Bakers are the Bomb

Never again will I look at a beautifully decorated cake or cookie and think, “I can do that!” because I cannot.

I decided to bake some cookies for my friend who is deployed right now. I like making chocolate chip or brownies because they are easy. Because of the heat, mailing chocolate is not the best idea. I decided to make sugar cookies.

At first, I was tempted to buy the pretty ones that I can find at Yummaries bakery here in town. Because I wanted to send a lot of cookies, that was not practical for my purse. So, I bought all the ingredients to make my own.

I haven’t made sugar cookies since I was a kid. As a kid, I never actually made them, just decorated them. How hard could it be?

Here is how hard. You have to wait. Yes, wait. I hate waiting for food unless it’s a roast in the oven or something in the crock-pot. So I followed the directions in my old McCall’s and made the dough and put it in the fridge overnight.

By the next day I was done making cookies and I hadn’t even baked them yet. The instructions say to do one quarter of the dough at a time, leave the rest in the fridge until you are ready. I was able to get through one half the dough. (Yes, the other half is still uncooked in the fridge. Anyone want some uncooked sugar cookie dough?)

Inspiration struck. I can cut them out to look like Jazzy and decorate them and have something else to draw people to my table when I sell books. Eagerly I started forming Jazzy heads with elongated noses and floppy ears. After my tenth Jazzy face cookie I was done. Circles and a couple of G-clefs were all that were created after that.

Fortunately, it only takes 12 minutes or so to cook the dough. You’re supposed to let the cookies cool for a long, long, long time before adding icing. Of course, I gave the cookies a minimal amount of time to cool.

Icing: gooey, messy, stuff to make. I was getting powdered sugar everywhere. Somehow it got on my nose or something because every time I’d tilt my head a cloud of powder wafted to the counter. I followed the recipe and started sifting the sugar. That lasted for one bowl, the white. Everything else was not sifted (so sue me.) I made brown and white for her face. I put the icing in the bag and started piping. This looks so easy when other people do it. I am telling you now, it’s a skill. You have to have the right consistency icing, the right size for the opening and the right amount of pressure. If you look at my cookies you will see I had none of these things.

After decorating my 10 cookies I was out of icing. I must have done something wrong because that was supposed to last the batch.

I made another bowl of icing, separated it for July 4th colors and decorated the remaining cookies as expertly as I could.

All in all, they are kind of cute, they taste great and were made with love. Next time though, I’m buying.

Blue Balls Blow Away

Jazzy might be going illustrated! I've just written a short story that would be impossible for me to photograph. Well, not impossible, but improbable as it takes place in the country, on a farm, where there might be mountain lions. It would be a change of pace for me to do something like this.

In the mean time, I am working on Jazzy Colors. Dale, Jazzy and I drove down to Fort Boykin beach to get the photo for "blue" but found out it's not open until 8:30 am. We went back a little later. When I opened the bag to get the beach balls, they went flying away. We managed to get some fun pictures but lost 10 balls due to the wind and/or Jazzy puncturing the balls. Ha ha ha ha. She had fun chasing them around in the waves though.

Learning As I Go

One would think that children’s books that are cute, fun, and have great photos (meaning my Jazzy Books) would sell at a children’s festival. But……… cue in the spinning cups, loud music, water fun, fried food, slushy drinks and cotton candy, and books become uninteresting no matter how cute they are.

To add to the all the distractions was a free keychain activity with colorful beads on one side of my tent and a “Teddy Bear Mobile” with stuffing that is blowing around in a large clear bin looking like cotton candy and dispensed like a slushy into the bear the child chooses, on the other.

Besides the atmosphere of fun and games was a feeling of entitlement. A lot of bigger businesses, like Xfinity, were giving away bright orange bags with their logo, book bags, hand clappers, etc. After passing this booth, then making their free key chain, children and parents were picking up items from my table and walking away with them. I felt awful asking them to pay for my Jazzy cubes and coloring books, but my goodness.

My little Jazzy’s Books business cannot compete with that type of atmosphere.

But, besides all that above, I did sell a few books, made a few children smile with a “free” Jazzy Cube with a book purchase, and basically broke even. (If you don’t count time and gas, ha ha ha ha)

On another note, I met some very interesting people. As I was entertaining myself taking photos in the Danville Old West End National Historic District, I met two gentlemen sitting on the porch of a beautifully restored home. I was invited to see inside and we played a little on the piano.

When I arrived at my Air B&B, there were two more guests than planned: A traveling nurse and an exchange student from Honduras. After my solitary dinner at a terrific Mexican restaurant, I took some sunset photos (not very remarkable but pretty) and I spent an hour or so just chatting with my new acquaintances.

Enjoy the photos.