Wendy! It’s NOT TOO LATE! We missed the dinner category entries…but we can still jump on the dessert band wagon! Yes, yes, we will gain weight. And yeah, the kids will get tired of eating Crescent Rolls bent into weird shapes and slathered in Timtella (Trademark Pending) Sauce. But WE CAN’T QUIT NOW! We have too many years (not to mention the thousands we have spent) into this project. We just need to tweak a few ingredients…and the million dollar prize is ours! Unless the following is true…?
Category Archives: Pillsbury Bakeoff
It’s Pillsbury season! I smell a million dollars!
Filed under 35 symptoms of menopause, Humor, Making Money, Marriage, Menopause, Motherhood, Pillsbury Bakeoff
Cupcake Wars
One of my daughter’s early teachers was called “Cupcake” (not to her face) by the parents, because of her penchant for celebrating every birthday, half-birthday, and holiday, including obscure-in-America British holidays, by serving fluffy cakes with gobs of frosting. She considered sugar to be, in part, a learning tool. It was quite effective. My daughter does not remember the storyline to The Lace Snail, which we read a gazillion times (it’s wonderful), but she still speaks fondly of London’s October Plenty. Attempts to form letters were rewarded with m&m’s or bits of red licorice.
Why am I thinking about this now, a few years after the fact? Because I just spent two hours learning how to make a radish mouse to entice my daughter to eat her veggies. Any veggie. A no-thank-you bite of cherry tomato. A snippet of gray green bean out of her Alphabet Soup.
For many years I was a sugar-free vegan (this was before Carolyn and I began entering the Pillsbury Bake-Off, I grant you) and regularly offered collards and kale to my daughter, who ate her greens with gusto. Oh, yes she did. In fact, her favorite breakfast was brown rice with butter, tiny minced carrots, nori seaweed and gomasio. And then…Cupcake.
I love you, Cupcake, I do. When introducing children to school, it’s a Jewish tradition to dot the pages of a book with honey so the learning will be sweet. My daughter’s books were smeared with buttercream; I suppose that’s close. And when she majors in British history I’m quite sure I will remember you fondly. But I can’t help the pang of regret and frustration I experienced when she saw that adorable mouse staring up from her salad. Raising it by it’s long radish root tail, she stared ambivalently awhile then asked, “Do I get dessert if I eat this?”
My next attempt will be carrot-cake oatmeal. I’ll post the recipe if successful.
Wendy
Filed under Children, Cooking, Fitness, Health, Humor, Jewish, Motherhood, parenthood, Pillsbury Bakeoff, Writing
The Pillsbury Fart-off…uh, Bake-Off
As you know, Carolyn and I are addicted to entering the Pillsbury Bake-Off. Every spring break from school is an opportunity to corral our kids (plus the offspring of anyone cruel enough to drop their progeny off at Carolyn’s place during this time of year) into one room and ply them with experiment after experiment…er, rather, delicacy after delicacy. On this year’s menu:
Vermont Maple Cupcakes With Georgia Peanut Buttercream (going with a state theme). This recipe required several attempts and never really came together. The kids began eating enthusiastically then quite suddenly looked as if they’d been stricken with a deadly disease. We gave ’em a little bicarbonate of soda and got right back in the saddle with…
Meatball Hoagie Bake. This was not bad, though it was overly complicated and kinda unattractive. Took three or four swipes at this one over a two-day period with eight children and four adults taste testing. Final decision: Nah.
Next up: Carolyn’s soon-to-be world-famous Sweet ‘N Smoky Baked Breakfast Pancake. OMG. Incredible. We all thought so. She made it several times–for breakfast, for dinner, for a snack. We tried other baked pancake variations, too, plus more sandwiches, a couple of appetizers and an entrée. All together we made seven trips to the supermarket, spent…well, I can’t say on the chance one of our husbands is reading, and sickened eight otherwise hardy children. I overheard this comment from one of Carolyn’s daughter’s friends:
“Can we stop eating now? I’ve been farting all morning.”
“Me, too,” whispered Carolyn’s daughter. “I think they’re getting tired. They’ll stop soon.”
That’s what you thought, missy.
