CJ, College Graduate

 

POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE:  Not necessarily bright, but very early on June 9, we piled into the car and headed south on I-5 toward the Tacoma Dome, site of CJ's graduation from the University of Washington - Tacoma. 

He had to be there at 8, so we dropped him off, scored nearby street parking, and then went and stood in line in a light rain for a half hour before they opened Dome doors to guests.

About 9:30 a.m. the graduates began to file in. It took a full half hour for the seating to happen. Can you spot CJ in the middle of the photo below, holding up his program?

Here's a cell phone closeup of the graduate.

Before the ceremony, there were rotating photos on the big screens. CJ had texted me a "backstage" photo of Harry the Husky and him, so I posted it to social media with the hashtag #UWTgrad and it made it into the rotation.

Here's an 'action shot' of CJ getting scanned in to cross the stage. Each grad had a QR code that they scanned, and then a pre-recorded voice announced their name.

All of my shots of CJ actually crossing the stage are blurry. :/ It was very dark in the Dome, and my camera wasn't up to the task. Case in point: Here's a shot of him walking in front of us, after he came off the stage.

After about three hours, all the grads had crossed the stage (some 1,400, I think), and they were told to move their tassels to the other side of their caps.

After commencement, we headed back to our place, checked in on the dogs and picked up G&G. We then headed to the Seattle Waterfront - specifically Wing Dome, for a little celebratory lunch. (We had gone to this same Wing Dome when CJ graduated from South Seattle College with his AA a couple years back.)

Back at home, CJ enjoyed both of his cakes, including this one from Bundt Cakes. 

We took the cap off the cake and donned it on CJ's merpug for fun.

Speaking of dogs, on our daily  'to do' whiteboard, Annabelle drew CJ a special cartoon. It marked the re-emergence of a series she used to do years ago, Shar-pei a Day. As always, the aloof Shar-pei wasn't exactly effusive in his praise.

All in all a long day, the culmination of a lot of years of hard work and stick-to-it-iveness. Congrats to CJ for crossing this particular finish line. We all look forward to what is next.

Kitchen Adventures

LET JIMI TAKE OVER: February 25th was the fourth Saturday of the month, which meant that we were busy with our monthly Teen Feed meal service.

February is Black History Month, and it also marks the month rock icon Jimi Hendrix, a Seattle area native, bought his first guitar. To celebrate, we turned to Jimi's songs for some culinary inspiration for our February Teen Feed!  Annabelle drew up an artsy, awesome menu sign for the service, and CJ was the DJ, spinning Hendrix tunes for three hours straight.

"Oh my gosh, they're gonna love this!" said a Teen Feed staffer surveying the buffet line right before service

"Hey Joe" showed up in many forms. The main entrée was sloppy joes and we dished up savory jojos on the side.

Team members combined to make plentiful amounts of pretty "Purple Haze" coleslaw. (Side note: Interestingly, the purple slaw was more popular than green slaw we've served in the past.) 

"Hey Joe" popped up again at the dessert end of the buffet, with yummy Trader Joe's Joe-Joe's cookies.

Inspired by Jimi's "(Let Me Stand Next to Your) Fire," the service was spiced up with bunch of Atomic Fireballs brought by Beth. 

We had some Jimi-inspired fun with the evening's beverages.  A bright, shining star of the service was the "Purple Haze" mocktail. Both beautiful and refreshing, it was the perfect blend of lemonade, butterfly pea flower tea, and lavender syrup. "It's really herbal. The lavender really finishes it," said one fan.

And, of course, "Hey Joe" obviously meant we had to offer some coffee-flavored drinks

All in all it was a memorable meal service. 

"I love the Jimi Hendrix-inspired menu!" declared one appreciative dinner guest.

LEFTOVERS: I over bought when it came to cabbage for our Teen Feed coleslaw. Rather than letting it go to waste, I decided it had been way too long since we made some sauerkraut. 

