Rain, food, more rain, more food and even more rain Part 2

(Read my previous post before reading this. Why? BEACAUSE I SAID SO! And you might be confused while reading this one if you haven't read the one before it. Just sayin'...)

After getting about 2 minutes of sleep, it was time to move in my dorm. We checked out of our hotel and braved the early morning city traffic and the hardcore rain that at that point seemed capable of breaking our windshield in two. We actually found a parking space by my dorm, which was extremely odd because in the city you usually have to park 6 blocks away from where you actually need to be. We parked, ran like hell to get inside and finally got hold of the new R.A. and got myself checked in. I was the first of my roommates(Katherine and Donna) to get there, so I was the first human to set foot in that room for over a month. It was kind of depressing. The room was completely empty except for our boxes piled on our beds, well, mine and Donna's boxes. Katherine had just thrown all of her stuff in a pile on her bed(that was still made)and my mom wondered if somehow Katherine had made herself exempt from the "box-your-stuff-up" rule. I simply explained to her that Katherine just doesn't give a crap about the rules and we then wondered what it feels like to just not care. Must feel nice. After staring blankly at my empty room and contemplating where the hell to start with my unpacking, we finally decided to skip unpacking and have lunch instead. But then we felt kind of bad, so we got some of my stuff somewhat settled in and waited for the rain to stop before venturing out in search of food.

I decided to do my weekly restaurant goal when my mother was here because I knew I would be more comfortable and therefore more likely to actually eat. I wanted to take her to Sushi Hana because San Francisco is the only place I'll eat sushi and the restaurant holds a special place in my heart. My dear friend Zach and I used to go there all the time. The servers know us by name and have been nothing but friendly with us. Unfortunately, it was really cold and looked like it was going to start raining again, so the trek to Van Ness and Eddy was out of the question for my mother. I was incredibly bummed at the fact that we would have to eat on Fillmore Street again because EVERYTIME my mother comes up to the city we eat.on.Fillmore. After some bickering, we set off for Fillmore to find a place I was comfortable with and would satify my sandwich craving and after even more bickering we settled on a place called Chouquet's. Apparently it was French food, but that wasn't our reason for going there, we just wanted to stop arguing and eat. I'm really glad we ended up there though, because for my first experience with French cuisine, it was insanely delicious. It's a cute little cafe-like setting, but you still get treated like you're in a restaurant which is really nice. The guy(I'm sure there is an actual title for his job)who was basically running the place was incredibly friendly and helpful by explaining what each thing on the menu was. It also helped that he was semi attractive, but his clearly European accent made him actually attractive. I ended up ordering a croque monsieur(open face sadnwich with ham and cheese)with a small green salad and my mother ordered marinated salmon, green salad and cream cheese toast. I wasn't sure if the place allowed photography, so I didn't get many shots, but damnit I tried. I nearly cried at the beauty on my plate when they brought me my food. It consisted of two of my favorite foods: burnt toast and cheese. Lots of cheese. I'm not a big fan of ham, but it was so good, it didn't even matter. It wasn't too greasy or heavy(I still couldn't finish it, though), it was pretty much perfect for what I had been craving. I had a croque monsieur at La Boulange further down Fillmore Street and it was really heavy and made my stomach cry later, but this one much more caring towards my insides. My mother's salmon looked absolutely gorgeous; almost to the point where she didn't want to eat it. But then she realized that's why they put it infront of her and she dug right in. Her toast was topped with yet another giant slab of beautiful green avocado. I tried a bit of the toast and gave it my approval. It tasted like it had chives in it, which made me happy because I LOVE having terrible smelling breath. Neither of us were able to finish our lunches, but the portions are so huge, I don't think anyone could have. They'd have to have a black hole for a stomach to do so. So in other words, my father would be able to clean his plate. And everyone else's....and still have room for 3 desserts. It wasn't very expensive either, but not to the point where I would go there all the time. It's definitely a place I will eat at when I feel like indulging and splurging a bit.

CROQUE DESTRUCTION!

