To Bake, or Not to Bake- That is the Question

Every year, right about this time, the time when it just starts getting hot enough to be a bit uncomfortable once you add the extra heat of having the oven on for an hour or two, I get bitten by the baking bug. I can't really explain it. I like to cook and I like to bake, but I'm no queen of the cookie.

I live in Minnesota, a land where rising fuel prices have made it increasingly more expensive to stay warm in the winter (in addition to filling the gas tanks in the vehicles, we won't even mention that...) It would make sense for me to bake all winter long. I have an electric range, our furnace runs on propane, which seems to add up a lot more than our electric bill in the winter. In the winter I bake things like chickens, roasts, pizzas, and enough french fries to feed an army of 8, but not a lot of 'baked goods'.

And then late spring/early summer hits, and I get an insatiable urge to start baking cakes and muffins, cookies and scones, even the occasional pie. Perhaps it is the thought of summer menus and avoiding the oven for months. Perhaps it is the repetitive reading of A Friend to Knit With's blog. Perhaps it is a yet unnamed syndrome that I should seek treatment for. Whatever it is, it is feeding my pregnant sweet tooth (and causing this strange numerical increase phenomenon on the scale... the whipping cream could have something to do with it, perhaps...)

In the last couple weeks, I've made 3 'cookie cakes', a rhubarb crisp with the first harvest of our homegrown rhubarb, and some raspberry scones (frozen raspberries, when they're ripe, we eat 'em off the plants as fast as we can grow 'em around here, mental note- need to plant more raspberries...)

What does this have to do with knitting? Not much, expect for how comforting it is to sit with warm baked goods, a good strong latte with freshly whipped cream (just whip up about twice as much as you think the kids will need on their 'cookie cakes', that should leave enough for coffee drinks...), and some yarn. Knit a row/rnd, take a bite, take a sip, breath a deep sigh of contentment. Now this is living... and those pictures are making me need another latte...

Happy knitting-

ali

*health update- 19 month old had CT scan yesterday to rule out broken nose, hemotomas, and any subcranial bleeding, or something like that; bruising is turning ugly, poor thing

-5 yr old's asthma got bad enough for another ER visit last night; no admission though, waiting with the 'big guns' (oral steroids) for now, seems allergic and not bacterial- no pneumonia so far; closed up house, turned on AC early, installed fresh filter, gave benedryl as well as nebs, and she's holding stable, still not out of the woods with this episode, but maybe keeping her out of all the pollens for a bit will help- she needs more allergy testing, one more apt to make...

*contest update- still time to set some goals for summer knitting!