Cupcakes are little bits of heaven that I don't indulge in nearly enough. I haven't the biggest sweet tooth, but I do like very much to look at them. Icing, the part that appeals to me least in taste is the most inviting thing visually. Strange but true.
These little lovelies are a couple of a dozen store bought cupcakes from our local grocer. I saw them and picked them up because I loved how they looked, all dressed and whipped and even with cute little hearts inserted. Adorable. My husband, the keeper of the sweet tooth, has eaten all but one of them. But that's okay, I wouldn't have likely indulged much more in them. Not because there's anything wrong with them at all, but come on... they're store bought. They're not going to be high end culinary quality and that's what I save my sugary indulgences for. Eat them in moderation but when you do, go all the way. Make the calories worth your while.
So when I sat and thought about our intimate Valentine's Day dinner (which is now going to be on Saturday because he's just finishing the flu) I thought about dessert and what I thought would be perfect. I just didn't feel like baking it. Instead I popped over to Etsy to a relatively new but crazy successful and by all accounts scrumptious bake shop called Fat Daddy Bake Shop. The pictures really get me. I adore pictures of food. I'm the one who subscribes to foodie mags not just for the recipes and techniques but also the best pictures. So of course, I had to buy some cupcakes that I'd been eying for a while.
Fat Daddy's Red Velvet Revolution cupcakes arrived in very good time and as soon as I opened
my box, I wanted to open one up and eat. But alas, it wasn't Valentine's Day yet, so into the refrigerator they went. *sigh* I did take this picture of them though beforehand. Don't they look scrummy? All dressed in their little ribbons with icing peeking out. Oh well, it won't be long before Saturday arrives and my love and I can share our love of sweet things together over a couple of cupcakes in a jar.
And one more thing before I get off and on with my day and adoring my almost recovered & desperately in need of a shave, beloved I want to share the one thing that really moved me about Valentine's Day this year that will likely stay with me always. My husband and I may be a couple of the youngest people who watch CBS Sunday Morning regularly. I've been watching since I was a kid as my parents tuned in weekly, so when I met my husband in college, he picked up the habit also. It's like a television aperitif to your Sunday Morning NYT. Anyway, on a regular enough basis Ben Stein contributes to the show and always has something of note to say wrapped in wit. This past Sunday, he shared his thoughts on Valentine's Day and I'd like to share them with you:
From Stuff Ben Wrote:
"As I wrote this at 6:00 a.m. a few days ago, my wife was helping Susie, our dying 16 year old Dalmatian mix, down the stairs so she could go to the bathroom outside. Susie did not quite make it. My wife got drenched. She did not complain at all, just helped Susie the rest of the way, watched her stagger around outside for a while, then hailed me to take her back upstairs. Then she washed herself and Susie, changed her p.j.’s, and got in bed with poor old Susie to wait a few hours to take her out again. Susie died the next day, by the way, and we are inconsolable.
Anyway, my wife has virtually no sense of smell so she cannot tell that the house smells like a kennel and a cattery combined. I love that she has no sense of smell. It’s a symbol of how unsuspicious, non-judgmental, totally accepting she is in everything. To paraphrase Bob Dylan, “she knows too much to argue or to judge.”
In a few days, if all is well, it will be my wife and my 40th valentine’s day together, and she’ll probably spend it rescuing animals before we go out to dinner.
In other words, she’s a saint.
But we’re not young. I keep wondering how long until one or the other of us has to spend Valentine’s Day without the other. That thought scares me. I don’t know how people do it when they’ve been together for decades and then are suddenly alone. I cannot imagine their pain and their loneliness, although I did see it up close and personal when my mother died leaving my father–who had never even looked at another woman–alone after sixty-one years. He suffered horribly.
On this Valentine’s day, let’s spare a thought, a moment, a call, a visit, for parents, friends, who are without those they loved, those they still love. And most of all for those of us who still have the love of our lives in our lives, let’s be deeply grateful. Love may be eternal, but we are not, and let’s be grateful for the love we have while we can still see her in our homes and hold her in our arms. It is later than any of us dare think. And let’s vow to never, ever fight with those we love. Not over anything."
- Ben Stein from CBS Sunday Morning 02.10.2008
So have a phenom Valentine's Day and share the love... and the cupcakes.
Cupcakes are little bits of heaven that I don't indulge in nearly enough. I haven't the biggest sweet tooth, but I do like very much to look at them. Icing, the part that appeals to me least in taste is the most inviting thing visually. Strange but true.
my box, I wanted to open one up and eat. But alas, it wasn't Valentine's Day yet, so into the refrigerator they went. *sigh* I did take this picture of them though beforehand. Don't they look scrummy? All dressed in their little ribbons with icing peeking out. Oh well, it won't be long before Saturday arrives and my love and I can share our love of sweet things together over a couple of cupcakes in a jar.
Hi! I'm Anissa, lover of fiction & conjurer of yarn. I read 1-2 books per week and review them & while I love ARCs, I'm also a believer in showing the backlist of my TBR list, some love. I sometimes receive review copies from publishers which in no way sways my opinions of them.
