This is going to be “Connor Week” where I share with you the recipes I made for Connor’s birthday dinner. Yesterday was Connor’s Cake, a beautiful “candy cake,” today the main course is the star.

This is the second year in a row that Connor has requested baby back ribs for his birthday dinner. Last year’s recipe focused on the homemade BBQ sauce and the slow dry cooking of the ribs. This year, I slow-cooked the ribs in liquid and used the purchased sauce. Although this recipe is less labor-intensive, we all agreed, that both methods produced delicious results.

We had a “special guest” at the dinner this year. Connor has been house-sitting for nearly two weeks at Kim’s house while she and her family are in Machu Picchu. Connor wanted to spend the entire day here at home, so he brought along Kim’s adorable pooch, Charlie. Charlie LOVES Connor. Coincidentally, Connor loves Charlie too, and so do we!

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Connor worked on Saturday night, so we celebrated his birthday on Sunday. Marissa is in town for a wedding, which was also on Saturday, so it worked out perfectly since she could then celebrate with her brother too.

This is the cake I made for him. I found the image on Pinterest, of course. No need for an actual recipe. Use your favorite cake recipe or a box mix. Frost with your favorite icing, I used a chocolate buttercream, recipe included. Then decorate and trim with KitKat bars, M&M’s, and a ribbon. That’s all there is to it!

Connor’s Candy & Cake Birthday Cake

Chocolate Butter Frosting
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3 to 4 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk, half-and-half, or cream

Two 9-inch round cakes (from 1 box cake mix)

Three 4.5-ounce Giant Kit Kat Bars
One 12.6-ounce bag of M&M’s
Kitchen string
Ribbon

Chocolate Butter Frosting:  In the bowl of a standing mixer, cream together the butter and vanilla.

Mix in the cocoa powder.

Add the powdered sugar alternately with the cream. Beat until light and fluffy. If necessary, adjust the consistency with more milk or sugar.

Place one of the cake layers on a cake stand or platter and frost the top with the frosting. Place the second layer on top and frost the top and the sides.

Immediately after the cake is frosted, begin placing the individual Kit Kat sticks to the sides of the cake, leaving a very small space in between each Kit Kat (you need to do this before the frosting has time to dry and set up.)

Three giant packages is the exact amount you need to completely surround the cake.

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No Friday Funnies today. In their place a “Not At All Funny!”

About this time last year, I bought a housewarming gift for Marissa and Jeff, a beautiful 8×10 Persian-Style Rug from Pottery Barn for their new place.

If I recall correctly, we bought it the first week of June 2013, it was on back-order, so it arrived the last week of June.

Nearly a full year goes by and they are enjoying the rug, all is well. Until the evening of May 4, 2014 (my wedding anniversary, by the way) when I receive a text from Marissa at 9 PM,

“I spilled nail polish on the rug & I don’t know what to do!”

Not yet realizing the rug she was speaking of was The Rug, I reply,

“Reminds me of when I had to replace the carpet in your bedroom with wood floors – I honestly don’t know – you should probably look it up on the internet.”

At this point, I’m really thinking, WTH? This is the 4th time that my otherwise intelligent daughter has spilled (or dropped a full bottle) of nail polish in her short life! When is she going to learn?!? Oh, and Happy Anniversary!

I should mention here that Marissa did call us to wish us a Happy Anniversary, earlier that day and that she had sent a beautiful card. She also went to great lengths to try not to text me about this crisis on my special day, by texting others first, but since they aren’t her mom…they, of course, were no help!

Then she responds, “I did. It said the rug is ruined. 

At that very second, it dawns on me…and I reply, “Exactly where in the house did you do this?”

I get the reply I most dreaded, “The living room. The nice rug.”

“Seriously??? Start blotting it with paper towels. Do Not Rub! Blot!!!”

“I did that.”

“Keep Blotting Until Nothing shows up on the paper towels, then send me a photo. Plus you better lift up the rug and make sure it isn’t seeping through to the wood floors.”

Then I get the next text, with a photo. “Not seeping through. Didn’t want to tell you, but it’s on the leather couch too. I might also need help with that.”

If you have kids, of any age, you know what I was thinking and feeling.

“I’m gonna wring her neck!”

“She drives me to drink!”

and basically, just…

“WTH!?!”

I call her and we agree that she will leave it alone and I will try to take care of it when I visit over Mother’s Day weekend, a short 5 days from then. In other words, Mom To The Rescue. (We agree that the couch is a non-issue because it’s a piece of cr@p that they bought on Craig’s List. It’s not really even leather, more like pleather, so I’m not wasting my time and energy on it.)

