fey's world

itachimusume and I have oft discussed the possibility of a group trip to Japan, particularly in the spring when the sakura are blooming. We've never really gotten around to planning it because we are lazy and a trip like that requires a lot of planning and money. On the other hand, the Las Vegas trip worked out fairly well, but would have been better if ATA had not tanked right before it, stranding many peoples in Hawaii. So I think it's time for another trip.

http://nationalcherryblossomfestival.org/cms/index.php?id=390

The National Cherry Blossom Festival is held in Washington, DC every year. This year it's March 28 - April 12. So it's spring and the sakura will be blooming. The downside: it's not Japan, there won't be sakura everything, we won't wander aimlessly around a foreign city, laughing at weird shit. The upside: we'll understand what everything says, it won't cost nearly as much, and we get to go to the Spy Museum.

So what do you guys think? itachimusume and I have never been to DC, J hasn't been in a really long time. I suspect it will take more than a couple of days to really see everything, so maybe a week?

I was also thinking (dunno if it would be cheaper on your end), what if you guys flew into PGH, stayed with us a day or so, then we all road tripped it to DC (Takes about 4 hours), stayed in DC a week (or less), road tripped it back to the burgh, hung out for another day or so, and then you guys (unfortunately) went home.

Any takers?

Been trying to call peoples, but all the lines are busy. Hope everyone is having a great time and best wishes for the new year!!

Hi-larious! Seriously, freaking hilarious. Watch it.

Because I keep using it to make cakes!

So last friday I made a Coconut Rum Cake and Chocolate Almond Cherry Cupcakes for my co-worker's going away party. They both went over really well and my admin boss said it was the best cupcake he'd ever eaten. Go me. For the Coconut Rum Cake I used a fantastic Ginger Rum Cake Recipe as a base and made it coconut instead, added mac nuts instead of candied ginger, and threw in some shredded coconut. I used the same rum glaze in the original recipe to glaze the cake while is was still warm from the oven. I made a coconut rum icing in the morning and J iced the cake before I took it to work. Tastewise, it was very yummy, very moist. The icing was almost haupia in it's coconuty-ness. I consider it a success. However, it was not pretty. No-siree. If everything went right earlier in the week when I made the birthday cake, everything went wrong making this cake. I used my silicone bundt pan (I put my faith in it that it would work properly for once) and it decided that it didn't want to give me my cake. It almost ripped the cake in half (which, we covered up with the icing, but still). So yah, I still hate that pan. It never works properly. I'm sorry, I'm just not on team silicone just yet. It has yet to prove it's worth to me as a baking pan. The icing refused to smooth out on the cake, making it look slightly melted or goopy. I sprinkled some mac nuts on the top for a distraction, but I still wasn't happy. I was told at work that the cake didn't look ugly at all, so perhaps it was just me. Anyway, the recipe is below:

( Coconut Rum Cake with Coconut Rum Icing )

Now, the chocolate cupcakes I made ended up being more like brownies. Dense and chewy, but very very tasty. I think people liked them better than the cake, actually. I cobbled together the recipe from a whole bunch of places and them threw in some things of my own.

( Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes with Almond Cream Cheese Frosting )

Yummy yummy yummy. Also, I made the banana upside down cake again this week. I tried it in a bundt pan instead of a springform and didn't lose any caramel. It was still fantastic. Even better since it retained all of it's caramel. I think I'd like to try it in a regular round cake pan next and see what the results would be. I think tonight I'm going to try an banana caramel cake...

Been a long time, I know. Lots going on though. J is almost done refinishing the kitchen floor and it looks fantastic. He and Z scraped off the horrid linoleum tiles and tar before Z went off to Zurich to stay w/ GnE. J has sanded a whole ton and revealed the very pretty wood underneath all that crap. There's so much wood in the kitchen now, the floors, the countertops, the cabinets, there's a warm feeling to it all now. We're also repainting the kitchen. Instead of pale yellow, it's now a very very very light grey,an almost-but-not-quite-white shade that brightens up the room without being starkly white. I am not a fan of stark white walls, but I think you all know that by now. We haven't decided what we're going to paint the trim with yet. I'm still thinking a nice brick red sort of color would be pretty, but I can't decide on a shade. I have color swatches tucked into corners all over the kitchen where we've painted test patches of the new color. Eventually the cabinets will need refinishing. Under incandescant lighting they have a nice red tone, but it becomes more yellow under flourescent light. I'd like to recapture that red.

