one year ago today, mike and i celebrated our wedding with our friends and family at pajaro dunes. most of you know the story, but just in case you don’t – we started dating on september 20, 1999, and decided to get married on the saturday closest to our 8 year anniversary. we sweated over details, made lists, spent lots of money, and involved our family and friends in all kinds of projects to get to the day of the wedding.
in late june, we traveled out to ohio for mike’s family reunion. the event was held in a lush green park with a covered picnic table area, and on the day of, it was warm and humid with a nice breeze and a chance of some showers to liven things up. as we put down tablecloths to mark our picnic bench territory and set up a net for some badminton matches, family began to arrive with homemade goodies of all sorts. as a vegetarian, these events can be quite interesting, and i usually make mike go first in the buffet line to taste the homemade concoctions and determine if they are made with meat or if they are safe for my consumption. (luckily, my mother in law – thanks, barb! – always ensures that there are some delicious veggie items for us at ohio events, but i do love to sample the local cuisine as well.)
at the dessert table, though, there was no need for mike to taste test for me, and i promptly loaded a plate with more baked goods than my stomach should (or would) contain. when i first tasted this cake, my taste buds were delighted, and i mused out loud “what’s in this?? coconut? banana? pineapple?” and immediately went back for another slice. many badminton, bocce ball, volleyball, horseshoe/ring toss, and guessing how-many-items-fit-into-a-container games later, we were forced back under the covered picnic area by an afternoon rain storm. the baker of this cake was telling someone else about it, referring to the delicacy as a hawaiian wedding cake. i shared my delight with the recipe, and was shocked to discover that the recipe contained little else besides pineapple, flour, and sugar – a case of simple concoctions tasting better than more complicated ones. the recipe was so simple that the baker was able to give me the recipe off the top of her head, and i quickly wrote it down and vowed to make it again very soon.
flash forward a couple of weeks to my first opportunity to bake for friends in a long time, and it was without hesitation that i decided to make the hawaiian wedding cake for my beach celebration. i made two modifications to the original recipe: 1) i baked them as cupcakes (because the only thing better than cake is a cupcake!), and 2) i also decided made them vegan – see my parenthetical comments for more details.
here’s the unfrosted cupcakes (and an unsurprising glimpse of mike on his computer):
i turned a year older last week, received some amazing presents from my family and friends (many of which will make it into another blog post because i want to share them with you), and had several fun celebrations.
a looong time ago, when i turned 10 years old, my parents threw me a party at natural bridges and had pizza delivered to the beach. i was SO excited by the prospect of having a delivery person show up at the beach, asking for “emilie’s party” that the pizza tasted even better than usual when it finally arrived. so this year, when i debated where and what to do for a small gathering, i realized – hey! i live on the westside now! why not go back to natural bridges and have another pizza party? – but since i’m double the age i was at my last beach pizza party (plus seven years), i decided to make it a little more grown up and make the pizza at home (and ask the numerous fantastic chefs in attendance to bring something delicious to share).
when i tell people that i make pizza dough from scratch, many people try to tell me how much time i could save by buying prepared crusts. but my parents raised me to expect that the default pizza dough would be handmade, so no use in trying to change that now! (that delivery pizza experience for my 10th bday was one of the few times i can recall eating non-homemade pizza.)
for this beach party, i made three different pizzas to appease the variety of eaters in attendance: one with mozzarella, homemade tomato sauce, pineapple, and fake canadian bacon; one with soy cheese, the same homemade tomato sauce, olives, and mushrooms; and the third with a vegan spread (annie’s spread is amazing, if you have never tried it before), plus zucchini and red bell peppers. i was so focused on making it to the beach on time that i didn’t take many pics (with my BEAUTIFUL new camera!!) of the finished products, so you’ll just have to ogle the dough instead.
my grandmother, marion claire white, passed away last week after a long fight with alzheimer’s.
below is a picture circa 1981 – my mom is in the upper left corner wearing the green dress, my grandma marion is next to her in the printed dress, i am the baby seated on the lap of my great grandmother clara, and next to clara is my great grandfather charlie:
and here’s a more recent picture from my grandparent’s 60th wedding anniversary in august of 2007:
this weekend, linnea graduated on saturday and on sunday we celebrated father’s day. as you may be realizing after reading my blog for half of a year, any celebration in my family includes multiple and/or copious quantities of food. this weekend did not disappoint.
we began the feasting with delicious home made raspberry muffins and mimosas at linn’s house, followed by the graduation and culminated the day with an amazing buffet dinner at chaminade that left us stuffed to the brim. pics of all of these are here.
the next morning, we ate a huge tofu-veggie scramble to begin father’s day and then headed up to coastways to pick some olallieberries. after picking a combined 14 pounds of olallieberries (there were four of us pickers), i made a tasty crisp.
subscribe