Love that Dirty Water - Dark and Stormy Cupcakes

Today the skies opened up and poured rain. Heavy and cold. Robbing the light, playing the roof like a drum. Relentless, like my own tears these past two days as I struggle to make sense of the carnage, the horror, the pain. The loss of innocent life. The loss of innocence in general.

Boston is my city. It is where I went to school. Where David and I met. Where we were too poor to do anything but stroll and window shop. We walked everywhere - Back Bay, North End and Fanneuil Hall, Fenway Park to see our beloved Red Soxs play, Kenmore Square, the Pru, Hancock, and Copley Square. Free concerts and movies at the Hatch Shell on the Charles and pennies thrown into the reflection pond at the Christian Science Center were in our budget but not much else. Groceries were purchased with soda cans we returned for five cents a piece paired with double coupons.  We could not afford to live in Boston but we were too young to know. Some how we made it by on Oxygen and innocence.

Back Bay was our stomping grounds. Although we lived on the rough edge where the South End abuts with Roxbury, we navigated our surroundings with confidence and sophomoric arrogance. We were never scared. We shopped the Hay Market for our produce every week and could somehow get everything we needed for the week for less than $5. If I threw in the smidgen of Italian I knew, the old guys would throw in an extra fennel and let me pick the nicest vegetables. To save the $0.60 each to take the T, we would schelp our bounty back in a folding grocery cart with its rickety, tentative wheels that we had rescued from the trash. The $1.20 saved not taking the train this week would be applied to next week's purchases. Because even though we had not two dimes to rub together, delicious dinners with fresh produce were never to be spared. Instead I got through professional school without ever buying a text book (a fact I am very proud of to this day).

My fondest Boston memories was working the finish line of the marathon every year. As a member of the Northeastern Track and Field team, we were asked to be volunteers. This was in the pre-chip-attached-to-your-sneaker days. Our job was to keep the runners in order as they came down the shoots and make sure they were queued properly so their times would be right. There are no words to explain the shear emotion, the grit, the tears, the blood, as they finished. I peripherally got to be part of one of the most amazing, powerful races as 20+thousand athletes triumphantly crossed the finish line in front of the Boston Public Library.Running never came easily to me (even though I ran track for nine-years through high school and college.) Yet each time I worked the finish line I toyed with training for a marathon - not any marathon, just the Boston Marathon. I wanted to know the feeling of coming through Kenmore square and making the turn from Comm Ave on to Bolyston and hearing the crowd's cheers swell for me. In all the years I volunteered, never did I leave the finish line without having tears in my own eyes - watching Dick Hoyt push his son or learning an elderly woman finishing in the thick of the runners had actually been running through the night so she could finish at the same time as everyone else. Never will I forget the photo finish as Ibrahim Hussein and Juma Ikangaa sprinted from Kenmore Sq. It was as if we were watching a 400m race and not 40km. We cheered just like the spectators forgetting we were actually there to work.

We moved away from Boston after graduating, and it has been more years than I care to account. But Boston is still that innocent wonderful place it was to me when I was in my early 20s. Even though my career has taken me into the field of emergency management, homeland security, terrorism and fatality management, Back Bay was still a safe, quiet place. And Boston, although a big city was bucolic and small with its brown stones and tight knit neighborhoods. So Monday night was particularly hard to explain to my children.

As a parent I want to protect my children - turn off the television, and protect them from the horrific news outside the four walls of our home. During 9-11 they were babies and it was years until they knew what happened that horrific day. This time my 12-year-old son came in from school having read it on his i-pad knowing all that had happened before I was able to tell him. My daughter sat at dinner with her head in her hands asking no one in particular how someone could blow up children. What do you say? More than that, there is no way to keep them safe. No guarantees. No assurances. For them or for us.

As a momma, I can only do that which I intrinsically and instinctively know. Friday night I will light Shabbat candles. I will bring in Shabbat early and create more holy time. I will add extra candles and add even more light to this universe because only light eliminates darkness. Tonight I will hug them a little tighter and make sure I tuck each of them into bed. I will cherish the noise at the dinner table knowing they are all here safely, at least at this one moment. To bring order to the chaos swirling in my head, I will retreat to the kitchen where the properties of baking remain constant and predictable and I will make some delicious Dark and Stormy Cupcakes because sometimes this world is dark and stormy. And it may just be time to prepare to run my first marathon.

Dark and Stormy Cupcakes (From INTOXICATED CUPCAKES) Makes 12 

CUPCAKES

• 4 ounces (1 stick) salted butter
• 1/2 cup ginger beer (the stronger, the better)
• 1/4 cup dark rum
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 large egg, beaten
• 1/4 cup buttermilk1/2 teaspoon baking soda

ICING

• 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, at room temperature
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 tablespoon dark rum
• 1/4 cup candied ginger, for garnish

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a cupcake pan with 12 cupcake liners. Set aside.
2. Heat the butter, ginger beer, and rum over low heat for about 3 minutes, until the butter melts, being careful not to boil. Set aside.
3. Sift together the cocoa powder, cinnamon, ginger, flour, sugar, and salt.
4. In a small bowl, beat together the egg, buttermilk, and baking soda.
5. Stir the warm butter mixture into the sifted ingredients. Add the egg mixture and stir until well combined.
6. Divide the batter evenly among the cupcake liners and bake for 16 to 20minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcake comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes, or until cool enough to handle. Remove the cupcakes from the pan and cool completely.
7. For the icing, use an electric mixer to beat the cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Slowly add the sugar, ground ginger, and rum.Use the mixer on medium-high speed and beat until smooth and fluffy. Smooth the icing onto the cooled cupcakes and garnish with the candied ginger.