Yesterday, we socially-distance visited with our friends Roberta and Hanneke. In preparation for their visit, I made chocolate eclairs... a three part endeavor that does require time, patience and quite a few bowls. Robin- who does enjoy helping me in the kitchen- was very interested in the whole process.
They did smell good and I had to set them up high to cool in order to avoid unnecessary temptations to a certain overly active canine nose. Robin didn't want to leave the kitchen.
I then made the filling and stored it in the refrigerator as I don't like to make the shells soggy. (I like to fill the pastry as close to consumption time as possible.) But after the pastry had cooled, I carefully slit along one side and removed some of the extra filaments of dough that remain soft. I offered those to Robin who was confirmed in her expectations of how good they tasted. She scarfed that down!
Our friends came and we had a lovely time, touring the garden and admiring Bob's sculptures and then sitting down to iced coffee and those splendid eclairs, now filled and iced with chocolate. We happily wolfed them down. As I had made a bumper crop of eclairs, we had plenty left and I suggested that Roberta take three of them home for her and her partner (hello Phillip!) to have later. We secured two in paper plates together by clips to protect them on their way to Roberta's house. Roberta set them on the picnic table.
In the ensuing excitement of Hanneke deciding to purchase (yay!!) one of Bob's scholar rock sculptures (a wise choice) and us all gathering around to beam at the sculpture, I unthinkingly turned my back on Robin (typically called "the Good") and the eclairs resting on the table.
The next thing I see is Robin hunkered down on the lawn, devouring what I thought was probably one of her bones... until a light bulb erupted over my head and I realized that Robin has succeeded in sneaking the eclairs off the table, spilling two onto the ground while she assaulted the third. She was rushing back to snatch the other two off the grass, but I intercepted her.
It was pretty funny but also worrisome as chocolate is poisonous to dogs, not to mention she had inhaled a large dollop of cream filling and puff pastry- very rich stuff for a dog's belly! I was concerned that she'd awaken us at 3:30 am with a stomach ache and the need to go outside and evacuate, but fortunately, she was fine.
We all had a good laugh over Robin's criminality, but I had to go into the house and restuff and frost three more eclairs for Roberta, leaving us only two. We kept an eagle eye on these!
Hanneke had thoughtfully brought us a "host/hostess" gift of some cookies and a bar of dog shampoo (apparently useful on horses, too). I briefly considered washing Robin's mouth out with the soap- only kidding! Here's another shot of the thief. Doesn't she look non-plussed?!!??
No comments:
Post a Comment