Pink Cake

Hey! Looks like I've been self-therapizing at you for about ten years now! I made us a cake, to celebrate.

And by "made us a cake" I mean I made what probably would have been a perfectly respectable white cake with buttercream frosting except that I dumped watermelon Jello into both the batter and the frosting and now it is...something else. Something...nightmarishly pink. But I did hand-sculpt some Starburst into heart shapes, because I love you.

This cake is so extra it managed to garner one of the most tepid responses so far from the children, who at this point have eaten all manner of eels and snails and such. But the watermelon frosting is pushing it.

ASSESSMENT: VERY PINK, JUST SUFFOCATINGLY PINK

PROJECT STATUS: I think I am going to celebrate this blog's 10th anniversary by going on another hiatus, until such time as I can tolerate the sound of my own voice/sight of my own typing again. I promise that someday, I will return to you bearing Seafoam Pudding, and you will say "Oh, no thank you. No thank you at all."

Glazed Yams

Boy howdy do I not care about this project anymore, but like everything else these days (watering my Animal Crossing flowers, doom-scrolling through Twitter, compulsively baking things, wondering how long it's been since the children washed their hair, walking around my dumb boring neighborhood, observing my daily hour of anxiety paralysis) I must robotically check it off the list, so: yams!

(Just kidding, the entire basis of the above sentence is a lie, my grocery store did not have yams so these are sweet potatoes.) 

(Also, I know you read that paragraph and thought "all of these complaints are indicative of an extremely privileged lifestyle, Erica," but you are failing to take into account that Blogger updated its interface and now I can't figure out how to do anything where is the stupid alignment button how do I caption a picture this is taking forever aaaaaauuuuuggghhhh so maybe walk a mile in my shoes okay?)

I figured out the picture caption

There is an extra step now and I hate it

Why didn't I make these at Thanksgiving, when they would have been appropriate? How on earth should I know? Can you remember Thanksgiving? Quick, how many months ago was American Thanksgiving? A hundred? Are you sure you've ever even experienced a Thanksgiving meal and aren't just hearing echoes of a past life? Give me a break.

The children do not like sweet potatoes. But they have never been asked to rate them for Stardew before.

Or had them soaked in brown sugar and butter, hmm

ASSESSMENT: fine

PROJECT STATUS: shut up

SUMMER SQUAD: assembled

Anti-Racism

No Stardew this week, just some nice warm anti-racism link soup:

What it means to be an anti-racist. This is a helpful starter if your jumping off point is "But I'm not racist, I don't care if your skin is purple etc."

An interesting conversation about racism as a public health crisis. There are many facets of racist systems beyond over-policing that kill black Americans, and this discussion touches on one known as "John Henryism."

A list of children's books to support discussion of race, racism, and resistance. White parents! This is super important! And anecdotally, as a somewhat lackadaisical distance teacher myself, it made it much easier on my end to talk about what happened to George Floyd with my 10-year-old when her immediate response was "Oh, like Ghost Boys." Tough subject matter is less intimidating when you let authors who know what they're doing provide context.

(In terms of parental laziness, I have also been thinking a lot about how much I have depended on my children attending a diverse elementary school to do the work for me--if the majority of their classmates are not white, surely they will have a natural understanding that people are just people etc. But that only addresses half the issue--they also need to know about the reality of racial disparity in our institutions and the often-invisible-to-white-people obstacles that POC face in this country. "I don't see color" elides responsibility and allows the racist status quo to continue.)

Some black-owned independent bookstores to provide you with said context-helpers.

For my fellow Austinites who also view all of life through the lens of food, here's a list of black-owned restaurants in Austin to support. Can personally vouch for: The Rolling Rooster. There's a location right by our house and the seasoning on the chicken is incredible. It's slightly sweet, slightly spicy. Impossible to stop eating.

Plus a list of Austin restaurants donating to organizations that help support black communities and protesters. Can personally vouch for: Rosen's Bagels. Holy cow these are good bagels. Get some frozen rosemary bagels, support the Austin Justice Coalition, and then come back here and thank me for this extremely valuable food tip.

(I am also donating $5 to the Austin Justice Coalition for every candle sold in June, but if you have to pick one I frankly would go with the bagels.)