year one

One. Year.

INSANE.   That this, the longest and shortest year of my life has been accompanied and loving the sweetest, kind, generous, hilarious little girl.  Every parent says it and I remember when I was a kid people saying "you grow up so fast" and rolling my eyes because I couldn't grow up fast enough.  I see it happening in front of my eyes  and I whisper it to her - "you are growing up too fast."   

For me.  Its only to me that shes growing up too fast.  For herself, the pace is just fine, telling her first jokes (eating raspberries while blowing raspberries, omg.  stop), throwing herself forward without fear to propel to walk and loving every dog in the universe.  

Did I mention she loves dogs?  We have cats.  She is drawn to dogs with a magnetism that is out of scale to her exposure to them.  As she grows and her awareness gets wider, shes embracing so enthusiastically the world.  

Somehow innately has rhythm.  Corrects my out of time claps (I have pretty good rhythm, but am not the child of a drummer who is a child of a drummer.  The beat is deep in her lineage.)  Loves music, especially salsa, reggae and the worst jazzamajazz (think Sausalito from Lost in Translation.  Oh well.)  

We had a picnic in the park for her first birthday with family and friends.  The weather was so kind to us and delivered sunshine and more importantly no wind - our little park was protected by a cliff and was the only spot in Noe Valley where the wind dared not to blow.

Baking is how I celebrate.  I made cupcakes - Yellow Cupcakes with Simple Chocolate Frosting from Baking Illustrated.  I would have dumped another yolk in there if I had the time to redo to get a INTENSE YELLOW batter but it was still delicious.

The other cupcakes were Lavender Fairy cakes, with intense Lavender frosting.  Oh man.  The delicious smell - like a lavender field in my fourth floor city kitchen

Lavender Frosting 

adapted lazily from Nigella Lawson's "How to be a Domestic Goddess" (haha)

(This is not a royal icing, its a throw it together and oh-goodness-it-worked-and-is-great-icing.  Because when I made the icing I couldn't find the recipe that I had written down on an index card so I totally winged it.)

3 tablespoons whole milk

1 tablespoon lavender

1 cup of confectioner's sugar (you start with this and use more or less)

Steep 3 tablespoons of whole milk with 1 tablespoon of lavender buds in a small saucepan on really low heat to barely simmer until you smell LAVENDER IN THE AIR 

Combine with spoonfuls of the confectioner's sugar until it wont mix anymore (push it until it pushes back and is barely liquid anymore - you are thinking UH OH but stop right there) and put in fridge for an hour.

When frosting it will liquefy a touch, but will solidify nicely post frosting the cupcakes.  It will remind you of that "is it a liquid or a solid" really gross cornstarch experiment.

This makes a very lavender almost medicinal frosting - which is delicious on the fairy cakes or I imagine would be magic on honey cakes.  Would you drizzle/spread this all over pound cake?  Yes, absolutely, delicious.