I brought a cake in today for a co-worker's birthday, and everyone liked it a lot. I consider it enough of a success that I'm posting it here.

( Buttermilk Mexican Chocolate Bundt Cake )

I'm making another cake for work to bring in Friday, one of my coworkers is moving to a new position, so we're throwing her a going away party. For that I'm thinking a Coconut Rum Cake with a Coconut Rum Glaze and Macadamia Nut Streudel. It's mostly based on a Ginger Rum Cake I made that had a candied ginger streudel running through the middle (it was crazy yum and gingery) with some tweaks and an amazing looking glaze I found from another recipe. If it goes over well I'll post that here too.

Speaking of food, if you ever want some tasty inspiration, check out Tastespotting, it's a food blog soft of link aggregate with pictures. It's awesome.

I suppose there are non-food related things going on right now that I could post about but now that I've spent so much space discussing baking, all I want to do is write about how awesome fresh popovers are and caramelized banana cream cheese brownies and how easy and tasty homemade sorbet is (I've made strawberry and mango so far. Next will be cucumber lime.). The garden is bursting with stuff this year. Roma tomatoes, onions, green onions, chives, oregano, mint, basil, thai basil, cilantro, jalapenos, beans, cucumbers, and honeydew. The cucumbers are ripening like crazy. I think we have about 6 in the fridge and another six on the vine that are about ready to pick. Cucumber madness. Any suggestions on what to do with them?

Edit: J and I had the last piece of cake this morning and it was heavenly. Soft and smooth and not dry at all. Don't bother keeping it in the fridge unless you like firmer, denser cake.

Your present is sort of on the way. I'm gathering all the bits together and am going to send it in a big package. Hope you're having a good day! I tried to call earlier, maybe I'll call again later tonight.

These are so adorable, I feel all fangirly just looking at them. Want is not a strong enough word to describe my desire for them. Also, while I am still trying to think of a birthday present for J, I have found a cute anniversary present for the two of us.

cythenocturneand I have been discussing baking and decided I should post recipes here so she can try them, knowing they've already been tested and are yummy. To start things off, I offer this:
( Banana Upside Down Cake )

I have to say, this cake is fantastic. Really. It's like Bananas Foster in cake form. It's so good. We had it plain, but I imagine it would be amazing served warm with vanilla ice cream. For serious, you need to make this cake. That is all.

Poor puppy. He misses her. I'm a little bummed I didn't get to cook more while itachimusume was here, but it was nice trying out new places to eat. Now that I know Lulu's is yummy food and proper bubble drinks, I expect J and I will eat eat there more often. Unfortunately, I wasn't that impressed with Rose Tea Cafe. The bubbles were good, best in the city so far, but the drink size is small and they're expensive for what little you get. Plus the food was...not quite what itachimusume and I were expecting. Not bad, but not fantastic either. The sheep and fiber festival was waaaay smaller than we though, but an interesting experience. I have no real fondness for sheep after I had to clean up after them at the petting zoo, and after the festival my final conclusion is that sheep are indeed dirty, dirty creatures who cease being even remotely cute once they are no longer little lambs. Herding dogs, however, are awesome, especially when herding ducks. Duck hearding is, in fact, hilarious. Also, alpacas are very cute and clean. Unlike sheep. Fake sheep (i.e. drawn sheep, animated sheep, stuffed sheep) are adorable. I don't understand how there could be such a huge difference between them.

The past week and a half have been a lot of fun, too bad the weather wasn't better. Apparently, next week the weather will go back to warm and sunny. Ah well, next time. Now it's time to start thinking about the next trip.

