Checkmate for Jesus.

In honor of almost-Easter--some members of the Catholic side of my family were visiting--I made an Easter checkerboard cake. This called for a large-sized recipe of white cake (eight egg whites! It was a very fluffy cake), split into three portions and dyed pastel green, pink, and blue (thought about doing purple rather than blue, but didn't want to risk it, since purple can be funky sometimes). The recipe instructed me to use a "checkerboard cake pan," but I had no idea those existed: It's pretty simple to pipe batter in concentric rings of alternating colors. Typical checkerboard cakes call for one to do this in chocolate and vanilla batter; thus, the Easter theme. Making it succeed requires only a steady hand and a not-too-thin cake batter.

The recipe also called for a very pale white shortening icing so that the cake can be decorated with jelly beans and green coconut shavings and other Eastery sundries, but the idea of spreading a cup of shortening on a cake sort of freaks me out, so I just slapped on a chocolate frosting and called it a day.

More slapping together occurred with dinner: a cup of quinoa, a zucchini and most of a quart of mushrooms (stemless) chopped up and sauteed in Smart Balance with some white wine and fresh sage and garlic, stir together in the saucepan, eat. This was largely because we had to go see my sister in her final circus performance (well, penultimate really, but her final season) of her high school career; if you're Facebook friends with her, keep an eye out for photos and videos!