Saturday, June 26, 2010

My Royal Icing Final Exam

For five weeks, I spent my Thursday nights at the Biggest Little Cake Shoppe learning how to make royal icing flowers. I showed you my first attempts at flowers and how poorly they started. But I am actually rather proud to show you the end product of those five weeks.


That's right friends, I made that cake. All by myself.

I know there's still plenty for me to work on and lots of things I need to practice, but look at how much better it is from my very first cake!

There's basket weave on that cake! A little crooked and a little runny at times due to my experimenting with canned frosting, but at least it wasn't more of that buttercream stuff.



My favorite flowers are the yellow ones above and the purple heather below. But those purple flowers are god-awful time consuming to make. I kept trying to count how many stars went into one flowers, but I kept going cross-eyed.

These Boots Are Made for Walkin'


Well dear friends. I thought long and hard about lying to you. Taking the cowardly way out and telling you that I wanted to blog about rodeo food and its heart-clogging goodness.

But then I thought, "No, I will not tell you lies."

So dear friends, here's the truth: I wanted to show you my boots.


Don't get me wrong, the Kick-Ass Fries at the top were amazing and put me in a pork coma reminiscent of last year's Rib Cook-Off fiasco. And I'm pretty sure that plate of fries, pork, cheese, and barbeque sauce weighed as much as my head. But I would be lying to you if I told you that's why I'm writing this blog.

I love these boots! I bought them in Nashville from a rather effeminate man who let me try on at least 10 pairs of boots. And I spent way too much money on a pair of shoes that I'll only wear here and there.

But I love them! They make me smile and feel more fun and brighten my day! All from a pair of shoes. I know, silly. But so much fun!

Eating and Drinking My Way Through Nashville!

Oh Nashville! You were so ungodly hot and humid. Except for the occasional breeze, I'm pretty sure that is what hell feels like.

But Nashville! You were so much fun! So full of music and culture and people who were gracious enough to point us in the right direction when we looked like stranded tourists. And the food and drinks! Dear Lord, the food and drinks we had there! I tried my darnedest, but could not find a piece of bacon that I didn't fully enjoy!

So, since we don't see enough of each other in the average 10 hours a day that we work together, the Quantity Control Expert and I went on vacation together to fabulous Nashville, Tennessee for the CMA Music Festival! A week of country music and more country artists than I could count!

When we weren't listening to country music, the QCE and I were eating. And then eating some more. Followed by dessert.

Here are a few highlights of what we ate!

As soon as we were checked into the hotel, it was time for dinner. Our first meal in Nashville definitely set a high bar for the rest of our meals, but we were not disappointed. At Bricktops, we started the meal with tasty watermelon margaritas, deviled eggs, and carpaccio. But when I say deviled eggs, I don't just mean a regular old deviled egg. I mean a deviled egg with, are you ready for this?, sugared bacon! A thick cut of savory bacon, baked with brown sugar so it's sweet and carmely. All on top of a deviled egg. Oh Nashville, you rock.

And here's the margherita flatbread we had for dinner. A thin, crispy flatbread crust with incredibly fresh tomatoes and basil. Tasty!!


The following night, we found ourselfs across the street from Bricktops at a tapas places called Rumba. I absolutely love eating at tapas restaraunts for the experience that goes with it. It's not like a regular restaraunt where you order your food and then eat it. It's about the socializing with your party and trying smaller portions of many more foods and then, of course, ordering more food!

Rumba introduced me to sweet-tea vodka, which I'd never heard of before but have since heard about everywhere. I would highly recommend the Sweet Tea Caipiroska, but be warned that these potent little drinks go down rather quickly!

This place is known for their satay, which we couldn't pass up. But we also tried spring rolled quesadillas, which combined Mexican with Asian flavors and techniques. Amazing!

But the part of this trip that I will never forget, the part where I announced that I could officially die a happy person, were the Chivitos. These burger sliders which were in fact the moistest and most flavorful burgers I have ever eaten. Hands down. I have no idea what they do, and probably don't want to know, but my mouth starts watering every time I think of those sliders.

Another hit with us was the BCBG Flatbread. Blue cheese, bacon, grapes, and honey on a flatbread. If you're a fan of sweet and savory together, this was great. The sweetness from the grapes and honey offset the "funk" of the blue cheese, as our waitress called it.

I have to confess that we went all the way to Nashville and ate gyros twice. From a dinky little place near the river front with questionable health ratings. But these were so good!

Still noshing on my gyros!


