It Was A Day of Errands for Art's Sake

Sub-titled: I Made Candied Ginger Cheesecake with Ginger Roo Crust and Drove My Daughter Crazy with the Aroma.

It's 27 April, guess what was on the ground this morning? Yes, that's right, SNOW, again!



I thought that I wouldn't get my all errands done due to the snow but it was gone by the time I was ready to leave the house. I met my friend Anita for coffee at the Perk and we also ran into Miriam and her husband, who want to buy a knitted felted purse from me for their daughter, woot!

I then went and got the transparencies done at the copy store to finish the decals that I am painting for the Colorado Medieval Festival's new banners (http://www.medievalworld.us/cmf). I have a pile of gessoed canvas waiting to be painted with the designs. At least I only have the painting part to do, someone else is making the big banners. Yeah for me in not speaking up to do them as well (nevermind, I DO NOT have the space for that).

I also made a stop at the art store to get large sheets of drawing paper (20 x 24) and some new coloured pencils for my sketchbox. I also picked up a 12 x 12 stretched canvas, since painting has been whispering in my ear lately and I want to try out something ala my friend Anne's artwork. (http://elmilagrostudio.blogspot.com)

I then ran to the library to read the article in the Gazette about our former priest (on the front page no less and him facing possible indictment) and the letter to the editor from one of our parishioners in response to an earlier article. After that, I hit the ATM to make a deposit. Sigh, no envelopes at the machine, had to go into the bank, on a Monday no less. I was that glad I had the Belletrix Stocking I am knitting with me to work on while in line. I must say, DO NOT be hasty in putting away size one DPNs, as I poked one right through my painted canvas purse and into the leg of my jeans. Ouchers, @#$$@^%$!

This weekend, I am going to the 2nd Annual Fort Lupton, CO Heritage Fair (link is way out of date, but here tis: http://www.lasr.net/). I always carry my sketchbox with me when I am traveling. As, I like to make little sketches of where I am visiting as a record of my visit. This was something that my Mum encouraged me to do as a child and I have continued it into adulthood. I sure wish I had some of those earlier books today. Oh well, wouldas, shouldas, couldas, will kill ya.

I am also taking my new spinning wheel with me (this wheel needs a name in the worst way). Katte Beth, Darla and I will be there as part of the Women's Craft demo team from the Ft. Lupton group and the Ren Scots (http://renscots.org). Spin Mistress, Darla is going to help get me started spinning again. I am really looking forward to that. I am taking the two new skeins of Dragonfly handspun (which seem to want to be a pair of wristlets/fingerless gloves) with me in case I do get to doing some knitting. I've got my tatting supplies packed as well.

As for the cheesecake, currently, our house smells gingerly divine. The Daughter O'Mine, Erin brought a few packages of Ginger Roos home from Las Vegas last year. Sadly, we didn't eat one of the packages soon enough and the cookies got HARD. I mean they went from squishy little rounds to round little rocks.

We both love Ginger Roos and hate like heck to waste them. Since we do not have a Trader Joe's close enough to run out and get them from we treasure the ones we do get(nearest TJs is Santa Fe, NM). The Daughter O'Mine decided to ask Peabody the Culinary One whether we could make bread pudding from the stale ones. (http://www.culinaryconcoctionsbypeabody.com) Peabody's response was likely not, but they could work well crushed and made into a base crust for a cheesecake. The DD and I had went Aha! Yum, cheesecake! This was a couple of weeks ago and the idea of the cheesecake has been perking in the back of our minds since them and the cookies have been getting even staler.

Last Saturday, The DD and I went grocery shopping as we decided wanted to make pizza from scratch for the supper that evening. While there, we actually remembered to pick up that extra needed brick of cream cheese for making the cheesecake with. Then we remembered the reason we hadn't made it before was that we didn't have one of these... It's a Springform Pan and a necessary pan to have to make cheesecake in. As cheese cake has a crumb crust and no crust up the side. The side of a Springform snaps loose and is removed, leaving the cake intact on the pan bottom for serving.

Since we were shopping at the Evil Empire Store, we hied ourselves over to the cookware department and looked at Springforms. We decided to get ourselves the 3 pack in graduated sizes. As I also make my Black Bun (Traditional Scottish Cake) in Springforms, we could justify the expense and the weight. Erin considers this every time she makes a purchase these days, as she has either to send it to the UK when she goes or leave with me.

Since today's weather was so grim and I certainly didn't mind heating up the kitchen cooking a cheesecake, I decided to make it today. I used the blender to grind up the cookies, used the microwave to soften everything else and I chopped candied ginger into small bits. I spread the crust in the pan, mixed and poured in the cream cheese mixture into the pan, wrapped the pan in toweling (a trick I learned from a bakery in NJ to get the cake to cook evenly with as little cracking as possible) and then proceeded to torture Erin with the lovely gingery scent of baking cheesecake. The torture brought on by the fact that it is suppose to cool in the fridge overnight before nomming on. All of which means she can't eat it tonight, bwwaaahahaha.. Here's the picture of the cheesecake just out of the oven with its toweling collar. Can't you just imagine the lovely aroma wafting through the house?