chocolate cake, parties, lambs

OK, not quite finished with poetry yet, I know, Valentine's is over, but..I just listened to this recording of Billy Collins reading his poetry and it is fabulous. Laughed loud enough to wake up both dogs. Check it out here if you like buying such things, I personally got it from the library, but I'm considering getting a book of his poetry. It's so worth it. OK, poetry time is over, I promise.

For some reason, we've got a pile of houseguests this month. I'm thrilled to see them all (really) but of course, it requires a lot of preparation and Friday night dinner parties
and things. Yes, I took a photo of the dining room before dinner, I just wanted everyone to see how nice it looked before all the guests came and the dogs started showing off and being disruptive. It did look peaceful and lovely, didn't it? On our couple of February weekends without houseguests, we've either been travelling or trying to rest pitifully at home. Just now we are celebrating the one weekend of rest with snow! snow, hurray, I love it, it is great...even when last weekend, I got to shovel a lot of it on the aforementioned trip to Virginia and it delays the flight home. This weekend, in Kentucky, there has been far less snow but enough so the ground is finally hard. That is good, because the muddy dog pawprints were taking over my life before. Don't worry, I'm not showing you photos of the pawprints, my blog is focused on the all the good things I can share with the universe. :)

So, since this is the holiday that celebrates Presidents' birthdays, I'm sharing my homemade, from scratch, completely vegan pareve chocolate cake, iced with bittersweet Belgian chocolate and coffee icing, decorated with raw sugar and raspberries on top, with you. I made it for the first dinner party of the month, since our guest was just about to turn 30. (the recipe is in the New Joy of Cooking.) I served it with beef kofta, tehina sauce, fattoush, homemade pickles, Mediterranean potato salad and homebaked challah. Ready for the cake? Oooooh Ahhhh.
This is when my husband starts dancing around the kitchen, singing the "Joanne is great, she makes chocolate cake!" song over and over again. He gets good spouse points for this, believe me. No, we're not doing another one this month, dear, but it sure was good, huh?

Finally, because it sounds like I don't do anything else than be a baleboste, (that's a Yiddish word, it means a superb homemaker--go ahead, laugh here, I know you can see the muddy pawprints all the way from over there) here's a sneak peak at a design I am working on. I am hoping to sell my little stuffed animal, Lambie, on my website as my first downloadable pdf pattern. That is, soon, when I get the design edited and we work out the webdesigning kinks. However, I wanted you to see him early. He fits in your palm. He's good for squeezing when you need extra comforting..and his legs are wobbly just like a newborn lamb's. Ahhh.