last of the season

As you can see, part of the dough survived the rolling pin

This week, feeling overwhelmed with these endless commutes, work, and cat-stress (how can that be a thing? people without pets wonder), I hardly thought about my baking. Recently I've been feeling trapped, with no dreams readily available. I spend so much of my life under Chicago, so to speak, in humid tunnels with creaking, shrill noises, surrounded by people I don't know and would never want to know. And that's all before I even get on the train. 

I was in the midst of my grocery shopping when I remembered I didn't have anything planned to bake this week. I intended to make a yellow cake with chocolate frosting, which was Howard's request (what a classic!). When I looked at my Good Housekeeping book, I found I had already made those two items, of course, so I will have to save that for a bonus. 

Jenny from work had what I think might be the last of her rhubarb in the freezer at work for me, and Joan brought be some the last strawberries from her farmers market. So again I made strawberry rhubarb pie. The rhubarb was mushy from being in the freezer, and some of the strawberries couldn't be used, but they made enough for the filling. 

I made an oil crust again, so my vegan friends can eat it at work. I've been having the worst trouble rolling out the dough, so I've been all about the "no-roll" pie crust (read: pressing it into the pie plate and along the sides while Howard chops the strawberries and mixes the filling). But my friend Patrick gave me this lovely dough-cutting tool which I'm obsessed with. It makes it much easier to move the dough around. The right tools! As my Dad would say. They make all the difference. 

We made the pie quickly, because I was in between a phone meeting and our movie night with a friend. We still managed to be late to the second installment of our Leopold and Loeb-themed film night.

There isn't much to write. I was stressed and felt strung out this week. Yet I had a nice lunch with a dear friend, and a few lovely days with my boyfriend.