Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Yeah. I Made That.

Hey there, Friends.

If you've been here for any amount of time, you are aware that I tend to make some strange culinary creations from time to time.  Having a momentary lapse in memory?  Just check out the posts about my book group (you can find them all here, I did the search for you), and that will give you an idea.

Yesterday I was talking to someone who asked what other oddities I had made, and did I have a favorite.  Not going to lie, I've made a lot of weird shit over the years. Let's take a moment to examine some of my fine creations, shall we?  Mind you -- this is just the tip of the iceberg, Friends. I picked out some of my best, special just for you.

Anything Friday the 13th is always fun!  These are brownies, decorated to have bad luck symbols on them made from edible items -- broken glass, open umbrellas to walk under, black cats, etc.



My one and only attempt to bake in ice cream cones.  They are supposed to look like ice cream, obviously.  A couple didn't work and turned into little clown type things.



Graveyard brownies are always fun for Halloween.



Stargate cupcakes by request for a friend's birthday.



Raining Blood Red Velvet Cupcakes, using Apocalypse Cakes recipe.  I don't recall why I made these, but there they are.



Hello Kitty cupcakes, also for a birthday.



Mayan Chocolate cupcakes, complete with my shitty attempt at making the glyphs.  I know exactly when I made these -- to mark the day the calendar said the world would end back in 2012.



Farmville-themed cupcakes, also for a birthday.  



Turkeys.  I'm sure you can guess the holiday.



Pigs...I think they were supposed to be Peppa Pig for a child's birthday.



Computer monitors for a friend's birthday. They were supposed to be laptops, but I couldn't get them to stay standing during transport.




And this -- this was a bitch!  Coworker wanted a Bento Box theme for his birthday.  Took forever to make that damn candy sushi.


Aren't they cool?  Maybe not, but I impress the hell out of myself sometimes.  Good job, me!

None of them are actually my favorite, however.  My all-time favorite would be the Ouija board brownies that my niece, Lili, helped me make a few years back.  I know I have a picture of it somewhere, but I cannot find the thing.  I literally just spent over an hour going through all of my photos on Instagram and Facebook looking for this shit.  It's kind of driving me a little nuts at this point.  

For the time being, here's a picture of a Ouija Board so those who aren't familiar know what I'm talking about:

Photo from: this article, which is an interesting read on it's own.

Friends, you might be wondering why the hell that would be my favorite creation.

1.  I made it with my niece, which is always a fun time.

2. It was a few years back, so I kind of had to explain to her what exactly a Ouija Board was, and that led to some good stories.

I think I was making it for a book group that I was in -- I wasn't running it at that point.  I can't remember now which book we were supposed to be discussing.  Yeah, supposed to be discussing. This is the group that eventually turned into "The Book Group That Doesn't Read Books", and now we do random shit like go to the movies, or dinner, or bowling.  Books are no longer involved.  I want to say it was for The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe, but I might be very wrong about that.

Back to my point...

So I was trying to explain to Lil what the heck a Ouija Board is, and what it is supposed to do.  Quite naturally, she had asked if I had ever tried one, and did they actually work.

Of course I had tried one.  Is there anyone who hasn't messed around and tried one at some point, just to see if it works?  I think the Ouija Board was actually mine, or it might have been my childhood best friend's.  (We shall call her Betty, to keep it anonymous.)  Betty grew up next door to me and we shared everything.  We might each have had one of these things, I honestly don't remember at this point. I know it ended up staying in my parents' house with all of our board games, but we'll get to that later.

Betty and I were probably in like 7th or 8th grade at the time we tried using the Ouija Board.  I remember I was sleeping over at her house, and we thought it would be a brilliant thing to try in the middle of the night.

I remember being pretty bummed out at first because I apparently expected instantaneous results, and nothing was happening.  That little planchette just sat there. We tried different combinations of each putting both of our hands on it, just one hand each, a couple of fingers each.  Nothing.

Then, it started to slowly move around the board.  Holy shit, this thing actually worked?  I admit, I was a little freaked out at first.  Of course, being tween or teenage girls at the time, we quickly jumped to the very important questions -- like cute boys and did they like us, would we ever get married, would we ever meet fill-in-the-name-of-a-cute-celebrity-crush-here, etc.

At some point the thought did cross my mind that Betty might be pushing that thing around the board, rather than it being actual answers.  Why did I start to doubt it? She seemed to get a lot of good answers that she liked.  Mine always seemed to be a lot less positive or spelled out nonsense.  

At any rate, we weren't too thrilled with our venture into the paranormal, and I don't think we ever tried the thing more than like twice, with the same sort of results each time.

My brother, on the other hand, is a different story.

I know the Ouija Board ended up in my parents' house because he and a group of friends stumbled across it at one point and decided to try it out.  I think they were in high school at the time, maybe college.

I never got the full story and all of the details from him, and I doubt he remembers it all now, but it freaked them the fuck out.  I remember that they were absolutely convinced that they had contacted the spirit of a little boy.  They were talking to him for a while, and then bad things started to happen. I think the story was that the little boy wasn't alone -- there were bad spirits also, and they were  trying to come through.  Whatever it was, it freaked them all out to the point that they threw the Ouija Board out in the garbage.  They wanted it out of the house and away from them.  A couple days later, it was back in the house again.  They were convinced the spirits had returned it.  I think it was more likely that one of our parents went to take out the garbage, found it sitting in the can, and brought it back in the house.  My theory did not go over well.  One of his friends claimed they tried to get rid of it again, and it kept coming back.  I don't know if I buy that or not, as this person also likes to tell tall tales.

Whatever the case may be, those are my Ouija Board stories and why it is my favorite creation to date.  It wasn't so much about what we created as it was about sharing the stories with my niece.  

I don't know where the Ouija Board ended up.  It may still be at my parents' house, in the closet with all of the other board games.  There's also a fairly good chance that my mother sold it in a garage sale at some point over the years.  It might be out there somewhere right now, freaking out more people.







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