Happy Birthday, Simmer: Terrible Twos
Sep 15th, 2009 by Marilyn
Simmer Till Done turned two. Now dear and loyal readers, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, what kind of parent is she, abandoning her blog when it’s birthday week? Where has she been while lonely Simmer was forced to sob and light its own candle? Poolside with cabana boys?
Oh, no. If I was poolside with cabana boys you’d be reading tanned, lei-filled reports by now. No I’ve been here, chained to this fiery stainless beast, churning out meals and cookies and cupcakes to feed this insatiable, leg-kicking, monster of a two year-old blog.
All young ones have their growing pains, I know. Fortunately, Josie never really showed us Terrible Two’s – oh, she had a few Nightmare Days of Three, and now we’re in the Testy Try-Me Teens, but none of the normal hubbub that usually accompanies two.
Simmer, on the other hand, is my problem child. At first it grew beautifully, zooming all the way to 350-plus posts before the warning signs: refusal to open files, back-talking error codes and finally, total tech meltdown. I stood firm, doling out tough love and new codes, and we did sort it out, but also learned this: much the way a kid sleeps in too-loose footie pajamas and wakes up in them too tight, Simmer has outgrown its clothes. I believe we’re headed for a redesign, something a bit bigger but not too big, just enough space for growth spurts and tantrums and a lot of good eats.
Please know that I appreciate every one of you out there, from early house blog readers to those first dropping in today. You’ve made raising a blog more fun. Some days I look at posts and think, oh dear, that was supposed to be funny and it’s sad, and that one’s sort of sad but giggly, and that, well that was just plain spastic. And then you show up anyway, and keep reading, and it occurs to me that a sort of controlled babbling sound isn’t so bad on a blog, not if people connect.
In one of my favorite movies, 1962′s The Music Man, wily Professor Harold Hill (Robert Preston) inspires a reluctant barbershop quartet by telling them “singing is just sustained…talking…” Of course he sings that line, and I sing like a dead frog, but point taken; if singing is sustained talking, blogging is just sustained typing. Some songs are better than others, but gosh darn it, people keep typing and people keep reading, and the next thing you know there’s 76 trombones and a parade down Main Street.
Yeesh. Two sentences too far but you got that, right? Wait – I am reading it again to see if I got it.
All typing and trombones aside, thank you for following me into the kitchen and on the page for lo these two years. I know you’ll join me in my birthday wish for Simmer: a redesign free of glitches and growing pains. May it emerge as a well-groomed, obedient blog trained only to dispense madeleines and serve coffee. Now why didn’t I wish that for Josie?
Oh, look! While I was yammering, someone brought in cupcakes. These are for my dear mother-in-law, Marsha…
…who shares a September birthday with Simmer, prompting us to use her cake as co-celebrant last year, too.
What’s your favorite birthday cake? Does your family have an heirloom recipe that gets baked no matter what, or a ten-layer confection from a special bakery? Celebrate Simmer’s 2nd birthday by sharing your favorite in the comments – and again, thanks for hanging around.
Happy birthday blog, and come back soon! As far as the favorite birthday cake question: I can’t remember what TYPE of cake it was (white cake? heh heh), but my favorite birthday cake is still the one YOU baked me with happy birthday emblazoned in a dozen different languages! MEeeeMOries.
My entire family’s go-to birthday cake is from the Settlement Cookbook, It’s the QUICK COCOA CAKE and it’s the BEST chocolate cake out there! These cupcake photos are outstanding.
Ooooo those cupcakes look so yummy, what type are they. Happy Birthday, I am new to Simmer but I am smitten. Thanks
Happy Birthday Simmer!
Coconut Birthday Cake for me.
Perfect for my icy cold white January birthday.
Happy Birthday, Simmer! With a 20-month-old son at home, I feel your terrible-two blog pain, Marilyn! Now if you’d just share the cupcake recipe with us, so we can all celebrate Simmer’s birthday at our homes…
Usually I try my hand at baking the kids birthday cakes. One year, I made two for my son’s birthday, a 3D pirate ship, and then a 3D treasure chest. One was for his birthday party with friends, then the other was for a party with the family. Happy Birthday!
