Jillie, 'lost' in the dark pattern of the kitchen floor

Just as well Friday is ordinarily a fairly busy day. There's linen to launder, a quick vacuuming to be done, the bathrooms freshened up, the kitchen ... Oh well, lots to do in the kitchen after cleaning up from breakfast. First off, I get a chicken soup simmering away, and it does just that for most of the day at a low, slow simmer for maximum taste.

Then I decide what I'm going to bake in the way of a taste-tempting pastry for Friday night's dessert. I had asked my husband what he'd like, as usual, and as usual he responded by asking what was I planning? I offered a chocolate cake or chocolate cupcakes or Madeleines. When our children were young and we still lived in Toronto he would sometimes bring home from a Jewish bakery a special treat and the bakery called them Madeleines.

They were a vanilla cupcake topped with raspberry jam and coconut. Years later I decided to bake our own and devised a recipe as close to what I guessed the bakery used, and ever since on occasion I bake them. When we were the day-time caregivers for our granddaughter they became her favourite baked treat. My husband loves chocolate cake but he appreciates those vanilla-raspberry-coconut cupcakes even more. So he decided for the cupcakes. I asked whether for a change, he would like shredded coconut in the cupcake mix this time. Coconut is another one of his favourites. But he considered and said he thought the original recipe without might be better.

Cupcake batter for six large cupcakes : 

• 2/3 c.granulated sugar
• 2/3 c.butter or Becel margarine
• 1 tsp.vanilla flavouring
• 2 large eggs,
•  1/2 cup sour cream
• 1-1/2 cups sifted cake and pastry flour
• 1-1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt

I vary the recipe slightly from time to time. But the recipe produces a light, moist cupcake that stays fresh for days. After I'd baked the cupcakes and they were cooling, my husband came sniffing around the kitchen as I was preparing to coat the tops and asked was it too late, he changed his mind, he'd like coconut throughout. So I swatted him and he hugged me, a big grin on his face. Those grins do me right in. It's like the sun coming out on a dismal day.

I had also as usual prepared a bread dough to refrigerate it until Sunday when I'd make croissants with it. Because on cold winter days I usually make a thick, hearty bean-and-vegetable soup for dinner and cheese-packed croissants go very well with the soup, flavourful with the taste of fennel and cumin seeds and a good teaspoon of masala mix.

It's usually after I've finished with that when we prepare to take Jackie and Jillie out to the ravine. But the rain that had begun the night before and continued throughout the entire day yesterday turned to snow only in the late evening. And though the temperature had risen to 2C, along with the rain there were high winds to make for a thoroughly unpleasant day, no opportunity to get out for a walk through the forest trails. We did not, in fact, mind all that much. It's not very often that we have to miss those tramps in the woods.

And since we're omnivorous readers, there's no problem filling in the time. As for Jackie and Jillie, they asked us from time to time to play with them. Other than that, they engaged in some spontaneous madcap runabouts through the house and worked off some excess energy in their own inimitable way.

The wind howled all night and the temperature dropped to -4C. But that didn't stop a mother raccoon and her juvenile offspring from coming along for the offerings left for them on the porch. I keep trying to get some decent photographs, but it's difficult. Even with my digital camera on 'night' setting, the resulting photos are murky at best. Later, when we hauled ourselves up to bed after eleven, there was the little rabbit on the porch in its turn, picking at the nuts and seeds and bread.