Best. Cake. Ever.

I had to pause a little bit when my friend offered to make Eli's birthday cake this year--after all, I do kind of like to bake cakes. But then I recovered myself and said, of course! Besides, she wasn't offering to make just any cake.

"Whoah," said Eli.

Indeed:

Chocolate Birthday Cake

This year, Ben requested a chocolate cake with white chocolate frosting and raspberry frosting. I was a little dubious (not being a huge white chocolate fan) but I bought good white chocolate (which is flavorful, not just sweet) and the cake turned out great. The frosting was not as bright pink as in the drawing Ben made to guide our efforts, but he was well pleased with the result.

This is what we did...

The cake is the Rich Chocolate Cake from The Baker's Dozen Cookbook. It's a good, easy recipe-- no separating eggs, no fussiness--and it tastes delicious.

3 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped
2 1/4 c all purpose flour
1 1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
2 1/2 c brown sugar
8 T (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature)
1 c sour cream (I used plain yogurt), at room temperature
3 large eggs, lightly beaten, at room temperature
1 t vanilla extract
1 c water

Line the bottoms of two 9x2-inch round cake pans with parchment. Preheat the oven to 350.

Melt the chocolate and cool till tepid.

Combine the flour, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Add the brown sugar and stir to combine. Add the butter and sour cream or yogurt and beat into a thick batter. Add the eggs, melted chocolate and vanilla and beat until well combined. Add the water slowly and mix just until blended. Spoon the batter into the prepared pans, spread evenly, and bake 30-35 minutes, until the tops spring back when pressed lightly in the centers and a tester comes out clean.

Cool for 10 minutes, then turn the cakes out onto the cooling racks. Peel off the parchment, put it back on the cakes, sticky side up, then invert the cakes again to get them right side up. Cool completely before filling and frosting.

To make the filling:

2 1/4 oz white chocolate, chopped
3/4 c confectioners' sugar
1/8 c milk
1/4 t vanilla extract
3 T unsalted butter, softened
pinch of salt

Melt the chocolate and let cool. Sift the confectioners' sugar into a medium bowl. Stir in the milk and vanilla. Add the butter and salt and beat until smooth. Stir in the melted chocolate.
Use to spread between the layers of the cooled cake.

To make the frosting:
(Vanilla buttercream is delicious but finicky, so I always make cream cheese frosting...)
8 oz cream cheese, softened
4 T unsalted butter, softened
2 T vanilla
1 c confectioners' sugar
1/2 c raspberry jam (or more to taste), pressed through a sieve (optional, if you want to make raspberry frosting)

Beat together the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Add the vanilla and confectioners' sugar and beat until creamy. Stir in the raspberry jam. Now frost the cake!

Now We Are Six

Six years ago today, I was sitting at my desk emailing with my writing students. It was Sunday night, around 11 pm, but they were all on line and a little freaked out that--despite plenty of warning (and the daily evidence of my growing belly)--I wasn't going to finish out the quarter with them. The previous Friday, at my 38-week check-up, my ob had put an end to my two-hour daily commute. I went on maternity leave without ever returning to campus.

So there I was, typing away, when I realized my water had broken. I logged off with the students, emailed a quick note to my department chair, and called my ob's answering service, where a weary nurse listened to my nervous answers to her questions about my symptoms (none, other than the water breaking), told me get some sleep and call back in the morning.

Tony emailed his new boss (he's only been in the job about two weeks), and started packing a bag. He tossed in the Sunday paper and a crossword puzzle book -- apparently we thought we'd run out of things to do in the hospital. We didn't know anything yet about how all-consuming (and yet often quite boring) parenting can be. The cradle wasn't set up, the car seat was in the car but we didn't know how to use it. I went to sleep.

A couple hours later I woke up with a contraction, announced the news to Tony, and went back to sleep. A few hours after that I had a contraction that about kicked me out of bed. I spent the next hour or so moaning, counting down the time until we could reasonably go to the hospital. We were both so afraid of getting to the hospital too early; it had been drummed into us to wait until the contractions were a certain duration and coming at certain intervals. Mine were totally irregular and knocking me off my feet. I felt pathetic that I couldn't handle them. Tony called the hospital and told them we were coming in.

We got to the hospital around 7:30 and the nurse who examined me said I was fully dilated. I could have kissed her. Suddenly full of energy, I managed to get through the admitting procedures and get into a room before pushing Ben out into the world just after 9.

