Hot Cars, Coffee, and Palmiers

The older I get, the more it becomes apparent:  some things never change.

Years and years ago, before we used seatbelts and I was just a kid, our family made many trips to Los Angeles, where my cousins lived. We would all pile into our pale yellow station wagon, which my dad called Betsy, and after riding hours through the hot, boiling hot, Central Valley of California, we arrived, a bunch of limp rags, at Aunt Connie and Uncle Manuel’s house. Air conditioning? What’s that?

Because the trip was long—eight hours—and there were so many of us—four kids in all, with only two bench seats and no seatbelts—my dad bought a piece of foam, which he cut to fit in the back part of the wagon. In this way the seating was extended and we had a place to play while he drove. Today we cannot even imagine doing something as dangerous as letting anyone ride in a car without a seatbelt, but this was back in the day when kids could walk by themselves to the local five and dime store, more or less but not necessarily unmolested, and your parents believed whatever teachers, police, and politicians told them.  

I remember taking one such drive at Christmas, but mostly we went during the summer. Because of this, there was a strict rule:  No one is to have crayons in the way back, which is what we called it. They would melt and there was no getting that out.

Of course I left crayons in the back. Of course they melted. Of course I got in trouble.

For our next summer trip we got a new pad. It was nice and clean and my mother even made it a nice, new muslin cover. Same rules, only this time we just knew there would be Hell to pay and not just Hell, no, another circle would be added to the Inferno for such sinners as those who left crayons to melt in the hot car. Even though I tried so hard not to, I left my crayons to melt, leaving little round, colored spots all over the cover and pad.

The morning after we arrived in Los Angeles everything seemed so nice until my dad, sputtering his anger and displeasure, marched us all out to find the perpetrator, the one who had despoiled the pad and cover. Who left those crayons in the car? As it happened, no one asked me directly if I had left those freaking crayons and I am not crazy enough or stupid enough to admit I did it and thus incur more punishment. Are you nuts? I said nothing and soon the storm blew over.

Except, of course, nothing ever does change. Forty years later, my family happened to be together and my parents began wondering who left those crayons in the car. I had forgotten about the entire incident; it had fallen completely out of my memory until they mentioned it. I thought, what’s the harm? I admitted I was the culprit.

That’s when Josh, my 30-year-old son, told a story of his own.

One day when he was young, we went to the grocery store together. This was nothing new and he always knew what to get in the next aisle, so I allowed him. After a short time he came back with my item. Turns out it was the aisle with the coffee grinder, placed just there at eye level for a little kid.

When I got to that aisle, there were coffee grounds all over the floor, the shelves, the food items, everywhere. It looked like a sack of monkeys had gotten into a can of Folgers. I looked around in disgust and said, “Some people should take better care of their kids!”

Dear Reader, you know how this ends. Josh said he liked to turn on the grinder; he did it often. This time, however, coffee grounds, lots of them, spewed out. Not knowing what else to do, he quickly spread them around in the vain hope no one would notice.

It did not occur to me to ask him directly if he was the culprit. And being neither stupid nor crazy, he volunteered no information.

Yes, some people should take better care of their kids. But then again, what do you expect from people who leave wax crayons in a hot car?

Palmiers:

My friend Judith gave me this recipe for Palmiers. Very easy to prepare, Palmiers give a satisfying end and are especially nice with coffee. They taste good and look elegant, not unlike Judith, who has very good taste and likes all things elegant and Victorian.

Here are the card ingredients:

1 sheet of red cardstock

3 sheets of decorative paper

1 sheet double-sided decorative paper

1 piece of cardboard, not too thick as you will have to cut it.

3 decorative brads

Heart punch

Decorative lettering, about ½-inch tall

Paper crimper

If you follow the photo, you will know how to lay out the card.

Here are the steps:

1. Cut the red cardstock to 6- by 6-inches
2. Cut one of the decorative papers to 5½- by 5½-inches and secure to the cardstock.
3. Crimp the paper that will be on the outside of the hand.
4. Make a hand pattern by tracing your own or a child’s hand. My pattern hand is 4¾-inches across by 6 ⅛-inches tall.
5. Cut out a hand from the cardboard, the decorative paper, and the crimped decorative paper and adhere them together like a sandwich, cardboard in the middle.
6. Secure a red heart to the outside side of the hand.
7. You will have to make some practice prints of the recipe on scrap paper until you know it will fit on the double-sided paper. I used size 12 Arial font.
8. Print the recipe on the double-sided decorative paper, then cut it out to 12-inches wide by 2½-inches high.
9. Fold the recipe paper in half, printed side in. Then fold each side into thirds so there are five folds altogether but six sections. It’s ok if the measurements are not exact. You just need to have the folds.
10. Secure one end section to the hand so the recipe is facing up and the other end section to the card.
11. Add the three decorative brads to the upper left corner.
12. Secure the lettering of your choice to the front. I used a ½–inch font from Quickutz. 

Here is the recipe:

1 package frozen puff pastry, thawed

2 cups granulated sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon (optional)

2. Mix the cinnamon and sugar together. Spread about ½ cup of the sugar mixture on your work area. Lay one sheet of the puff pastry on the sugar. Spread about another ½ cup sugar mixture on the puff pastry.
3. Roll both ends of the puff pastry towards the middle, making a heart shape. Cut the roll into slices a scant ½-inch. Place on a parchment-covered baking sheet about 1-inch apart (they expand during baking).
4.  Bake in a 425-degree oven for 10 minutes or until the bottoms have caramelized. Turn the palmiers over and bake an additional 5 minutes.