We kept at it until there wasn’t a creative thought left in our brains. We kept at it until the smell of exhaustion overwhelmed the smells of butter, sugar, toffee and cinnamon. And soon, very soon, we’ll be in Carolyn’s kitchen again, prepping for the next bake-off. Why? Because there’s a million bucks, new appliances, a trip to Orlando and the promise of fifteen minutes of Pillsbury fame riding on this one.
And because we came up empty when we Googled “Bake-Offs Anonymous.”
Wendy
Filed under Children, Cooking, Humor, Marriage, Motherhood, parenthood, Pillsbury Bakeoff
Michael and Me…THIS Is It
Carolyn, my friend, partner in menopause, outer Lucy to my inner Ethel–
Thanks for yet another opportunity to claim my fifteen minutes of fame. Alas, I may be able to squeeze only sixty seconds out of this one.
True, I went to school with the Jacksons back in 1974…75? 76? Somewhere in there. However, dear Carolyn, I fear your excitement may have colored a few of the less salient facts, albeit ever-so-slightly. First of all, the Jacksons and my family did reside in the same county, but not in the same neighborhood. Nooo, that would be like saying Secretariat and Penny Chenery lived in the same house. (Secretariat=barn; Ms. Chenery=rambling country estate, if you get my drift).
Neither is it wholly accurate to suggest I hung out at Michael’s house, because…well, I didn’t. Never saw the place. My brother did, though. Once. Michael wasn’t there, but knowing my brother loved pinball machines, he invited Matthew to play in the Jackson’s home arcade. Continue reading
Filed under Fifteen Minutes of Fame, Humor, Making Money, Menopause, Micheal Jackson, Pillsbury Bakeoff, Writing
Open Letter to John Lilly, head of Pillsbury North America…or We’re not bitter, part II
Dear Mr. Lilly:
Today I received yet another in a recent onslaught of emails from Pillsbury offering me “fabulous” recipes and coupons for your products so that I might effectively execute said recipes. I believe I can speak for my friend Carolyn when I say that we are more likely to eat the goopy stuff that collects in the corner of dogs’ eyes than to slam back one more poppin’ fresh anything.
It cannot have escaped your notice that in all fifty states and parts of Canada people have been ingesting dangerous amounts of your dough boy in an effort to better their circumstances. The Pillsbury Bake-Off gave us all hope. Hope, sir, that even in the face of our husband’s laughter, our children’s tummy aches, unstable blood sugar and alarming increases in dental caries we might win a new refrigerator or perhaps a trip to the Magic Kingdom. For months we fell asleep dreaming of new uses for crescent rolls then awoke like children on Christmas morning, eager as all get out to see if we had e-mail. Did Pillsbury like the Money Bunz? we wondered. Did the Cookie Fries make them smile?? (And by the way, I have never seen anyone work with more single-minded focus than Carolyn Zane did when she perfected Cookie Catsup. Her kids weren’t allowed to eat anything else for days.)
But we heard nothing–not a word, not a peep, not a giggle from the dough boy–to acknowledge our hard work and self-sacrifice in making your contest a success.
Yeah, I know you’re busy; we’re all busy. Carolyn and I should have been writing books last spring, but did we? Nooo. We put the 65th annual Pillsbury Bake-Off first. We would appreciate a little acknowledgment, not another e-mail about Topsy Turvy Apple Pie and Chicken Nugget casserole or whatever that last one was. Yuck. (Did you even taste our tofu quiche? Oprah would have loved it.)
All right, look, here’s the deal: We’ve got your dough boy. If you want him back in one yeasty piece, cease and desist all further emails unless it’s to say THANK YOU, LADIES from the bottom of your heart. I mean it. We will eat that little dough man bit by bit, starting with his puffy white fingers (where are his fingers, anyway?) for every self-promoting e-mail you send.
With all due respect, take your head out, John: No one who has spent a hundred gazillion hours and most of their children’s college fund entering your Bake-Off wants to try last year’s recipe for Maple-glazed Green Giant Spinach crescent rolls. I’m just saying.
Best,
Wendy
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Filed under Cooking, Making Money, Motherhood, Pillsbury Bakeoff, Weight gain