Best Friends Baking?

This past weekend we had the pleasure of taking another run up to "The Cities" to visit Grandkid Eddie and his folks. This is always a treat for Super Granny Jo and usually a multiple treat for me. Although I enjoy seeing and playing with Eddie, Sammy and family, I really love the ride along The River, and, usually, a real highlight is the stuff I find in Summer's kitchen. Summer and her best friend, Lisa, over in Seattle are involved in baking their way through a cookbook. (a dessert cookbook) Regularly they post results, accompanied by photos and commentary, of each project. (http://bestfriendsbaking.blogspot.com/) Normally when we go up for a visit we are treated to one of the wonderful desserts that has already been tested on respective hubbies. Once again I wasn't disappointed, little "Molten Dark Chocolate Cakes" were the featured dessert Friday evening. (With a little leftover for an early morning snack) But the culinary world wouldn't be interesting without a well-wishing, good-natured, meddling old guy with a recipe that looked kinda good in the Shopping News. (I've always found that the best place for gourmet dining suggestions is The Shopping News or Neighborhood Advertiser) This particular (or peculiar) recipe was for a Ham and Almond Pastry Ring. At a glance, it looked pretty tasty. But once again, failing to read beyond "pastry ring" was my first mistake. To make a long bad tasting story short, it was awful! Reid, Summer and Jo only managed to down two or three fork fulls before giving up on it and Reid headed into the kitchen to whip up some edible scrambled eggs and toast. Determined to defend my epicurean discovery, I not only finished my first helping but eagerly chowed down on a second portion whereupon I admitted, "actually, the more of this you eat, the worse it tastes". Reid's eggs looked, and I was told, tasted great but, by this time, my appetite had not only left me but took off in the direction of Canada. Needless to say, from now on, I'll keep my recipe suggestions to myself and confine my breakfast menu selections to chocolate doughnuts, pecan rolls and chocolate cake and leave the fancy breakfast creations to ihop and Bob Evans. In the best interest for the health and well being of the family, their home and their belongings, we decided it would be best to vacate the premises long enough for the HAPR to clear through my system. The logical choice, the St Paul, Como Park Zoo. What better place to, shall we say, blend in with the environment. I managed to stay close to open cages and, every now and then point at one of the animals while pinching my nose and waving my hand. This really teed off a group of Howler Monkeys who were involved in some personal hygiene of their own and didn't care to be the butt of my little joke. After a couple of hours out in the fresh air, we felt it was safe to return home and prepare a little less exotic dinner.

Ham and Almond Pastry Ring being given a suitable sendoff.
(We tried sending it to "those starving kids overseas", they sent it back!)

The trip home on Sunday was fairly uneventful as I chose to take the route through the migrating swan feeding area only to find that they haven;t arrived yet. Maybe in a couple of weeks.

The geese are lining up, jockeying for good seats to watch the upcoming Swan Show.