Butterscotch and Chocolate Spiders

Noticing Halloween creeping up around the corner, I have found myself inspired to compete with the generic candy brands by concocting my own creepy confections.  Now of course, the tragedy is that these days you can't hand out home-made treats to the kids, because everyone has heard the stories about razor blades and poison (it's never happened - read "Free-Range Kids" if your curious), but at the very least you can spoil your friends or hubby with this sweet spidery treat!

This is a recipe my Nanna used to make for my sister and I every so often, but particularly every Halloween.  Sweet, salty, crunchy and simple - they satisfy some deep childhood desire within me, and I hope they bring a smile to your spooky day as well!

Ingredients:

1 pkg butterscotch bits (substitute dark chocolate if you want the chocolate version)
1 Tbsp peanut butter (substitute shortening if there is a nut allergy concern)
1 can (5 1/2oz) Chinese noodles
1 cup dry roasted peanuts (these can be left out if there is a nut allergy concern)

Directions:
Melt bits and peanut butter in a saucepan. Stir in noodles and nuts and mix until thoroughly coated.  Drop heaping tablespoon fulls onto waxed paper and let harden in the fridge - approx 1/2 hour (or for rapid results, the freezer).  Once they are chilled, they look like chunky, many legged arachnids and can be stored at room temp, but do best in the fridge or freezer. Enjoy!

Bears

So I get home from work and I'm feeling like poo. I always reserve one day a month to plow through the pile of unsolicited manuscripts and systematically reject them all, and today was the day. The manuscripts were wretched--more than a few of them went into my File o' Shame--but it's never easy to write an email that's going to break someone's heart.

Dear _______,


It was with great pleasure that I received your manuscript, ___________. Thank you so much for giving our company the opportunity to review it! You've poured your heart and soul into your writing, and it's my earnest hope that you'll see your work in print soon. However, your manuscript doesn't fit our editorial needs. I wish you the very best as you continue to seek a publishing home. 


Kind regards,


Kate


After a few hours of this the replies to the rejections start to come in, thanking me for my time and enthusiasm and saying that while they're disappointed, they're not going to give up trying. I hate these emails, and hate knowing that I've ruined someone's day, no matter how crappy their manuscript was.

So I spent the day breaking hearts and came home and the hubby took one look at me and said "I'll run a bubble bath." Splendid man. He filled the tub extra full of bubbles and brought me a tall glass of wine and lit candles and brought me a cookbook to read--the man knows me so well. And after fifteen minutes or so he came to check on me. (During this fifteen minutes I had consumed most of the wine.) I asked about his day, and he told me about a site visit he'd done. He'd visited some old building downtown and taken measurements, and as he described the architecture he noted that the windows were no longer functioning.

"Sorry?" said I. "Had the windows been boarded up or something?"

"No, they'd been sealed shut so they wouldn't open."

"But they were still functioning in the sense of letting in light," I said.

"Their primary purpose was to ventilate the building, so they don't function that way anymore," said the hubby.

"The primary purpose of a window is to let in light," said I. "A door's primary purpose is to ventilate the building. And keep out bears."

I should remind you that I'd consumed that glass of wine very quickly on an empty stomach.

"Bears? You think a door can keep a bear out if it wants to get in?"

"A heck of a lot more effectively than an open window," said I, by which I think we can all agree that I won that particular conversation.

Maybe, for the health of my marriage, I should stop thinking of conversations as something that can be won. Or maybe we should bear children quickly so our conversations stop revolving around bear attacks and start concerning poop and vomit. I'll work on that.

Underwear + Heels + Makeup = Costume?

Halloween. 

Halloween is a polarizing holiday for women. We tend to fall into one of two camps based on our response to a statement like the following, which is a based on a real statement I read on a website recently:

Halloween is a holiday which gives you an excuse to wear that fancy lingerie you own in public!

Camp 1:

Yay! Underwear as real clothes! I'm going to dress as a sexy nurse! Oh, but I have that black number I love so much with the lace and the frills... I know! I'll go as a sexy witch! Now all I need is a hat! Halloween is easy!

Camp 2:

::indignant spluttering::

Now granted, there may be some who don't really live in Camp 2 by choice because of body image issues or something like that. But I'm willing to bet money that most of the women who are camping out on this side live here because of a different “issue” with themselves: self-respect.

Ah, yes, self-respect that great enemy to the sexy police officer, sexy school teacher and sexy mental patient everywhere (I've never actually seen that last one, but you have to admit, a straight jacket could be pretty sexy given the right heels and the right amount of makeup paired with it.) For shame on that woman who thinks too highly of herself to parade about in her alltogethers on October 31 as if it was acceptable to do so the other 364 days of the year (or 365, if it's a leap year.) If only all ladies could see the truth in the fact that the higher your heels the closer you are to God.

