Amanda Helms

Hey, remember what this site used to be about?

Probably not, unless you happen to have memorized my home page. Which will at some point become an about page, as I’m thinking I might as well make the blog the home page. But ahem. This site used to be about how I’m an aspiring author of speculative fiction. I was going to build my…

June 14, 2012
Banana “Ice Cream” with Not-Quite-So-Bad-For-You Caramel Sauce

“Garcon!” (snap snap) (sigh of the long-suffering) “Yes, sir? May I help you with something? The bill, perhaps, as you’ve graced us with your presence for over four hours now?” “When I haven’t had dessert yet? Of course not!” “You mean the ice cream you had me return to the freezer two hours ago? If…

June 6, 2012
Caramel Cashew Butter

Dear Mom, I wanted to talk to you about this in person, but every time I said sumthing like “Mom, about the sanwitches you’ve been making me,” your eyes got all big and a little too shiney, and then you’d say something like, “BILLY! Don’t you just LOVE your caramel cashew butter sanwitches?” Then after…

May 30, 2012
Coconut Pistachio Banana Rolls with Cardamom Cream Cheese Glaze

“Is this on?” (tap tap SCREECH) “Oh! Sorry about that.” (laughs nervously) “Anyway, welcome, welcome! I see some of you are still shambling to your seats, but we better get started. I hope you understand if I want to be home before nightfall. As a reminder, for both your safety and mine, the fence I…

May 19, 2012
PSA: For people like my brother…

… who complain about my reference to grams as units of weight rather than mass: My digital scale is a $25 scale that is incapable of measuring mass of the ingredients I use. It’s measuring the weight. And yes, I suppose that then it’s using some sort of mathematical conversion to figure the equivalent weight…

May 6, 2012
Fudgy Mint Zombie-Distracting Brownies

Carefully, Hortense placed the last bit of crumbled brand-name minty chocolate sandwich cookies atop the pale green frosting. Hand on her lower back to ease the kink, she leaned back. Yes, she thought, these particular brownies would appeal to Eveleen and Joe Junior. A small smile spread across her face as she envisioned the joy…

May 3, 2012
Post the first

Hi. Future posts will include recipes. This one does not. If you think about this site like you would a cookbook, cookbooks don’t dive right into the recipes. There’s a table of contents and maybe a dedications page and quite frequently an introduction. All the lead-in material. And maybe most people don’t read it, but…

April 30, 2012
Storied Kitchen: Irish Cream Cookies

Snickersnack* the leprechaun eased the burden of his bag of gold off his shoulders and regarded the far end of the rainbow. Why rainbows? Why was it there that he had to hide his gold? Why not at the edge of, say, the Aurora Borealis? Rainbows just seemed so . . . trite. And that…

March 14, 2012
A fictionalization of my dog’s thoughts upon my early return home from work and our subsequent walk.*

(From outside, keys jangle and tumblers in lock turn.) Hark! It is My Person, returning to me at last! Joy overwhelms my soul. The only way to express my happiness is to retrieve my raccoon and squeak it repeatedly. squeak squeak squeaka (Door opens. Laptop, purse, and other workday accoutrements are placed on the table.)…

February 16, 2012
It’s one week until NaNoWriMo…

…do you know where your novel is? Mine is located somewhere to the left of my medulla oblonglata. (Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself.) My novel is post-apocalyptic. It will not feature ninjas. It probably will not feature pizza. Unless, perhaps, characters discuss pizza within the context of bygone days, as in Boy,…

October 25, 2011