Baby Cake

Baby Carrot Cake

For little ones who aren't ready to eat grown-up desserts.

Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 cups carrots (about 2) finely shredded
4 tbsp. (2 oz.) melted butter
1/4 cup orange juice or apple juice

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a small cupcake pan. (The recipe makes enough batter for four large cupcakes or eight small ones.) Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl. In another bowl, mix together the shredded carrots, melted butter and juice. Add the carrot mixture to the dry ingredients and blend well. Spoon batter into prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of one of the cupcakes comes out clean.

Notes:
What's so special about this recipe? It doesn't have eggs! I haven't introduced eggs into Pata's diet yet. I will soon, but I didn't want her birthday to be the first day she ate them. The recipe can also be made dairy-free very easily, by substituting 1/4 cup vegetable oil for the butter.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I'm not sure of the baking time...I was multitasking (I baked a cake, cooked Pata's lunch, and cleaned the kitchen while baking the cupcakes,) so I was a little distracted. I would say that they baked in about 25-35 minutes. They were large cupcakes.

Pata loved them!

Pata's First Year

Frosty

I've been busy getting ready for Pata's birthday and the holidays, (which means that my art history project is on the back burner.) Here's one of the things I've been working on:

Pata's snowman

Just before Pata was born, I decided that I wanted to start a tradition of making a new Christmas tree ornament for her every year. Last year I made this little star in a hurry with some felt and ribbon I had on hand. This year, with more time, and some beautiful fuzzy white fabric (thanks, Aunt Mary!) I decided to make a snowman. He looks a bit amateurish (I don't have much experience with crafts,) but I have a feeling Pata won't mind.

History

I used to be an art historian. I had a tenure-track position, students who loved me, students who hated me, interesting colleagues, uninteresting colleagues, a great office with a wall of windows, a laser pointer and funky shoes. Then I met N, fell in love, decided to give it all up, came to Italy, got married, started this blog, and had a baby.

A good friend from graduate school, who, like me, now lives a life bereft of art history, recently confessed to me that she misses it. I miss it too. I miss it bitterly. I told her to take up a small project, just for herself, nothing grand, but a topic clearly delineated, to do some analysis and post it on her blog. It doesn't matter how many people read it, I told her. It just needs to be done. I told her I would do it myself too, if I had the time.

I've decided to make the time.

It may just be starting where I left off with my old Medieval Bestiary posts. It may be a piece I've always wanted to write about the Annunciation. It may be something about domes. (If my old art history friend is reading this now, that probably just made her laugh.) I don't know how long it'll take, but I will post it here when I'm done.

And then I'll get back to changing dirty diapers and washing squashed bits of food out of Pata's hair, of course.

Age before beauty?

We're waiting on line at the supermarket. It's late Thursday morning. By this time of day, Pata is usually taking a nap, but we're running late because of some errands. Behind me, someone asks if he can cut the line. A elderly woman with a cart full of groceries tells him he can go ahead. Next he's at my side, but instead of asking, he tries to push ahead of me. I block him with my body. Now he asks, "can I go ahead?" He holds up a white plastic bag and adds, "I only have this."

"But I only have this," I tell him, holding up my basket. He doesn't move away. I snicker at the irony that his own argument fails to convince him when someone else uses it. I consider telling him that my baby is tired and hungry, but I decide that I don't need to justify taking my own turn. Instead I watch the check-out counter. There's only one person ahead of me and I want to be sure to place my groceries there before the man does.

Behind us, the woman with the cart of groceries tells the man to cut ahead of me. "Andate avanti," she encourages him. He hesitates. I am so shocked at her presumption that I don't know what to say. Then she tells him once again, more insistently, "Andate avanti!" As I'm about to turn around and tell her to mind her own business, I notice that the customer ahead of me is already paying the cashier. I quickly empty the contents of my basket onto the counter and the man chooses this moment to cut in front of me. I hand my preferred shopper's card to the cashier, and she scans it. The man, realizing that he has lost, places his bag behind my groceries on the counter but hesitates to move out of my way. After I stare at him for a few seconds, he tells me, with exaggerated courtesy, that I may go ahead of him, and he finally steps aside. I decide not to acknowledge him and I start talking to the cashier, who has already begun cooing at Pata.

I leave the supermarket wondering why the woman with the cart thought that she had the right to decide for me. Was it because I'm younger than she is or because I'm different? Was it because around here the old are in the habit of dictating what everyone must do? And why do people think it's fair to cut lines in shops if simply because they have fewer items than everyone else already waiting?