But alas...it isn't so; one can find many a wayward soul bemoaning the selection of commercially available costumes. Why these disgruntled women cannot find joy in a sexy Rainbow Brite or a sexy bar wench costume is beyond incomprehensible. If only they could see their way clear to don a sexy cat costume or a sexy french maid uniform, surely their prudish, Victorian ways would be overcome! With a sexy referee or a sexy schoolgirl outfit these women, too, could find the fulfillment in being ogled, manhandled, and generally disrespected by literally tens of men each year! Is it so wrong, after all, to want to spend one night of magical frivolity dressed as a sexy pirate, sexy fairy, or sexy ship's captain? No. It's not wrong.

In fact, I believe there are several many truly undiscovered areas of sexiness to be explored this Halloween. This year, avoid the embarrassment of avidly avoiding the other sexy vampire in the room by branching out into a new vein of sexy. Gentlewomen, my compatriots, I give you my top ten 'sexy' costume ideas for 2011!

1.  Sexy Hipster  

     Revel in the knowledge that you've been doing 'sexy' for Halloween since 

     before it was popular.

2.  Sexy Banker

     'Cause nothing says 'sexy' like a name badge and access to vaults full of cash.

3.  Sexy Undertaker 

     Be the girl every guy will die to be with.

4.  Sexy Baker 

     Every girl knows that old adage about direct pathways between male internal 

     organs.  Dressing in only an apron and a chef's hat is sure to get his attention, too. 

     (Note: unless you plan to keep your back to the wall all night, you may want to 

     consider underwear as well. But hey, that's your call.)

5.  Sexy Lunch Lady 

     If you're more of a savory kind of girl than sweet, serve up some sexy as everyone's 

     favorite cafeteria worker!

6.  Sexy Man

     Show those guys how its done.

7.  Sexy Sex Worker 

     If you've already gone to all the trouble of acquiring the look, why not 

     make a few bucks while you're at it?

8.  Sexy Zombie

     Who says the undead have to be unsexy?

9.  Sexy Grandma

     The über-cougar. Because you can get away with anything when 

     you're an old lady. Make embarrassing comments and pinch cheeks 

     (both sets) to your heart's content.

10.  Sexy Football

       Guys like sports, right?

Halloween Rap Featuring the Ladies & Special Guest Bob Ross!

Halloween Rap Featuring the Ladies & Special Guest Bob Ross! 
 ***Feel free to sing along!***

Cast (in order of appearance:

DJ Spinna: Evelyn

Count Dracula: Jayne

Frankenstein: Julia

Witch: Kate

Mummy: Bob Ross

From Our Kitchen to Yours: French Berry Crumble

There is something both extremely elegant and comforting about a berry dessert. How can you fail to get excited about the unexpected tangy zest that cuts into anticipated sweetness, the textural complexity that your fruit of choice adds to the pastry and sauce it's nestled in - and the added bonus of having a little nutritional value to assuage your guilty conscious who always pipes up when you contemplate that second slice. Now I'm aware that the majority of women out there don't think it's worth the calories if it's not smothered in chocolate, but I'm confident this decedent little crumble can hold it's own, even when competing with dessert giants such as brownies or chocolate cheese cake. And if it doesn't satisfy your needs, nothing says you can't top the whole thing with a dollop of hot fudge!

Ingredients:
24oz Morello/Dark Cherries*
1 cup frozen fruit (consider raspberries, blueberries, strawberries)
1 cup flour
1 cup instant oatmeal (T.J.'s whole grain cranberry is my go-to)
3/4 cup firm butter (many crumble recipes advocate for more butter, I don't think it's missed at all here, but feel free to add more if desired)
1 cup brown sugar
3 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla

(*this is the amount needed, already drained. If you live near a Trader Joe's, you can find these in 24.5oz jars, buy two and drain the juice and you have the right amount.  You can also substitute cherry pie filling - to cut down on some of the fake sweetness that comes with the filling, rinse the majority of the sweet syrup off of them. With the syrup cut down, you will probably need 3 cans to equal the correct proportion)



Directions:
Pre-heat oven at 350. Drain the cherries and pour them into a 2 1/2 quart baking dish (a 9x9 casserole dish will work as well). Add frozen fruit and one tsp of cinnamon and stir until mixed. In a medium bowl stir together flour, oatmeal, sugar and cinnamon. Chop firm butter up into small pieces and add to the bowl along with the vanilla. With a fork or fingers (fingers really is the easiest) blend the butter into the dry ingredients until you have formed a stiff and sticky crumble. Crumble your mixture on top of the fruit and place in the oven until the top is a golden brown (approx. 30 min). Serve warm with vanilla ice-cream and enjoy!

