strawberries romanoff

When Saucy was growing up, she didn't even know this dessert had a fancy name: Strawberries Romanoff. Imagine that. She and her brothers just kept asking for strawberries with sour cream, please!

Now, when Saucy needs to open her bag of tricks on short notice to put together a dessert worth drooling over - and she only has a couple of minutes - this does it.

The key step that makes it look like you put lots of effort into it is rimming the bowl with sugar. The bigger chunks of sugar, the better. Here, Saucy used some Wilton decorating sugar.

Just swipe a fresh lemon around the rim and press the edge lightly onto a dish that has been sprinkled with the sugar. Don't use too much lemon juice - you don't want it dripping into the sugar and making it wet and messy. Ideally, when you're done rimming the dishes (or glasses) you should be able to put the unused sugar back into the jar.

Use a nice, thick sour cream. This is not the time to be stingy about calories. Don't use the light sour cream or yogurt, unless you're really cutting back. If you need to cut back that much, just eat the strawberries. The thick sour cream sells this dish... or so Saucy thinks. There are yogurt variations if you check the world wide internets, but the yogurt does this justice. Back the the day, The Secret Weapon made yogurt for the family himself - now that's impressive.

A good daub of sour cream in the bottom of your dish (or glass, because you can present this parfait-style) topped with a generous sprinkling of soft brown sugar. This is no time for measurements... you're in a rush, remember?

Top with a layer of luscious strawberries that have been washed and sliced. The strawberries in the store right now are beautiful so get some right away and indulge.

Lastly, another spoonful of sour cream, a sprinkling of brown sugar and strawberries to finish it off. It's just a couple of layers... delicious, sinful layers. Notice how the brown sugar gets a little soft and runny on the sour cream? That's a good thing. It's like caramel.

Other variations include adding a tiny bit of lemon zest or the zest of an orange, or a splash of Grand Marnier, or even good quality dark rum. That's the adult version of Strawberries Romanoff.

If you are really super lazy, or if time is even more pressed the sour cream and brown sugar can be prepared in a shallow dish and you can eat it like a dip with fresh, whole strawberries.

Reader, have you ever heard of Strawberries Romanoff before?

love is in the details

This is the only action shot from last night that has surfaced so far. Truth be told, Saucy was too wired to operate a camera during the Cheerios performance... she could only sit in front of the mat, nodding and smiling, gesturing wildly with winks and thumbs-up signs... typical stage mother stuff.

Were they fantastic? In a word, yes. Where five months ago there existed no cheerleaders, there is now a team. A group of friends bound together forever by common experience (and heaps of success).

They worked so hard. The accomplished a goal and are prepared for the final hurdle next week. Can they do it? Yes they can. They have what it takes. Plus, the details have been taken care of.

Fifteen matching hairdos and fifteen matching bows. Gel, spray, and more spray. Wait five minutes, then spray again.

Good friends to cheer them on... even if they are on another team. They will be returned in kind, you can be sure of that.

Little paw-print face tattoos to show their Bear spirit!

Socks with stripes and matching clean white shoes.

Green and yellow eyeshadow. Not suitable for daytime wear...

Let's not forget the super cute uniforms that Saucy picked up in Chicago last November and smuggled home with the Christmas shopping! It was the poms that made the luggage bulky.

And yet, all of these details seemed so trivial last night as they left the floor, leaving the crowd cheering for them. They returned to their prep area high on adrenaline and success.

And then, they cried.

It started when Loopy reached for Saucy with a look of complete satisfaction and relief. Truth be told, it was Loopy who started it. Saucy felt it next... and then, right there, it became a group hug of fifteen weeping Cheerios and two verklempt coaches. Tears are always better out than in, even if they are happy tears... so out they came.

Because, after the performance is over, the details don't matter anymore. The bows, the socks, the shoes or anything that Saucy stressed about, drove The Fan crazy about, made Veto drive around for, pestered Uncle Bug to videotape or audio mix, fanagled Pepper to pinch hit or simply made Jada the Assistant Coach want to lose her mind over... these things don't matter in the end. They are only indicators of the true feelings that will last forever:

Love. Friendship. Fun.

Phone or call one of your high school friends today. Walk down memory lane. Feel fifteen again. It wasn't that bad.

time to sparkle

Tonight the Cheerios compete in the City Cheerleading Championships. On Saturday night they came over and had a little tutorial about how to do their hair and makeup. They each packed little kits containing a hair bow, a zip tie to attach it, a school face tattoo, a piece of paper towel, a disposable eyeshadow applicator and the striped socks Saucy found in Calgary. We even dyed one of the girls' hair in the kitchen... it was a madhouse, but these things have to be done.

There was much laughter when videotapes of cheerleading events past in the eighties and nineties were viewed. Most of this laughter was at Saucy's expense. You know, hair was big those days. We liked it that way, girlies.

