Bake and Shake

Reminders

I am not drinking enough water, Diet Coke is back in my life, I am not sleeping enough, I am not on top of things I need to be on top of, I have eaten more fast food in the past seven days than I have in months. I need to remember that Lara Bars and miso soup with tofu and seaweed are good for me, better, quicker, more whole. I need to saute or poach up some chicken breasts and keep them in the fridge, drink at least two liters of water a day and bring my coat with me. Halls Vitamin C Soothers. Green tea in the morning. Oats, lots of them. Whole wheat cous cous with roasted vegetables, chickpea, cucumber and feta salad. Walk on the treadmill every morning and take the long way every night. Keep my throat covered. Do my janky piloga on my mattress when I wake up, at 6. Not 6:15. Not 6:30. Not 6:45. 6.

Make my bed, wash my pillowcases every three nights. Buy some Cetaphil and more Weleda Skinfood. Wash my face and moisturize my feet. Paint my toenails and keep my fingernails clipped. Find my UGGs. Remind people.

If you're wondering what this is about, I'm entering myself in a local Dog Show. Not my canines, unless you count the ones in my mouth and most Gov. officials in the lower 48 do. Myself.

If I lose to a Bichon Frise, fur will rain down like blood.

"I didn't wash my hair today, but I did do this. Win/WIN."

 
(All pictures, goods property of their respective creators and Etsy) 

So I hate to tell you this, but I'm running out of Etsy ideas. We're not out of gravy yet, but your Grandpa just went back for seconds and your brother's already crying. Just chew your turkey a little longer. Make it wet with your mouth. We can stop at McDonalds on the way home.

As always, if you have a trove of killer Etsy favorites, shops, items, sellers, please let me know. I'm always selfishly looking for a place to find new gifts for people, gifts that don't come from my pockets or underneath my fingernails. I have to tell you though, one of the items I'm featuring has talons dug into me -- those rhinestone and pearl earrings, second from the left, top row. I like to think that those earrings are my own personal Jem earrings. If you buy them, I have no choice but to officially consider you a Misfit*.

Truly Outrageous.

Some of the items above are handcrafted by bloggers, which means that their fingers are twice as talented as mine. What are you guys doing? Is there a camp going on? Because if I tried to handcraft things with my stubs, they'd end up looking like I mauled a pile of wire and various inks. "What is that? Get it away from me, I'm getting creeped out. Did you find that in the garbage? Is that barbed wire from the neck of a stray dog you freed on your way home, only he then attacked you? Is that why there's blood on it?"

"I'm thinking of selling it. On the internet."

Nice.

- Everybody likes sandwiches, and everybody likes these cards even more. Kickpleat not only writes one of my favorite blogs, but she makes greeting cards that I want to rub all over myself. I saw them on her flickr stream months ago and never thought to ask where she got them, where they came from. Guess what. They came from her brain. Seriously. Both the "Hey Thanks A Ton" and "Even your farts are cute" cards are hers. Look at those swooping pink intestinal gasses behind those sweet bunnies. Don't you want a love like that?

- Look at those lovely balls of yearn, meant to hang from your lobes, by the sweet StarryDesigns (I just ordered a pair of earrings from her, for a gift, and can't wait to see them in person). Get them for someone you love who knits. Or get them for your cat, who was sworn at by your Grandma for getting her ears pierced when she was still a kitten. "WHORECAT! You're raising a WHORECAT!" We've zipped into the millennium on our motorized scooters, Nana. Every feline has pierced lobes now. And they can get their food handling licenses, too.

- So you all probably have ten of Emily's prints hanging in your home, or room, and you probably have ten of her little buttons pinned all over your skin and you probably wear clean pants on a daily basis, so you've won the Fun Run. I'm hanging out beside the giant Gatorade cooler, after the mom of my best friend double-punched my index-card nametag. It's hard to judge who has the better life, right? I don't yet own one of Emily's pieces, because I can't ever decide which one. This pirate who looks like she listens to a lot of Tegan and Sara is kind of deep in my heart right now. Maybe, or maybe not. Give me a week before I find a new love.

- Devon Industry! Wow, the love I have for all of her creations is the only thing keeping me from running for Student Body President at my local middle school, now at age 25. They are truly all so beautiful and sweet and quirky. Like little stuffed Zoey Deschanels. Every week or so she adds a new batch of lovelies, and I look at them and wonder why more people I know don't start having babies so I can be that creepy aunt that's not related to (most of) them, yet always brings them presents. When that happens, I have to find a coat I can pour pretzels and mentholated cough drops into the pockets of, stop shaving my legs and wear LA Gears from the thrift store. 