10 Halloween Costumes That We May or May Not Like to See This Year

 

 10. Pimp Child. Nothing like giving your child a Life Lesson in how sometimes, life just isn't fair - make sure you are at the top of the food chain!

 

9. Princess & The Witch. It's pretty obvious which kid is the favorite in this family. Heck, that other one is so ugly they don't even want the face shown.

8. Harem Girl. This is really just a precursor to a blog that Evelyn is working on. AKA "Ho-lloween". It appears there are two lessons to be learned here: Dressing like a loose woman will increase your chances of "candy" and be ready to be just one of many in your man's life. Thumbs up for that parenting win!

 

7. The Human-Toilet. We don't know if this is a statement to all the kids who get *ahem* $%(# on, or if this kid is a science geek who created a fully working toilet for his costume, or maybe he's a starving actor playing the plum roll of Port-a-Potty in his school play...

 

6. Kool-Aid Man. A primary example of why body art should be outlawed.  OH YEAH!

 

5. Shark And/Or Shark Victim. Here's a great way to analyze your child's self esteem: Is he the legs, or the shark? Either one should land him about 2 years in therapy. Also...how does one see in this thing?

By the way, this costume made us laugh out loud.

 

4. Missing Child. Have you seen my sense of humor? Call 1-800-BADJOKE. We aren't sure how we feel about this one. Points awarded for creativity. As parents, Julia and Jayne cringe a little. While hiding smiles. Evelyn laughs outright. Kate writes down the idea for future reference.

 

3. Alien Chicken. Alien is an all time classic, and this baby definitely looked good enough to eat! Way to mix it up with the chicken motif. Best part? His eyes. Pretty sure he knew what was coming...

2. Suicide bomber. I hope this picture wasn't taken in America. Because guys, its still too soon. This one ranks up there with American Indian costumes and Jesus on the Cross costumes. Just...no.

1. Zombie Baby. Had Julia known she was pregnant last year she SO would have used this idea. The only way to top it is to use a real baby. 

Got good ideas or pictures? Send them to us at ladieswholuncheon@gmail.com and we'll include them in a post!

Post-Apocalypse fatTER

The Brain has been on a major weight loss/diet kick the last three months. Having Shiny really kicked him into gear as far as putting himself into the physical shape he'd been craving for years. When he lost 60 pounds in those three months, I took a step back and looked at my post-baby body and I was. not. happy. I was FAT! (ok, not fat. fatTER.)

Here's the thing: I am (was) a size 2. Post-Apocalypse - also known as labor - I was a generous size 4. More like a 6, since I was loathe to wear anything tight. I hadn't gained too much weight, about 30 pounds, but I had gained it in my lady bajangas (hurray!) and my thighs, butt and those ever-loving handles. So 30 pounds distributed-quite unfairly if you ask me- plus a hip stretch led me down the road of "is bigger really better?" This is the realization I stumbled upon. Fat is SO relative.

Before you throw any stones and shout me down for being the fattest skinny person that has lived, you have to understand a few things. 

Fat is a state of Being, not of Body

I may be smaller than a lot of people, but it's not about the other people. I was fatTER. I fell into the rabbit hole Alice and came out on the other side Tweedle Dum Dum Pop. And yes, A good portion of the weight came off Post-Apocalypse, but the fatTER? It all stayed. It was like a boyfriend you've been dating after 3 weeks and its been 2 weeks too long already but you try to tell him that you want to "take a break" (AKA get the HELK out of my space!) and he just smiles down at you with a goober face. Me and fatTER? I was ready to break up. And fatTER's goober face is not as cute as my last boyfriend's. Beyond the physical fat, I felt terrible. I was weak, slow, tired, and didn't feel fit. I wasn't fit. But now I had all the fat to prove it. Sad sad sad. Fat fat fat(TER). 

Feeling fat is Being Fat

Feeling fat is when you are wearing a brain layer of fat that you can't get rid of and it HAUNTS you. And you know what? I get it. Because you can be as thin as is healthy for your body but if you feel the fat rolls then you've got the fat rolls. I'm currently down to my normal weight thanks to some selective dieting. Plus a few pounds for boobage. But I'm not where I was when I look at myself. I stopped liking my body. Where I once saw sexyful curves I now see muffintop busting out of my one size larger jeans and no I can't wear that tight shirt because it shows way too much (can you say spare tire and then some?) and do you have a nun's outfit for me to wear? Or an extra-large parka? 

