fall festival
The Community Farm of Ann Arbor had their Fall Festival tonight, and there was a dessert contest — so many gorgeous, amazing desserts, all our plates looked like jeweled shields. It’s our first year at the festival, and I didn’t know there would be a contest. I quickly found a recipe for cookies this afternoon after my third-trimester nap. The cookies did end up being delicious, though Jack wouldn’t even try them: Carrot Oatmeal Cookies from 101 Cookbooks. (I added 1 cup of raisins, too. When I do it again I’ll take out some of the walnuts.)
So there was a prize for the healthiest dessert, and Steve was really pushing our cookies on the tasting judges. When they announced the prize-winners, I let him walk over because I was waiting for Jack to finish his hayride. They announced our cookies as the winners of the healthiest dessert, and Steve accepted our prize of peach jam — with a speech and thanks to his mom.There was much to-do. I heard the laughter from a good distance away. He came walking toward me later with his peach jam like a trophy over his head.
Oh good, I have something to write in my blog, I laughed, because I’ve been feeling mute lately. But I’ve been proud of my ability to cook this past year after almost thirty years of culinary ignorance, and so also I had someplace in my brain when I saw that peach jam that wanted to believe that maybe I’m really a better-than-average cook after all. Huh.
But it turns out the announcer read the winners wrong: our cookies were runners-up to the tofu-lentil-carob brownies. We got to keep the peach jam, but the real winner got the ribbon.
So I have no photo of the ribbon, and I ended up not being very interested in my cookies, so no photographs of those.
But the landscape was gorgeous.
(There’s no one in these last two photographs because we were hiding from the square dancing event going on loud and clear behind the barn. No, I’m not by nature social. But that fluorescent maze glowing strangely in the sunset, that was worth the isolation.)
That peach jam probably wouldn’t have won any prizes, either. Though it was delicious.