Before I get into anything else, I need to mention this. It's rather upsetting and yet funny at the same time. Apparently, Catholic nuns are forced into retirement when they reach age 70. At that point they are apparently kicked out of the order and left to take care of themselves. Unlike priests, nuns don't get any kind of pension or retirement either, so essentially they get put out on the street with nothing. Nice, eh? In the old days, the order would take care of the old, retired nun until she died. However, possibly due to the current shortage of nuns, this isn't necessarily done anymore. I wonder if, even with retirement, they are still considered married to God. Do they get to keep the ring? Regardless, isn't that a little harsh? No wonder there's a nun shortage.

Baking this week has been a success. I learned that while I still can't make a chocolate cake from scratch, I can make yummy, fudgy brownies. As much as I love cherries, I think I liked my strawberry kuchen better than the cherry pound cake I made, but both were yummy. Tonight I'm going to try something new with my alfredo and add bacon. Because bacon makes everything better. I anticipate excellent results. I'm thinking of baking cupcakes this week, but I haven't decided on exactly what kind yet. I think something lemony would be nice for spring, though perhaps a lemon or orange chiffon cake would be even better. Or perhaps mini chiffons? I've been itching to try my hand at a filled cupcake, but the standard chocolate w/ cream filling seems done. Plus, as I've already stated, I seem incapable of making chocolate cake.

Upon returning from Vegas, J came down with an awful chest cold. He's mostly better now, and I'm only kind of sick. So, he hasn't had a chance to make an ftp server for everyone to exchange Vegas pictures just yet. It'll happen though, promise.

I've been experimenting in the kitchen again, with interesting results. For starters, I still can't make a chocolate cake from scratch and have it come out the way I want it. That being said, my cherry chocolate cupcakes were pretty tasty. But not chocolate cake-y enough. Peanut butter bread is actually pretty tasty. You bake it up like banana bread (hmmm...peanut butter banana bread...) and eat with with jam. It also goes well with nutella (or any other chocolate spread). I'm now wondering what to do with the rest of it...I've only eaten about 1/4 of it and the novelty is wearing off. J has no real interest in eating it at all.

Varekai is my new most favorite Cirque show. Netflix it. Or maybe don't. Cause we did and it just made me regret paying so much for Ka. Speaking of netflix, check out The Great Challenge if you like martial arts and parkour. Plus, it's got a guy who looks kind of like an asian Colin Farrell and a guy who looks kind of like Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Dragon Tiger Gate was pretty damn amusing, and about everything you want from an over the top modern kung-fu movie. Hitman, while not god awful, wasn't all that great either. Not the worst video game movie ever, but that's not saying much. Actually, I'm generally a fan of Timothy Olyphant, I've liked him in pretty much everything I've seen him in, except this. J and I have finished Miami Vice, so now I'm looking for a new series to netflix. Arrested Development should arrive today, and I've heard it's awesome, so maybe that will be it. I have to admit though, part of me is tempted to marathon Forever Knight.

I just found out that the Sheep and Fiber festival near Pittsburgh is May 17-18 this year.

http://www.sheepandfiber.com/

It's about an hour and 15 minutes from our house in Waynesburg PA.

There's also one in September 6-7 in Harford, PA which is somewhere past Scranton, so about a 6 hour drive, but seems to be a larger festival. With that kind of drive I'd prolly take a day off work and we'd make a long weekend out of it.

http://www.pafiberfestival.com/

Unfortunately, the 2008 Ligonier Highland Games are the same September weekend...but there's another, much larger Highland Games in Bethlehem later in the month....of course it's also a 5 hour drive as it looks to be roughly an hour outside of Philly. Ah well. A long weekend either way.

Anyway, just throwing those out in case you were considering coming up to visit this year.

So....Vegas is on!

I am hopelessly addicted to me NDSL. That being said, I shouldn't be so addicted to Cooking Mama, when I am in fact, a very good cook. I should just cook for real. Wordjong is awesome like bookworm, but without burning letters.

I am considering pre-ordering Persona 3 FES, because I really can't get enough of that game.

I am not allowed to buy more board games and card games until we actually play the ones we have, so I've been tirelessly trying to set up gaming nights.

