I've been struggling with the same 2 lbs. for about a month now... Weighed in at 147 - again - this morning. Could this be the dreaded plateau? Or is it just that my body's been through the wringer during the last few days and I'm retaining water? All I know is that I weighed in at 143 before going into surgery on Thursday. (It was a great moment!) I'm slowly but surely taking up my exercises again. The walking feels good, but I'm being extra careful with any of the stretches, etc. that involve my chest or arms. I indulged in a little bit of "comfort eating" on Thursday evening and Friday, so I'm trying to rein that in as well. I'm not beating myself up about it. These 2 lbs. may disappear just as quickly as they reappeared.
Otherwise, I seem to be healing normally. I'm still taking the ibuprofen and using cold compresses to keep the swelling down, but there doesn't seem to be any bruising yet at the site of the incision. And I don't look lopsided either! I was a little worried at the news that this mass was 2 cm. in diameter --- my breasts aren't big enough these days for 2 cm. to go unnoticed.
Hmmm. I wonder if there's a fun way to segue from breast size to oven temperatures...
I've been baking a cake this morning for my father's birthday. My folks arrived in town yesterday afternoon for the winter. I'm not sure they're feeling very festive - it hasn't yet been two weeks since we lost Nana - but I know they're relieved to be here and we'd like to mark the occasion in some way. It's not a fancy cake. I'd love to have had the energy to try some vintage cake and icing recipes. It's just a Betty Crocker mix for a butter pecan cake with some coconut pecan frosting. From a can. Eek! Sacrilege. I am baking it in a chiffon cake pan, though, and that's a very '40s shape.
The thing I wanted to say was that I noticed that the times and temperatures given on the back of the cake mix box are right on the money when it comes to my oven. Now this definitely isn't the case for me when it comes to vintage recipes. My oven always seems to run too hot for recipes from my 1945 cookbook. I invariably have to set the temperature about 25 degrees less than the vintage recipes instruct me to and remove whatever I'm baking from the oven about five minutes ahead of time --- or risk ending up with something burnt and dried out. I used to think it was my oven, but now I'm thinking that the ovens of yesteryear just weren't as well insulated as modern ovens. So they had to bake things at higher temperatures and for longer periods of time. That's my theory, anyway. Have any of you who regularly bake using recipes from this era found this to be the case?
Some of the fine ingredients that go into this sensational Betty Crocker Cake Mix can't be bought in stores. So a woman simply couldn't put them in her own cake! What's more, in her own kitchen, a woman can't duplicate the scientific measuring and blending of ingredients that go into the mix. And, remember, this isn't just a cake mix, it's a Betty Crocker Cake Mix!
Actually, cake mixes aren't entirely un-vintage. General Mills introduced three Betty Crocker cake mixes in 1948: GingerCake, Devil's Food, and PartyCake. The PartyCake mix could be used to bake a white cake, yellow cake, or spice cake - depending on whether you added egg whites, whole eggs, or spices to the mix. Cake mixes cost 35 to 37 cents per box - which translates to just over $3 today. With faith that science and new technologies could solve all problems, the post-war era was prime for the success of such products as cake mixes. What you and I know with hindsight is that no cake mix on the market beats the taste and texture of a cake made from scratch, but 60 years ago there was great hope that the cake mix would someday be perfected and produce a cake even better than that.
Cake mix or no cake mix, I'll be enjoying a very small portion myself!
10 comments:
I've noticed that I have to turn down the oven for almost everything. The one at my mom's is adjusted (on the knob) as low as it will go and it is still too hot.
We'll forgive you for using a cake mix!
Take care of yourself. Enjoy your parents. Ask lots of questions and write down the answers. (Better yet record them.) :)
So glad to hear you are on the mend. There is an award for you on my blog! Take it easy and have a great day!
I often doctor up my cake mixes . I add milk and sometimes and extra egg.If I make chocolate cake sometimes I add mint flavor (my oldest sons favorite). The milk and egg makes the cakes mixes more like old fashioned cakes. There are web sites to tell you how to doctor and spice up cakes. Wilton site also has advise. I Hope your birthday party was great. Another reason to be thankful, for family and health.
MMMMmmmm... chocolate mint! That's one of my favorite flavors, too. I'm eager to try making a cake - and icing - from scratch, but will have to content myself with just a small slice when the time comes. Bummer!
Definitely enjoying my parents being here. It's so nice to see them with my nieces! We haven't all been together like this since before Poppet was born.
Lily, thank you so much! I'll pop by soon.
I seem to be the only person I know who is too lazy for cake mixes. I'm more likely to have raw ingredients around than to have a boxed mix. Weird.
My grandmothers, despite what everyone seems to think about grandmothers, were not cooks. My dad's mom did OK, but my mother's mom didn't really like cooking and, according to Mom, didn't have a lot of talent for it. Mom says she made the same cake for every single occasion. Luckily, it's a very good cake (we beat the egg whites separately and fold them in, though), but it's still sort of a running family joke. I wonder now why she didn't avail herself more of boxed mixes.
Latter-Day, sadly, I probably had all the ingredients on hand I would've needed to bake a cake from scratch. It just seemed to hard for some reason. And yet --- how many ingredients could it possibly have taken? Icing might be a bit more complicated, but there's probably no excuse for my cake mix reliance.
All this talk of cakes is killing me!
Everyone one knows that one must offer the stomach a little something after a medical procedure...just to keep up one's strength!
Oh, believe me, I did plenty of indulging during the first couple days! Had to consciously rein myself in by Sunday and remember that the surgery only lasted 20 minutes. Time out should probably be directly proportional to post-surgical snacking.
I'm with you. I have been stuck the past 3-4 weeks on my weight loss. I go from getting discouraged to being extra good and writting everything down I eat. Yet nothing changes. I'm down .4 pounds then up .2 then stay the same.
I say as long as you don't gain all your weight back durning the holidays you are doing good. Yet a loss would be heavenly right now.
Hugs,
Joanne
Ack --- plateaus are dreadful! Especially when you know you've been really good and there's no payoff. NOT gaining anything during the holidays is definitely a great goal for any of us to shoot for! Good luck to you, darling. And hang in there.
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