Deciding that we had been sufficiently satisfied, we paid our bill and prepared to head back to my dorm. Of course at this point, it was pouring rain outside. I felt like me and my mother were swimming to the bus stop instead of walking to it. After nearly escaping a watery death several times, we made it back safely and went grocery shopping. MY FAVORITE!!!!!! I don't know exactly why, but grocery shopping gives me immense joy and anxiety. It's probably due to the fact that I have an eating disorder, but that's besides the point right? Anyway, we bought a few items at the local Safeway, which by the way, sells the most ENORMOUS M&M cookies that have ever graced my retinas. When we were done with Safeway, we headed over to Whole Foods to get more groceries. I know that sounds pretty rediculous, but it makes sense to me. See, the thing is, there are some foods I don't mind buying at regular grocery stores like Safeway, but for the majority of my pantry staple items, I insist on Whole Foods(or really any other organic grocery store)because I know for a fact that it's healthy for me and my brain won't send itself into panic over driver after ingesting it. While at Whole Foods, I suddenly remembered my undying quest for the perfect cupcake. I had never had a cupcake from there before, but I did remember noticing how huge and well crafted they were. We were already in line for check-out, but I begged my mother for a lovely fat injected cupcake. Besides, it would be for the good of my quest. There weren't many to choose from this time around, but it didn't really matter to me. What matter was buying a the cupcake and more importantly, me eating it. They had a few chocolate ones(including a vegan one that I was very wary of trying. Damn you, allergy to soymilk!)but I thought chocolate would be too heavy after my lunch. So I settled on a vanilla cupcake with simple buttercream frosting that just so happened to be in the form of a cute and bright rainbow. We purchased my food and my cupcake that was approximately the size of a small mastiff and went home.

I don't really remember what was done after that. Probably more unpacking, my roommate Katherine showed up and then I think we rolled around on the floor making strange gurgling noises due to lack of sleep. At one point I think we were at a diner, but alas, I didn't order anything and my camera was not present. I do know my mom stayed an extra night because the rain was basically out of control and was even worse the next morning. I had made plans to run some simple errands, but there was a tsunami every 5 seconds, so my mother and her car helped me out for the main part of the afternoon. Even with the car, by the time we had gotten one errand accomplished, we looked as if we had bathed in our clothes. The rain really put a damper on my mood, so saying goodbye to my mother was quite difficult. We made it as short as possible without her simply shoving me out of her speeding vehicle and I finished unpacking for the rest of the day. Eating later that day was not easy, but somehow I made myself do it.

The next day was going to be totally devoted to job hunting and trying to keep my room clean. And it was. Kinda. The job hunting was done(and it was terrible)and as for the room...well...I had only been fully unpacked for about 24 hours and somehow it looked like my suitcase had just vomited my things everywhere. I'd like to think there is some kind of method to my madness, but there probably isn't. I am messy; that's just how it is. Anyway, I walked around all of Van Ness, Polk, and Union street for about 3 hours searching for jobs. It didn't go as well as I had wanted, but walking around the city was quite nice. It definitely reminded me why I love this place so much. I bumped into Kim and Katherine(who were on the same mission as me)and we ended up in Union Square so Kim could turn in some applications. We were all really tired afterwards, so we back to our place to take naps. But before I could let myself sleep midday, I had to attend to some pressing business: THE GIANT WHOLE FOODS RAINBOW CUPCAKE.

Let me start by saying, this thing was incredibly heavy, and I don't mean in my stomach. I mean the weight of it in the box alone was enough to nearly dislocate my arm. I decided to cut in half so when I took a bite, I wouldn't end up looking like I had just slaughterd a clown with my teeth. I probably could have used a fork to eat it, but who the hell uses a fork to eat a cupcake? No one. At least no one I know or think is important. Anyway, I picked a bit of the frosting off first and I thought I was going to die(in a good way). It was so DELICIOUS. So DELICIOUS infact, that if I don't type it in all caps, you just won't get the point. It wasn't too sweet(well, I hardly ever feel anything is too sweet), it was thick enough without being rock solid and it seemed to almost melt into my tongue at first contact. My mind glazed over with pure joy and excitement. With frosting that DELICIOUS, the cake part had to be on equal footing. I pulled the paper wrapping off, said a few Hail Mary's and sunk my teeth in the beautiful baked SARAHA DESERT! I honestly don't think I have ever eaten such dry cake batter in my life. It was beyond horrible. I was so incredibly disappointed, I nearly wept. The cake was sticking to the sides and roof of my mouth, much like a peanut butter sandwich, only less enjoyable. I took a few more bites to try and see if it still tasted as horrible as the first bite, and of course, it did. I felt bad for not being able to finish the cupcake, but I refused to subject my poor tastebuds to that kind of torture and ended up just throwing it away. Aaah, but such is life when you decide to embark on a journey to find cupcake perfection. Some cupcakes please you, while others make you want to throw the tiny confection into a fiery pit of doom.

