Dawn Likes Red

I've had a love/ hate relationship with the color red since I was a child. My first favorite book was Ann loves Red. I changed the name to Dawn loves Red and wanted it read to me over and over again. I'm not really sure how this happened or if it was by our choosing, but I always wore red and my twin sister always wore blue. Our colors suited us well. I've stayed true to reds, burgundy, and deep purple, while my sis stuck to blues and greens. In the biggest year of Strawberry Shortcake fame, we requested a Strawberry Shortcake Doll cake for our birthday. I think we each had our own. The details are all a little fuzzy now, but I mostly remember the eagerness and excitement as I took a large bite of a solid red corner piece. It was the corner of her skirt made up of individually applied stars of frosting. I also remember the smell of the frosting. It wasn't like our normal buttercream since it was made by a friend. Immediately, I realized it didn't taste like regular frosting either. I ate the whole slice though... it was exactly what I wanted after all. It wasn't long after that I felt very, very ill. Turns out the red food coloring or the butter was rancid and unfortunately, I saw the red frosting again. I've been leary of red icing ever since. Red dye or food coloring you could say is not my favorite thing. To my chagrin, one of my husbands favorite things is red fake flavored things... especially in the version of fruit punch. At least it has a pleasing smell though I don't prefer to drink it.

I realized a while back that my magenta ink for my press smells a lot stronger and more like rancid butter. This last run of red was the same and took me back to my elementary Strawberry Shortcake loving year. I don't think I'm supposed to refrigerate the ink though it has be thinking I should read the fine print. But it's ink, not food and applied to paper makes a lovely card.