September: What Happened?

September is usually one of my favorite months.  (I'm not sure what month is my actual favorite; let's just say that I have some that I like A LOT more than others and September ranks up there.)  And it's not just because it's back to school for the kid.  (Actually usually the only downside I can think for September IS the back to school traffic.)  I have loved the month pre-kid and even pre-marriage.  It's usually warm during the day, but not hot.  It's usually cool at night, but not cold.  Pre-kid it was the perfect time to take a vacation.  As summer winds down and autumn evolves, it's absolutely beautiful.  So much so that I chose to get married in the middle of the month twenty two years ago.

However, this year September is letting me down. So let's talk about the month's failings and failings during the month thus far:

The weather:  Labor Day weekend was supposed to be a wash out.  So I changed my plans.  No NJ shore for me.  MISTAKE.  It may have not been perfect but I hear that the beach was pretty darned good.  At least I was able to convince some friends to come over and spend the day with us and we enjoyed our patio, but still...it wasn't what was called for.  Then came back to school when had a heat wave.  In North NJ, we don't need A/C in our schools that often.  Or at least that's how it used to be.  (CLIMATE CHANGE PEOPLE:  It's a real thing!  I attended the same school that my son does and I don't ever recall it being THAT hot during our first days.)  By 8 in the morning, it was nearly 89 degrees in the 8th grade science room.  (I get my numbers straight from the science teacher!)  By the end of the day some classrooms were in the mid-nineties.  At least the gym teachers in our school have enough common sense (which you now is NOT common) to NOT have the kids run around outside (or even inside).  THANK YOU for keeping our kids healthy.  By day 2, the temperatures were STILL climbing so the district had to call for a half day!  (Love the phone call at 9 at night.)  What the heck is going on? And then by Sunday...it wasn't even 60 degrees out!  I had my leggings and socks on and I was COLD!  Turn on that heat?  But it's going to be 82 in a day or two!

No Quiero Taco Bell (that's for those of you who might remember the old ad campaign):  The kid likes Taco Bell.  So to wrap up the weekend and do something nice before school started (and because it was really too hot to be in the kitchen), I decided we would grab dinner there.  Mistake #1 was running to Shoprite  beforehand.  I mean, who goes grocery shopping late in the afternoon on a holiday?  Apparently EVERYONE!  However, I only needed a few things and hubby and I ran the aisle and managed to get in and out pretty quickly.  Then it was on to TB to pick up food for the family. Amazingly, the place was NOT busy.  Hubby went in to order.  Didn't take too long, especially as he had a couple of modifications to the standard:  I like the Mexican Pizza, but can't have the beans and son likes tacos but no lettuce. Ten minutes (give or take) later, we arrive home with groceries and dinner.  Quickly put things away, as son digs into his tacos only to find...each and every one of them is CHOCKED FULL of lettuce.  There is some meat in there, but no cheese and TONS of lettuce.  (Seriously an entire head of iceberg could have been in there.)  Could we have gone back?  Sure, but it wasn't worth it.  Was the item correct on the sales slip?  YES!  Son reluctantly dug out the lettuce and said it was the worst meal ever.  Not exactly how I wanted to wrap up the weekend.  Now mistakes DO happen, but...And what if my child was like me and had serious food allergies?  Now that would have been a BIG problem.  I decided NOT to let it go and send an email to corporate.  Their website doesn't make it all that easy (especially since the location we had been too didn't show up in the drop down), but I got my unhappy message out there.  Now you might think this is the end of it...you'd be WRONG.   The very next day my husband got a phone call (because I put in our home phone number and not my cell) from a TB manager.  She was apologetic, but couldn't understand how this happened.  How could someone on her team put lettuce in, but no cheese?   Well, it turns out that no one on her team did because...she was a manager at a Taco Bell in INDIANA!  Ok, so clearly the problem isn't just at the local level.  Stay tuned...if there is more to tell, I'll tell it!
 

A Lemon of a Lemon Pie:  Again, trying to be nice to the kid who's going back to school I decide to make a Lemon No Bake Cheese Cake.  The kid loves lemon and I had been given two lemon pudding mixes so I searched around the internet for something I could do with it. I came up with this:  Lemon No Bake cheese cake:

• 1 ready-to-use Nilla Wafer or Graham Cracker crust (store-bought or homemade)

• 2 boxes (3.4 oz.) lemon instant pudding mix

• 2 cups half & half

• 1 bar (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened

• 1/3 cup granulated sugar

• 1 tub (8 oz.) cool whip

• fresh lemon slices for garnish, if wanted

Instructions: In a mixing bowl, combine the dry pudding mix and half & half milk. Whisk together for 1-2 minutes. Let sit for a few minutes so the pudding can get nice and thick. Once thickened, spread 1 1/2 cups of the pudding into the pie crust. Set aside the remaining pudding.  In a separate mixing bowl, using a handheld blender, beat together the softened cream cheese and sugar until it's creamy and combined. Using a spatula, fold the cool whip in and mix until combined. Add half of the mixture into the remaining pudding mix. Spread into the pie crust to form the 2nd layer.  Spread the remaining cool whip/cream cheese mixture on top of the pie, or use a piping tip and bag to pipe it on as wanted. It's best to let the pie refrigerate overnight OR at least for 6-8 hours so that it can firm up, come together, and get nice & cold.