You disgust me.

Still scarred by the failure that was the Whole Foods cupcake, I passed out in bed for about two hours. Upon waking, Katherine informed me that our dear friend Jordan was back in the city and that they were going out to dinner. Me and Kim decided to meet up with for dessert afterwards. We decided on a place called Tango Gelato on Fillmore street because I had never had gelato before. Everyone met up around 9pm and stared into the glass abyss that held the sweet sweet lovin' of the gelato we were about to consume. I was somewhat overwhelmed by the flavor choices, so I decided to stick with something basic for my first go at gelato. I picked chocolate and peanut butter chip, Jordan had the same thing, Kim purchased mint chip and chocolate chip and Katherine chose chocolate and cafe chip. I honestly wish I had the mental capacity to explain the wonderious, smooth, DELICIOUS, intensity that is gelato....but my brain is at about 1% functioning ability right now. So instead, I will shower you with pictures of gelato goodness:

ALL GONE!

Everyone polished off their gelato, save for me. It's not that I didn't want to(ok, maybe that is part of it...), it's just that my stomach has become really sensitive and I can't always handle certain foods. Gelato being one of them. After consumption, it had started to pour rain again, but we braved it anyway and somehow all made it back to our respective places relatively dry. Then everyone passed out, and by everyone, I mean me.

The past few days have consisted of: rain, first day of classes, rain, mean ladies at Borders, more rain, cute boys in class, even more rain, job hunting, being broke, more job hunting, and the overwhelming feeling of simply wanting to sleep all day and set the weather channel on fire.

--Christine

Rain, food, more rain, more food and even more rain Part 1

I am now officially living back in San Francisco. I am moved in, unpacked and settled back in my lovely #304 dorm room at the Coco Chanel(yes, that's it's name)dorm at the Academy of Art. These past three days have been exhausting, but in the best way possible.

Let's start at the beginning:

Tuesday night, I stayed up till about 3am packing, woke up at 7am, said my goodbyes to my dear father and tried desperately to leave the house when I said I would. But as usual, me and my mother left about an hour later than planned. Somewhere in Bakersfield, my father was silently laughing the laugh of the righteous as he realized that we were leaving late even though we had insisted that we would actually leave on time. He calls it everytime without fail. No matter how much we say we're going to leave when we say are, we never do. I can just picture my father's smug face now. Anyway, we left, drove awhile in the pouring rain and eventually stopped when my mother needed food in her stomach. We stopped at good ol' In-N-Out. I don't eat fast food or beef anymore, so the only reason I was there was because my mom is a burger woman. Now, I really hate fast food and find it incredibly disgusting, but In-N-Out is the ONE place I miss. Every now and then I suddenly crave one of their giant sloppy cheese burgers, but I know it'll tear my stomach apart and the thought of eating all that processed junk would eat away(no pun intended)for months. So, I refrained from purchasing anything while my mother ordered a regular cheeseburger, minus the lettuce, tomato and onions. Normally she would have put everything on it, but she knows I can't stand the smell of that stuff in a stuffy car, so she sacraficed her love of onion breath inorder to keep my from complaining for the remaining 4 hours of the drive.

It looks harmless enough. Little do most people know of the diabolical innards that await their tastebuds and stomachs!

It's absolutely disgusting and beautiful all at the same time.

