Pashminas

Can you have too many wraps, shawls, pashminas? I think not! My daughter lives in Charleson, SC and while I was there visiting I love to roam the downtown City Market. The City Market is where people sell their wares; from soup mix, spices, jewelry, baskets, crafts, clothing, souvenir trinkets to scarves. Lots of good stuff and lots of …. well, stuff. Many of these are handmade by the seller. It’s a sight to see and a must if you are a tourist. Let me get back to the pashminas. One of the vendors had solid color ones for $5 and designs for $10. I went a little crazy.  Shouldn’t I have a color for every outfit? What about Christmas presents? My daughter was going to a wedding and needed a wrap for her outfit. Well, why not, they were only $5 right? Okay they took credit cards, not problem. I picked out several ones with designs for myself of course – jeez, not spending that much on gifts! Then on to the solid colors, can you visualize your outfits in your closet while standing in a crowded tourist market with other people wanting to look at them too and your husband ready to leave 10 minutes ago? Well, I can’t. I ended up with $75 in scarves! I had to make sure I got enough, right? Guess what? The credit card machine was not working. After all that decision making and my husband being so patient, I was not leaving without them! I do not carry a check book around with me either. I do carry 1 or 2 in my purse for emergencies. This was not an emergency. Luckily my daughter whipped out hers and wrote a check for me. She wanted her wrap too! It all worked out in the in, but now I have to decide what colors to keep and which to give as gifts. How hard can that be……….. ? :)

Home Sweet Home

We are home from a wonderful weekend with our daughter. I already miss her and Peanut too! Back to real life in the morning! I wanted to post the recipe I promised for:

Papa's Favorite Chocolate Cake   bake at 350 degrees
18.5 oz devils food cake mix
3 Tbs. cocoa
1 & 1/3 cup buttermilk
3 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
Grease & flour 2 round cake pans. I also like to cut a piece of parchment paper in the bottom of the cake pans to keep the baked layer from sticking. In the mixing bowl combine the cake mix and cocoa stirring to combine. Add the rest of ingredients and mix on low for 1 minute, then on medium speed for 2 minutes till well blended. Pour batter as evenly divided as you can into the 2 cake pans. Bake in center of oven for 28-30 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes. Remove from pans and cool completely on cooling racks. Frost with Fluffy Frosting and keep refrigerated.  Let come to room temp. before serving for best taste and texture.

Fluffy Frosting
8 Tablespoons butter at room temp
2/3 cup cocoa
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup whole milk
2 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. salt
Sift cocoa and powdered sugar together. Add vanilla and salt to milk. Cream butter and add all ingrediants. Beat till fluffy for 2 - 3 minutes. If frosting is too stiff, add more milk 1/2 tsp. at a time till you have the frosting consistency you like.

Papa and our honorary grand kids. My mom also brought a White Chocolate Raspberry cake from Publix to the party.  If you have a Publix in your town, you should try it. It was delicious and moist too.  Thanks mom!

My First Post

My wonderful family - Papa, Quite Contrary, sweet baby Peanut (my grand dog) and me.

My daughter Quite Contrary has a blog and I've loved following her. I've checked out some of the blogs she follows and I've decided to see if I can blog myself. I'm not sure I have enough to blog about or if I can figure out the dashboard as how to load different things to my blog, but I will give it a try. I will probably do some current posting and go backwards and write about random things that have meant something to me.

My sweet Quite Contrary moved to the South Carolina coast last year and I have thoroughly enjoyed visiting her and being a tourist in her beautiful area. Her dad, Papa, and I are visiting this weekend and celebrating his real 56th birthday. Papa got to begin his celebration last weekend with our "honorary grandchildren". I made him his favorite cake. I have named it Richard's Chocolate Cake, even though I got it from the Cake Doctors Cookbook. I guess the funniest part of the cake was when I bought the candles. At our age getting the numbers is smarter than putting a bunch of singles on the cake. By the time you get around to lighting the last candle, the first ones have melted away or if you are lucky enough to get them all lit.... somethings going to catch on fire! Anyway - I picked up the 5 and 4. Once I got home and unloaded the groceries, I realized that 54 just didn't seem right. I did the math and back to the store and exchange the 4 for a 6. This is why my blog has 'nonsense' in my title. I don't have a lot of sense once I got past 50!  Our grand kids love the fact that I can't remember how old we are! Today is Papa real birthday. Started out taking a morning beach walk, having lunch at Arts for fresh local oysters, visiting The Hunley museum and Quite Contrary made a wonderful Chocolate Mousse pie for Papa. YUMMO! It is the most decadent and delicious pie I have tasted! Postings for the cake and pie will come later.......

Papa's birthday stroll on the beach

Oysters at Art's - If you are ever in Mt Pleasant, SC during oyster season go to Arts. One of the best local dives!

 

The Hunley Submarine - the Civil war submarine that actually sank the USS Housatonic. It is very interesting and worth a visit if you ever go to Charleston.  Go to http://www.hunley.org/  and see more.

Chocolate Mousse Pie!!

It was a beautiful day!!!