artteacher, congrats! My DSD got married 2 years ago. It was just terrific and you have a double helping. Just think, you can shop for both dresses at the same time! LOL. Maureen, I don't want to invite myself and cause you any stress. We just started having guests (finally enough furniture) and I'm so exhausted when they leave I wonder why I invited them and always think I'd never do it again. So I always hesitate to do it to someone else (my DH complains about the cleaning up before hand). I had no idea you were a molten lava virgin. We can fix that. It's all about the egg whites. I have the Vongerichten recipe somewhere (he invented the dang thing though some people think Sol did) In fact we Just got back from D.C. today -- down with DH on business overnight. But he won't go to museums or houses so I was wondering if anyone had a hankering to go to National Gallery to see the furniture and to Wintherthur. Maybe we could do a mini meet up/excursion though I fear Ivette will land in the hospital if she has one more thing on her plate. Didn't Pamela have some family illness? I seem to remember that. Could be why she's MIA.

It is as much fun to see how each quilt progressed as it was to work on them. Each of our quilts are so different, yet all fantastic!! I would be thrilled to have any one of them. This was a wonderful experience and I thank you all for your time spent and beautiful work. Enjoy! :)

There are a number of problems with what she is doing. First it is best to use weights to make this kind of bread...you can't just say " about 1/3 c of starter " . Won't work. This is supposed to be a very wet dough. So her measurements for water aren't off but she didn't allow for the wet starter ! You are starting with something that is quite difficult unless you are used to working with wet doughs. Jim Lahey has a wonderful and easy wet dough to try first before you use a sourdough wet dough . He doesn't use weights but his formula is impossible to mess up. I would be glad to give you a perfect formula for a sourdough boule like you are trying to make and it is tried and true as I use it all the time. The weights are very accurate and it is fool proof.Do the link first a few times though. The other problem with her starter/possibly your starter is the way it is being fed and stored. It has to be fed = parts water and flour every single day. It has to have 1/2 of it thrown out every single day for the first week and then add in the new flour and water. This makes it very healthy and prevents over-growth of unwanted bacteria and helps the good yeast thrive. Another thing is how it is stored. It must only be lightly covered. It has to be really stirred every day and kept only lightly covered as yeasts are aerobic and need oxygen to thrive. I don't know how she got her starter going. I have a t&t formula for that too :) Mine has been growing very happily for 4 years and I use it weekly. There is something wrong with the Youtube as I kept getting an echo and couldn't get it to play right so I gave up ! The temp in your house isn't too cool. A healthy starter loves cooler temps. Try the link below a few times and get used to wet doughs and then I will give you a wonderful sd formula !! Let me know how it goes. c Here is a link that might be useful: Jim Lahey NYT

I have wedding cake-related follow-up. As I was finding the photos of my cake, I scrolled through the reception photos and was thinking about all the people in the photos. I was thinking especially about a grad school friend whose parents were able to attend and the photo of her and her mom and how wonderful that they could all be there. My friend's husband is an Episcopal priest and he performed our ceremony. My friend emailed this week to tell me that her mom lost her battle with breast cancer. It was so touching that I was just looking at that photo due to this thread. As I mentioned to my friend, it is bittersweet to see the photos of the people we've lost in the 10 years, but I am happy they were there with us that day.