My Rainbow-ish Cooking Show

Step#1: Half oranges and juice them. 

When Sun and I first got married, and we invited some friends over for a meal, I would scour AllRecipes.com to find something new and yummy-sounding to try. Hubby would walk into the kitchen from his med school rotations and wearily ask, “Are you sure?”

To which I would optimistically beam, “Worse case scenario, we order a pizza.”

I never cooked much until I got married, and in many ways I had no choice but to learn how. We started our newlywed years on the island of Dominica. Where the restaurant choices at the time were limited, and the operating hours short and the variety…well, there was none. There was local food, which comprised of mostly chicken and plantains and there was the KFC an hour drive away. Not just a regular hour of car travel by the way, but a winding around mountains, nausea-inducing, bumpity bump hour later. By the time you arrived in downtown Rousseau, you had little desire to eat. Fresh air was far more important than finger-licking good munchies. 

Somewhere…Over the Rainbow…

Tomorrow’s Post will be the HOW-TO of these Pretty Babies!

It’s been about a year since we had a DIY [Do It Yourself] Birthday party in our home. April marked the beginning of birthday season in the Paulus household, but we celebrated Princess #2 in Atlanta during Spring Break. Now that Princess #4 is old enough to know Birthday and Party go together, I know I can’t hoodwink my way through June with the “Family” party. Not when the invitations began rolling in for all her friends’ parties this year. Not that I’m the type of mom who plays the “have to keep up with the Jones'” game, but I do believe in social conformity for the sake of community participation and investing in relationships. I genuinely enjoy having people over at the house, but occasionally I get overwhelmed with the prep side of things. So I consciously decide to downsize the DIY event to two cool-ish desserts. Two I could handle. I’m pretty sure. 

Actually, I only plan to do one. The cake. But as I Google instructions on how to make a “rainbow cake,” a fun rainbow-colored appetizer pops up. I look over to my sixth grader who’s sitting next to me and ask, “Whadya think? Should we try it?”

“Definitely.” Thumbs up from the middle schooler so it’s a go. Jello slices, I think I can manage. And who doesn’t like jello? Continue reading