My favorite birthday cake is a 2 layer marble cake with Bavarian creme filling. Any frosting will do as long as it’s not chocolate. My husband and I have been together for 11 years and he has yet to get my cake right but he keeps trying – this year was the closest (the filling was whipped creme, not Bavarian creme) – and I love that he keeps trying because he knows it’s the one time of the year that I’ll let myself eat this cake.
Oh yes, my favorite birthday cake. While I do love me a homemade (from a box) yellow cake with chocolate frosting, my hands-down favorite birthday cake would be a white/yellow cake with vanilla buttercream frosting from a bakery–grocery store bakeries do not count.
My darling daughter (away at law school) shares your blog’s birthday. May they both keep growing to reach their full potential!
Both my kids’ favorite birthday cake, requested every year for over two decades (caff caff!) was a Betty Crocker “Lemon Quick Cake” recipe that started with a box of plain yellow cake mix. AND added a box of lemon Jello. I can’t find the “correct” box mix any longer and the kid’s palates have become much more sophisticated. Thus ends an era…
Happy Birthday blog! Congratulations on two fantastic years.
My husband’s cake of choice is rainbow chip – that’s right – from a box!!
I will take pie or ice cream cake any day.
Good luck with the growing pains. I’m excited to see where they take you!
Happy Birthday! The Terrible Twos eventually subside into mellow times. Love your blog – have patience!
Thank you all for the lovely wishes and great cakes! An interesting pattern has emerged in the favorites – do you see it? Box cake. I could write a whole post (and think I will) on how Americans, on their birthday, will generally forgo fancy tortes for the downy yellow of humble box cake.
In my early pastry shop years I’d bring home feather-light genoise with Swiss buttercream for family birthdays, and after the candles were out and forks dug in, people were just…polite. Tepid. For cultural-palate reasons, an American crowd loves a birthday box cake, and I say with appropriate doctoring, that’s fine. Canned frosting, never.
Happy birthday indeed.
My childhood birthday cake was a concoction called “Purgatory Cake” with Angel’s Food on as the top layer, Devil’s food as the bottom layer, chocolate mousse filling and Seven Minute Frosting. I was a precocious kid.
Now I mix it up, but one of my most favorite layer cakes is orange cake.
I will say that, no, I can’t stand box cake. It tastes funny. But my mother is more of a purist than I am, so I never had box cake as a kid either.
My favorite birthday cake is one that I don’t have to make myself and decorated by my children. Awww…what a softie, I know. Happy Birthday, Simmer!
Kate: I’m as purist as they come — but years of trial & error with the masses led me to the box cake (birthdays only!) theory. Whisking in sour cream and vanilla improves the “funny” (i.e., artificial) taste.
I forgot to list my own sentimental choices. For me, there are three:
1. Heinemann’s Bakery (in Dominick’s, for Chicagoans) classic yellow layer cake with chocolate frosting.
2. Custard-filled Boston Cream Cake from Bennison’s Bakery in Evanston, IL, another North Shore favorite.
3. Any terrific cake that I didn’t have to make. Now that’s special.
Ooooo, Bennison’s. I remember getting birthday cakes from there in college.
They taste as good as they look. Thanks, for a great birthday cake as always.
Happy birthday to you!!!
Another beautifully written post. I wish you another year of incredible food and the words to describe it. Fabulous photos. A published book.
And many, many more.
My kids all want ice cream cake for their birthdays. Crushed Oreo crusts, three layers, with three different kinds of ice cream, fudge sauce between the layers. How sad, no baking needed.
Congratulations to you! Two years is a big milestone and you are wearing it well. Here’s to the next two years (at least!).
Happy two-year blog birthday; it’s a huge achievement to maintain such a lovely blog for two years. I hope you are celebrating with chocolate cake with chocolate icing. For me, that’s the ultimate. And don’t muck it up with raspberry. Just chocolate, please!
As long as the cake has a lot of yummy frosting I’m happy. Happy 2nd Birthday!! Enjoy! xoxo
Mom made thousands of cookies for Christmas and her spritz recipe called for 3 egg yolks, so there were always plenty of whites around the house in December. My baby sister’s birthday is Dec 30 and she always got her favorite cake, Angel Food – cut in half, with a well in the lower half and filled with a concoction of cake pieces, drained frozen strawberries and whipped cream. The top half was put back on, the center of the cake filled with the rest of the strawberry/cream mix and the whole thing covered with more plain whipped cream. YUM!
