Whoopie Maddness

When life gives you problems...make whoopie! The HTG spin on the old saying 'when life gives you lemons, make lemonade' as my mom used to tell me whenever I had a major 'trauma' arise during my formative years! I now say...who the hell wants lemonade when you can have whoopie?!?!

So...with a major turning point and life change facing me, I visited David's last week to find that ALL OF MY WHOOPIE PIES delivered just 4 days earlier were GONE! After searching the store with the thought they were moved from the official HTG rack (mind you, with a crazy fervor similar to that of someone that has a lottery ticket with five winning numbers and a bite mark the size of a small dog taking with it the sixth number), I came to the conclusion that my whoopie was currently residing in one of two places...either the kitchen of a wonderful whoopie-craving soul, or their stomach! Holy whoopie!

As I stood in a brief lapse of consciousness in the absolute amazement that people were that mad over my whoopie, I was quickly brought back to the homey, natural atmosphere at David's when one of the girls that works there asked me if I had brought more whoopie for them. Then Jill, the manager, asked me the same question! When I said "no", Jill said she needed another delivery as all of my vegan goodies were wiped out! She then invited me back for another kickoff Saturday 11 December where I am to have HTG 'on display' from 10am - 2pm. Instantly, my thoughts were "how the hell can I do this with everything going on in my personal life"?!? I was quickly dragged out of my feeling of immense overwhelmed-ness and the thought came over me that I MUST make whoopie...I MUST follow my mantra from the previous post...afterall this IS my dream! After about a millisecond, I told Jill "YES, I will be there"! I decided to devote the entire day to whoopie and introduce my Peanut Butter Whoopie as well as my seasonal Peppermint Whoopie. And of course, the 'Not Your Traditional Whoopie' will represent its amazing little self!

So...back to the flurry of activity and planning of a few weeks past. Not to mention this massive whoopie production, Jill also said she wants her regular Friday shipment of cookies, muffins, cupcakes and brownies. So...I'm on! Whatever I have to do - however tired I am, whatever emotions I have to cook through, however many times that Dunkin Donuts guy evades my dreams, I will bake on!

I started compiling my list of items needed to make huge quantities of whoopie. List in hand - and my to-do list that I've now started keeping on my cell phone, which by the way has become my personal assistant that I rely on to keep my life and thoughts straight, I made the trek out to the place where I buy my ingredients wholesale...go figure it's in a town called Intercourse. Today was SUPER busy, I had to go to my townhouse, an hour from where I'm staying in Baltimore...then to Wilmington, DE for work, an hour from my townhouse...then back to Baltimore, an hour and a half away. All of this driving served it's purpose though - good therapy...just like baking - good alone time, to think about and evaluate everything else going on in my life. I was zoned out much of the ride and was completely dependant on Bella (my way-too-often-wrong GPS that always results in the generation of new words to the English language on my part). On this day, Bella decided to take me a completely different way from which I usually take that ultimately resulted in a great observation (and out-loud laugh) on my end...

On my way to INTERCOURSE to buy supplies with which to make WHOOPIE, good old Bella took me through a town called PARADISE...

Really?!?? What kind of lovely God planned for this route? Is the universe trying to tell me something?!? INTERCOURSE, WHOOPIE, PARADISE?!?!? Do things like this only happen to me?!?! God I love it! And by the way...anyone that knows me would answer the previous question with a big fat affirmative -

YES! this would only happen to Christina!

So now I will close with what has become the unofficial 'official' HTG mantra:

Make whoopie at all costs!

Let the adventure begin!

; )