A LABOUR OF LOVE ...
- 31/8/2009 <--Prev : Next-->
HeeHoo is doing "stock take" this weekend, a momentous occasion in every Zimbabwe company !!
Some say there is not much point in taking stock cos someone already took it !! and it is always a tense and laborious process whichever way one looks at it.
However I noticed that HeeHoo was reminiscing (rather laboriously I thought) on the good old days, when Charlie would bake chocolate cakes for stock take weekend......
Now there is no way on earth that I could even dream of emulating Charlie's chocolate cakes,....in fact it would be sacrilege to even try. So far I have avoided baking, it has been 18 months now since Charlie died, but I suppose my official period of mourning for my Best Friend has to end sometime.
And so out came the cookery books, Charlie had his own cookery books but I avoided those with misty eyes . I used to bake, I mean I even taught Charlie to bake, but that was a long time ago. Fortunately HeeHoo and I are perpetually dieting and all the sproggets have left home, so the need to bake has passed and lets face it, in emergency its a lot easier to run down to Bertha at Farm Fresh or Jacqui at Marys and grab one of their delicious strawberry cheesecakes or black forest gâteaux !!
Now I have a whole shelf full of cookery books. Cavalcade 1984 - Golden JUbilee from the Women's Zionist Council, the C.B.C. Fiftieth Jubilee, Shearly Cripps, Women's' Institute 1925 to 1995, The Blond Chicana Brides Mexican Cookbook, Cooking in Zimbabwe with the Rotary Anns of Bulawayo South, King George IV Memorial School recipe book, my dear departed Mums own hand written cookery book, Hearte a La Carte, loads of Delias, loads of Jaimie Olivers, my all time favourite which was the Lions Club of Marlborough with recipes from my Aunty Corynne Gardner, Mrs Beeton even !! (Remember take one turkey, stuff it with one duck, stuff that with one chicken etc ..... eeek !!!)
It took me hours to get through the books especially the cake books, I could not find my specs but I could still see the pictures thank goodness. There was the train cake that I made for Gary for his fourth birthday, there was the Barbie Doll cake I made for Joanne's sixth birthday, there was the bride doll cake I made for Robyn ..... sob
But I still could not find my specs to read the ingredients, so decided to avoid all cookery books altogether and take to the famous google cookery book. (Its easier to make the font bigger on the lap top than to seek endlessly for said spectacles !)
I chose a chocolate brownie recipe that looked easy, it also featured a video for children ... aah this was the one, if kids can make brownies so can I !
Out with the apron, the scale that I expected Charlie to use but which needed at least a BSC in Scientific Instrumentation to work out, turned on the oven and just simply followed the instructions.
Mmmmm chocolate brownies, my favourite, but oops HeeHoo is going to get furious that there is melted chocolate on my keyboard !! Hurriedly cleaning the keyboard I then beat the eggs, darn, now there's beaten egg and sugar all over the keyboard ..... maybe I should have used a recipe book after all. I always knew where my favourite banana brad recipe was by the smell of bananas emanating from the bookshelf so I should have been prepared.....
Crisis over, keyboard fairly clean, (but if he ever asks me why I have chocolate in my keyboard I shall remind him about the time he had avocado in his watch !!)
I made the font really big and put on the sound and placed the computer as far away as possible from the baking area to be sure to be sure !!
Smooth shining chocolate brownie mixture safely poured into pan, oh this cooking is a breeze !!
I now checked the oven but the temperature was a bit low, then I remembered Charlie's trick of sticking the broom between the two handles cos the door did not close properly, darn, looks like those little blighters have started to flop in the middle..... maybe I can put a bit more icing in the middle than on the sides, well, it will have to be quite a bit more icing ....
A quick check of the e mails while little darlings browning happily, oops, forgot the timer, so perhaps a tad over cooked ?
Nah ... they will be so busy counting stock, they will never notice that they should have been brownies and not very crisp choc chip cookies !!
