This Better Be Good...

I am a woman possessed.

Friday night, while killing time (read: goofing off) with The Boyfriend before a catching a movie, we went to Books-A-Million. We weren’t looking for anything in particular, but found ourselves in the back of the store where the magazines are kept. The Boyfriend was immediately mesmerized by something involving baseball, so I looked over the chick section a bit. I happened across an issue of Cooking with Paula Deen and started leafing through to see what sort of tasty goodness she was peddling this month. A certain recipe caught my eye and I made a mental note to look it up online when I got home.

Yesterday, I remembered this recipe and decided to try to find the recipe online, but quickly discovered that Paula has decided that this recipe isn’t free. She certainly mentions it on her Cooking with Paula Deen website, but only to say that the recipe is on page 66 of the May/June issue. How thoughtful of her, right? How hard could it be to pick up a copy of the issue? I’ll tell you.

I went to Publix, thinking “Surely they’ll have her magazine. Publix is the place in the South to grocery shop, so how could they not have the Paula Deen magazine?” They didn’t. I then looked at Target, which had the July/August issue, but not the May/June. Fail. Winn-Dixie didn’t have it either, which was really no surprise, mainly because the one by my apartment is about two steps above a Cumberland Farms. Next, I figured I’d try Barnes & Noble. Unfortunately, they’re so efficient at Barnes & Noble that they already had a whole slew of the July/August issues out and the left-over May/June issues are on their way back to the publisher. What they’re going to do with them, I’ll never know.

I even went so far as to call the Books-A-Million where I originally held a copy of the magazine to see if they were less efficient, yet much more my speed, and still carrying the old issue. No such luck. Although, the person I spoke to on the phone was quite pleasant and even wished me luck in my search.

So I’ve been reduced to getting, what feels like, a bootleg version of the elusive Raspberry-Limeade Cake recipe. I found it on a blog or two, but couldn’t bring myself to give a random blogger enough credit to get every measurement and step of the process correct. They certainly didn’t scan the page and put it up on their blog and the picture that they posted of their finished product wasn’t quite as alluring as Paula’s. Not that mine is going to look any better, but still. I eventually found a cooking/baking website where people could post questions. Someone had requested it and another person posted the recipe. This website seemed to be more legitimate than the others, so I'm going with it.

I’m hoping beyond hope that this person is experienced at transcribing lengthy recipes from magazines onto computers. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been known to say that something needed to bake for 120 minutes instead of an hour and 20 minutes. You know, 120 - 1:20… It made perfect sense in my head, so zip it!

I’m also a little nervous because it’s a layer cake and I’m not so good with the layering. I’m going to do something I’ve never done before and attempt to cut the top of each layer so that they’re flat before stacking them. And I’ll be using my Cuisinart food processor for the first time. (All those blades really freak me out.)

So we’ll see what happens this weekend. At this point, I’ve gone to way too much trouble to give up. If only finding the magazine had been as easy as tracking down a great pair of shoes in my size. I certainly went about it with the same voraciousness!

If it doesn’t turn out, I’ll still have her Sour Cream Pound Cake recipe… Wish me luck!