To refresh my memory, I looked back at an old blog post where we'd made sauerkraut in the past. These two videos were very helpful.

Then, it was time to chop up the cabbage, smash it with our hands and salt it, and put it in jars to ferment. 

On Repeat

TIMES TWO: Last time I popped on here was to share some good news and a cake we'd recently finished. 

From the history repeating itself file, here we go again.

Annabelle was recently accepted by UW Bothell, one of the three places she applied to continue her college. We'll have to visit the campus, as we've never been there. A couple of weeks ago, she was also accepted by UW Tacoma. She's just waiting to hear from one more school, which lets people know the first couple of weeks of March, I do believe. 

CAKE WRECKS: A few weeks back a friend asked if we did cakes by request. I told him we're not in the cake business, but had been known to make cakes for friends if they then, in turn, make a donation to Birthday Dreams, the non-profit we often back cakes for. He agreed to that, so I asked him what kind of cake he wanted. He responded that he wanted it to feature a Dumpster fire, a mushroom cloud and the "Everything is Fine" dog meme by artist KC Green.

(You can read a story about it on NRP here: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/16/1149232763/this-is-fine-meme-anniversary-gunshow-web-comic )

"Well that sounds like fun," we thought. 

The first order of business was making some flames from fondant mixed with some tylose to make it set up stiff.

Annabelle crafted this cute dog and his chair from modeling chocolate.

We built a Dumpster fire by making the 'body' from a big Rice Krispies treat, covered that in buttercream and then blue fondant. Annabelle put a cute face on it, and we topped it with flames.
Then we added a border/lip and some 'coal' (chocolate 'rocks').

Next up, it was time to build a mushroom cloud. We used a column we had, put a tiny cake board on that and then a Hostess Snoball atop that. Then we added mini marshmallows and draped the whole thing in fondant.

The last thing Annabelle made was the banner, per the friend's request.

He was pretty pleased with the cake. He donated $250 to Birthday Dreams and gave Annabelle a healthy tip, as well. 

Sweet Stuff

 

BOW WOW: On January 16, we received some very happy news. There's going to be another Dawg in this house. Annabelle was offered admission to the University of Washington's Tacoma campus.  It's one of just three colleges she applied to for admission.

CJ has been enrolled at UW Tacoma for his junior and senior college years, and it has been a mostly wonderful experience. It's a nice, urban campus that isn't too enormous, and the class sizes are nice and small compared to many other colleges. The campus is in the museum district of Tacoma, with lots of interesting things to see and do.

It's nice to have at least one really solid college option on the horizon.

The photo above is about 13 or so years old, I'm guessing. It was no doubt taken on a Saturday when the Ducks were playing the Huskies in college football. 

CAKING IT: I'm behind on posting our Birthday Dreams cakes (along with everything else, ha ha).

Our most recent creation was for a 10-year old who loves space and STEM (science, math, engineering and technology). We made a galaxy cake (airbrushed by Annabelle) with a rocket on it and a big ol' robot on top.

His name was on the body of the rocket, but I've obscured it for anonymity. 

We hope he enjoyed the custom creation.

Our December Birthday Dreams cake was a first for us. The teenager wanted something related to her love of Shopkins. 

To be honest, we'd not delved into the world of "Shopkins" until we signed up for this cake.  It turns out it's a world where cartoon versions of "micro scales of real brands from the supermarket" live, according to Shopkins' website. 

After poking around a bit, it seemed like their character "Cupcake Queen" was a good cake topper candidate. Annabelle made an adorable, edible version.

We put the teen's name front and center, in the Shopkins style/font. (As always, the child's name is changed in this photo to protect anonymity.)

We had a bit of a disaster when delivering the cake. On about the second turn from our house, the Cupcake Queen took a nasty tumble. We had to return home, fix her up as best we could, and then set out again. 

Truth be told, delivery is always a hold-your-breath endeavor. So many hours go into these cakes, and so much could go so wrong in a split second during transport.