...Other than continuing on about things that happened yesterday. My blog post was too short, and I regret that most of the juicier details were lost to my memory. But a couple of things I can comment on. Once again, my sister got complimented. A few people thought she had an accent, asking where she was from, be it Eastern Europe or Brazil. (For the record, we've been born and raised in the same ol' area of our state since birth, albeit moving once from the suburbs to our current home, but that's less than two hours' difference a drive.)
It's certainly nothing new, mind you. People have asked her about all sorts of places. Various western Europe, Australian, you name it, she's been guessed to be from it pretty much. (The reason being that basically my entire family shares strong familial traits. I could probably write a full ramble about each of them, but let's keep it focused--while we are all incredibly gifted, these gifts come at a cost, and in the case of me and my sister at the very least and to some extent my other siblings, it was a speech impediment, which years of training managed to improve but not eliminate.)
One of the places she was said to be from, though, served as a compliment, in that between her dress, her dancing, and her elegant (albeit accented) speech, that she should say she is from "the land of the elves", and when I asked, "Rivendel?" (too lazy to confirm spelling, sorry; my sister's the Tolkeinite in the family, not me), they said, "Yeah, there".
In other words, my sister (who as I just said, is in fact actually a Tolkeinite, fitting given that she is a linguist among other things) was said to be an elf, something which is a decent compliment, but not even the greatest she received. That honor would go to a person who doesn't round dance saying, "I don't round dance, but if I did, I'd want to do it like you do" to her.
We're not even particularly strong phase 6 dancers; we mess up all the time. But apparently, phase 6 dancers are rare enough that we're still seen as being among the best. (Extremely debatable.) Still, though, it's always good to hear when someone mistakenly thinks that you won last year's round dance competition (my sister aged out, oh, by now it'd have to be 3-4 years ago), and can get that compliment multiple times in multiple locations.
The other thing I had to talk about from memory is what we brought to the dance yesterday: home-made cupcakes, using the same recipe (more or less, anyway) that we've used for birthday cakes our entire lives. It's basically a chocolate base, with chocolate frosting on it, and it is absolutely delicious. Almost nobody at the dance at them, though, but that was in part thanks to the fact that almost nobody at the dance at anything; most of them were too busy dancing or watching the dances all night. (I never got a chance to snack, either, because I dance everything, except when I was stuck on door duty.)
...Today, we brought the leftovers, though, and between round dancing and my club practice, they got mostly eaten. Quite popular, they were, in fact. Everyone who took one seemed to thoroughly enjoy it, so it's not just familial bias; we apparently have a good recipe for (cup)cakes. I wouldn't be able to tell you it, though. More than it being a family secret (it's probably not, probably just being in an obscure cookbook almost nobody else has making it a rare but not unique recipe, though I don't know one way or the other), I legitimately don't know how it's made.
All I know is that it was made by my sister instead of my mother, and that there weren't any cherries in it like our cakes have because, well, cupcakes not full cake. But that it was otherwise the same, quite obviously so, in that I could see the remains of the work done: the bowl, the mixers, everything, covered in the same protochocolate made pre-bake. I know raw eggs are involved, but that's about the only ingredient I do know; otherwise, it remains a secret.
A rather delicious secret.
I happen to know that the frosting is basically the standard chocolate frosting you can buy in any store, though I think there's a storebrand we typically prefer. (Could be wrong about that.) But that comes after the cake has been made, so it's not part of the recipe proper.
It's certainly nothing new, mind you. People have asked her about all sorts of places. Various western Europe, Australian, you name it, she's been guessed to be from it pretty much. (The reason being that basically my entire family shares strong familial traits. I could probably write a full ramble about each of them, but let's keep it focused--while we are all incredibly gifted, these gifts come at a cost, and in the case of me and my sister at the very least and to some extent my other siblings, it was a speech impediment, which years of training managed to improve but not eliminate.)
One of the places she was said to be from, though, served as a compliment, in that between her dress, her dancing, and her elegant (albeit accented) speech, that she should say she is from "the land of the elves", and when I asked, "Rivendel?" (too lazy to confirm spelling, sorry; my sister's the Tolkeinite in the family, not me), they said, "Yeah, there".
In other words, my sister (who as I just said, is in fact actually a Tolkeinite, fitting given that she is a linguist among other things) was said to be an elf, something which is a decent compliment, but not even the greatest she received. That honor would go to a person who doesn't round dance saying, "I don't round dance, but if I did, I'd want to do it like you do" to her.
We're not even particularly strong phase 6 dancers; we mess up all the time. But apparently, phase 6 dancers are rare enough that we're still seen as being among the best. (Extremely debatable.) Still, though, it's always good to hear when someone mistakenly thinks that you won last year's round dance competition (my sister aged out, oh, by now it'd have to be 3-4 years ago), and can get that compliment multiple times in multiple locations.
The other thing I had to talk about from memory is what we brought to the dance yesterday: home-made cupcakes, using the same recipe (more or less, anyway) that we've used for birthday cakes our entire lives. It's basically a chocolate base, with chocolate frosting on it, and it is absolutely delicious. Almost nobody at the dance at them, though, but that was in part thanks to the fact that almost nobody at the dance at anything; most of them were too busy dancing or watching the dances all night. (I never got a chance to snack, either, because I dance everything, except when I was stuck on door duty.)
...Today, we brought the leftovers, though, and between round dancing and my club practice, they got mostly eaten. Quite popular, they were, in fact. Everyone who took one seemed to thoroughly enjoy it, so it's not just familial bias; we apparently have a good recipe for (cup)cakes. I wouldn't be able to tell you it, though. More than it being a family secret (it's probably not, probably just being in an obscure cookbook almost nobody else has making it a rare but not unique recipe, though I don't know one way or the other), I legitimately don't know how it's made.
All I know is that it was made by my sister instead of my mother, and that there weren't any cherries in it like our cakes have because, well, cupcakes not full cake. But that it was otherwise the same, quite obviously so, in that I could see the remains of the work done: the bowl, the mixers, everything, covered in the same protochocolate made pre-bake. I know raw eggs are involved, but that's about the only ingredient I do know; otherwise, it remains a secret.
A rather delicious secret.
I happen to know that the frosting is basically the standard chocolate frosting you can buy in any store, though I think there's a storebrand we typically prefer. (Could be wrong about that.) But that comes after the cake has been made, so it's not part of the recipe proper.
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