Working off the fatTER

In my opinion fatTER is much worse than fat. Fat can be dieted off. If you run, fat melts. Yes, its hard work, but its done. And people cheer you on all the way.

But fatTER? It's sneaky. It fits into your largest pair of pants. It magicks it's way into your pounds on the scale. It hides from everyone's eyes but your own, and when you make mention of it people want to refer you to a psychiatrist, not Jenny Craig. And then it mocks you while you look at pictures from a year ago in that other life sans fatTER when you were YOU- however big you were at the time of satisfactory size- and tells you it will never be the same. Not to mention fatTER is the hardest to lose. You can't just eat less or do a quick workout. You have to live differently and work religiously and even then fatTER may become your friendly neighborhood stalker permanently. 

As you may be able to tell, me and fatTER don't get along. Everyone knows fatTER. When you ate too much candy as a kid and felt sick and slightly obese, that was fatTER. When you had 3 pieces of cake or too much pizza or forgot to exercise or tried to fit into that pair of skinny jeans, fatTER was on your shoulder making goober faces. I'm sure fatTER will show up in my posts because it's pretty much my arch-nemesis (that and Randall the Laundry Demon- but that's a tale for another day). For now, fatTer is the unwelcome guest in my house (and yours too maybe). We've posted an eviction notice and are taking action but its a slow process. 

Anecdote of the Day: Embarrassing Moments

Back at my old job--which was a hotbed of corporate sleaze, which is why it's not my current job--our manager really liked to take time off for team building exercises. She loved this stuff. She'd take the whole department to a hotel on Friday night and make us spend Saturday learning about each other, somehow not understanding that we all had Very Important Things to be doing back home, such as (in my case) napping and hubby-schnuggling and experimenting with quiche. We'd all have to sit in a circle and talk about our favorite books, or which album we'd want to have on a desert island, or who we had a crush on in middle school. And by the end of the weekend, inevitably, we'd all be in bad moods and not especially eager to see each other again on Monday.

Boss Lady especially loved to have us share our most embarrassing moments. I hate this question. The really embarrassing moments are ones that I've spent a great deal of time and energy trying to purge from my memory, and I don't particularly care to share or relive them. So I dredged up a middle school memory, because they're far enough back to be funny.

 

 I talked about how my best friend's thirteenth birthday party and my first period managed to coincide. Which would have been fine and dandy if it hadn't been a pool party. I had absolutely no idea what to do. I tried to beg off swimming for a while, but the sun was hot and the water looked wonderful and heck, how bad could it be? So I put one of those massive maxi pads in the bottom of my swimsuit and cannonballed into the water.

This, as it turned out, was a mistake. The pad absorbed more water than should have been possible according to the laws of physics, and when I climbed out of the pool I looked like I had a diaper between my legs. My friend's mother took me aside and told me all about tampons, and it was horrible, just horrible. I'd never blushed so hard.

Until today.

Today I was sitting at my computer, oh-so-innocently, when one of the VPs came in to discuss a project we're working on. This particular VP is a dear, grandfatherly soul, all jowly and squishy and bifocal-y. He was looking over my shoulder at a spreadsheet when an email from my husband popped up on the screen. It read:

Hey Lady,

I can't stop thinking about how amazing you were last night...

The VP spluttered. He coughed. He went bug-eyed behind the bifocals. I ahemed and blushed and sat up a little straighter and tried really really hard not to giggle. "Well!" said the VP. "Well!"

"Well!" I agreed. "So, the totals for the next quarter..."

"Yes, yes, the totals," he said, and we both tried very hard to forget about it. But he kept blushing and I kept blushing and finally he gave up and went away. At which point I disabled the pop-up email notifications.

But I'm going to stick with the maxi pad story next time someone asks. Maybe--please, Lord--I'll be able to forget the look of spluttery astonishment on the VP's face, and the appalled look he gave me over his glasses. Maybe.

Welcome! Sit Down! Pour Yourself a Cup!

Please, allow us to introduce ourselves. 