I have about 100 pages left to go in my latest Merrily Watkins book, The Smile of a Ghost. Yay for Supernatural murder mysteries investigated by a priest/single mother/diocesan exorcist (yes all one person). After this, I'll prolly read Night Watch.

Ummm....yah, that's really all. Pinky says hi.

whoa...Heath Ledger died this afternoon. Crazy. I really liked him. What a fucking shame.

Just a quick update. Though this will prolly be my last post for 2007. Heh. Merry belated Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone. Gifts are going out soon-ish, sometime after the new year. Apologies for their lateness. I'm lucky I got the ones for my family out by this week, much less before Christmas. It was a pretty laid back Christmas, the first one either of us has ever had, and very probably the last for some time. Had dinner at J's Grandma's and watched the cat push a container of catnip across the house. I think she did pretty well for her first Christmas without John. We found a book about German Pittsburgh and the history of Germans in the city for her. There's even a picture of her in it with the Ladies Choir at the German Club! She went through it and told us about all kinds of things she remembered about growing up in Pittsburgh in the 40's and her parents and brothers.

We've got three parties we're invited to for New Year's Eve. No cleaning up vomit at 5am for me this year! Yay! We haven't decided if we're going to hit all of them or not yet. We'll be heading over to D&E's place for dinner and a laid back sort of potluck party (they're not going out cause they don't have a baby sitter for little Sebastien). Not sure what I'll be making yet. Prolly more cupcakes, the cherry swirl ones I made a couple days ago went over well. Maybe some mochi...maybe some pesto or won tons or something. I'm still working on the real food. If we go to more than one party, then I may need to take something to each one, but I'm not sure yet. In February (if we're in the 'Burgh), we're throwing a big Chinese New Year party so I get to make gau and all manner of yummies. My Mom said she was going to send me paper lanterns and stuff from Chinatown while she's home visiting. Oh my. Now...if only I could track down a lion mask for Pinky...I wonder, if I gave him money, would he bring me good luck? Might also be going to another Robbie Burns party after the new year. Yay scotch! Chain said this time he's going to narrow it down to only 8 scotchs instead of the 13 or he had last time. And there might even be a haggis this time!! I'm just looking forward to the scotch eggs myself...mmmm...yummy.

Anyway, hope all is well with everyone, guess I'll try calling around again on New Year's Eve.

Well, I do feel a little older, though that's prolly due more to my brother and his wife just having a baby than my actual birthday. People in general are getting preggers and having babies around me. I think that's more aging than adding another candle on a cake. My mom sent me flowers and a cute lil teddy bear. I still think it's amazing she can do that from Jakarta. Honestly, the internets really are amazing.

While I'm unhappy to admit that the summer is essentially over, I do love the fall. It's my favorite season in Pittsburgh and I don't think it lasts nearly long enough. On the bright side, soon it'll be cool enough to start knitting again, and I have a bunch of great ideas. I'm also going to learn to crochet, since I found a neat crochet pattern that I think I could turn into an awesome scarflette or just knitted neck piece.

Dunno what we're doing tonight, though I do need to call my brother and see what's up. I've got about 100 pages I need to read for class tomorrow. *ugh* I can't really put it off until tomorrow morning either, since my boss decided to give me a ton of work today that she would like finished by Wednesday (and here I was hoping I could take Wed off and enjoy myself). Seriously, she's supposed to be at a workshop, why the hell is she emailing me all day? Ah well, I think J and I are going to blockbuster to use up a gift card that someone gave us a while ago, and I'm still not sure where to go for dinner...I wonder if J fixed the projector? I think I'm going to treat myself to a few things on etsy I've been eyeing and continue my serious coat watching on ebay.

Also...what should I do for Halloween? I always leave that to the last minute, and then I don't have time to get anything good together. And if I order something online, it usually takes a few weeks to arrive. Suggestions?

