Cream Puffs and Pirates

I was about six. Construction forced us into the tiny carriage house behind our old home on Zenobia Street. Our French teacher, Leslie, was over and we were were making cream puffs. I remember how counter intuitive the dough seemed -- you cooked it on the stove before putting it in the oven. As we waited for the buttery pastries to bake, work began on something else. The insides of a vanilla bean was scraped. Eggs, milk, cream and sugar were combined, cooked and coalesced into a custard of mythical status. I will never forget biting into that rich, airy, balloon of creamy, fluffy wonder. But for some reason, until Thursday, that was the last time I made a cream puff. 

Serene. Sublime. Lemon Ginger Blueberry Cream Puffs on a painted table (I love to paint furniture) with other pretty random stuff...

Fast forward. Thursday was my one year second transplant anniversary. We didn't want to do anything big, but Yoni was pretty intent on making a lung shaped cake. This was a little too literal a celebration for my taste. After careful thought, I remembered Yoni had once made eclairs. So why not cream puffs with blueberries? I realized we could add ginger and lemon to the custard after it set and have something really spectacular. As I piped the cream into the cream puffs, we had some unexpected visitors: Pirate Phin and Princess Hetti turned Yoni into a cake with sprinkes. Meanwhile, Kimber introduced The Willabeast to custard. A knock at the door revealed Liberty and Premal with five &pizza pies. We're moving next week, so the house was a wreck, but the company and the evening was nothing less than magical.

One Puff, Two Puff, Three Puff, Four Puff, Five Puff; Pirate Phin; Liberty, The Willabeast and Kimber; Princess Hetti and Pirate Phin with Yoni Cake and Sprinkles; Custard and Blueberries; The Willabeast takes her first bite of custard... I think we might have weened her...

PS. The luminous Shiloh was nominated as one of Yale's 50 most beautiful people. If he gets 200 likes, (vote for him here... and follow us), we will do an epic FIVE giveaway the likes of which has never been seen. I haven't yet confirmed this with my sisters, but as long as they mail it ('m terrible at mailing things), I promise to deliver something that will blow your mind.

PPS. Other fun news, thanks for going to see my TEDxMidAtlantic talk last week! It seems the folks at the TEDblog  did the same thing and yesterday my talk went up here. Thank you so much for all of your support! You guys are awesome!