Ben likes to hear the story of the day he was born when he is falling asleep or feeling sad, and this is the version I tell him:

"When you were in my belly I was a teacher. Every day I would drive to a school with long brick pathways and big green lawns. I carried a heavy backpack, bigger than yours, full of papers and books, from my office to my classroom. My students and I would talk about books together, and I would help them write essays about what they read.

"Until one day, my doctor said, 'I think your baby's going to be born soon. I think it's time for you to stop working.' So that day I went to the movies. And the next day, Daddy and I visited with a lot of our friends and told them how excited we were to meet you. That night, I felt you start to kick and wiggle in a new way, and I called my doctor, who told me to wait until morning to come to the hospital. So I went to sleep.

"But you kept kicking and wiggling until I couldn't sleep anymore, so Daddy and I got up and he drove us to the hospital super fast. We parked the car and rode upstairs in the elevator, and when we got off the elevator, the nurse said, "You look great!" because nurses love to see a woman who's about to have a baby.

"She took me to my hospital room, and helped me into my hospital nightgown, and I climbed into my hospital bed, and I pushed and I pushed and I pushed and out you came! And you had your arms spread wide, and I reached out to cuddle you up, and I said, "Benjamin! Benjamin is here! I am so happy that Benjamin is here."

And I am still so happy that Benjamin is here.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

I'm forever tearing new recipes out of magazines and needing excuses to try them out, so baking birthday cakes for people I love -- even if they aren't here to share the cake -- is one of the ways I work through the inventory.

This is a buttermilk caramel cake from the recent Gourmet. The cake is light and not too sweet; the caramel topping (and you know I'm all about candy-making right now) is easy and delicious. I think Dad would like it a lot. Ben and Eli certainly liked helping to make it, almost as much as they liked helping to eat it.

So happy birthday, Dad, and maybe next year we'll be together on your birthday; for now, a picture will have to do.

Thirty, Forty

Tony, who’s easier with numbers than anyone I know, likes to quote thirtysomething’s Miles Drentell: “the decimalization of time is so arbitrary.”

Indeed.

And yet, with Eli having just learned to count to 10, and Ben interested in Really Big Numbers (“What’s a trillion times a billion?”), and of course my recent milestone birthday, I’m thinking a lot about numbers lately. So here I go:

30: I throw a party for myself with a Baskin-Robbins ice cream cake (yum).
40: Tony organizes cocktails at the Top of the Mark and dinner at the Slanted Door with 7 other couples (some of whom, I’m happy to note, were at that 30th birthday party). I’m amazed we can all get babysitting. On my actual birthday, my sister makes me a delicious chocolate layer cake (the ganache alone uses nearly a pound of chocolate).

30: I’ve just met Tony (who meets most of my friends at that birthday party).
40: We’ve been married 7 years.

30: I’m just starting to write my dissertation.
40: I’ve just received the contract for my first book.

30: I haven’t any publications (but do have increasing anxiety about that as I wind up graduate school).
40: I’ve got my PhD (and no academic job), a regular column, one publication and a couple more forthcoming.

30: I have a niece (my goddaughter), a newborn nephew, and two close friends with kids.
40: I have Ben, Eli, and the more than dozen kids in our babysitting co-op, plus the niece and nephew, whom we visit as often as possible.

30: I’m renting a comfortable 2-bedroom apartment in North Berkeley with a grad school colleague.
40: I co-own a comfortable 4-bedroom home in San Francisco.

30: I’ve just started running.
40: No marathons or big running achievements, just the knowledge that running keeps me healthy, so I get out there two or three times a week for a run toward the ocean, into the park, or through the neighborhood.

30: I count my many blessings, happy to be out of my messy twenties.
40: I’m still counting my blessings, looking forward to what this next decade will bring.

Two Already? Two, Already. Two Already!

It's taken me a few days to post about Eli's birthday because after celebrating the day thoroughly and well (a party with many good friends and cupcakes; a party with just the four of us and a chocolate layer cake), the wheels sort of came off the cart there for a couple days.

First, there was the dislocated elbow--totally my fault--this has happened to both boys before; I should know by now they are too heavy for their loose ligaments and it doesn't do to swing them around by their hands. Luckily it doesn't take more than a minute at the doctor to pop the elbow back in place, and it doesn't seem to hurt a whole lot either. (Or else Eli is just a big stoic). But still, you know, the guilt...

