Anyone who knows me will agree I’m a reliable person…
I can’t recount the last time I just told someone flat-out ‘no.’
Blame it on my people-pleasing past, but I always have this itch to be of service when someone asks me to step in.
Maybe it’s the satisfaction of being asked to begin with, or maybe it has to do with my ridiculous workaholism that lends me to take on anything and everything for the sake of “busyness.”
I’d say I’m working on it… but I don’t think my calendar would reflect that 😂
You could call me text me for Dubsado advice and I’d answer.
You could ask me to take your headshots, and I’d start creating a Pinterest mood board.
You could ask me to marry you at your wedding and I’d have a profile made on The Universal Life Church.com getting my officiant certification.
(Just don’t ask me to take out the trash, that’s a man’s job, period. And I don’t care if you think that’s sexist. It’s just the standard ok.)
So when I received this text from my fiancé… 👇
The way my brain went into bake mode was scary.
I immediately told my daughter, who happened to be in the backseat as we were on our way to pick up my 4-year-old son from school,
“Change of plans, sister!!!! We need to make an HEB run. Right. Now.”
(By the way, if you’re not familiar with HEB it’s the BEST grocery store to ever exist on the planet. At this rate, I’m convinced I’ve unknowingly entered an HEB cult because I refuse to buy groceries anywhere else. And I genuinely feel sad for those of you who’ve never been graced by heaven on earth.)
Let me ask you this, are you an ‘ingredient’ household?
AKA, the kind of house that just has ingredients on tap all the time? To just whip stuff up?
Let’s play a game of ingredient bingo:
Chinese Five Spice (the actual best spice for your homemade ramen)
Gouchang sauce (good in absolutely anything and everything)
Orange extract (apparently kind of rare to find?)
Garlic (literally good in ANYTHING. I buy it pre-diced because who has time to dice garlic??)
Unsalted butter (trust me, if you’re a baker, the unsalted is a MUST)
Pecans (in my house, pecans are life and I always have an entire basket of nuts on hand… pies? banana nut muffins? charcuterie boards?)
If you have all of those on hand, congrats!! You’re an ingredient household (There is no special prize except the satisfaction that your pantry is well-stocked.)
Back to my bliss bars…
As you can imagine, garlic and gouchang sauce aren’t the ingredients I need for my famous bliss bars. While I have those in my fridge regularly, what I don’t normally have is two giant bags of dried cran raisins… which is obviously the star of the show when it comes to my famous cranberry bliss bars.
My daughter and I proceeded to pull up to HEB on a mission – secure these ingredients and have these batches whipped up for Dad by the end of the night.
Remember when I mentioned I’m a people-pleaser? Well, I’m also an over-doer.
So instead of whipping up just two batches of cranberry bliss bars, I also happened to make two bourbon maple pecan pies because why not?
It wasn’t until I blinked with two pies and two dozen cranberry bliss bars in front of me that I realized I just spent over four hours on a Wednesday night making sure my man had something to bring to the potluck…
Could I have easily just bought a pre-made dessert and told him to call it a day? Sure.
But what’s the fun in that?
Instead, I spend four hours in the kitchen (not including time spent on ingredients at the store and the post-baking kitchen cleanup). I’d like to include I even bought the cute Christmas plastic carriers so he could deliver the treats in style. #WifeyThings
Because when Daddy calls, I answer. And when there’s a competition at hand, I don’t play around.
You might be thinking, “So Taylor, did you win the competition?”
Apparently, aviation ties run deep… not only did I not win, but apparently I got THIRD PLACE?!?! Completely unacceptable.
I wish I could show you the look of remorse on my fiancé’s face when I asked, “Who won the competition” as we’re standing around our pool table as we often do on weeknights while we debrief our days.
His first words said it all… “They were good babe, but…”
Let’s just say Mrs. Sally Sue at the front desk won.
And that will be the last time I drop everything to make four BOMB, DELICIOUS, AND ABSOLUTELY FIRST-PLACE DESERVING desserts for an office Thanksgiving party… that is until next year 😂
Word to the wise: always give your best, even if it’s just for the office potluck. You just never know what the return will be. In this case? A happy, satisfied fiancé and a baker’s batch of cranberry bliss bars.
Show yourself some love today, babe.
You’ve earned it.
As always,
Taylor Torres
P.S. I rarely give out my secrets, but in this case, how could I write an entire newsletter about a recipe you will obsess over without actually sharing the recipe? 👀👇 Enjoy this treat, and may your Thanksgiving be full of cranraisins!!