I make the spritz cookies with Mom’s recipe but I throw the whites away. Last year I saved them in the freezer until I had 12 whites. Then waited till May or June and threw them out. The really sad thing is I also make Mom’s almond macaroons – almond paste, sugar, lemon zest & egg whites. For these I discard the yolks.
Happy, happy birthday and may you have many, many more!! Unfortunately we don’t have a favorite cake. My husband loves Chess Pie and his b-day is coming up soon. I’m secretly working on a sugar-free, gluten-free version for him. I’ve made beautiful cakes for the dogs’ birthdays and for me, I’d take chocolate ice cream and chocolate cake.
Wow…I remember a time 2 years ago that I could eat dinner on time because someone didn’t have to photograph our food for the blog first! Just kidding, I love the blog (especially when you feature stuff like those yummy-looking AND tasting cupcakes!)
Happy 2nd B-Day Mr. (or Mrs.) Blog!!!
Happy Birthday, STD!
The blog is one of my cyberspace highlights. It’s better than YouTube because words matter.
Anyway, I’ve been known to request cheesecakes for my birthday, but I’ve also been inclined to request banana vanilla wafer pudding. We call it trailer park tiramisu. Here at The Greasy Skillet we embrace the trailer park, a place a called home the first five years of my life.
Once again, happy b-day.
Ah the pangs of age and numbers…
Happy Birthday Simmer. Those cupcakes look scrumptious!
Let me see, favorite birthday cake, does Tiramisu count?
happy blog birthday
Happy Blogirthday! I need to get over my fear of ganache. Come on, get on a plane, be a good little foodie therapist…
Sadly we don’t have any traditional cakes here… but my dear hubby loves to read foodgawker, so we do get a little more adventurous from time to time. My all time best birthday cake for me is angelfood cake, strawberries and whipped cream – Mom always made that for me, as I didn’t care so much for the box cake and frosting – my angelfood cake still continues today.. However, that is usually out of a box, as well.
Happy, happy blog birthday and congrats on your accomplishments as you move forward into year three! Hummingbird cakes are my favorites to make for birthdays, but for some reason, my kids seem to prefer those nifty iPod cakes I made one year. You know the type—the ones you end up wishing you had never made because they were big pains in the rear and now they get requested all the time? It figures those (timing consuming puppies) would be the cakes most requested! Oh well, what’s a mom to do? Answer: make more iPod cakes
Happy Birthday! I’m a pretty new reader – I actually pretty much arrived on your birthday. But my favorite birthday cake is one my mom made for me nearly every year: it’s basically just a chocolate cake but on top she puts little chocolate leaves. She coats the glossy side of (clean) leaves with melted chocolate and then peels the chocolate off. Chocolate Leaf Cake. It’s my favorite!
Happy birthday!! Wishing you (and us your readers) many more years of wonderful posts, delicious food and great pictures! I prefer anything with chocolate, so those cupcakes look right up my alley…
Very best, Patricia
Well I was going to say Happy Birthday STD, because I’m too lazy to type, but thing something didn’t sound right and it hit me, what STD stands for. Scratch that…Happy Birthday Simmer Till Done, you gorgeous 2 year-old, you. Your keeper is a keeper.
Favorite cake? They’re all my favorites, except Angel food, and truth be told, Angel food cake isn’t really cake at all. It’s just sugar and egg whites with a wheeze of flour. Of course, if you toast it, maybe cover it with a berry compote and lime curd, well, then it might, just maybe, qualify as a cake.
Congrats, Marilyn, on two years of warming hearts and minds and stimulating palates.
A belated happy bloggy birthday to you! Hope that there’s always something cooking in the kitchen for many more years to come.
My favourite cake is anything topped with a cream cheese frosting. Yummm.
happy birthday… please please keep simmer till done….
Two years old and just as delightful as ever. Bake on, write on. We love it. Congratulations.
Simmer is two?! And now you’re taking it into the mad redesign laboratory? OK, but Simmer doesn’t need to do fancy pageant walking to impress, y’know. Just keep the funny and the smart and the recipes coming! xoxo