peep show

Tomorrow I will be gone for the day, watching my only niece graduate from high school.  I watched her get born, and I have watched her do many things since then, and I am very excited to stand by and cry tears of happiness and wistfulness while she flaps her lovely wings to get ready to soar--which I am quite confident, in my entirely unbiased opinion, that she will do.

this is she, with a hedgehog

this is she again, with my baby

So I will not be in my appointed location to write you about cake when Friday rolls around.  Lame!  I promised you a week of cake and only delivered two of them.  And one was a re-run, and one was a pie!  But there are still the presents to consider.  I posted the pictures, finally, of the rhubarb upside down cake, where they belong on Tuesday's post. Now you have a reason to head back there, and while you are there, put your name down to win fabulous prizes, which will include (but are not limited to) a jar of my apricot-peach jam, a jar of my indian apple chutney, and a fabulous kitchen gizmo, which will be a microplane if you don't already have one, and if you are the winner and you already have a microplane and don't want another one to gift to you dearest pal, then it will be something else.  Off you go!  I know you are itching to tell me about something you have cooked, and now you have no reason to avoid it any longer.

In other news today, the baby chicks went on a field trip to see the big chickens.

The dogs were the assistant chaperones.  One earned his stipend by scanning the sky for predators...

...while the other pretended to do the same, just from a different perspective.

And once we got back, I used some leftover rhubarb that was lurking around (lurking!  just like you, there, with your story you want to leave in the comments on Tuesday's post) to make some rhubarb lemonade, which I highly recommend if it is hot where you are.

There really isn't a recipe for it that I can give you. Just a method.  I took a few stalks of rhubarb and cut them up coarsely.  I covered them, and a few slices of fresh ginger root, with several cups of spring water.  Maybe I had a cup of chopped rhubarb, and  6 cups of water.  I brought it to a boil and simmered until the rhubarb was soft and colorless.  I strained it through a fine mesh strainer.  I sweetened to my taste with honey, though you could use sugar or agave just as easily.  Sometimes, if it is not so hot that an extra step seems daunting, I dude it up further by throwing some sprigs of lemon balm into the hot liquid to steep a moment.  Sometimes I add some freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice.  Sometimes I do not.  Either way, I pour the lovely pink liquid over ice, maybe a little bubbly water splashed in there, and happy am I.  The cooked rhubarb that I strain out  gets a squirt of honey over it and is eaten by whomever happens through the kitchen when this mixture is no longer so hot that it will scorch your tongue useless for further eating.

Have a great weekend and don't forget to trundle over and leave a story for me--you have until midnight Friday, June 1.