Collecting Lemons...

Well.

Here we are on the very last day of February...and as I poke around in the recesses and the corners of my head, I see a whole lot of good intentions.  Currently they're not making eye contact with me, but slinking further into their own shadows or scuttling out of view.  It makes me wonder what happened here?

Then I look around at all the things that have happened since I was last in this space and nod my head knowingly...I have been a bit overwhelmed.

The first thing is, I moved my shop.  I moved Snap Snap within earshot of its 16 year Birthday to a newer and bigger location downtown...a couple of streets over.  A better part of the downtown neighborhood...location location location.  And, I've gone into business with my mother...but we've mostly talked about all of this haven't we?  If not...let me know what your questions are, and I'll try to answer them as best as I can.

And I had the greatest fantasies that I would blog each step so that I could document everything that was happening, and then during the middle of moving, organizing, and refluffing, my 97 year old grandmother got gravely ill and passed away.  Or passed on...however you want to put it.  I don't want to really put it at all myself, as I have been feeling a lot of sadness about this huge loss.  Of loosing someone I've known every day of my whole life thusfar.  In fact, there is a huge part of me that hasn't wanted to post anything here until I could dedicate a post to my grandmother, and then I could get back to my life.  I'm unsure if I can do that...just write it and get on with it.  Unfortunately, this has meant that every time I've turned on my computer, I've pushed away the blog, and pretended it didn't exist.  Which isn't what I really wanted at all.

So, in the spirit of taking a deep breath and pushing forward and knowing somewhere deep in my heart that it's OK to put certain things off...I have decided to take a deep breath.  And just write instead.  And when I need to, I will write about my grandmother.

Because, I miss writing.  I miss that part of my creative process.  And most of all,  I miss this space.  I miss you.  And so many things have been happening that I have wanted to share...even exciting things that have made me smile from time to time.

Like:  During the month of January, we celebrated my mother and Rozzilyn's Birthday...it was death and birth in one month...

And I had a whole lot of Meyer's lemons...

So, I made a Vegan Lemon Layer Cake.

From scratch.

Which I think is the very first cake I've ever made from scratch.  Isn't that incredible?  It is to me, because I love to cook and bake...and we're kind of baky people in our family.  So, it seems a little silly that I haven't ever done something like this.  And no...the irony was not at all lost on me that probably until the week my grandmother passed, she could have made a cake from scratch...using recipes that she's always had in her memory...and here I was, just starting out.

However, with the allergy problems we sometimes face in our family it can be challenging to bake anything and have it both turn out and taste semi-normal.  But, what really attracted me to this cake was the fact that it had a whole different middle icing layer...which I thought would introduce a whole other flavor into the cake overall.

Which is exactly what it did!

The cake was a hit...as my mother and I both love lemon anything (Rozzilyn wasn't too convinced...she's more of a chocolate girl herself)

I used Spelt flour for the body of the cake, and followed the recipe exactly...oh well except that I researched a vegan lemon curd concoction that I poured all over the top of the cake, to make it even more lemonish flavored.  And yes, while the cake was more time consuming than a mix, it was so lemony and moist it was well worth the extra effort!

Except for the zest.  Holy cow this whole endeavor called for a lot of zest and zesting Meyers is a bit hard...because they are super soft and get a lot softer while you're trying to grate them, and then they tend to smuch down and get very juicy and messy.

Perhaps I need a better zesting option?

Thank you for bearing with me during my long absence.  I still have a lot of good intentions, but I will be moving slowly back into blogging if that's OK with you?  (even YOU the commenter who left a comment for me to tell me what a humorous man I was and how I need to check out your site...thank you especially.  I needed the laugh)

I will more than likely continue to be picking lemons this life...and I guess it's up to me to figure out what to make with them.  But, I'll try to check in more often from now on...