After my mother took a few required chomps of the delicious burger, we set back out on the road. Little did we know that we had basically stumbled into the "Grease Alley" of highway 5. Now, if any of you have ever traveled through the Grapevine(the road, not the song) to get to Los Angeles or anywhere in southern California, you'll know the Grease Alley of that area. Nothing but fast food and fat floating around. Seriously people, it's bad. Well, I thought that only exsisted down south. Apparently I was very wrong. We didn't even drive through this area completely...all we did was make a simple U-turn, and during that span of 5 seconds, I saw a least a dozen fast food chains. My brain was so shocked, it was only able to retain a few of thier names: Burger King, McDonald's, In-N-Out, Carl's Jr, Subway, Quizno's, Jack in the Box and TCBY Treats. It was seriously a heart attack waiting to happen. My chest hurt just looking at those places. Though, I must admit, I screamed like a 5 year old when I saw TCBY Treats. We don't have those in Bakersfield anymore because ColdStone's(BOOOO!) has taken over the world. Memories of my grandmother, me and my sister enjoying strawberry forzen yogurt together on Saturdays flooded into my brain and I could almost feel the brainfreeze. But sadly, we didn't have time to stop for a frozen treat and it was also very cold and still pouring rain, so I didn't even want anything actually.

This is what the drive looked like the entire time:

Gorgeous isn't it?

The ride was fine, aside from the weather. We stopped once more in some shopping center in Gilory(garlic, anybody?)so my mom could get some coffee and I could get some water. More driving was done, I was delirious from sleep deprvivation at one point and then we finally made it into San Francisco while listening to a techno remix of Earth, Wind and Fire's "Dancing in September.

LOOK! It's the city!

I peed in those bushes about two months ago.

The Academy of art owns the city AND YOUR SOUL! But seriously, when you're in San Francisco, you see those signs everywhere. There is no "main campus," the city is our campus. Anyway, we drove up Van Ness all the way to Lombard st and checked into our hotel. After I had my usual meal, I took my mother around the Fillmore/Union area to show her around and help her find some food. We passed some pretty interesting looking places, most of which were out of our price range. But then, a shinning light came from the darkness! There, right infront of us was PIZZA ORGASMICA. I kid you not, people, that is seriously the name of this place. It says that it's pizza is the original sin(it's made out of apples?), so you know it MUST be good because as a Catholic, we all know that if it feels good, it's most definitely a sin. But good pizza is worth going to Hell for, in my opinion. We didn't stop there though. We ended up at Crepe's A-Go-Go. It's a cute little Italian cafe with a fairly simple sweet/savory crepe menu and a small gelato selection. They had a HELP WANTED sign, so I applied(which consisted of me putting down my name and number on a piece of paper)before my mother ordered. I got a small cup of black coffee while my mothered got a crepe with monterrey jack cheese, scrambled eggs and avocado. It was possibly the neatest I have ever seen. It was so compact and tidy and CUTE. Yes, a cute crepe! And it wasn't morbidly obese either, which was nice. The cafe was actually on my list of places to eat, but since I didn't actually eat anything there, I didn't cross it off. My mother enjoyed her food a great deal. According to her, the crepe was slightly sweet, but not over powering, there was just the right amount of cheese(which in our family means, there was enough cheese to make you constipated for 4 months)and the avocado was the best she had in a long time. I'm sadly allergic to avocado, but it did look incredibly yummy. It was the greenest avocado I've seen in my life. It wasn't a disturbing neon type of green, it was like...this is a super fresh avocado that we just ripped from the ground(they come from the ground...right?)because this is California and that's how we roll. My mom also ordere a giant mug of hot chocolate, which I did have a few sips of. It tasted like melted chocolate, but it wasn't too sweet. It also had a large amount of whipped cream on top, which is obviously the only way to have hot chocolate. My mother kept insisting she couldn't finish the crepe and then proceeded to finish it.




After she finished, we decided to walk around the area some more since it had finally stopped raining. We passed by several places on my "QUEST TO EAT EVERYWHERE LIST" and a few places that I planned on adding. We also passed by this place called "That Takes the Cake" which is a cupcake place. I nearly crapped all over myself with excitement. See, along with my quest to eat everywhere in San Francisco, I've also decided to find the perfect cupcake. Yeah. I know it's pretty much like trying to find one of Jesus Christ's hair follicles, but damnit I'm going to try my hardest. Anyway, the cupcake place was closed so we kept walking. I thought I was just drooling all over myself, but it turned out it had started to rain again. We made one final stop at one of my favorite organic grocery stores(which I also intend at applying at.)bought me a granola bar and then headed back to the hotel. By that point it was pouring rain and we wanted to run but were terrified of slipping and dying in the middle of a crosswalk. We finally got back to the room, completely soaked and drained from the day's activities. We peeled our wet clothes off and both mentioned something about going to bed early. About 4 hours later we finally went to bed. My mother slept. I didn't. I was kept up by her snoring and the massive colony of hives that had formed on my neck and scalp. It was really fun. I had a blast. Me and my mother stayed up all night laughing aout how insanely itchy I was.





