It is risen

I recently provided the venue and food for a baby shower for my daughter.  The menu included angel food cake, which I had not made in a while.  The recipe on the box said the cake pan had to be at least 4" x 10", and while my angel food cake pan is what I would consider standard, still I measured it.  Yep, 4" x 10" - but just barely.  With trepidation, I watched it rise...

... and rise...

... and rise.

But it never overflowed.  In fact, it shrank back down to a normal height.

Then I tried not to butcher it when cutting it out of the pan.  Not quite successful there, but it was very edible. I've never tried an angel food cake from scratch - I'm daunted by what to do with the left over egg yolks.

With a little rearranging of furniture and a lot of decluttering, the West Wing proved to be a nice place for the gathering.  With the newly laid mulch, the backyard was almost presentable.  If everyone hadn't been focused on the food and the gifts and the mother-to-be, they might have noticed that, while the coneflowers are fading, the goldfinch visit them often to feed on the seed heads.  Their yellow is matched by the brown-eyed Susans and zinnias and the gooseberry tomatoes as well as the swallowtail butterflies, but the marigolds and monarchs are orange.  Then there is the almost-black purple of the pokeberry, the rich purple of the butterfly bush, and the lavender of the Russian sage.

I was hoping my garden would provide most of the food for the repast, but the potatoes aren't quite ready (and I think the experiment of growing potatoes on newspaper under straw is not going to produce a great harvest), it has been too hot for the zucchini and peppers to set blossoms, and I don't grow sweet corn.  A local farm stand helped me out, though, and we enjoyed a summery feast that at least used up some of my tomatoes.

*****

There is something about the light in mid August that whispers, Summer is almost over.  With the help of my SO, I accomplished many of my gardening goals this year.  Now it is time to reap what we've sown, put food by for the winter, and start dreaming of what we hope to achieve next year.