Wishful Thinking

I like the rest of Connecticut got very caught up on the idea that Spring was here this week with that tease of 50 degree weather and quite ideal outdoor running conditions that came along with it.  I even went so far as to break out my Spring cooking binder to see what was in store for the season and came across one of my favorite cakes that I just had to make (and it also helped that I had all the ingredients at home).  I had tulips on the brain, and had all these lovely thoughts of rhubarb, asparagus and everything else that reminds me so much of Spring.  Well not so fast as Mother Nature reminded us this morning, all of those things are just wishful thinking now with the dumping of snow we woke up to quite surprisingly.  After I got over the initial shock of having to clean my car off and break out the winter coats once again I thought to myself, "maybe Winter has a few more good weeks in it.  Maybe I'm not so ready to abandon my dutch oven and those nice braised meals just yet.  How can we almost be 2 months into 2012 already when it fills like I was making waffles and bacon on New Year's Day about 30 seconds ago?"  Every once and a while you need a little reminder that life shouldn't fly by in a New York minute. That you can't jump to the future when the present isn't finished.  That sometimes you need to slow down, look around  and appreciate things for what they are - the reality that a little snow isn't so bad after all especially when you live in New England in February where you get to experience 4 seasons a year.  Just when you try to get ahead of yourself something will always bring you back to where you are supposed to be and that's what Mother Nature did today and maybe we need to have more moments like that every once and awhile in our lives. 

But in the meantime,  you can make the lemon cornmeal cake that I baked this week and a slice will get you a little closer to Spring.  The beauty about this cake is that it's quite simple for that it doesn't require you to pull out a mixer, a majority of the ingredients you will have at home, and it can be made and baked in under an hour which is a beautiful thing when you don't want to spend all day in your kitchen.  I've never made the blueberry sauce that the recipe includes to go along with it because I usually like to serve the cake for breakfast or brunch and why complicate things further in the morning when they really don't have to be.  The cake's flavors stand alone nicely without it.   

One last note: The cake is usually made in a round cake pan but I wanted to try out a new mini bundt pan that I just gotten recently.  Either pan works well and you can also make them in a muffin pan if you are looking for smaller, individual sized cakes.