Sound easy, right? It was just about as easy as getting these bullet points to line up (which as you can see, I failed miserably at!) I started after I had dropped the boy off for school, had coffee (from the new local coffee place...EXCELLENT!) and gone to the grocery store to get half and half (and also corn, but they didn't have any....maybe that was a warning???) I take the dry pudding mix and in a bowl add the half and half. The whisk part of my hand stick blender has disappeared (another sign?) so I use the old fashioned manual mixer. I have those rotors blending but it's not getting thick. It's runny and awful. So I wait. While I wait it TRY to beat together the softened cream cheese (with 90+ degree temps it’s easy to get things soft QUICK), but it quickly becomes a sticky mess in the rotors. AND the pudding mixture is still not getting thick. So I decide to put the pudding mixture in the fridge to see if that will harden it up and leave the cream cheese mixture out to see if it will get less sticky. I walk away for a while, but it's to no avail. Next step is to put the pudding mixture in the FREEZER and try to work with the cream cheese while adding the cool whip. I sort of get it mixed together and the freezer bit SEEMS to help a little. I give it more time and once the top is real hard, I TRY to pour the mixture into the pie crust, but it is a runny mess. So I put the pie crust with the runny mixture back into the freezer and add half of the cool whip/cream cheese to the remaining runny pudding. Wait a while more and when the pudding mixture is frozen, I add the pudding/cool whip/cream cheese layer. But that's not firm enough to add the final cream cheese/cool whip layer (which is not going to be enough to form a layer so I decide that I will put it around the edges even though I don't have a piping bag). Once everything is frozen, I do my fake piping around the edges. It doesn't look very pretty. (Presentation is not my "thing" but I'll admit that I really did a crappy job with this one.) I ended up putting it in the freezer again to keep it firm and only put it back in the  

fridge an hour or so before dinner. My son and I did have a small slice of it. Let me be honest, it didn't taste that good. The lemon was really a bit too sour, but the cream cheese part was good. I stored it in the fridge overnight, only to find that most of it had melted down into a mess in the morning. I'm trying to salvage it (I don't know why) with another freezer attempt. In the meantime, this easy pie took several hours of my time and cost about $8 to make (even with the free pudding) and doesn't taste all that great. Fantastic! (After eating what we could, I ended up throwing more than 1/2 of the pie out. Don't make the recipe above, but if you do have any good and truly easy recipes for me to try that are no bake; I'm all ears.)

How Does She Do It?:  Capping off the first day of school, I got wind that  Dorothea Benton Frank (one of my favorite authors..she manages to put out a book each and every summer and I savor them) was going to be at the bookstore (they DO still exist in the suburbs) in the next town over.  She does a book tour each summer and I used to go every year to hear about her latest and get a copy signed.  But life (and child) intervened and amazingly it's been a decade (give or take) since I've had the pleasure of listening to her talk.  It was blazing hot outside AND inside our house (with the exception of the two bedrooms which have AC window units), so I figure I can cool off and have a great time listening to her speak.  Despite my best efforts to look presentable, I'm a hot mess (and I mean that in the literal sense) when I arrive.  However Ms. Frank looks cool and refreshed.

  Most of the audience consists of her friends from town.  (Even before she was a fabulous writer, I get the feeling that she was a town legend with her community service.)  I did feel a bit left out as everyone seemed to know everyone's name, but no matter who you are Ms Frank makes you feel welcome. Her storytelling (whether it be fictional or semi-autobiographical) makes you feel like you are a close friend.  Time flies by as she casts a spell over the room.  I could listen to her talk for hours; she is that good of a speaker.  She truly embodies southern hospitality. And she looks good doing it too.  (Yes, that is jealousy that you hear in my voice.)  She's on her 19th novel and is on the road every summer; and yet she still looks phenomenal.  That photo of her on the book jacket does not lie.  I know I have aged, but she has not.  How is that possible?  Maybe the magic isn't just in her storytelling, but in her genes as well? Just look at the photographic evidence?  I am a mess, even after being in an air conditioned space for an hour.  She's been talking, signing books and working her behind off for over an hour and she looks amazing!  Maybe I need to get MY behind down to Sullivan's Island and see if there is some elixir that can help me look half as good...and if there's one that can make me write as well too...

So that's MY September thus far!  We're just a little over a week into it.  Who knows what craziness is to come?