We research more and find several sites that suggest using aerosol hairspray or rubbing alcohol to lift out the polish, without lifting out or fading the dyes in the rug. She buys both.

After the full day of Amazing Race San Francisco, the proposal, and dinner with the engaged couple, I give them my hotel suite and I sleep at their place. That evening I get to it and do my best to get the nail polish out without lifting out the dyes on the rug.

Turns out the thing that worked best was the rubbing alcohol. I tried using a rag, paper towels, cotton balls, and cotton facial cleaning pads. The cotton balls worked pretty well, but the cotton facial cleaning pads worked best.

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There was a little glitch with the ring for the proposal that occurred on Saturday.

Jeff had the ring custom-made and although it was promised to be completed and to arrive in time for the proposal, it did not.

Jeff insisted the jeweler overnight a “stand-in” ring and they did, but then it was held up by FedEx and stuck in Oakland on Saturday.

Poor guy! After all his careful and detailed planning, others dropped the ball. So while Marissa and I were on our “Amazing Race San Francisco,” Jeff was at Macy’s buying a second “returnable” stand-in ring.

As I mentioned yesterday, he even had the foresight to have one of our pit stops on the “Race” occur at a nail salon so we could each get a mani/pedi. Here is a photo of my sad old torn-up left hand intertwined with Marissa’s young smooth pretty left hand… her’s ring free for the last few fleeting hours.

The real ring finally arrived last night.

It is exactly what Marissa wished for. A delicate platinum ring with a sapphire center stone and 2 diamonds on each side.

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This past Saturday was a very big day for our family. Mentally, I had been a little MIA for the past week or so … getting ready, emotionally, for the weekend!

Our daughter, Marissa, got engaged! She is my firstborn … and a truly magnificent daughter!

This is Marissa and her handsome fiance’ Jeff.

And this is their engagement story … as seen and experienced firsthand by a proud, excited, and loving mom.

On Thursday, April 24, 2014, Jeff flew in from San Francisco to take us to dinner and ask for Marissa’s hand in marriage.

He was so sweet and said the most beautiful and wonderful things about our beloved daughter. After we said, “yes, of course,” Jeff explained his proposal plan and asked me to be a part of it. What an honor!

You see, Marissa and I have been fans of the television show, The Amazing Race, ever since its debut in 2001. We’ve always thought that we’d be the perfect duo to run the Race and that certainly we would be the winners and take home the $1 million prize money!

Jeff created an “Amazing Race San Francisco” for us to run… unopposed … so we’d be sure to win! He had 15 envelopes containing clues and challenges for us to complete.

We began at 9:00 Saturday morning and hit the ground running.

Jeff put so much time, thought, and effort into this endeavor – it truly blew me away! He even had the forethought to have me take a photo of Marissa at each “pit stop” holding the corresponding numbered envelope and then post it on Instagram and Facebook. Each post included the hashtag #amazingracesf, so that he could follow our progress as we traveled from one side of the city to the other – over a period of about seven hours.

It also became a great way of letting their unsuspecting family and friends know that something very cool was happening and that something even bigger was on the way!

And yes, you can still log on to Instagram or Facebook, put in #amazingracesf, and see the whole event as it unfolded.

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Proverbs 31:28

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… back in the day of newspapers. Remember what those were? When every wedding was “announced” … our kids and grandkids won’t know what that’s like.

Happy Anniversary, David. xoxo

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Happy Birthday, Sloane!

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Instead of my usual Silk Transfer Easter Eggs, I went another route this year. On Pinterest, I found Cocktail Napkin Easter Eggs.

I hard-boiled 9 eggs and used the technique explained HERE for the first eight eggs. Then on a whim, I tried another technique and ended up with the egg above. I love the end results and will show you how to do both.

Plus I’m putting up links to all of my Easter recipes as listed on the Complete Recipe Index – over there on the left if you are still trying to figure out what to make.

Cocktail Napkin Easter Eggs

8 to 12 white hard-boiled eggs, cold
Printed paper cocktail or lunch napkins
1 egg white, lightly beaten

Open the napkins and separate the printed top layer from the plain second layer if the napkin has two layers. Discard any plain sheets.

Cut each napkin into four squares, along the folds.

Dip a small pastry brush into the beaten egg white and use to adhere and apply a square onto the front center of an egg.

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For the past six weeks, Connor has been working at Mark Tarbell’s The Tavern. He is the dishwasher and although they feed him dinner, he has not gotten the one item he sees that he really wants… the coconut cream pie.

So of course, I made it for him. That’s what moms do.

He gave it a thumbs up.

I have plenty of photos to accompany the crust-making part of the recipe. But my dad was here while I was making the filling. He can be very distracting, so no photos of that part, sorry.

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