I learned that no trip to the South is complete without stopping at a Pancake Pantry. From our hotel, we were told that the Pancake Pantry was around the corner, walking distance away. So, troopers that we are, we started the death march of heat and humidity to the Pancake Pantry. Thirty minutes later, we arrived. To find the 45 minute wait.

The death march and wait were well worth it though! I do applogize for showing you my half-eaten stack of pancakes, but I past the point of rational thought by the time we were actually served that I forget until about here that I should take a picture.


But these pancakes, the apricot-lemon delight, were heavenly. The tartness of the lemons and the sweetness of the apricots, all on top of fluffy pancakes! This renewed my faith in Nashville after the death march!

I fully intend to return to Nashville at some point. You'll find me bouncing between Rumba and Pancake Pantry, probably about six sizes bigger than I am now! But next time I might try to hit up Nashville when it's not 90 degrees and 110% humidity!

Good Old Fashioned Bachelorette Party!

It's actually summer here in Reno! I finally put my ice scraper away a few weeks ago, after being teased with the promise of summer and then slapped in the face with yet another snow storm. I don't really appreciate Reno's weather humor when I'm scraping ice off my car windows in early June.

But what a crazy summer it's been so far! I'm so far behind in posting all my latest adventures, as it was less than graciously pointed out to me by the Quantity Control Expert and the Director of Food Output (who is in fact the founder of the one and only Beer Saturday event). But I'm working on getting caught up, so stay tuned for lots more bloggage to come soon!

My friend Misty got married last night to a great guy. They had their wedding at a working ranch and really made it reflect them as a couple. It was down to earth and showed how creative they both are. Congrats to both of you guys, and I can't wait to see what's next for you!

But more importantly, there was a Bachelorette Party. A three day, two night kind of party so crazy and wild it had to be moved out of town and up to beautiful Truckee! I mean, we're talking about a ridiculous amount of female accountants gathered together to eat and drink!

Ok, maybe not quite that crazy. I mean, we're talking about a bunch of accountants here.

But eat and drink we did!

Everyone had kitchen duty for a meal over the weekend, and good Lord was there some good food going in that kitchen! The Quantity Control Expert and I showed up Friday night just in time for these fabulous tacos.


And then the cocktails started flowing! Misty brought Cranberry Granita to make Alton Brown's Cranberry Cosmos, which were delicious and potent, as seen in Lea's glass below.


But then the blender was brought out and the QCE and I learned of something that can only be described as Summer in a Glass.

This innocent looking concoction was in fact so good, it prompted the QCE and I to rationalize packing a blender to Nashville solely for the ability to drink these in Nashville.

What is this fabulous drink, you might ask? Well dear friends, it's simply limeade (or you can use frozen limeade concentrate), fresh mint, vodka, and ice. It's refreshingly light and minty and reminds you of sunny Saturdays sitting by the pool even when Reno is still in the 60s and there's still snow on Peavine. We may have enjoyed more than one of those, but that's all I'm saying since my mom reads this and this is a family friendly place.

And then the cakes were brought out. Nothing I made, but two lovely ladies had made cakes. The first was a tasty strawberry cake with real strawberry filling. I'm slightly concerned by Misty's knife in this picture...

So remember what I said a second ago about family friendly? Well. Scratch that for a second. Or maybe a few seconds.

I thought the chocolate sprinkles were a nice touch.

The QCE and I being the thoughtful friends that we are decided to give Misty a gift that she could use on her wedding night. Surely there are some guys who find this attractive.

Just so you know that we aren't the worst friends ever, there was a Macy's gift certificate in there too!

On Saturday, with the QCE's assistance, I served up rather tasty breakfast burritos with eggs, sausage, and hash browns. Sorry, too busy cooking to take any pics.

Then we headed out for an awesome hike through Truckee. It was actually warm and sunny out, which my skin noted as the first time it's seen the sun since last summer. FYI: put sunscreen on your neck too.

We made a stop at JAX at the Tracks for lunch, a diner that was featured on the Food Network. We made Misty wear her veil, which got her the VIP treatment from the staff. They filled her Bachelorette Cup up with Electric Lemonade!


The rest of the afternoon was spent in hot tubs and then making more drinks, including Summer in a Glass, back at the house. There was some Twister action going on until early morning... Also, I learned that Twister is way more fun if you completely ignore what the spinner says and just give directions based on what would be the weirdest combination. Just remember to keep spinning the spinner so it looks like you're playing it right!

We had a great time at the party and were sad to have to leave early Sunday morning. But on the plus side, we left early to start getting ready for our Nashville trip! More on that soon!

Congrats again to Misty and Arlo and thanks for all the dinners at your place that I've been to! You two are awesome!