Today, Saucy packed a giant suitcase with those kits and all of the other necessities:

first aid kit

signs

megaphone

iPod with the music on it

sound system

curling irons

brushes

combs

hairspray

gel

bobby pins

safety pins

eye makeup remover

bottled water

facecloths

paper towel

extra uniform pieces

camera

video recorder

batteries

Tide to Go pen

wipes

kleenex

sharpie markers

extra hair elastics

scissors

sidecutters (for zip ties)

feminine gear

MEDICATION

makeup to distribute:

green eyeshadow,

yellow eyeshadow,

black eyeliner,

green glitter liner,

blush,

lipstick,

and lipgloss.

... did she forget anything?

The cookies! She made the lucky shamrock cookies with a dusting of green sugar and edible gold glitter for the Cheerios to give the senior cheerleaders for a treat. With both teams from our school competing, it could be a very exciting night. The recipe can be found here.

And that's it. We're off. All they have to accomplish tonight is to complete their routine cleanly in under two minutes and thirty seconds to qualify for the provincial championships on March 27th. May the luck of the Irish be with the Cheerios! Happy St. Patrick's Day.

where saucy creates

Today the craft room got a kick start of spring cleaning. It was about time... last spring. Better late than never. Saucy still has quite a few things to do, but in the meantime come in and take a peek at what progress looks like:

Clara is always dressed for company. She wears inspiring vintage jewelry and a sweet dragonfly for luck. If she had ears, those 1940's rhinestone clip-ons would not be on her neckwrap, but that's her cross to bear.

The inspiration board is stuffed with... inspiration. Actually, the contents of that board could be an entire post unto itself.

Buddy Budderson gifted Saucy with this vintage shelf from an automotive supply company. One of the Bowman Brothers was one and the same who Saucy's alma mater was named for. The same high school that Buddy graduated from and Loopy now attends. This old cabinet perfectly holds small Atlas Mason jars sorted with safety pins, brads, eyelets and other bric-a-brac.

About a year ago, Saucy was junking and found a large floor-standing cabinet from the old Bowman Brothers shop, it had a hundred little drawers and was distressed and orange like this unit... prompting her to wonder: if the shop was all orange and navy, why are the school colours green and gold? Did anyone ever put that together?

 

Oh, and there's more glitter than this... the Martha Stewart glitter is on a shelf in the closet.

Under the shelf hangs four buckets filled with gel pens, glitter pens, hot glue sticks and cable ties.

A window box - under the window of course - sorts paint brushes, scissors and all sorts of furry bear friends. You will find bears throughout the craft room. They're great for bouncing ideas off of.

The mural on the wall behind the desk is coming along nicely. There are more things to add, Saucy needs to have a little work bee one night with a Saucy-tini in hand and get at it.

Special gifts and ephemera hang here, including a paper hanging from Little Melfie, and a treasure made by Amy, gifted to Saucy by Karen.

Amy Sedaris, you are one of Saucy's heroes! Look at you, covered in frosting and sprinkles. Saucy wants to pose like that someday. A vintage Victorian twine dispenser hangs here too.

The dresser under the mural holds fabric, felt, packing materials, and Saucy's infamous bikini collection... shhh! She has to hide the evidence somewhere. That little basket is stuffed with greeting cards received over the last year. Saucy saves them all. Some get used in altered art, most get sorted (eventually) into boxes for saving.

In the strange corner where nothing else would fit, rolls of vintage wallpaper are stuffed between the dresser and an armoire. Saucy jammed some old curly willow there for short term storage - two years ago. Now, glittery birds call the branches home. No word on the condition of the wallpaper.

Above the armoire that holds a computer and boxes of sorted photographs (Saucy's not man enough to show you the inside) sit treasures including: vintage cupcake tins, an angel weather vane, more teddies, Dorothy's ruby red shoes (there's no place like home) and a briefcase that belonged to Veto's father.

Sorted: rubber stamps (tin buckets), foam letter stamps (paper baskets) and ribbon scraps (vintage candy jars). Below that (not shown) Atlas Mason jars filled with buttons sorted by colour.

Old magazines tucked neatly away... they need to be labeled: Martha, Martha, Martha.

The ribbon rack... guarded on two sides by Princess Di.

Vintage perfume bottles among the spools of ribbon, new and vintage too.

A shoe-shaped tuffet to display hatpins. The wooden boxes sort yarn, supplies and embellishments by season.

What lies behind the closet door? At the risk of ruining the ambience, Saucy will open the door and show you.

The real storage: Rubbermaid drawers. A place for everything and everything in its place. At least once a year. To the left is a work station with a cutting board, cutting mat, and racks to hold spools of thread.

Sentimental treasures to keep Saucy amused.

Yes, that is a heavy layer of dust. Saucy would like to say that it isn't, but it is. 

She'll get to that another day.

Saucy was misdiagnosed with Lou Gherig's Disease in 2002. Today he watches over her desk to remind her that she is the luckiest girl alive.

More drawers to the right, holding work clothes, paint, jewelry making supplies.

Under the desk: scraps of paper sorted... solids, prints and recycling.

Two stools: one for Saucy, one for Loopy. One has a back and the other can be stashed under the desk when only one person is working in the room.

And to think, not too long ago, the floor wasn't visible in this room. And the top of the desk. That's how it is in creative spaces... but Saucy still has to do some dusting, don't you think?