O is for Oh Baby.

My life long friend Rachel had her first healthy baby boy today! At 3:22 PM, November 11th 2009, at 6 pounds 7 oz little Chase entered the world.  Easy to remember, 11/11 (high five for timing that one guys!). Auntie Joy will not be forgetting that birthday, I promise. Little Chase will have many many fun gifts to enjoy as well!

First and foremost to include this little blanket! (Which I model here)

And for the family and new proud parents, these cupcakes! Simple Nutmeg Spiced Buttermilk Cupcakes with Creamy Vanilla Frosting in Baby Boy Blue.

(2 of which were stolen by mom for quality control purposes.)

Yep, I'm a 40 year old house wife who gets her kicks by baking and sowing. Or a 24 year old girl with no life and a lot of time on her hands, but nonetheless, talented, right? Right!?
    
  
 



 This day is also Veteran's Day.
    Happy Veteran's Day Dad! Although, as we know, our veterans really need more than a day to be celebrated. And, happy is usually not the right state of mine, but since it's a holiday, I guess happy is what we are supposed to use.
     Way way back in the 60's during the Vietnam war, drama and death surrounding him, my dad managed to stick it out in the jungle.  Like so many young men, fresh out of high school, my dad at 18 years old was drafted. Recently married to his new beautiful wife he was sent off to boot camp.

     A born surfer, wonderful friend, brother, son and a commanding force at any sport he played, the boy was going to war. Peter Lewis Jenkins quickly learned that staying high in the sky may be his best bet for survival. As an expert marksman, he was made a door gunner for the army. Hanging out of the open side of a helicopter wielding a massive machine gun, invincibly strong and incredibly terrified he managed to make it through battle after battle. With the jungle looming below, and thousands of miles of sky above, it seemed to be the safest place.

      Of course I cannot begin to imagine how the years he spent in the service fighting in that war must have been like, he is to this day one of my biggest inspirations. Kind, caring, calm, persistent and simple.  Simple in the best way too. Easy to please and never judgmental. Forever encouraging and able to do just about anything, he is my dad. The standard to which I hold most men. So, its really too bad for them because he's a tough one to match up to.
       But I've come to discover that little boys in general are the apple of their mother's eye. I have never met a mother who doesn't just adore her son, no matter what kind of trouble he makes. It must be the opposing genitalia. (That little penis grew inside you! ewww.) Honestly, all mothers just love theirs sons. I am always shocked at how boys are fawned over, even my Dad's mom treats him like a little king to this day.
       So on this Veterans Day, little baby Chase was born. This first son to Glynn and Rachel, a new project if you will. I'm sure they will dote on him like all new parents do.
This day is also for my Dad, a man of nearly 60 now, a Vietnam Veteran and true hero.  We should all honor those who fight, especially those who have against their will and survived the odds.
     I realize that no matter what, life goes on, and we only get out of it what we put into it.
So here is to giving 110% to everyday. And here is to saying thank you to those in you're life. To those who have changed it for the better. To those who have made your life possible. You'll really never know how hard they fought to be there for you now.

I love you Dad.

C is for Calories, Cupcakes and Cancer.

How do all of these relate? Who wants to think of something as innocent as a cupcake, with its nemesis, calories, and then something as horrendous as Cancer, in the same 2 second thought?

It is not a far stretch to link the three.

I'll begin with calories, kcals, or kilocalories. Some think they are just a number on the label, or something to fear and something to watch your intake of. But, brass tacks, it is the amount of energy required to raise one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius. So thusly, a calorie is energy. Food energy to be exact.

So what is all food made up of? Let's use an example : A harmless cupcake.

Decoratively adorned with creamy white vanilla frosting, and underneath, nestled inside a thin layer of parchment paper, a light fluffy chocolate cake, and it comes in perfectly personalized size. This handheld dessert could very well be the greatest invention and in the same breath our arch enemy. The point is it is made up of every major component of food energy. Carbohydrate, Protein and Fat.

Don't be scared. You knew this would happen eventually. Now, breath deep, and inhale the aroma of freshly baked calories. We need these to survive, to thrive, to conquer and enjoy life. So why are they so wrong? Calories are essential, yes, but if not used correctly and cautiously, can have the same detrimental effects as an atomic bomb to the human body. An average individual can eat thousands upon thousand of calories a day, in fact there are guidelines which outline to do so. The issue is, what kinds of calories are we eating. And more importantly, what are the foods which contain these dirty calories.

So, back to the cupcake.

Once something is baked isn't it our duty to ignore the idea that it could potentially make our favorite pair of jeans a little tighter? Shouldn't we just give ourselves over to the pastry gods and realize that, yes, this cupcake has butter, sugar, eggs, flour and above all things frosting, and it is going to be amazing.  Throw caution to the wind, peel off the paper enveloping the rich decadence that lay in waiting inside, carefully examine the outside edges, turning it in front of you slowly, as if it were the first time you set eyes upon it, questioning where to stop and take that fateful first taste. Pure ecstasy awaits you, sugar crystals dance before you like sparkling snowflakes atop a dark mountain, and then you find it, the perfect bite.

I'm sure you're not thinking about calories right now are you? Neither am I.

My point is, calories as well as cupcakes get a bad rap. Which brings me to Cancer.

A Neoplastic class of diseases plaguing millions upon millions in all corners of the world. No one can really pin point the moment when a malignant cell begins to mutate and cause an uncontrolled growth of similar cells which will then spread, invade, and thusly take over the body via metastasis. Of course there are a variety of pathways which cancer is shown to be caused, and one is by another C word, carcinogens, but we will save that for another time. Cupcakes and calories are obviously not on some kind of cancer causing list, no no no, but they are related to food. Food you eat. Food you put in your body. Food which is what your body runs and revs its engine on, what it is made up of. So, it is not just the first consonant of these three words that intrinsically links them, there is a fourth word that ties it all together, one which I have already mentioned, Cells.

Cells are the building blocks of life. Cells can grow, multiply, divide, replicate DNA, digest sugar into glucose, create by-products for use in the body, synthesize new proteins from amino acids, they can be large like an ostrich egg, or too small to see in a microscope. They make up everything around us and everything that is us. They contain all kinds of organelles with funny names like Golgi Apparatus and Smooth Endoplasmic Reticulum.

But I digress.

A Cell, a calorie, a cupcake and cancer all have a connection. That connection is us. You. Without the cell there would be absolutely no humans. Without humans, there would be have never been the invention of the wonderful cupcake. Without cupcakes, cakes, baking in general, there may not be as much stress about the idea of calories. And, this may be a stretch, but, without the stress over the amount of calories in the cupcake which we have baked and frosted so neatly, there may not be cancer.

So how do these all relate? It's not so hard to connect the dots, and really, I'm sure I could strategize all kinds of ways to connect more, but for now, I'll take the safe route out of this one and go bake up a batch of the famous Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes with Toasted Coconut Frosting; I can hear my cells just aching for them.