Oh, Pinky got into a fight the other night and we learned that he does in fact hold a grudge. J took him out to pee, it was around 11pm. The neighbor's daughter happened to be visiting, and she was taking Akita (the half akita, half german shepard that attacked him almost 2 years ago) for a walk. The moment Pinky saw Akita, he sprinted over to her, sniffed her, and then attacked her. It actually took J and I to get Pinky's mouth open to let Akita go. Luckily, Akita has som serious fur on her (it's like sheep's wool, it's so thick) that Pinky didn't do any real damage, but still. The daughter was incredibly understanding, since Akita did attack Pinky first, but it still bugs us that he would straight out attack a dog that attacked him almost 2 years ago. He hasn't had any contact with Akita in the intervening time, aside from occasionally seeing her through a fence. Now that we know he holds grudges, we're worried that he won't be friendly with Mongo anymore since they fought while we were in Hawaii and Mitch was watching Pinky for us. It's funny how he thinks he's a friendly dog who just wants to play, but in reality he isn't very good with other dogs at all, only people.

Also, fun link of the day. If you like lolcats and postsecret, there is nowhttp://www.lolsecretz.blogspot.com. Yeah. You know you want to click it.

Of course, that means I'm next...wah!

So I started playing Trickster Online, cause it was free and iRO-esque, but all it did was make me want to play iRO. Granted, there are certain aspects of the Trickster system that I love (in addition to the free-ness), specifically the drilling system. It allows for item gathering and experience earning without combat. And you can drill anywhere you want, with various items located in different depths, soil types, etc. There are, of course, special drills for special soils, depths, etc, and there are items that you can only get through drilling. And it's kind of fun. But the game mechanics themselves leave something to be desired. So I am considering renewing my iRO account. Mainly I want to know, itachimusume, should I bother? Are you still there? Are ninjas and gunners worthwhile? Cause I always said I didn't care about higher classes, I wanted more first level job classes and there they are.

I have been playing a lot of Persona 3. The english voices no longer bother me. They're actually better than a lot of other games I've played, and they've completely grown on me since I last posted. J also, is no longer annoyed, but still thinks shooting oneself in the head to relase one's persona is ridiculous. I agree. But that doesn't make the game any less engrossing.

In house news, we've learned that the roof on our back porch is half rotten, so it will need to be replaced. This isn't a big deal, but it is annoying. SInce we'll have to replace it anyway, we're contemplating enclosing the porch with windows and turning it into a sun room. Any thoughts? Argh, this house is such a pain sometimes.

I finally ordered the yarn for the apple hats. It should arrive this week. Our friends had their baby last week, so I have a young-un to experiment upon before sending on off to my brother and his wife a lil later. Theoretically, knitting a hat for a baby should be easy-peasy, so this shouldn't take me very long. Of course, I won't be starting until the weather cools down a little.

Our garden is bursting with bell peppers and beans. Really. Plus, those cantelope plants are flowering. I doubt they'll have enough time to fruit before it gets cold, but it's still cool. Unfortunately, none of the jalapeno plants took off, but the basil is growing like crazy, so I think we'll have to up our pesto making to every week. Which is no problem, really. I love pesto. we've got two small containers in the freezer already. Last time J and I went grocery shopping, we bought a honeydew. It is fantastic. Really. It may be the best honeydew I've ever had. It is amazing. There's still half in the fridge that's dessert tonight. We're going to dry the seeds and try and grow them next year.

And Pinkerton say hi. Well, actually he says something like, "Hi! Hi! I'm Pinky! Want to be my friend? I want to be your friend! Please pet me and love me and feed me yummies and let me sit on the couch with you! Hi!"

J and I are no longer with verison. We switched to t-mobile. Our numbers are the same though. I have a cheap phone now, but I'm hoping to get a nicer one eventually. I had bought a pair of razrs online, the grey one with the dragon and the pink one with the sakura with the intention of selling the dragon one (or having J use that) and kepping the pink sakura one, but we decided to sell them both (at a profit!). The razr is too wide and even though I prefer flips, it felt huge against my face and I didn't like it at all. I didn't really like the menus either. Maybe I'm just used to my samsing. Anyway, they're gone and I've been checking out gsmarena (which is awesome if you want to look at phones and their features) and deciding what I really want. I'm thinking of getting another samsung, since mine has been awesome for the past 3 years and still works perfectly, or maybe a sony-ericsson. I really hate the menu and stuff on the nokia I have now, so I prolly won't get another since I don't think I would like using it, no matter how pretty. I prolly also won't get another motorola, since I ended up not liking the razrs at all.

