To Miss K, with love

Dear Erin;

Happy belated birthday! As your BFF, it's my responsibility to make sure that your birthday is awesome. We've both been very busy, and due to shortages in materials, your birthday gift was delayed.

Before we talk presents, let's talk about you. You're smart, gorgeous, talented, and HILARIOUS! You are always up for a crazy adventure, a creature feature, and the occasional accidental adult zombie flick. (I'm still sorry about that one.) You're always a good sport, and you make me smile even when I'm in the middle of a bad mood.

More than that, you are a good friend to me - the best! I love that you've offered to menace people at the wool auction on my behalf, and offer to shank people who make my life harder. You're the O'Brien to my Bashir. The Chakotay to my Janeway.  The Picard to my Riker. The Spock to my Kirk. You get the picture.

You'll always share a good story, chores, or a bowl of pho with me. You're willing to try my culinary experiments, and you're always very encouraging.

I know that you feel overwhelmed by your stuff right now- that's normal during and after a move. I wanted to do something for you that would be clutter-free, special, and a little decadent.

These are made with Jackie's secret cupcake recipe

I managed to talk Jackie into giving me her ultra-secret perfect chocolate cupcake recipe. It's a totally from-scratch recipe, and in my opinion, the best cupcake ever to pass my lips. I wanted a spectacular base for the main part of your gift, the blue whipped cream roses.

I was going to do blue gumpaste roses, which I found a few months ago. I hunted everywhere, and there was no gumpaste to be had in all the land. I ended up at Barbara of Pauline's (in Willow Glen), and Barbara herself took me in the back and taught me how to make whipped cream roses.

(Quick segway- Barbara of Pauline's reminds me of one of those yarn shops that's been open for 40 years, where they teach you what you want to learn then and there, and they have Definite Opinions about how Things ought to be. Barbara has a wealth of knowledge that she shares; she was patient with my uncoordinated self, and was able to isolate my technical issues and explained clearly how to fix them.)

You read about how I practiced making the whipped cream roses, and that was so that yours would be beeeautimous. I used food coloring to make your roses blue (your favorite color of rose), and I also used just a tiny bit of rose water in to give them a faintly rosey smell. Mom and Laura helped with putting the green on the cupcakes, and we all ended up faintly Smurf-colored by the end of the night.

I hope this year is a great one for you with plenty of time for you to do the things that you want, lots of fiber, and projects that turn out perfectly.

Love,

Your Feffalina