Spice Cake

Every celebration in my childhood was blessed with a spice cake that my grandma made. It was my favorite. It didn't matter if there was birthday cake or pumpkin pies there was always spice cake too. I always had a piece of everything. "Yes, I'll have a piece of spice cake with my pumpkin pie and pecan pie. Yes, put whip cream on top the pies." It's a wonder I don't weigh 300 pounds.

Just the smell of spice cake brings me right back to climbing the trees in my grandparents backyard and sitting at the redwood picnic table with the red checked table cloth. Good times.

When my daughter-in-law stated she wanted a dark rum spiked spice cake for their Renaissance themed wedding I thought of my grandma's spice cake recipe. I hadn't made it in a long time. One of the main ingredients is lard. It's not for the diet conscious. The only thing was it didn't have rum in it. So I looked up spice cakes online and discovered some fascinating facts about spice cake. Most spice cakes do indeed have rum in them. I'm sure that my grandmother omitted the rum when she put her recipe together, Grandma and Grandpa didn't drink. I don't know where she got her original recipe, but family members don't remember a time when she didn't make it.

Another interesting fact is that rum spice cakes are very popular in the West Indies and Caribbean Islands dating back to the 17th century. The cake is very dense, full of dried fruits and keeps quite well with all the rum. There have been rumors that my great grandfather Gibson was from the West Indies. All hearsay, but he was much older than my great grandmother and looked exotic in the few photos I've seen of him. He looked nothing like a farmer in Oklahoma. Before he met my great grandmother he was a world traveler. So it's possible he could have been from anywhere.

A Renaissance Wedding

The wedding I helped planned for my son and daughter-in-law was magical. It was misty and felt like we were in Medieval England. Everybody came in costume. The food was wonderful. A good time was had by all.

More to follow on details of the wedding. I'm still recovering from it!

The weather report says.....

RAIN!!!!!!!!!!! Well, of course it does. We planned an outdoor Renaissance themed wedding in a redwood forest with people coming from all over the country dressed in costumes with hats and swords. Why wouldn't it rain?

The weather report says there will be a chance of showers on Saturday. But I'm thinking that we'll be up on top of a mountain so it will be too high for those rain clouds. Yup, that's it. There will be no rain. No panic here, nope not from me. Tarps, that's it, we need tarps and big long pointy sticks to poke in the ground and put the tarps up with....

How about umbrellas? What did umbrellas look like in the 16th century?

I'm just not going to think about it. I'm taking today off to go shopping for the rest of the food. I'll let someone else panic about the rain. Oh honey........

Rice for 100

Panic! So how do you make rice for a 100 people? Ok really, it's only 80 people, but still....

My friends and I are catering my sons wedding ourselves. The wedding is small and the food is fairly simple. So as I make the final plans of who is doing what, I asked one of my friends if she would be in charge of the two side dishes. Now you have to understand this group of friends, we put on at least one to two parties a month. Sometimes it's 10 people, sometimes it's 20. We've done upwards to 50 people ourselves. But the panic in my friends eyes when I asked her at lunch the other day to make rice for 80 people told me I better look at that a little closer. I told her not to worry about it, I would handle the side dishes. My apologies to my friend for even asking her to make rice for that many people.

So, I went back to work after lunch with my friends and proposed the question to my office mates. How do you make rice for 80 people? I had no idea. One person said I needed a really big pot. Another person said she bakes her rice. Bake rice? Ok, I"ve never done that. Whenever I cook rice in a pan I always have the urge to look at it and stir it. It never comes out right. I don't have a rice cooker and I'd probably need an army of them to get the job done. So I had some research to do. When I looked it up on the internet, I had to look up how to cook for a big crowd. A big crowd is considered 100 or more. So armed with that information I dug in. I found a great website Ellen's Kitchen and I also looked up several recipes on how to bake rice.

First I tried the baking method to cook the rice recipe for the wedding in normal portions. It worked perfectly. Next, armed with my new baking knowledge, I converted the recipe to a larger quantity. I have no fears now. I can cook rice for 1000, if I need to, but please don't ask. When my daughter gets married, I'm handing over my credit card and hiring someone else to do all the work!

Wedding Planning

I've been busy wedding planning for my son's wedding. I thought it was going to be easy. I've planned many big parties and events before. So many details! But there is something emotional tied to doing your child's wedding. Maybe it's the letting go of something old and bringing together something new. The combining of families. The meeting of new people. The hope for the future....wow that's a lot of stuff. No wonder I'm exhausted! It's all worth it. It's great to watch two young people starting off. I know all the trials, tribulations and triumphs they still have to go through and all the laughter and tears they will have while they experience it. Life is an adventure and a journey to savour and enjoy. I'm glad to help send them off with our good blessings and hope for a wonderful journey.

Golden Gate Renaissance Faire

I went to the Golden Gate Renaissance Faire in San Francisco on Sunday. Picked up lots of ideas for my sons renaissance themed wedding in Ocotober. Found lots of accessories for the costumes and was entertained by the many guilds that were there. I posted the photos on my photo website and received an email from Frau Minna of the St Max Guild as I had captured their guild with a couple of my photos. They will be posting them on their website.