Do not turn your back on the leprechaun.

WTF is Irish about shitty apple cake?  That's the worse cake recipe ever. Also, what's an "Irish bouquet"?   I'm just going to keep talking about how dumb that tabletop looks so that I don't have to acknowledge the creature lurking on the right.   It means us ill.   You couldn't pay me enough to look directly into its terrifying foil face.

That's not a fucking decoration, that's a sadistic foil poppet crafted for a malignant purpose.

Hey, what was going on at this time in Ireland?   Conny?  Are you behind "The Troubles"? Conny?

If you have a rabbit mold, good for you.

Conny approves of people who have rabbit molds.   They're her kind of people...CHEATERS.  Covering hard boiled eggs in foil is not a craft, lady.  You're not fooling anyone with the rickrack.

Halloween. Yep, I'm scared.

All other questions aside, why do they all have black eyes?  Is it because Conny's kids always get the shit kicked out of them on Halloween, and she's come to think it's normal?

Foiled.

I present to you the first installment of our anniversary gift from Stacey and Shell-  the scintillatingly titled 401 Party and Holiday Ideas from Alcoa by the one and only Conny Von Hagen, copyright 1971.

Can you guess what Alcoa manufactures?  If you guessed aluminum foil, you're literate!

Conny apparently made a career out of tinfoil hats.  I encourage you to google her, if only for the terrifying picture of the full sized foil mermaid.   This book is not without horrifying gems, however.  I'm scarred by Father's Day.

This has truly been the gift that gives.  Let's have a caption contest!

Roasted Vegetable Lasagna

My sister Nora just emailed me asking for a good veggie lasagna recipe.   Here's basically how I make mine, but I never measure, so this is my best guess!

*UPDATE*   My sister Nora made this for a wedding and took pictures of the process!

Roasted Vegetable Lasagna.

The Illustrated Kitchen Bread

I'm chained to my laptop this weekend to finish various projects, so I thought a really good way to procrastinate getting any of those projects actually finished would be to make bread and take some shitty cell phone pictures of it for you.

You're welcome.   And thank you for enabling my distraction from important shit.

This is my effort to prove to you that your kitchen holds as yet untold and unimaginable varieties of bread lurking in your cupboards and fridge, waiting to be brought forth into the world.   Spelunk your cupboards.  

Strawberries are not Forever Friends.

I just got a text about this from a friend!  What do you do when you bring home a bunch of strawberries?

The short answer is eat them fast or freeze them.  

DO NOT wash them until just before you eat them.   This will make them rot lots faster.

If they're damp, or you did it before you read this, line a container with paper towels and store them on a single layer, with an airtight covering.   This will help wick the dampness away, and buy you some time.