Make Me a Cake

Courtney, Heidi, and I spent a fair portion of our time in Michigan working on our assigned task, the wedding cake. We had done some research in advance: exchanging photo ideas, recipes, and YouTube videos about assembling and decorating a tiered cake. Courtney also contacted the venue, a beautiful church that had been converted to a brewery and restaurant, and they generously arranged a work area and some space in the walk-in for us to use. 

So we were not unprepared on Friday afternoon when we arrived, as they were closing down the beer brewing operation for the weekend. Our plan was to fill and frost the layers so they would be ready for assembly the next day, and we started by chopping and macerating the strawberries and whipping some cream stabilized with cream cheese and meringue powder. We only had a couple of hours before the rehearsal dinner, but we accomplished our mission for the day and left the three layers on their cake boards, filled and frosted with a bottom coat. 

The next day was the wedding, and we got over there around noon, ready to assemble and add preliminary decorations. These tasks were a bit trickier, involving cutting cake dowels to size and using a skewer to punch through the cardboard rounds the second and third tiers were sitting on. The whipped cream was softer than we hoped, and considerably less stable than the buttercream they used in the videos, but we were making a strawberry shortcake, so we had to work with what we had. 

It was also challenging to thread the cake dowels through the skewer holes, so they weren't as tight in the cake as we wanted, and it was a little wobbly. Even so, our model had always been a less constructed, more organic look, which we definitely achieved. We had ordered some edible butterflies to go with the insect-theme of the wedding (a riff on how the couple had met, their shared love of performance art, and deconstructing classic princess iconography) and, as a tribute to their musical backgrounds, ribbons of edible musical notes to go around one or two of the layers. We had strawberries and fresh flowers, too, but the final decorations would have to wait until after the ceremony, and we dashed back to the rental house to change for the wedding. 

As the reception was warming up on the patio, we were shivering in the cooler in our summer dresses and sneakers, adding bugs, fruit, and flowers to our masterpiece, emerging a few minutes before everyone was summoned inside for dinner. The restaurant staff did the rest-- bringing the cake up a little while before the cutting so all the guests could admire it. 

And they did! Although one of the bride's more musical friends told us the notes we had so carefully placed were the song Happy Birthday. Honestly, it never occurred to us as non-musicians to even consider them beyond their decorative value, but he had been hoping for a more intentional Easter Egg experience. 

Our research told us that a cake that size should feed between 100 and 120 guests, but every crumb was gone within minutes of cutting it. A friend told Heidi and me that it was the first time she had ever finished a piece of wedding cake; it was that good, so light and delicious. 

As happy as we were at how it turned out, and as relieved as we were that we had accomplished our task, I couldn't help wishing I could make another wedding cake. We'd learned so much, and I had lots of ideas for ways that we could improve the process, and not just by finding more appropriate music!

Van Go

The minivan we rented is a hybrid model of a make I have never driven before. As such, using some of the features and controls has been a bit of a learning curve. For example, there is just a large knob on the center console that changes gears from Drive to Neutral and Reverse, with a button in the middle for Park. In addition, starting the car does not mean starting the engine, so once the start button has been pushed, the van waits silently for the driver to turn that knob and be on the way. 

Cutting the car off is equally without those familiar audible signifiers that the journey is over. The first morning we were here, I happened to look down the driveway from the backyard and noticed that the lights were on. The van had been unlocked in ready mode for hours. 

Without the keys, I doubt anyone could have gotten very far, but still. After that, I made sure to wait for the screen to go off after pressing the power-off button on the dashboard, and enlisted one of my passengers, often my sister, to check that the doors were locked after I stepped away with the key fob. The series of normally unnecessary steps turns parking into a kind of slapstick routine, especially when you're in and out of the van all day running wedding errands. 

At one of our many stops the other day, my sister had to take a phone call and elected to stay in the van while Heidi and I ran into the store. 

"You can leave it running with the a/c on," she said.

"Great!" I answered. "I definitely know how to do that."

We Do

And they did! A magical time was had by all, and there were even fireflies. 

The Chair

The vacation rental my brother booked for the wedding this weekend in Ann Arbor is definitely one of the wackier places we have stayed. The mid-century ranch house had a modicum of curb appeal, although our first impressions upon entering were a bit skeptical. 

It has been remodeled, but in a haphazard, DIY kind of a way. For example, there are five different types of flooring on the main level, and it isn't that big. And the curtains over the front picture windows are unabashedly secured with jumbo binder clips. The house had also been closed up for a while and was a little musty. 

But the nuttiest feature of all is the industrial-grade massage chair, the only other piece of furniture in the living room besides the leather sectional. It looks like an updated version of a medieval torture device, complete with a remote control. Of course we had to try it! The first night we all laughed hysterically as Treat sat in the chair narrating his experience as it hummed and farted, squeezing and pummeling him from shoulder to toe. 

For a while, the record for the longest time endured in it was 7 minutes, but Treat finally managed to withstand an entire 30-minute session late last evening. It's definitely functional as furniture, but it makes up for it in conversation and entertainment!

M Minus 2 Days

The weather was glorious today as we barreled around Ann Arbor running all sorts of wedding errands. The minivan did not disappoint, as any number from 2-6 of us and all the treasures for our big day projects piled in and out, here and there, back and forth, and all over town. At one point, we drove, windows down, along roads lined with woods and prairie plantings, past a former Esso gas station built in 1927 to resemble a gatehouse and turned into a coffee shop, and through the campus of U Michigan, the back of the van loaded with three buckets of flowers and six cake layers. We may not be super focused, but? We're here! And ready to do our part.

Blueberry Blues

I was just about to get into the shower before leaving for the airport when I received a notification that my blueberries had been delivered. No! I panicked. Those are supposed to come next Wednesday! 

It didn't matter whose miscommunication it was, mine or the dairy folks' or both, because when I checked the milkbox, there they were, three pounds of New Jersey's best blueberries in what seemed to be an enormous box, and at that point? They were mine. 

Fortunately, I had cleaned out the refrigerator in anticipation of having a housesitter staying for the next five days, and there was some room in the freezer, too. Plus, we hadn't eaten breakfast yet, which became a blueberry smoothie for me and yogurt and blueberries for Heidi. I put three quarts in the freezer, and a 9x13 cake pan with a lid full of berries in the fridge, then, as an extra measure, put the box out for recycling and hopped in the shower. 

Oh, I know I'll be happy to have all those berries next week when we get back, blueberry jam, blueberry muffins, blueberry galette, and all that, but my original plan was so much more elegant.

Out of My League

I reported to the bowling center as directed, 15 minutes before the league start time, to register as a substitute bowler. As I waited for the manager to sign me in, I scanned the crowd. At least ten of the bowlers from my regular league were there, and they waved and welcomed me to the Summer Owl League. "There are only 2 people per team," someone told me, "so it goes pretty fast."

I found my partner and lane, and sat down to change my shoes before warm-up. Both of our opponents for the week were on my regular league, so I felt comfortable right away. The teams on the lanes to our left and right started to warm up, and I realized how out of balance the competition could have been. "Do you bowl against everybody?" I asked incredulously as a guy next to me threw his fourth practice strike.

"Just the luck of the draw," one of the women told me fatalistically, eyeing the teams around us. 

"I guess that's why we have handicaps," I shrugged.

She nodded. "It levels the lanes, doesn't it?" she replied over the thunder of the pins around us.