chrome + gaga

It is no secret that I am obsessed with Lady Gaga - but I have a whole new reason to be obsessed.  Love her new Chrome commercial.

Bravo Benji!

Benji was one of my very best friends in college - where would I be today without our friendship?  Anyway, he's back at Maryland getting at PhD and sent me this story and SWEET video.  He is part of a team that built a human powered helicopter - the first in history!  Amazing work!  Congrats to Benji and the rest of the UMD team.

Good Friday

In honor of Good Friday I made hot cross buns this week!  I used a combination of a few recipes so I'll share those soon - the bun recipe is from epicurious.com and the frosting recipe came from my mom (tangerine)!

Have a great weekend!

Breakfast of champions

Some oatmeal, flaxseed, granola, and almonds. Not exactly cheese grits with cream and bacon, but it will do. :)

Sauerkraut Sunday

Today the hubby and I went to the California Ave farmers market after a long absence. How could I have gone so long without a chicken naan wrap? Anyway, we discovered many new booths since we'd last been there - including gourmet sauerkraut. Sauerkraut is among my least favorite foods, but my hubby loves anything vinegary - ick!  I insisted that he try the krautwich (even if he wasn't hungry) because it looked so interesting.  The guy gave us two for the price of one. The krautwich was like sauerkraut in a giant pretzel. Interesting! I observed while eating butter chicken in a naan wrap. :)

I heart waffles

When we were in Norway, we discovered heart-shaped Norwegian waffles.  We ordered the waffle iron on amazon right after we got back, but somehow the weeks slipped away from us before we finally got our act together to make some waffles.  Last Sunday, in honor of our wedding anniversary, we finally were organized and motivated enough to veer from our normal Sunday routine of oatmeal and coffee.  Using a recipe from the Joy of Cooking, we made heart-shaped waffles!

getting the iron hot

The waffles were delicious - crispy on the outside, soft on the inside.  Paired with coffee and the Sunday New York Times, it was the perfect Sunday morning.  What is not pictured is that I also spent the morning cuddled in my LSU Tigers snuggie... but that is for a different post. :)

elements of a perfect Sunday morning

First Anniversary! Time to eat cake!

Today was our first wedding anniversary!  Since our wedding cake topper is still in New Orleans in my parent's freezer, I decided to make almond white cake cupcakes so that we could eat a slice of our wedding cake (in spirit) today.  It turns out to be hard to find a recipe for white almond wedding cake, but I found a well reviewed version on allrecipes.com (and I had all of the ingredients)!  Anything with 4.5 stars after 9,200 reviews is worth a try!

the ingredients

A special thanks to John for supplying us with farm fresh eggs.  Look at those yolks!  To keep the cake white - I set aside the yolks to use for something else as the recipe only called for the whites.

yolks from my co-worker's chickens

Snowy white almond cake batter.

batter was SO hard not to just eat raw... 

Little white cupcakes - the recipe yield was 30 cupcakes.  They weren't as almond tasting as I expected.  Next time I would double the amount of almond extract to get them to taste more like our actual wedding cake.

cupcakes hot from the oven

The cakes were topped with a little almond vanilla frosting and a sprinkle of white pearls for decoration and crunch (my favorite texture).

wedding cupcakes to eat

I also put 15 cupcakes in a to go tray to take to work tomorrow and share with my co-workers.  I'm always brining sweet treats to work since I like baking more than I like eatings desserts  (I'm more of a cheese kind of a person).

wedding cupcakes to share!

We shared our wedding cake cupcakes with Alison and Eli, who are getting married later this year.  It was fun to share the tradition of eating wedding cake (a realistic recreation in our case) a year later with our best friends.

girl crush

Isn't Gwyneth the cutest in this video?  I think I need to start watching Glee...

Tom Hanks and Tiaras

Since Big and Money Pit, I've always had a weakness for Tom Hanks...  

Baby Shower: The Favors

Recently I hosted a baby shower for my friend Suchi.  Since I enjoy planning parties, I had fun thinking through the menu, the crafts, and the games.  The group of 12 attendees were mostly women that I didn't know, so it was fun to also meet new people.  I figured I post the various elements over a few different posts.

As I mentioned a while back, I recently took an invitation making class with Alison where I learned about embossing paper.  Since that class, I have bought a lot of various supplies which I wanted to put to use for this shower.  I ended up embossing the gift bags and a photo matting (which I'll cover in the games post).

embossing zebras on bags

Since her baby shower was animal themed - I got a zebra stamp on ebay that I thought looked very tribal and not cheesy.  I then embossed black zebras onto the food grade kraft paper coffee bags that I got to use as favors for our wedding and never used.  They are the perfect size for a little gift.

the zebras

I then filled red and white checked paper sandwich bags (super super cheap at Sur La Table) with homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.  My hubby made them the night before while I was doing something else.  These cookies have become his specialty (we got the recipe from Philip) and we always have pre-made dough rolled into little balls in our freezer.  He made 6 dozen of these bite size cookies.

cookie time

Next I tucked the red and white paper into the bag.  I like edible favors the best.

filling up the bags...

I then put the favors in a big woven basket we got a few years ago as a Christmas gift and put it by the front door so people wouldn't forget them on their way out.

front!

I had also ordered stickers to match her invitations (with wild animals) that had her name and date of the shower.  I put them on the back of the bag. 

back!

I was really happy with how the favors turned out.  I thought that they were simple and playful, without being too cheesy.

flower arranging class

A few weeks ago, my friend Amy emailed a bunch of us and asked if we would join her for a flower arranging class.  Since I love taking classes, I jumped at the chance when I confirmed I wasn't going to be out of town.  The class was hosting by a flower shop called Studio Choo - I just so happened to be obsessed with their blog while planning our wedding.  They have GORGEOUS arrangements, many of which I sent to my own wedding florist for inspiration and insight into my taste.

Anyway, last Sunday four friends met up to learn how to make a beautiful arrangement.  During class they taught us their philosophy of flower arranging: a sturdy base layer, topped with colorful focal flowers, sprinkled with tiny bits at the end.

The sturdy elements

the focal flowers

the bits!

Although the six of us taking the class all used the same flowers, our arrangements came out very differently!  It was a lot of fun to see.  I've posted photos of mine below.  You can also check out Amy's flowers on her blog!  So many beautiful combinations of these flowers.

the beginning

It was hard not to get discouraged in the beginning.  I had to start over a few times.  I think the problem was lack of vision.

it's starting to take shape!

The finished product.  Not too bad!  Loved the combination of the bright orange ranunculus and the dark plum leaves.  I also loved the green and pink ranunculus.  So much fun to be surrounded by beautiful flowers and lovely friends on a Sunday morning in San Francisco. 

Now if only I had been around during the week to enjoy them instead of in Atlanta...  :)