries + juice and finally a dollop of whipped cream. The juicy syrup was by far the hit for my family on the crumbly shortcake. Don't skimp on it.




But wait, there's more! Surprisingly we had a couple of quarts of berries that had to be used up ASAP and I remembered wanting to try a strawberry crumble but with local berries to see if it would be weird or yummy. Strawberries having such a floral flavor, I thought they might ruin a crumble. Boy was I wrong. I used the smitten kitchen recipe for the topping and the filling I just threw together with the berries, sugar, lemon juice and some cornstarch. I did add a handful of blueberries that were rattling around in the freezer. Verdict? Absolutely delicious. I was in love with the bright red color but the flavor was amazing. I didn't even need any ice cream and that's a biggie for around these parts.




So try some shortcake, or some crumble. Either way the berries will shine.

Seriously . . .

I'm not currently sewing for the baby. I know it sounds sad and likely awful mommish but man when I'm pregnant the last thing I get is bursts of energy and the few I'm getting right now are being directed at reorganizing, decluttering and managing the troupe of already birthed children. However, I am sewing, just not for the baby. I'm working on the stash of large diapers that will replace the soon to be worn out ones I sewed up last time I was pregnant.. No that is not a coincidence - I apparently only manage to crank out diapers when I hit a hard and fast deadline. Can't get much harder and faster than a baby to throw the household into upheaval for the next several months.




Typically I stick to my color scheme of blah and blah, aka beige and white because I'm OCD like that and having to come up with cute combination of fabrics for diapers would literally be the rabbit trail that sucks the little bit of focus I might have completely dry. However, I made a huge mistake this time around when I was ordering fabric. For some reason my brain was out to lunch when I ordered only 3 yards of fabric (I typically order 5 yards of each type, inner/outer/etc.). Not only that, but this time I wanted to make more diapers. Like 40 and I only ordered enough fabric to make 15. Nothing like that smacking you in the face at 11pm about 4 weeks before your due date. So I've been scrambling to cobble together more fabric. Which is why on top of the beige soakers you see some bright green and red, soon to be joined by turquoise and finally some lilac PUL (waterproof outer fabric). It's going to be one grand old multicolor circus inside these diapers but I might just have to use the beige as a topper on the bright layers just to keep things under control. I have a feeling Mr. Maricucu is going to think I've lost my mind when he opens this batch up.


Ahhh nothing like a little beige to bring things back to order.

It's either the kids or me.

We're freaking people out and I have a hunch it may be both. There I am in all my current sherpa mom glory with the camera armor fiercely in place. I purposely chose this angle because right now this belly is so obscenely protruding, people gasp a little when I turn and they see a side view instead of a front or back.

The kids and I were eating out the other day and as I was heading out of the restaurant with all three by my side, I noticed people were giving us some strange looks. Could be that it was the day I picked the only thing that was clean and fit (a long flowy skirt), fitted shirt and my favorite my-kid-sister-gave-them-to-me-sparkly-sandals leaving people wondering if labor was imminent, or the mini herd of children calling me momma. I'm not sure, but it was the first time I noticed people obviously staring at our family. Weird.

A couple of days later at the museum of art, yet more looks. Older folk looked slightly amused at the crew and me circling Rodin's sculptures, college students looked horrified at the audacity of taking children (you know, what they were mere minutes ago themselves) to such a cultured place. Never mind I caught at least a half dozen of them snapping their cameras away closely at some statue's nether regions. Then one museum staffer just about lost her marbles when one of mine asked aloud if he could step on the rug. Ummmm, no honey that's an ancient mosaic floor, not a rug. I could see her breathe a sigh of relief as the realization that I wasn't going to let my child trample on the artifact washed over her.

I'm finding it quite amusing to see people reacting to children being brought out you know, in public, as the quite lewd Ron White would say. Puzzles me to think of the alternative, but in the meantime we create a little public spectacle each time we go out on an outing. Hey you college students looking my way, feast your eyes sweeties. In a few years with a toss of the coin you could be just as lucky.

Later this week I will amaze you with my ability to finally post the strawberry shortcake recipe only about a month late. Yes, I rock.




P.S.: Just for a little perspective here's the same belly at around 20ish weeks. Now add another 6 inches straight in front of me and you've got a good idea of what I look like right now and why I don't even bother taking side shots anymore. I think the only reason my mother believes I've been pregnant four times is because she eventually gets to see a grandchild at the end but I'm just not big on photographing myself during pregnancy. There I said it, take me away belly shot police.

I'm not a beader but I play one on TV.

I'm not a huge jewelry person but after nursing for 6.5 continuous years figured it was time for a nursing necklace. For those who are thinking I'm celebrating being a registered nurse a nursing necklace is something moms wear to keep baby's hands occupied while nursing and in the distractible as well as fiddly stage. That and getting to wear some pretty beads doesn't hurt either. However, I've never made jewelry before and this was sort of a last minute decision while at the craft store. I found a nice large donut shaped jasper pendant that I liked, picked out some cord I thought would work and came home to look up some hints on google. I quickly learned two things: 1. I forgot to buy a clasp, thus the super long length of necklace right now. 2. I should have bought some nylon or other water resistant cord. Right now my beads are strung on leather.




But not too bad for a beginner, huh? The necklace is actually straight but I shifted in the odd self-portrait. Being the waste-not-want-not type I had to use the other beads in the packet. I made sure to knot between the beads in an effort to keep a tugging baby from creating a shower of beads over her head and will be buying the clasp soon to bring the length from "Look here! Here, here, huge belly!" to at least the upper hemisphere. Although, now that I think about it that might not be any better. At least it will bring it closer to baby's hands.