Tammy's baby shower cake

Mi amiga Tammy is about to pop one out and had a baby shower last weekend, and so I made a cake to go along with it. Her favorite flavors are mango and strawberry, so I made Nick Malgieri's white cake, with strawberry jam and Rose Levy Berenbaum's neoclassic buttercream with mango puree added. I decided to go a more natural route and didn't use any fondant, and used real flowers for decoration. This is due to the fact that I think that most baby shower cakes look pretty lame / creepy. So I made it simple, and it came out really well, and tasted pretty fantastic. It was a tough crowd given that most of the people there worked at the bakery. And Tammy was pleased.

Family Fun in North Carolina!

These are some old pictures from our family trip to North Carolina. We had a very nice meal at the Blue Point, in Duck. Delicious scallops.

The first picture is of my brother in front of a restaurant on Ocracoke Island called Thai Moon. Its run by a couple- he ran the front, and she cooked. She's from Thailand, and seems passionate about her food because it was some of the best Thai food I have ever eaten. It's a hole in the wall- literally a window that you walk up to. The husband who runs the front is an ex merchant mariner and quite the conversationalist. When you look into the kitchen, there are little Thai decorations everywhere, and she's in the back, putting everything together. They were boasted that their sanitation score was 100- I recognized this achievement as noteworthy because I myself work in the food industry and know how disgusting most places are.

I love love love places like this- they're proud of what they do and they do it fucking well.

Thai-Style Beef with Noodles

Another cold day, another warm meal. This was pretty easy to make, and had a nice spicy-sour note to it. Recipe.

Chicken and Fall Vegetable Pot Pie

I love eating warm things on cold days. I have made this pot pie quite a few times before, and its very easily adaptable to the ingredients you have on hand.

Recipe, courtesy of Epicurious.

Please note: awesome original pot pie design by me.

Sorry

I suck at blogging sometimes. I am going to post at least every monday. At least I am awesome at life!