NOT.





It was terrible.





I popped some Benedryl sent by God Himself and finally passed out. When we woke up the next morning, it was finally time to move back into my dorm.

Cake, Coffee, Cookies and a Hefty Goal.

Since you're obviously dying to know what life has been like for since my last post, I'll tell you. It's been pretty good. I've had a few rough spots here and there during meal times, but I'm pluggin' along on my road to recovery. Unfortunately(even though you probably don't want to know this part)I more than likely have IBS. If you don't know what that is, then google it, because frankly I don't feel like explaining it right now.

And now that you know my gurgly insides, let's talk about FOOD!

The only baking I did recently was a Devil's Food cake for my dad. I made it especially for the Chargers vs. Patriots play-off game on sunday. We didn't have the ingredients I needed to make my own batter and/or frosting, so I had to opt for another box cake mix that had been shoved to the very bacl of out pantry to be rightfully shunned. I was really surprised we didn't have everything I needed to make a real homemade cake. Usually we have more of that stuff laying around the house than actual food. I contracted the "baking bug" from my father, who used to be a Home Ec teacher, so I'm used to being able to go will-nilly with baking due to a surplus of yummy ingredients. But alas, now he is aiming at being a history teacher and baking history books isn't nearly as tasty. Or normal. Anyway, I didn't have any vanilla frosting leftover nor the option of making my own, so I was left with bright pink strawberry frosting. Now, my dad doesn't really like strawberry flavored things(except for actual strawberries...)and pink doesn't exactly scream "FOOTBALL!" Luckily, I discovered half a jar full of Nutella and we all know that Nutella saves everything. Even if it's not used as a spread, even if it's just licked off a spoon or slurped off your hand promptly after shoving into the jar, it makes EVERYTHING better.

I stayed up pretty late making it, but that's just how I roll. It came about nicely. I added chocolate chips to the cake batter, used Nutella for the frosting and mini marshmallows to write "GO CHARGERS!" on the cake. Well, actually, the so called mini marshmallows were still too big for the cake and I couldn't fit everything on it. It ended up saying "GO CHRGRS" instead. I figured my dad was smart enough to get the basic jist of the message, though. But I don't think he would have cared if it said "OMGWTFBBQLOLZ" because it was basically a giant slab of chocolate heart attack masked as a cake. Despite the poor spelling, my dad assured me that enjoyed the cake. It became pretty evident as the cake kept enduring more and more battle wounds(much like the football team) throughout the day. I think it had to do mostly with the fact that the Chargers weren't doing so well and my father was trying to drown his sorrows in nutella and chocolate. Oh...and I picked at the frosting. And the cake. A lot. The following pictures are the chronicles of the death of the chocolate cake. They are slightly graphic and definitely not for the faint of heart:

Unlike the game, the cake was definitely slaughtered. This is almost sad. Notice how most of the frosting is gone and the cake is falling into bits. I have to admit, this is mostly my fault. I can't resist Nutella frosting and I've been trying to dig out just the chocolate chips in the batter. I'm horrible. I know.

To back track just a bit, before coming home to make the Charger's cake for my father, me and my long time gal pal, Brittany decided to get some coffee. Our original plan had been to go to Dagny's Cafe downtown because: 1.)They aren't a big chain coffee shop, so they're cheaper and more personable. 2.)Downtown Bakersfield is kind of cute, when it's not being creepy. 3.)I think the guy who works there is cute. Really cute. We got there around 7:30pm and guess what? THEY WERE CLOSED. How the hell can a coffee shop be closed at 7:30pm on a saturday night? It's safe to say I was outraged. I really wanted good cheap coffee and I really wanted a cute guy in to serve it to me. But instead of getting what I wanted, we ended up at a...DUN DUN DUN....Starbucks. Ok, I don't hate Starbucks, but I do prefer smaller coffee houses than giant chain world corporation type ones. It was fun anyway. Brittany ordered something with soymilk and I ordered a giant cup of black coffee. Yeah, I'm the jerk who goes to coffee shops to purchase coffee that I could have made at home.