Then came the disintegration of the lovey blanket, which we've been watching for some time now, but couldn't figure out quite how to address. Well, I bought a spare lovey, but I didn't think that was really going to be acceptable, so it's been sitting in the closet. And then yesterday morning the patch, the label that he particularly loves, came off the lovey. I put it in my pocket for safe-keeping, while I tried to come up with a repair plan.

Not an hour later, Eli went to his blanket, as he does periodically throughout the day, and started turning, turning, turning it, looking for the patch. I watched a moment, unsure, and then pulled it from my pocket and offered it to him. He stared at it, wide-eyed, then looked at me and burst into tears. He wailed. He cried the big, gasping sobs of a child whose puppy has just died.

I thought he was going to hyperventilate, or throw up. I have never seen either of my boys cry so long and so hard. He wept for a solid hour, until Ben (bless him, such a guy sometimes) picked his head up from his intricate drawing and came over to assess the situation: Eli sobbing, me ineffectually trying to distract or comfort him.

"Hey, little bear," Ben said, "Can I read you a book?"

Eli paused, just long enough for Ben to decide that reading was probably a good idea, and so he began, and Eli listened, hiccuping a bit, and slowly calming down.

I kept the spare lovey in the closet. Turns out Tony can sew well enough, and he restored the patch to its former spot on the blanket, with a few extra, reinforcing stitches.

And Eli has had a taste of a couple life lessons (pain, disappointment, loss), but happily just toddler size portions of these lessons. I think the taste of chocolate cake is probably still stronger.

A Good Party

It's a good party when...

• all the shoes come off
• kids play duck-duck-goose on the lawn
• 3 preschool seekers take several minutes to find all the toddler hiders
• the parents get to eat and talk with other adults
• everyone gets seconds on cupcakes
• no one leaves in tears

"Moh pa-pa?" asked Eli afterward, as he fell asleep for his nap.

"No more party," I told him.

"No moh pa-pa," he answered; "Good pa-pa."

Good party, indeed.

Chocolate Honey Cake

For my honey, of course, on his birthday.
This is Nigella Lawson's chocolate honey cake (scroll way down for the recipe), from the chocolate cake hall of fame in Feast. It's moist and rich, you can mix it all in the food processor, and those little marzipan-almond wing bees are fun to make, like edible play-doh (Wait, says Eli, play-doh isn't edible?). And they taste good, too.

Big Plans

"Ben, what do you think Eli will learn when he's two?"

"I think Eli will learn how to say 'placemat.'"

"Oh. And what do you think you'll learn, now that you're five?"

"I think I'll learn how to drink wine!"

Alright then.

Five Lists for A Five Year Old

Five Things Ben Likes To Do
Read
Draw
Build with Lincoln logs, tinker toys, and blocks
Play with his friends
Pretend to be Dan Zanes and play a concert

Five Favorite Things
Trains
Musical instruments
Books
Tinker Toys
His brother

Five Favorite Foods
Pasta puttanesca
Chard with lemon and garlic
Penne pesto
Dried mango
Chocolate anything

Five Foods He Doesn’t Much Care For
A glass of milk
Tomatoes
Potatoes
Beans
Butter (acceptable only as an invisible ingredient)


Five Reasons I Love Ben
He says “actually”
He’s (mostly) kind to his brother
He always asks to be excused from the table (even when he happens to be the only one sitting there)
At bedtime, he wants me to cuddle and tell him the story of the day he was born

And extra bonus reason: this morning, he said to me, “At night, I decided I should sneak into your room and gently put this picture on your pillow!” The picture, of a house with some flowers growing in front of it, and a bright sun in the corner, is captioned "Picture of the World, for Mama, from Ben!"

Happy birthday, sweet Ben!!

This Day In History

1781
Richmond, Virginia is burned by British naval forces led by Benedict Arnold.

1884
Princess Ida, written by Gilbert & Sullivan, is first performed at the Savoy Theater in London.

1914
Ford Motor Company sets a precedent by introducing an eight-hour working day and a minimum daily wage of $5.

1925
Nellie Tayloe Ross becomes the first female governor in the United States.

1932
Umberto Eco is born. So is my dad, Christopher Webber--poet, priest, farmer, husband, father-- in Cuba, New York.

1933
Construction starts on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, U.S.A.

Happy birthday, Dad! You're a year older than the Golden Gate Bridge, and you look every bit as strong.