Marzipan attacks

My nephew Tytony is not yet 2, and he can correctly identify Crayola colors (though burnt sienna trips him up), numbers from 1 to 15, and all the parts of a computer. (My brother claims he knows all the characters on the keyboard.) If you tell Tytony someone's name he'll repeat it and remember it later. I would like to be 2 someday again.

Mom invited me and Luis and our soul sister Andrea to dinner for my brother Brian's birthday. Brian hit 35 yesterday, which sounds old to me until I remember that I'm 8 years older. After Thanksgiving in March dinner, which Tytony used to illustrate his love of Jackson Pollock, Mom brought out dessert--a Carvel ice cream cake. Tytony was happy it was his dad's birthday. While we sang happy birthday to Brian, Tytony tried to grab the last lit candle. He has yet to master the concept of not playing with fire.

Mom also served a box of pastries from a Bay Ridge bakery. When I opened the box, I gasped.

Inside were four giant petit fours (which are supposed to be small--hence petit), with froglike heads implanted in a dripping mess of kelly green icing and marzipan. Each head had two little beady frosting eyes, with mouths agape (not as agape as mine) as if screaming for help as they drowned in the icing. Fluffy, bright pink frosting filled their mouths.



I know St. Patrick's day is not far off, so I understand the kelly green, but I really didn't get the frog part. Is there a French holiday coming up?

We decapitated one of the creatures.



Well, that looked worse. It looked like the thing was bleeding and the others were fleeing in panic.




We cut a sliver off one and the guts were full of sponge cake and vanilla and chocolate frosting. I tasted the pink frosting--strawberry. It was so sickeningly sweet I got a headache. We were all too scared to eat them, so Luis and I took them home and put them in the fridge. I'm scared to open the fridge now. What if they've multiplied?



Tytony had a good laugh over the whole thing. Silly grownups.