Anyway, yah no verizon. *yay!* Go prepaid! Actually, my prepaid account is listed under the dog's name, so my phone technically belongs to Pinky.

So much and so little.

Z is back in Hawaii and already arguing with his parents. Aah, some things really never change. J and I are working on exactly what needs to be done to the house. There's still a lot to be done, but the house is really looking better. The pictures J posted were taken at night, so you can't quite see the the detail of what we've done, but there's still a big difference from what it was even a few months ago.

In the coming weeks the kitchen floor will be re-done, the countertops installed, and new lights installed as well. In the long run, we'll also be re-finishing the kitchen cabinet, repainting the cabinet that J made, making and installing a vent hood for the stove, and eventually repainting the entire kitchen. All the floors in the rest of the house are going the be re-finished, there's a goodly bit of painting and wall-flaw fixing that needs to be done, and eventually the stairwell to the kitchen will be opened up at the bottom, allowing for more light and a less narrow feel. The bathroom floor needs to be re-tiled, but we haven't found the right tiles just yet. We also need a new couch, or at least a decent cover.

I passed Xenosaga III a few nights ago (finally!) and although, I still long for Xenogears (could square just update it for the ps2 or something? That's all I really want), I enjoyed it. The ending made me sad though, because I really liked Jin. He was essentially Citan. Abel designed as mini-Fei made me happy though. Now I'm playing Persona 3, which J doesn't like because the english voices are annoying (as always). I'm still amused that shooting yourself in the head with a special "evoker" gun is how you channel your persona, rather than just calling upon it as was the case in the original 2 games. I do miss the old battle/card system where you could attempt to charm monsters into giving you their cards. All in all though, I am enjoying it. *yay!*

( I cut cause it was getting long )

Oh yah, apparently my brother's wife is due in October or November, which makes her a helluva lot farther along than I had thought. I need to get started on that apple hat. We have a friend who's due tomorrow, I wonder if she'll have the baby. I really need to knit those damn hats.

J misses G already.

I was actually geared up to write a happy post, but then J called to inform me that Z broke one of the tea cups my Dad brought us back from Japan for Christmas. So I am no longer cheerful. Actually, I'm really upset. He bought us a set of two and they became "our" tea cups. No one else was allowed to use them. And they were really cool and now there's only one. I'm pretty sure we told Z not to wash dishes anymore after he broke two of our glasses in two days. But he was washing dishes and dropped it in the sink. The porcelin coated, cast iron sink. The sink won, obviously, and now we only have one awesome tea cup from Japan. I think my Dad probably bought it in Kyoto, but I have no idea where and I'm just really upset that he doesn't seem to understand how to be careful with other people's things. He breaks something and all you get is a sorry and a bunch of excuses about it and frankly I don't think that's good enough. The glasses were no big deal, we had a set of 8 and they're inexpensive from Target, but still neat looking, but the tea cups were a gift and that makes them pretty irreplaceable. Especially since they were a gift from Japan, and even if I went to Japan, I still would have no clue where to get another one.

*grr* I *really* liked those cups. They even matched our bowls, by an amazing coincidence.

Anyway, I finally got the chance to work on my jewelry this weekend and made about 5 new pieces. klari, I finished your necklace and I'm going to be mailing it all out tomorrow. I also included a bonus because I felt bad for taking so long. If the light's good this weekend, I'm going to take pictures of all the new stuff and put put them up on etsy. itachimusume, your present isn't ready yet, so I'll be sending it out a little later. Maybe next week. Heh, maybe I'll just wait and send out something for lordosis's birthday at the same time.

Umm...yah, ok that's all I got right now.

Hope you have a good day! I'll call you later!

Oh....I have a confession to make. I haven't mailed out your present yet....I'm sure you're unsurprised by this, but still, I feel bad. Will get that sent out soon. Maybe I'll bake cookies to send with it, HA!