In other consumer news, Melissa and Maggie recently birthed Mighty Junior, the sidekick to Mighty Goods, a site I love. Visit, and if you have Littles in your life I'm sure you'll find plenty to bestow on others or yourself at either site.

*Buy them, seriously.

Paging Lee Fiora: Braeburn Apple Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing

"We went back to get him, at the rest stop, before continuing on to Grandma and Grandpa's house. But that was the last time your brother ever said your father's head smelled like the bathroom after the neighbor with lactose sensitivities used it. He rode in silence for the rest of the trip."

"Wow, mom."

I have a crush that is so bad and so fierce that Tyra Banks just cut off all its hair. All I want to do is think about it and talk about it, live it. I am horrible and pathetic and I can't stop.

I am a Curtis Sittenfeld character.

While I attempt to get it together (Come visit me like Cross Sugarman. In the night!), please enjoy Fall, and these cupcakes. They went over well, except everybody thought they were pumpkin.

Hope all is lovely.

Braeburn Apple Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing
Adapted from SB/TB

1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 egg
1/2 cup Canola Oil (I used Spectrum)
1 cup unsweetened, chunky applesauce (I used storebought Braeburn, though homemade would be wonderful)
1 1/2 cups AP flour
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Sift together the flour, spices (cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice) and soda. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the brown and granulated sugars, egg and oil until well-beaten and smooth. Add the vanilla extract and stir until combined. Add the flour mixture and applesauce alternately, beginning and ending with flour, mixing just until flour disappears and batter is a uniform brown. Spoon or scoop into a lined 12-cup cupcake pan -- I got exactly 12 cupcakes from this recipe, but depending on the size of your cups, this could vary by 1 or 2. You can also grease and flour a round cake pan and pour the batter in that, baking for slightly longer (until toothpick comes out clean and top springs back gently when touched) and then frost, or just sift powdered sugar over the top.

But we're dealing with small cakes today, class.

Bake for 10-15 minutes, checking after 10, just until toothpicks inserted in the middle and edge cupcakes come out clean or with dry crumbs clinging. No wet batter. Remove from oven and cool in pan for 5 minutes, then gently remove and cool completely on a rack.

Cream Cheese Icing
8 oz Cream Cheese, slightly softened (take it out of the fridge 10 minutes prior)
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 to 2 cups sifted powdered sugar

For the icing, beat together (don't whip) the cream cheese and vanilla extract with an electric mixer (stand or hand) on medium speed until smooth. Add the cinnamon. Then gradually add the powdered sugar until you've reached a sweetness and stiffness level you're satisfied with. Frost cooled cupcakes generously, slather them, obscenely. Enjoy.   

We like it Animal Style: Twice in 72 hours

"You and I need to star in 'Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken II', SON!"

"Even if they told me this sauce had seal placenta in it, I would not be able to stop eating."

This week I ate at Andina and Pok Pok (the tiny shack 'dining room' with three tables) and had some of the best food of my life. Cured tuna loin with avocado and tomato salad, grilled asparagus fat and shiny with olive oil, garlic, butter and cilantro, dense, layered tortilla de patata and seafood wontons at one -- sticky fish-sauce and garlic wings, clay-pot cooked prawns and pork belly with glass noodles, wild boar with garlic and fresh, iced mustard greens, coal-cooked lamb skewers and finally the best thing I've put in my mouth all year, crispy crepe shards with bean sprouts, PEI mussels and garlic at the other.

At Andina, I had sangria and inconspicuous shouting conversations across the table with a friend about how our waiter looked like the male love interest in any eighties movie we've ever loved. First the consensus was Annie's boyfriend/fiance/husband in the Steve Martin "Father of the Bride" movies. Then it was Paul Rudd, in Clueless. And that shit was screamed throughout the raging restaurant, drowning out the drums being played, the muted shrieking and clucking by surrounding tables, all buffered out by the table of drunk girls calling out "THE BOY WHO COULD FLY! THAT DUDE WHO WAS A ROBOT BUT ALSO A REGULAR GUY! I THINK ALAN THICKE WAS HIS DAD IN THAT MOVIE! OH MY GOD, LET'S PEEL BACK HIS NECK SKIN AND CHECK FOR WIRES."

At Pok Pok, I had sparkling water with lime. I also had dessert, Thai-style Affogato -- sweetened condensed milk ice cream doused with strong, thick coffee. Two Chinese crullers came alongside, long tubes of crispy, savory golden fried dough, which you dunked into the unctuous brew, ever sweeter as the ice cream melted.

This morning as I packed for a quick trip to California, I tried on two pairs of jeans I had purchased a few weeks ago and literally been too busy to try on since. Because I eat solid hydrogenated shortening from a convenient squeeze tube, I was pretty convinced neither would fit as I wanted them to. I don't know why I picked this morning to prove or disprove that theory, but there's nothing like going out of town with a case of Afterschool Special bad self-esteem to improve any trip.

