My Mother in Law I am not!

Some of my older readers may have remembered my last forays into cooking and baking. For new readers, I simply say that the domestic gene is absent in this family. Don't get me wrong, I can take 3 babies under a year and a half to walmart and buy 200 dollars worth of groceries when its minus twenty degrees outside. I can do laundry, vacuum and feed 11 supper without breaking a sweat. I can make sure my kids go to school in clean clothes, make a pony tail and sign a planner simultaneously. I AM competent. At least that is what I keep telling myself.

But what it is about this time of year that brings out the crazy desire to pretend I CAN bake? Needless to say, my success rate has not improved this year. Let me share so you can enjoy the embarrassment that is my cooking reality.


That there is the pinnacle of my seasonal baking. And yes, it came in a box completely pre baked, and we just had to assemble it. And we proudly left it out as the center piece of our Christmas Display on the kitchen table.

And then we left the house.

Trippy and Annie would like you to know it was very delicious.

I have fond memories of Nanaimo Bars from my childhood. My grandmother would bake them throughout the year and it was always a special, rich treat. I am smart enough to realize that I probably should not attempt the recipe from scratch, but I saw this box in the grocery store and realized that even I should be able to follow a recipe on a BOX! So I bought it and my kids were VERY excited to "bake" with mom.

I would like to point out, that to them, opening a box and pouring ingredients into a bowl IS baking, and please do not tell them any different.

Anyways, back to my Nanaimo Bar Baking Disaster. I really, REALLY think they should make the letters bigger on those bags of ingredients. It is NOT my fault that I could not tell the difference between bag "A" and bag "B". It is NOT my fault that I added Walnuts to the filling instead of the base and misread the two tablespoons of butter to be ONE CUP of butter.

Yes. One cup of melted butter. My version of Nanaimo Bars are very, very creamy.

Then we moved on to cookies.

A dear friend who knows me well sent up these packages of cookie mixes in with a Christmas parcel for the boys. Apparently my reputation precedes me. I think I got the ingredients right. I really, really do. And at 400 degrees, who would think that an extra two minutes in the oven would make THAT much of a difference? Not me, apparently.

I was wrong. Did you know that over cooked Snickerdoodles make great hockey pucks? I do.

And then, once again, Salvation came in the form of a box from Canada Post.

Our Christmas present from my in-laws is a box (a BIG box) of Christmas Baking. My mother in law is a saint and let me tell you the arrival of that box MAKES our Christmas. Plus, now when company comes over I can offer them Christmas Baking they will actually eat, AND I can take credit for having that domestic gene I crave.

Peanut butter balls, short bread, loaves of all sorts. Did I mention I love her very, very much?

My dirty little secrets.

I have many friends. Friends who cook lovely things for their families. Friends who design cards and jewellery. Friends who paint and decorate and convert junk into lovely pieces of art. Friends who bake.

And, believe it or not (because mostly I don't believe it!) they actually LIKE IT. And I envy.

My grandmothers both were women who baked and cooked. My mother's mother baked goodies that are intrinsically intertwined with my childhood memories. We each had a cookie named after us. Our favorites were always pulled from the freezer and set out the instant we walked in her front door. The front door of her spotless house I should point out.

The domestic gene died out two generations ago. The baking gene missed my mother and my childhood memories of baking at home are horror filled occasions of chopping sticky, glompy, awful dates for my mother's sticky, glompy, awful date loaf. Decorating? We went years in a gorgeous 4500 sq foot home with no paint on the walls because no one could be bothered. We were clean, but it was not an act of enjoyment for anyone.

The baking gene is completely absent in me. I have a housekeeping gene, but usually it is left down at the rink or hidden under the piles of laundry 4 active boys generate.

But what is it about the Christmas Season that pulls out that desperate need in all of us to prove our worth as Domestic Goddesses? And so I threw a weekend away trying to generate memories with my sons.

Greg asked to bake with me. So we baked. Actually, we burnt. Batch after batch of ruined cookies. Never Fail Ginger Snaps that failed. Apple pie with crust like cardboard. Brownies that stick in the pan. Cinnamon bread without enough cinnamon. Sugar cookies that will never get iced because the recipe has baffled me.

I can tie skates, tell a slap shot from a backhand, run a time clock and keep a score sheet. I can drive in the snow and wake up at 5 to bring a son to hockey practice. I can cook a dinner with a three step recipe and provide plenty of fruit and vegetables as long as you like them raw.

I cannot convert black feathers into artistic Christmas decorations. I cannot make perfectly creative jewellery. I will not fashion menu cards for Thanksgiving Dinner. I will not coordinate my living room furniture with the lights on my Christmas Tree. My towels only match on laundry day. My floors look like I live in a house with 4 boys and a dog. My kitchen is more often dirty than clean.

Take it or leave it, that's me. And I'd take a picture of my kitchen looking like a bakery exploded if I could find the camera. But I can't. I think its hidden under the laundry.

PS. For Christmas each year since I have had children my long suffering and very patient mother in law sends a box of Christmas baking to my family. A LARGE box of Christmas baking that allows me to pretend that I actually know what I am doing during the entertaining season. Did I mention she has a triple dose of the Domestic Goddess gene and her son, my husband got the shock of his life when he married me and realized it was not universal? Ah yeah, the adjustment of married life.