What did you do on Saturday?

Because I did this:

My friends, family and I participated in the 12th annual Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race. This race is as ridiculous as it sounds- teams of people constructing giant sculptures that must be human powered and able to go in water, through sand, mud and up/down hills for 15 miles through the city. Yeah, THAT ridiculous. The name of our sculpture was “Scrum Roll Racer”, a giant sushi boat with rugby girls dressed up as sushi and driving the thing (for more pictures search “Scrum Roll Racer” on Facebook).

Anyways, the race instructions included bringing bribes for the judges. We wanted to keep our bribes within the sushi theme, and, being the fat kids that we are, decided some kind of sweet treat was in order. Thus, our sushi candy bribes were born. I found this helpful blog and my mom and I got to work. Our results looked a little something like this:

The Triumphant Return of Ethnic Night

So start sometime last year, my friends and I would get together every other week for “Ethnic Night” (which, I have just now decided, I will only refer to as “Ethnights”). These were nights where we would pick some type of ethnic cuisine and have a giant potluck dinner (NAME THIS QUOTE: “And it wasn’t just a siting, they didn’t just “fly by”. They stopped, they landed. The people in Blaine went aboard for a pot luck dinner.” Hint- it’s my favorite movie ever. Of all time. Ever.)

It started out as just a modest attempt for my friend Till and I to learn how to cook new foods, and turned into a giant, midweek party/bingefest. So far we have had Ethiopian, Thai, Japanese, Mexican and Caribbean/Islands. Most of the time these meals have been unbelievably tasty, and the cheapest way in town get like, a 91 course meal. Except for the Japanese themed night when we tried to make fried ice cream by scooping ice cream right into some hot oil. NOT HOW YOU MAKE FRIED ICE CREAM, by the by.

Meh

Ok, I’ll admit it. Sometimes I come home from a school meeting or the office and I’ll have about an hour of free time in the middle of a stressful day. And then I will think: yes! Now I shall bake something!

It somehow always seems like a better idea than a nap as by the time I fall asleep I’ll just have to get up again. But I also tend to then choose something very complicated to make. Delicious, but complicated.

One Wednesday night I decided to make Raspberry and Apricot Linzer sandwich cookies from my Modern Baker cookbook. I just now saw that the subtitle indicates time-saving techniques and I’m going to tell you right now that’s just hogwash. Perhaps with other recipes of this kind they take longer, but I really find that hard to believe. And this is with just about every recipe in this book.

They were good, but not awesome. Also, gigantic as I used the top of a mason jar as the cookie cutter. Zero retuned home.

Thirsty?

Can…not…compute…

So, as some of you may know, I am not a huge fan of Wal-Mart. In fact after watching this revealing documentary (which is terrible in terms of quality, but with lots of good information), I couldn’t even bring myself to step foot in a Wal-Mart/Sam’s Club. But recently, Wal-Mart has been stepping up its game in the food department, beginning to offer organic foods, and starting to move towards buying from small, local farmers as well.

And just recently a friend sent me this article, which demonstrates that Wal-Mart’s food may be beating out Whole Foods in terms of quality. (Which is going to make white people very unhappy!) As someone who was comfortably seated on her high anti-Wal-Mart horse, I am not totally sure what to do with this information. I can of course still assume Wal-Mart is doing this simply to cater to their consumers and so continue to rake in the moolah, and not so much out of any real concern for sustainability. But, supporting local farmers in any capacity is a great thing, right? AND offering local, organic food at affordable prices is certainly good news for those who can’t afford to shop at Whole Foods all the time.  At this point I suppose I am cautiously optimistic…

Care Package for G$: “Star-Baby Needs a Clutch”

Step #1: Kelsey + Kendra(+ coffee) + art supplies/The Economist+ some free time

Step #2: Things get a little weird

Step #3: Star-Baby Needs a Clutch (title)

Other close up view:

Overview:

There’s loads of social commentary in there, can you see/find it?

The Dark Horse Cafe is a pro-craft zone. Mainly weird crafts that show you who your real friends are, much like The Craft only without witches. So, like an estrogen intense high school? Nope, let’s backtrack, I suppose it’ll be more like pre-school with juice and snacks and crafts and nap times and storytime from Michael Pollan books.

