Pumpkin Spice Cake

I like pumpkin desserts.  Pumpkin bread, pumpkin cake, pumpkin scones, pumpkin pie- I like it all.  I made pumpkin spice cake tonight.  I saw John Barricelli bake this on Everyday Food a few years ago.  It's incredibly easy.  I don't even need my stand mixer to make it.  It tastes more like pumpkin bread than pumpkin cake, but it's good all the same.

The problem when baking anything with pumpkin is that my dog likes pumpkin.  The beagle never gets people food, except for pumpkin.  He is a pumpkin monster.  That means when I open the can of pumpkin purée, he comes running.  He got to lick the spoon.  

When I made this cake before, I made it with the honey cream cheese frosting in the recipe.  I didn't really like that frosting, so I made a simple confectioners' sugar glaze this time.  That was better.  It doesn't need any icing at all, but I felt compelled to put some on there since it's called a cake.  Here's the cake last time with honey cream cheese frosting:

I like this pumpkin spice cake a lot.  I'll probably make it again in a few days.  

Glazed Chocolate Cake

I made a chocolate cake this weekend.

It's from the cookbook Fresh Flavor Fast, and the recipe can be found here.  I've baked this cake a few times before.  These photos are from the last time I made it.  I'm not a huge fan of this cake, but my family likes it, so I made it for them.  It's a dense cake with a chocolate ganache glaze.  Here's a shot of the warm ganache sliding down the side:

I think the cake smells better than it tastes.  Mmmm, chocolate.  My family goes nuts for this cake.  I don't know why I'm indifferent to it.  It's good but not great.

Kenobi update

For those interested in news of the gentleman beagle, this post is for you.

Kenobi had surgery two months ago to remove two growths from around his left eye.  One had grown very large, and the vet thought it was time to take both of them off.  Kenobi came through this like a champ.  Was he groggy when I picked him up at the vet's office?  Nope.  He came prancing out, doing his beagle bounce and wagging his tail.  He was not very happy about wearing the cone, however.

Why are you doing this to me?

He kept scratching every time I applied the medicine, so he ended up wearing the collar for a week.  I'm very happy he had the growths removed.  I was weary about the anesthesia because he is eleven.  But, he is a healthy dog, and I trust his vet.  For several months before the surgery, I noticed Kenobi was going up and down stairs slowly.  I thought he was slowing down with age and that his arthritis was getting worse.  After the surgery, I see Kenobi run up and down stairs like he used to.  I think the growths must have been impairing his vision, and that was causing him to be slow on the stairs.

Now that it is getting colder, our ongoing battle for my blankets is heating up.  Kenobi especially likes my blue blanket.  He often wraps himself up in it.

Mmmm, blanket.

That is my blanket, Kenobi!

Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!

He is stubborn.  My protests are met with him sticking his tongue out.  It's not like he is a deprived beagle.  He has three blankets, a cushion, and a dog bed.  He still prefers my bed and my blankets to his own.  That's okay.  I don't think I'd be able to sleep if he wasn't snuggled next to me under the covers every night.  Plus, I have pretty bad nightmares sometimes, and he is right there for a hug when they wake me up.  Beagle hugs are the best!  So is Kenobi.

DUCKSTORM at the lake

This lake is around the corner:

I never knew it existed.  One day I drove by and thought, hey, there's a lake- I should go check it out.  So I did.  It was a dark, overcast day.  There was a bench by the lake, so I sat down to relax and take in the scenery.  That's when I heard the quacking.  Ducks are cute!  I am a friend to ducks.  They were hanging out in the lake, and I was minding my own business on the bench.  In the photo above, they are almost all to the left, out of frame, but there is a rogue duck lurking close to the water's edge.  The ducks started to come closer.  Onward they swam, a giant mass of fowl, forming itself into a line and coming right for me.  They arrived on land as DUCKSTORM, the water fowl version of DOGSTORM.  The quacking was thunderous, and the ducks were annoyed because I had no offering with which to appease them.  

a small portion of DUCKSTORM

Bread?  Crackers?  Nothing.  Demanding food, they swarmed the bench, pleading with their sweet, yet murderous, avian eyes.  You will feed DUCKSTORM, they seemed to say.  The ducks pecked at the ground like I had already thrown food and they had simply missed it, so incomprehensible was it that I could have nothing for them.  Eventually, they got sick of this disappointing visitor to their lake and went back in the water to swim and do whatever ducks do to amuse themselves.  DUCKSTORM had passed.  All was well.  