Anyway, we sat in there for about 2 hours catching up, making fun of people and freezing half to death. Now, I know Bakersfield is the desert, but it is winter and it does get cold. That's generally what happens everywhere during the winter season. But apparently the staff at the particular Starbucks we were at thought that it was 100 degrees outside. You know when your nose gets so cold that it starts to run and no matter how many times you use the back of your hand to wipe it, it just keeps coming out? That's what I had going on. Which brings me to my next point: How does so much snotty liquid come out of such a small hole in our nose? It just doesn't seem like it should be possible.

Moving on....

The next day was sunday, the day of GLORY to be more exact. By that I mean: MY GIANTS BEAT GREENBAY AND WE'RE GOING TO THE SUPERBOWL OH MY GOD I AM SO EXCITED I CAN'T STOP SHOUTING HOW DO YOU LIKE MY RUN-ON SENTENCE?!
Besides that, nothing much exciting happened that day.

Me and my mother stopped by another Starbucks earlier today where I purchased another giant coffee and some cookies. The man who made my coffee put 4 extra shots of espresso in my drink. Why? I'm not quite sure. My mother said it was his way of flirting with me, but I don't think that makes much sense. What good is it going to do him if I am in a cocaine like frenzy with terrible coffee breath? Does he find that sexy? If so, he needs more therapy than I do. Anyway, the cookies were a feeble attempt to satisfy my cupcake craving. Most of the Starbucks I have been to in San Francisco carry size-of-your-head cupcakes, so I made the mistake of assuming Bakersfield would be the same. Obviously I was wrong because I ended up with Valentine Day sugar cookies instead of a cupcake the size of my labrador/retriever mix dog, Bruno. I don't normally eat plain sugar cookies because my tastebuds find them incredibly boring and insulting to the cookie world. Plain dough should be doctored up with as much fat and chocolate as possible. Plain sugar and batter just seems like such a waste. They were actually really good, though. Which I guess means that it wasn't actually a "feeble" attempt to settle my sugar craving....Ooops. I'm really picky about any kind of cookie I eat so I was surprised at how good they were. They definitely didn't disappoint me.

Oh look, it matches my sheets.

Now on to something slightly less important but possibly just as important because it has to do with good food:

I am a woman on a quest. I have compiled a three page list of restaurants(all organized into groups depending on the type of cultural cuisine, because I'm not obsessive compulsive at all.)in San Francisco that I plan on eating at. Part of my recovery plan is to eat out once a week, so it almost works out perfectly. Now I just need money...But alas! I have faith that my plan will succeed! And yes! I do plan on eating at every single place I wrote down. I also plan on dragging unsuspected prey(my roommate Katherine)with me on my quest as well. It can and will happen folks. I will visit each place of eatery and then have to move to another city because I will have eaten at every place possible in the city.

It will be a glorious journey, my friends. Simply glorious.

--Teenie

Radioactive Mac&Cheese and late night baking delirium

I really need to stop volunteering to bake goodies for my mom's fellow teachers. Either that or stop baking at nearly ten at night.

Every friday is "Donut Day" at my mom's school. All the teachers bring in assorted store bought baked goods, lay them on a giant table in the teacher's lounge and then step back and watch as every single teacher within a 5 mile radius anxiously scrambles towards the food, possibly knocking out fellow co-workers that try to grab the cream filled pastry before they do. Last year, while living at home, I decided to treat them to home baked cookies and such, since I look down heartily on store bought products. Since I'm home for the winter holidays, I figured...hey, why not grace them with my highly regarded baking skills one last time? Well, I got somewhat lazy. It also didn't help that I didn't start baking till nearly 10:30pm AND we had an over flow of pre-made cake mix and frosting.
Hey people, I make do with what I have.

Before we move on, I'd like to point out the GROSSEST Mac&Cheese that has EVER come into my eyesight...

This is what my parents had for dinner. Yeah, I know. In my opinion, one should not ingest any substance that matches the color of your kitchen walls. It's just so wrong on so many different levels.

