Monday, March 24, 2008

an exciting weekend

This was a busy and exciting weekend Friday was my 25th birthday, and my roommates surprise me with cirque du soleil tickets! I was very surprised and excited so after work we ate the most delicious beautiful 4 layer carrot cake that Jami made for me a Hawaiian papa Murphy's pizza and we were off to the show. It was one of the best birthdays I have ever had, I have the best roommates in the world! Saturday was a work day and Sunday was Easter, Amy and I didn't have family things to do and she got a free ham from work and so we had a lovely afternoon of watching Flight of the Conchords cooking and relaxing, we were especially proud of how pretty or table turned out because we decorated it with things we found around the apartment and in the parking lot and it turned out really cute:)

Here is the cake it was so amazing was a carrot cake with pecans and coconut and pineapple and cream cheese frosting.

a little birthday enthusiasm!
I was posing for this picture but genuinely this excited about the show! Cirque du soleil was beautiful.

the lovely ham dinner for 2 that Amy and I cooked up on easter look how pretty our table looks:)

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Kinetic Art by Tom Fort

I love this.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Grand Mama Hall's Cola Cake




Today Chelsea and I are going to bake my Grand Mama Hall's famous cola cake from scratch. We are not chefs of any kind and neither of us really bake... well... ever but we are going to give it our best shot. It will be especially difficult because I have only vague scraps of paper that she quickly jotted the recipe down on and Grandmother's hand writing is semi illegible. I only ever remember having this cake once... at the Hall family reunion back in the like 1994 but it was so good that I never forgot about it maybe its because I was a little gipper who loved cake and maybe it was because Grand Mama had an amazing gift for baking but I'm excited to see if we can make some thing that is at the very least edible:)

Here is the recipe just in case you ever want to try your hand at baking some good old southern comfort desert.

2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
1 cup coca cola classic
1/3 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening
3 "heaping" TB of coca
2 eggs
1/2 cup butter milk
1 TS baking soda
1/4 TS salt
1 TS vanilla
1 1/2 cup mini marshmallows:)
and my personal favorite ingredient... 1 TS instant coffee

preheat the oven to 350
put sugar and flour aside in a mixing bowl
in a saucepan blend Cola, shorting, butter and coca. bring to a boil remove from heat.
add flour mixture
add eggs
heat mixture until blended
add buttermilk, baking soda, instant coffee, salt and marshmallows mix well
bake in 13 X 9 inch pan for 40 min .

and for Grand Mama's frosting
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup water
1/2 TB vanilla
4 egg whites

Combine sugar and water in a saucepan. Cook on medium heat until mixture looks like "spins of thread" (DO NOT STIR WHILE COOKING.)
in a bowl, beat egg whites stiff.
gradually add syrup to eggs, stir constantly. Add vanilla. Beat until thick.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Photogenic

At work we have a Polaroid camera... I know right? and we also have this fake corn, basically when asked to do my "children of the corn face" this photogenic gem was born.




Sunday, March 9, 2008

JC Pennys...Enough said.

This made me happy. The guy in the blue... who I think might be Kurt Russell is my personal favorite. Although sewing matching outfits for yourself and someone you love is definitely a lost art.