Arts & Apples. And dessert.

We moved here from North Carolina in mid-May, and one of the first things I did was to bookmark Michigan Festivals & Events, because Wiggy has been telling me about all the fun things that go on over the weekends here. 

Last Saturday was the 45th annual Arts & Apples Festival in Rochester, and since it's so close to home we put it on the calendar.  Wiggy discovered two weeks ago that they also hold an apple pie and apple dessert competition during the festival.  Now, I love to bake -- I do a killer cheesecake, and there's a lemon buttermilk poundcake I make that people in Wilson, NC call "crack cake" because it's that addictive.   But I've never entered a baking competition before, and I thought that this might be the time to start.

So I went through my favorite apple dessert recipes -- my piecrust needs a lot more practice before I enter it into any competitions -- and found a Bavarian apple torte that I'd made once before and thought needed some tweaking.  And I began to tweak.  Brown sugar, white sugar?  Whole wheat flour, or would that be too heavy?  The apples, the spices, the cream cheese filling . . . Wiggy, Mom and several friends ate an awful lot of torte in two weeks.

There were 13 desserts entered, and 12 pies.  To my complete and babbling shock, I won the blue ribbon for desserts!  This is the link for a post from Oakland County Moms with the recipes for my torte and the winning pie.  And this is a link to a story filed by CMNTv, a local cable channel -- you can see what I mean by "babbling shock". 

All the pies and desserts were cut up and sold by the piece after the competition, and I came home with a blue ribbon.  I am still flat-out amazed -- but I'm going to do that again.  That was fun!

Day, interrupted

Well.  Wasn't that exciting.

This time Molly got hit right in the face and chest, poor baby.  She and her brother have had two H2O2 baths, and she still has traces of the smell on her.  I haven't touched any stitching yet because I'm scared that any smell I have on my hands will transfer to the linen.  Something tells me that hydrogen peroxide and baking soda won't make a sampler happy!  So I'm not taking any chances.  I'll probably be able to stitch again on Friday.

There is an arts festival I've been looking forward to -- the Art & Apples Festival in Rochester.  It's a juried art show with craft booths and vendors, and also -- I just found out a couple of days ago -- an apple pie or dessert competition.  I've never entered a baking competition before, but I'm going to enter a Bavarian apple torte in this one.  I'm wildly excited about it.  Wiggy and Mom have agreed to be my test audience, and I'll probably drag a few friends into it as well.  I'm happy with the flavor and texture (just enough crunch, just enough juice), so now comes the part where I tinker with appearances.  Saint Julia, pray for me!

Woodward Dream Cruise 2010

I was never "into" cars the way a lot of my friends were -- gearheads and dirtballs (as they were called in my high school) spoke a completely different language, and I didn't think I could learn it.  I could tell a Mustang from a Charger from a Barracuda, because those were what was in our high school parking lot, but that was about it.  That was Long Island, in the early 1970's.

Fast forward to SE Michigan, 2010.  The annual Woodward Dream Cruise was this Saturday, and Wiggy and I went off to see it, armed with folding chairs, water bottles, many cameras (that's Wiggy's thing), and umbrellas.  Thank God for the umbrellas -- it rained almost the whole time we were there.  Wiggy ran into a friend of his, who invited us under their tent, so we didn't have to hold umbrellas over the camera.  Thanks, Grumpy!

But the cars.  Wow.  Just -- wow.  Yes, the muscle cars were there and suddenly I was a senior in high school again (hi, Rene!  hi, Tom and Fred and Geoff and all the boys who owned three cars and cannibalized two for the parts to make the third one run!).   And I found myself falling in love with cars that are older even than I am.   1940-something Mercuries; 1930-something Ford pickups; 1957 BelAirs. 

WANT.  I have told Wiggy he can pick one up whenever he gets a chance.

Who knew?  35 years after the fact, I become a classic car buff.

Not much stitching this weekend.  After the Cruise, I picked Mom up at the airport and collapsed into bed early.  Sunday was New Member Welcoming at our church, and then out for a fancy-schmancy lunch at Culver's.  We love Culver's, it's our favorite guilty pleasure.

According to the rotation, it's time for me to put Midnight Watch aside for a while and pick up The Marriage of Minds.  I need to reconfigure my lap stand to accommodate the roller bars first, and I'm eager to get started on this one.  It's big and elaborate and has lots of interesting stitches -- I can always count on Drawn Thread to give me a good challenge.