Unlimited juice!

The Healthy Birthday Cake

Making a layer cake can be intimidating. Get over it and make the cussing cake.

layer one plus heap of lemon cheese cake frosting

giant carrot cake oreo?

success!

further success!

Now looking at it, I realize that the decorations make the top of the cake look a bit like the stitching on a baseball. But this was the first cake I actually had time to decorate, SO LEAVE ME ALONE. Also, I think you can tell that I had recently watched the documentary “Helvetica.” And apparently I put three “p”s which I don’t remember doing and no one said anything about it which is maybe cause for further concern. Really, there’s a lot of cause for concern regarding my spelling and cake decorating and camera flash-fear.

But the cake was delicious. And recipe is found here.

Good Use of Internet: Pizza

Bea Arthur Mountains Pizza. Similar to, but different than This Guy. You’re welcome.

Ah, the Buffet.

So, recently, my rugby friends and I experienced Las Vegas. Or should I say, IT experienced US? (Seriously, though, we experienced it.) Originally the reason for our trip was to watch the International Rugby 7s Tourney. It then became a trip designed to let us escape the snow for at least ONE CUSSING DAY.

PLEASE just make it STOP for ONE. BLESSED. MINUTE.

Anywho, along with some good rugby and good laughs, we got to eat some great food. (We also ate quite a bit of Baja Fresh. On Sunday my friend Donkey ate a burrito for every meal, which we began to refer to as the “Burrito Hat Trick” or, more cleverly, the “Burr-three-to”. She almost went for a fourth the next day, which we of course would have called the “Four-itto”.)

SUNSHINE! THANK THE GOOD LORD!

Our last morning there, we decided to hit up one of Vegas’ many buffets. We hopped on the monorail from The Excalibur (where we stayed) to Mandalay Bay (only a few minutes away in travel, but miles above in class.) So, here’s the thing about sweet buffets. You not only end up eating lots and LOTS of food, but you end up eating some pretty weird combinations of things.

The thought process going through a buffet is something like this: “Oh man! Pork! I better get some of that. What the- is that scrambled eggs? Heck yes! Oh man, chocolate pudding, this is going to be great! I wonder how much of that cottage cheese I can fit on here?” And so your table ends up looking something like this:

What you see there is, of course, shrimp cocktail, cream of wheat and in the background some chocolate cake. And suddenly, what seemed like a great idea in the buffet line becomes a little weird at the table.

And then there was this:

“What is that?!” you ask yourself, “An empty ice cream cone? Sacrilege! Who is responsible for such a  tragedy?”

The little guy responsible for this ice cream-less cone is some little kid that intercepted me on my way to the ice cream machine. And when I say that the kid “intercepted” me, what I really mean is that “he vomited in the spot right in front of the ice cream machine”. And instead of losing my appetite completely, I just waited until someone came to clean up the vomit. Fat kid!

CHOC

Raaaaage! Raaaaage!

Hello all! I am currently raging against the world. And here’s why:

Do you KNOW what that IS? Well, yes, it is one of my favorite coffeeshops and hipster-watching locations: One World Cafe. It also is, strangely enough, a picture of my computer screen with a gchat conversation with Liz.

But, most importantly, the rage-against-the-world-worthy part, is the PLATE of FRIES who’s ultimate destination is the TRASH. The woman across from me ordered these delicious fries, complete with OLD BAY topping (it’s a Bawlmer thing, I suppose) and KETCHUP (it’s a universe thing, I’m guessing?). She finished with them about 20 minutes ago and pushed them away from her, and closer to me.

And here is what I really truly, (madly,) deeply wish for the world: that it would be socially acceptable for me to just reach across and eat a couple of those bad boys. OR that we lived in a society where it was socially UNacceptable to just throw away perfectly good, uneaten food. Like, it was just normal to walk around offering your extra food to your STARVING tablemates who only had a salad for lunch because they are still trying to work off the excess calories from their Las Vegas shennanies. Just sayin’.

CHOC