History is not one of my strong suits. Specifically, concepts of where and when things occur that I didn’t personally “live” through. Even if I did live through something, I still need a minute to put it in proper context. A few biggies in the “Do you remember where you were when…” are the Challenger explosion in 1986, 9-11, and the Covid Pandemic.
I’m again in a calendar/time frame/era funk (I doubt I ever leave this funk, but it’s reared up lately). The chaos of the holiday season and sliding into a new year affects everyone to a degree, especially when there are “extras” — if you know, you know. My loose relationship with the calendar doesn’t need any catalyst. I can’t “feel” where I am in the year or the week. Haven’t been able to for quite some time. All those “extras.”
Like the other night, the folks with the exterior Christmas lights still glistening against the snow sent me into a time warp. The weary thought wriggled through my mind: “And we still have to do Christmas.” I believed this discombobulation for the entire drive home.
Wait.
No.
We don’t. Already did that for 2024. 2025’s holiday season is eleven months away.
I had an Era Error.
A similar thing happened to me at a display in Walmart’s baking-adjacent aisle. Regular readers of the blog may wonder why I’m anywhere near a baking aisle.
I’ve been battling my comfort zone (and/or a midlife crisis and/or writer’s block and/or… funky funk—all the “extras”). I’m seeking activities to “fill the well” and have been advised by Those Smarter Than Me to do things for pure enjoyment/challenge, not for the outcome.
Well, shoot. If I don’t have to worry about the outcome (burning the house down, estrangement from the feline office staff, or food poisoning), I can give cookies a try. That didn’t go terribly.
So, I was back in the baking aisle. Because if I must try new things and live life on the edge, the reward must be worth the risk. Sweets seem worth the risk.
After the 2023 fiasco with the angel food cake (I lived through this event, seared forever in my head), I’d sworn off anything with a happy red spoon on the packaging. But I’ve discovered swearing off something usually means it’ll come back. Hard.
Betty Crocker, with her pretty red spoon, has partnered with Bridgerton and has a small line of Regency-era goodies.
Here’s the first bobble in this adventure: My brain, tired and discombobulated, read “Bridgerton,” thought “Renaissance,” and declared to myself that these baking kits are from Downton Abbey and all those scenes in the basement where the quirky characters in a hot tizzy cook for the goody-two-shoes prancing about upstairs.
Here’s the timeline my discombobulated self blasted to smithereens right there in Walmart and held on to all the way home:
Renaissance Era: 1300-1600. (Think Columbus, the Guttenberg press, the Black Death.)
Bridgerton: 1813-1827, Regency Era (I kinda know what this means because I had to write a short story in this era for the Anthology Workshop in Vegas.)
Downton Abbey: 1912-1926, Post-Edwardian Era (I don’t know what this means, but WWI was about to blow up.)
And may as well tell you I was also expecting some “knights and castles” theme from this dessert, picturing them spread out on a round table, but that would be King Arthur Middle Ages, and a fourth Era Error took hold.
Dowager Violet Crawley would be so disappointed in me. Likewise, Lady Whistledown, Guttenburg, and Sean Connery.
I look at the box. It’s so pretty. Light blue with lavender wisteria and a dainty little tray with a scone on it. The boxes next to it are likewise branded Bridgerton in raised golden font. Aesthetically pleasing, aside from the gaudy red spoon at the top.
A trilogy of grand story-telling-based goodies.
These are complete kits, or so Betty says on the box. I’m a bit distrusting of Betty’s boxes. “Simply add this…” or “All you need is that…” given the Angel Food Cake Debacle of 2023.
But it’s been two years. Perhaps they’ve fool-proofed their directions.
I couldn’t resist. Downton Abbey is one of my favorite period shows, and as long as no one ends up with The Black Death, it’ll be a success…
I know, Dear Reader, that you have caught on to my multiple Era Errors, but at this point of the purchase, I have not caught on to the fact that I’m in the wrong era, wrong show, wrong everything. And I most certainly don’t have “all you need to add” stuff at my house.
Those Smarter Than Me are shaking their heads. This is not what they had in mind. Betty Crocker, Lady Guinevere, and Violet Crawley would beg me to try a different way to live on the edge. Spare the kitchen of my squirrel spore brain and spare those that may partake of my goodies symptoms akin to the Black Death.
But the boxes are bought. All three.
The whole trilogy.
And now we see if Miss Crocker and I can get along…
Stay tuned for Part 2: To Parchment or Not To Parchment
