Friends, loyal countrymen/women, Alliteratus, lend me your ears

You may have noticed that we haven't updated in a while. In fact, on April 2nd I said to come back in two weeks. It's, uh, been a few more weeks than that, and we're not here.

Nor will we be, for the foreseeable future, I'm afraid.

You are witnessing the death of a blog. A much beloved, much belabored blog.

Each of us have loved the Archives in our own ways, and each and every one of you for reading it, but we all agree on one thing:

It's become a chore.

So, no more excuses. No more "we'll be back in ____" and then multiplying ____ by 10. The only thing worse than not blogging at all is blogging poorly.

Plus, we kind of hate the word "blog". Or at least, I do.

Anyway, my friends, while it pains me to say this, the Archives are about to become just that-- shadowy echoes of former selves and lives; a warehouse full of cobwebby thoughts. We may come back someday with a broom and sweep out the attic and dust off a shiny new post, or we may not. We all agree we don't want to make any promises. We don't want to disappoint you anymore.

But! We're still here! We still exist! We still want to hang out and chat! So come find us in our other spaces, where we clean regularly and post more sporadically-often.

You can find me (L.T. Host) at my other blog, updated almost never but a slow simmer in my mind always, with the intent to thrive again:

 My Life is (in) a Zoo

Or on Twitter, as @LTHost .

And I hope you will, and actually talk to me because I'm horrible about starting conversations I always think I'm not cool enough for people so feel free to break the ice first I promise I won't bite. Phew.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for being you.

I'll try and get the rest of the Alliterators to post their preferred contact info here, too. But no promises. We're really bad at keeping those.

Good night, sweet blog. Good night.

A Regenerated Tradition

Hello *cough* *sneeze* Excuse me while I clear away some of the dust hereabouts. I am here because some of you may remember this post about kitchen disasters and I believe I promised to keep you updated on future attempts.

It's a few days late to report but for Thanksgiving I braved another try at making pumpkin rolls. In fact I upped the stakes a bit. I decided to vegan-ize it. That's right. I decided to take a beloved family recipe that I could not hereto conquer and eliminate the eggs and dairy.

Is anyone biting their fingernails yet? I know I was. To make matters worse I didn't have time to make it until the day of. No room for mistakes.

I was half convinced my late aunt (featured above) would haunt me for destroying her recipe.

But I had made the decision. I was going to try.

I mixed up:

2/3 cup pumpkin

1 cups sugar

Egg substitute for 3 eggs (Not to promote brand names but because there is a big difference between the way different kinds work, I used Ener G)

Baking soda because egg substitute doesn't rise well. I didn't really measure how much I used. I just sprinkled until it looked right.

A sprinkling of cinnamon

A sprinkling of ginger

A sprinkling of nutmeg

and poured it onto a greased cookie sheet. I sprinkled chopped walnuts on top (the recipe said 1/2 cup but, again, I just did it by feel)

I placed the pan in the oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.

While it cooked. I mixed up the frosting:

Vegan cream cheese (most vegan cheeses are . . . less than adequate but as a cream it works)

Dairy free butter spread (a lot of margarines are already dairy free)

Sugar

How much of everything? I have no idea. By this time I was just going with my instincts. I didn't measure any of it.

When the bread was finished I took it off the pan. It *gasp* didn't stick. I spread the frosting, rolled it up and . . .

A pumpkin roll. It didn't fall apart. It wasn't raw. Ok. The edges weren't real pretty but it was delicious and no one knew it was vegan until I told them.

Things I learned:

Simplify
Keep trying
Trust my instincts
Even baking isn't an exact formula
Be myself (vegan-ized and all)
A tradition can be preserved and given new life at the same time