Photography highlights, Paris edition

Here are a few photos from Paris.  Click on the images for larger versions.  

This first one I took from along the Seine as the sun was setting.  You can see the Eiffel Tower behind the buildings to the left.  The quay along the river is a great place.  The last time I was in Paris, I went there every morning with a croissant or a baguette to sit and hang out.  It's peaceful.  

The Seine can be seen in this next one, too.  The object of the photo is the Conciergerie.  This was first a palace, then a prison, and now a museum.  Marie Antoinette was kept here during her last days before she was guillotined.  The Pont Napoléon is the bridge crossing the river.  

This is the Tuileries, a garden next to the Louvre.  This photo was taken in April, when the tulips were in bloom.  

Here are a few photos of Notre Dame, starting with the interior of the cathedral.  

This next one is the Louvre Museum.  Usually photos of the Louvre show the glass pyramid in the middle of the courtyard.  The Louvre is a U-shaped building, and this is one of the ends of the U.  The Louvre is big.  Really, really big.  During my most recent trip, I went there three times and still didn't see everything.  It is said that if you spent sixty seconds looking at each object on display in the Louvre, it would take you months of looking for 24 hours each day to see it all.  Louis XIV used to ride horses through the corridors.  

I'll end with two iconic monuments of Paris, the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe.  

The Arc de Triomphe is located in the middle of an enormous traffic circle at the end of the Champs-Élysées.  Twelve roads meet here.  You have to cross underground to get to the monument itself, which has an unknown soldier memorial underneath the arch.  

More photos can be found at jennifer-lyon.artistwebsites.com.  

A weekend away

I had a great weekend last weekend- the best in a very long time.  I went to visit some friends who live about two hours away.  Josh and Jen are both awesome people, and their daughter Lily is a brilliant and sweet little girl.  The weekend was packed full of goodness.  I don't know where to begin.  On Friday night, we had Indian food for dinner.  I had been craving Indian food for some time, and this was delicious.  Plus, Jen scored free dessert for all of us.  Go Jen! This is just one example of how Josh hit the jackpot in the spouse lottery with Jen.  There was also a My Little Pony quiz at dinner.  I failed miserably.  Lily kicked butt, but Josh did come in a close second.  I think he might disagree with my assessment of the quiz results.  I got to see Gravity Falls for the first time that night.  This is a Disney Channel cartoon I had been told repeatedly that I would like.  Was it over-hyped?  NO.  It's fantastic.  It's about twins who go to stay with their great uncle in a town where weird things happen.  There was a lot of Gravity Falls viewing over the weekend.

On Saturday, we went to Oktoberfest at SteelStacks in Bethlehem.  SteelStacks is a neat place. Its website describes it as an arts and cultural campus.  It used to be a steel plant.  The highlight of Oktoberfest was the wiener dog races.  The dogs weren't restricted to the little area set up for the races.  There were dachshunds everywhere!  They were cute.  Adorable.  Some were dressed up.  Jen made us falafel for dinner on Saturday night.  Yum.  Lily asked for me to read her a story, which was nice.  After Lily was asleep, Josh and Jen and I played the game Taboo, which had such timely references as Linda Tripp and Mike Tyson.  I also saw Freaks & Geeks, which I had never seen before.  I tend to steer away from tv shows about kids in high school, but this one is good.

On Sunday, we went back to Bethlehem.  We checked out a cemetery and walked around the town a bit before it was time for a service at Jen's church.  Yes, yes, I know- I'm an atheist. That doesn't mean I can't attend a religious service.  When I told someone about going to church on Sunday, she was stunned.  It's not like I burst into flames if I cross the threshold or anything.  Plus, if you're going to go to church, Unitarian Universalist is the way to go.  The choir sang the Pink Panther theme.  Josh says they worship Cthulhu, but I wouldn't mind if they did.  Unitarian Universalists are cool.  AND, afterward, they feed you snacks and coffee. My church never fed me snacks and coffee.  Anyway, this was a special day for blessing animals, so people brought their pets.  Lily's fish and caterpillar made an appearance, along with several dogs, cats, and one bird.  Also, the guy sitting next to me looked like Red Sox owner John Henry.

I always have a good time when I see Josh, Jen, and Lily.  I've been going through some stuff lately that has caused me a lot of stress and anxiety, and being able to spend time with my friends over the weekend was like lifting a huge weight off of my shoulders, at least for those three days.  I hope I get to see them again soon.