Moving on....Before one can start baking, you must be equipped with the proper tools. And by proper tools, I mean a really good drink. Whether it's water, beer or a shot of Maker's Mark, you need to have something to drink. If you don't, your baking will fail. FAIL. Trust me on this folks, I know what I'm talking about(at least most of the time....kinda...). My drink of choice was a Diet Dr Pepper from Sonic's Drive Thru. If you don't have a Sonic's near you, kill yourself. It's the Ultimate Drink Stop, so if you can't have an ultimate drink, there is no point in you trying to do anything. At all.

Normally I make my own batter, but like I stated earlier, it was late and we had an abundance of premade crap. So, I opted for Duncan Hines Moist Delux Chocolate Fudge cake mix and Pillsbury Whipped Supreme vanilla frosting. Not exactly proud of it, but when you're ready to pass out, premade stuff doesn't sound so bad. Instead of making the whole cake, I had decided to make cupcakes, mainly because I had been craving cupcakes for about two weeks. I felt that if I loved cupcakes, so did everyone else. And if not, well whatever, they don't have a choice. What I say goes in the baking world(or at least MY baking world...). Unfortunately, my mother decided to inform me last minute that she had thrown out our giant cupcake sheet. I was stuck with two flimsy cupcake tins that only allowed me to produce 12 cakes instead of 24. Great. After a giant tantrum which included me throwning tomatoes at my mother and father, I sucked it up and used the tins. I lined the pathetic tins with cute yellow baking cups...and one white and one pink rogue cup...damn them for breaking up my color cordination!

The recipe is pretty easy to follow. You make the cake mix according to the directions on the back of the box and then fill the cupcake holders. Unfortunately, the box gives you all the directions for cupcake making except for how much batter to put in each up. I guessed at the amount and all seemed well in the end. I find it very odd that when you're mixing the batter, it looks absolutely disgusting. How is it that something that looks like bad Japanese soup can turn into something so sinfully delicious? It's one of life's many mysteries that we'll never quite figure out, I suppose.

When the cupcakes were shoved into their fiery death in the oven, I contemplated my frosting dilemma. I'm not really one for plain frosting. Sometimes it's nice when the cake you're eating has something special in the batter, but when both the cake and frosting are plain, I'm usually highly disappointed. When I eat a cake, I want my mouth to be overjoyed to the point of tears(or slobber)when I bite into it. So in order to make my frosting more exciting, I added a bit of cinnamon. I didn't think about if anyone would be opposed to cinnamon, but it was almost 11:30pm, so I didn't really care either. I took the cakes out when they were nice and cooked, but not without nearly dropping them several times due to the poor quality of the muffin tins I was forced to use. Never again, people. Never. Again. Seriously, I hate disposal cookware. It just isn't trust-worthy! It's like a bad boyfriend. The package seems nice, the concept is great, but it's all lies. It does nothing but let you down and destroy your baked confections....not that I'm bitter or anything.

So anyway, I took the cupcakes out and set them on the cutting board to let them cool. It didn't state on the box whether or not to take them out or let them sit in the tin. I let them set for a bit and then popped them out into new paper cups that were far more interesting and decorative than the previous ones. And they all matched, there were no rogue cups this time around. Around this time I also came up with what I thought was a pretty nifty(yes, I said nifty)idea. I wanted the frosting to look better than as if it had just been slathered on with an oversized spatula by a drunk chimpanzee. So instead of giving an oversized spatula to a drunk chimpanzee, I put it in a baggy, squeezed the frsoting all to one end and cut the corner tip off to try my hand at piping. Yeah. It didn't go over so well. I think the fact that I had trouble enough getting the frosting into the baggie without getting it all over myself should have been a sign that I should have stopped while I was ahead. But I like to try and prove all the "nay-sayers" wrong, and just kept plugging along with my idea. After trying to frost about 4 cupcakes, I realized that i would have to admit defeat. I put down my make shift piping bag, fished out an oversized spatula and handed it over to the chimpanzee sitting at the table downing a bottle of Jack Daniel's.