"I'm not coming out of the hotel room unless it's because I jumped out a window."

One pair is your standard, embroidered-ass look. Those I was worried about, but they slid up and buttoned with nary a thought. They were too big! In the crotch and stomach/waist! No time to go to my tailor, but who cared, as I was wearing premium threaded victory on my ass. I walked up and down the hall in those jeans for a good five minutes, preening a little, magically avoiding a single trip as I tread over the floppy, too-long legs.

These jeans proved my theories, that cutting out Diet Coke does have a positive effect on one's body, even though it was one of the most painful things I've ever done, that Vietnamese salad rolls with avocado are indeed virtuous, that taking the stairs and long way home are worth it, that somehow wearing my hair straight means my love for French fries disappears, replaced with a fluency in French curse words. 

High on that, I tried on the second pair, a dark, gray-tinted trouser jean, whipping off the first. Making horrible plans to spend money I don't have on a new size, new pair of jeans, disregarding the other jeans I own that are all the same size and fit just fine. "Maybe I have time before I go," I thought. The second pair of jeans, which I was pairing with a black cashmere sweater and ballet flats in my mind, or else a voluminous, belted sweater ala Katherine Heigel, did not fit.

These were the jeans that revealed my true self, the ass that sat happily licking her sticky fingers at Pok Pok and ate a layered wedge of yukon gold potatoes and cheese that was squiggled with spicy aioli at Andina, following THAT mess up with another drink and 'splitting' an ice cream sundae with brownies, toffee, banana, caramel and hot fudge at Saucebox.

I don't know which ones I should believe.

In other news, Trisha/Parisa/Shauvon are all crazy, I'm missing the season finale of 'Mad Men', I am as busy as I've ever been, I am loving things, I am horrible at math, I like janitors, I love my family, I love my friends, I am looking forward to so much , including but not limited to: Early November, Thanksgiving, Early December beach trip with my family, Christmas, New Years (Already shopping for dresses), and getting back to you, yes you. I will be back soon. I hope all is well. Can't wait to see you at Camp next summer. I'm enclosing a ticket stub from when I saw 'Neverending Story II', when you go, you send yours back to me, it'll be like we saw it together!

BFF/LYLAS!
Lo

And then I licked the sidewalk

Wear this wall as a T-shirt

Etsy Time, with Bonus Track: "I guess this is the REMIX, SON!"

 




(All pictures, goods property of their respective creators and Etsy)

I am still coughing up paste and have banned myself from touching food or ingredients that other people might ingest. That will change, soon, but not now. So here's another dose of Etsy business, with a bonus row because I couldn't say no to so much of this business.

Whenever I do these posts, I find myself in such a good mood that it's like Perry Como's "Magic Moments" is playing on loop in my head. And it usually is. In this batch, we have jewelry, paper goods, another Devon Industry owling, all sorts of fantastic things. My favorites are below:

- I'm planning on buying an ilee letterpress calender (touted by Jordan over at Oh Happy Day) and if I don't give it away out of guilt, I want to save each month, noting the good and bad things that happened on the back of each appropriate card, in my best handwriting. It seems like the kind of thing the person I wish I was would do, and that's the best reason for doing anything. 

- I have hopes that I might get to flash the Bonspiel Passport sleeve at various foreign country officials some time in the future. What a glorious one it will be, too, with a passport holder that looks like that.

- You've all heard of Trixie Delicious and seen her re-purposed dishes and kitchenware. Her set of Nerd/Dork/Geek bowls is so slick that I can't handle myself, I just fell and broke my face and the arm of a toddler in the fall. I also like that you could send covert, passive-aggressive messages to those you love as you serve them mild foods like rice pudding, various hot cereals and miso soup. "Why are you so sensitive right now?"

- Sometimes I see something that is so ridiculous, fantastic and opulent that I can't do anything but stare and mouth-breathe over it, like That Guy, on the bus. Athena Says has a side business (besides mothering some gorgeous children, curating and putting together a beautiful home and on and on) called Juniper Design & Ink creating fantastic letterpress and jewelry, which I discovered on her blog. This bracelet, like the letterpress calender-turned-journal, belongs to the person I wish I was. Everything about it is opulent, old-school, and belongs on the delicate southern wrist of Dixie "Julia Sugarbaker" Carter, where it will shake, ever so slightly, ever righteously, as she tells it like it is. Maybe she'll lose it, somewhere, on a ski trip with the whole gang, and Annie Potts and Meshach Taylor will approach their agents after the third episode dealing with the disappearance, demanding answers. That's the kind of power this bracelet has.