First there's Julia. She sadly has to go to work daily and leave her tiny munchkin (AKA Shiny) at daycare. Julia has one husband, who has decided that his name will be Brain Trust. Yes, she did have to look up what a Brain Trust was. Since he's the smartest person she knows within a 30-mile vicinity, for the intents and purposes of the blog it will be shortened to The Brain. Julia would like to spend more time with Shiny and The Brain, especially since her work puts her in close proximity to several crazy homeless men who tell her that she smells like Vanilla Lollipops. When she isn't working and writing, Julia likes to ballroom dance, drink copious amounts of tea, and play video games until she realizes Shiny is screaming at the top of her lungs and The Brain is bellowing for more chicken-and-broccoli and Odie & Garfield (the dog and cat) are running in circles around the living room. You know what the one upside to work is? It's deliciously silent...

Jayne is a twenty-something freckled contradiction in terms. Confident, highly opinionated and consistently over-scheduled, she often changes her mind, prefers to be alone, and struggles with insecurity. She loves stilettos but is often bare-foot, lives in dresses but spends way too much money on “just the right pair of jeans,” and loves watching football and reading sci-fi/fantasy but prefers to be known as a princess rather than a tom-boy. She’s obsessed with red wine and coffee, but is almost as likely to be seen drinking strong dark British tea or a glass of Muscato. She adores the ocean and quiet wild places, but lives in a thirteen-story high-rise in one of the busiest cities on the East Coast.  She married Jim-dear three years ago, and he is the Immovable Object to her Unstoppable Force.  Tall, dark, handsome, and oddly serene for a Latino, Jim-dear handles with humor and grace every ounce of Irish temper and wild joy Jayne manages to throw at him. Usually. The perfect depiction of their relationship lies somewhere between Ricky and Lucy Ricardo and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Jayne’s  life has been completely turned inside out since Noodle was born three months ago and she decided to stay home with him.  No more crazy career, no more business trips across the country, but suddenly more moms’ groups and laundry than she ever believed possible.  Per usual, she doesn’t really have a plan or any idea how she is going to tackle this new turn in her life, but she’s prepared to face it with an ample amount of laughter, questions, tears, therapy-baking, and prayers. And coffee, lots of coffee.

Evelyn is a complex woman of a bit too much sarcastic wit, rather enough student loans, and many hobbies.  As a famous, somewhat fictional Spaniard once said, "Let me 'splain.  No, there is too much.  Let me sum up."  On her name badge at work, her three interests as listed are: theatre, literature, and developing superpowers.  The name badge in question lives on the wall next to her desk which currently houses a PC and two monitors, an iMac, two keyboards, two mice, an iPad, an iPod, an Android tablet, a tape dispenser, a notepad, a book, a pencil cup, two water bottles, and an eraser shaped like toast, which is her favorite food.  Her other home is a “one bedroom” apartment, which is the fourth consecutive domicile she has inhabited in which her boudoir was sans door for one reason or another (hence the scare quotes.)  In this case, having no bedroom door means no obstacles in the way of cross-apartment dance-with-no-pants-fest (which is not meant as a euphemism) so she doesn't mind.  She doesn't have any husbands or childrens to trip over in her dancing at the moment, making her the “single and fabulous” quadrant of the group, if not the slightly more “mentally hilarious” one.  But since she lives and works in the City of Subdued Excitement, she tries to keep it down.

Kate is a not-so-newlywed living in the Northwest with her husband, several spiders, and mosquitoes who could carry away a small moose. She's a senior editor at a small publishing house, and spends her days drinking endless cups of tea and scrawling red-inked notes in the margins of manuscripts. And once a month or so she gets to throw on her strappy heels and fly all over the country to have important meetings and sit on panels and pretend she’s much more important than she is. But when work is over she comes home and passes the evening cooking up soups and cobblers and begging the hubby to please have another helping so it doesn't go to waste. She loves to hike and camp (as long as someone brings marshmallows) and has good intentions of becoming a runner, but when the rainy season lasts eight months and you hate running on a treadmill ... well, isn't it just easier to stay inside and experiment with rhubarb? Isn't it?

So that's us: four women in four different places and four different stages in life who love to write and are figuring out what it means to be a woman in the twenty-first century. This is our place to write about dating, motherhood, marriage, kitchen catastrophes, and all the things we never anticipated about being grown-up. We'll post recipes and pictures and we'll tell stories. We'll discuss the woes of laundry and the joys of farmers' markets and the perils of family holiday gatherings. We'll talk about books and music and religion and science and art that moves us beyond ourselves. And we'll laugh a lot, because, as the inimitable Audrey Hepburn said, "Laughing is the best calorie burner." (She went on to say that she "believes in kissing, kissing a lot." So do we.) 

Since we can't gather for a weekly luncheon at a charming tea shop with cushy blue throw pillows strewn artfully about the place, we'll meet here instead. We hope you'll join us.

Welcome.