Just kidding! All of our spatulas were too big to use for frosting my tiny little cupcakes, so I opted for the back side of my stirring spoon.
I bought it at a boutique named Penelope's in Chicago when I went to visit my friend Allison. It was originally 6 bucks(yes I was willing to spend 6 bucks on a spoon) but they dropped it to 4. I thought it was appropriate to use the spoon for frosting since it had a dessert on the top. It worked out really well, actually. The spoon was the perfect size for the cupcakes and it spread the frosting without making a huge mess. I was rather pleased with myself and my awesome little 4 dollar spoon. And people say that it was a waste of money, HA! It's now a multi-purpose spoon and TOTALLY worth the money....and it's cute. And little. Cute little things are awesome. Like myself.

YOU CAN'T DENY THE TINY CUTNESS!

Even thought they were now frosted, I still felt like they needed more in the cuteness factor. I wanted to garnish them with something, but the only thing we had on hand was chocolate donuts that would have crushed the cupcakes, thus ruining everything I had worked on. It was midnight at this point, so I was getting desperate. At the last minute I decided to top each cupcake with a chocolate whopper. I thought it would make them look cute...and possibly like boobs. They were then ready to be put into a container to then be shipped off in the morning to meet their death in the teacher's lounge. Of course the containers I needed for holding my baked goods was WAAAAAAAAAY at the top of our pantry. And of course it was with the liquor...because we all know being wasted is the only way to bake. After about 5 minutes of struggling to get the containers down without spilling 50 year old vodka on myself, I was finally able to put them in what was essentially their death bed. I named them Delirious Cupcakes because by the time I was done with them it was about half past midnight and I was feeling quite unstable.

MMMMmmMMMmmmmMMMMMmm.....

Since I wasn't able to make all 24 cupcakes at once, I had thought of waiting for the tins to cool completely and then make the next 12. But I was tired and starting to see things in my sleepy state, so I wasn't going to wait up all night and make more. So while the cupcakes had been cooling I had used the excess batter to make a small square cake. By the time I was done with the cupcakes, the small cake was already out of the oven and cooling. Thankfully I still had a lot of vanilla frosting left over, so I didn't have to worry about staying up later and making my own icing. But of course, I was not satisfied with a plain chocolate cake being frosted with plain vanilla frosting. I took a bag of those 100 Calorie Chips A-Hoy cookie candy bites, crushed them into tiny pieces(which wasn't as easy or as painless as I thought it would be)and mixed them in the frosting. Again, I didn't care if people would have a problem with this or not. I was so tired at that point they were lucky I didn't crush dog food and put it in there. Finally the cake was frosted and put in it's death bed. I was done. It was 1am and I was FINALLY done. I named the cake Midnight Munchies Cake and even put a little tag on the lid of the container explaining what was in it. Then I collapsed on the kitchen floor and slept for 24 hrs.

Ok, that last part was a bit exaggerated.

The point is, I will never bake that late at night again.

Now if you'll excuse me, it's 11:40pm and I must start on making my dad his San Diego Charger's cake.

--Teenie.

Hello fellow interweb foodies!

Well, well, well....this is officially my first attempt at a "foodie blog." Let's hope for everyone's sake that this goes over well. And by that I mean, let's hope I can come up with interesting topics(food based, of course), lovely photographs and enough charm and wit to make you chuckle slightly. We'll start with chuckles and eventually work our way up to booming laughter. I don't want to overwhelm you with my comedic abilities all at once for fear that it might be too much and you'll have terrible blogger flashbacks anytime you hear a joke.

First off, let me explain what this blog will be about:

FOOD.

I'm pretty sure that was apparent from the start, though.

I love(hate) food. My relationship with food is like a teenage high school romance. I love food with all my heart, yet there are times when I want to set it all on fire and make my body survive off of air and diet Sunkist. Why? I am currently in my 1st year of recoverying from Anorexia Nervosa. Yep. I have an eating disorder. The thing is, when you have an E.D., you become OBSESSED with food. I, being no exception, wanted to be around food all the time and thus began my venture into cooking, baking, experimenting(never on myself)with different cultural cuisines and reading up on anything dealing with food. I never ate anything I made or bought, but I couldn't stop producing food or scouting out new places to eat. Eventually I went into treatment and my love of cooking and eating turned in a different direction.

Now, I love to cook and bake and scout out new foodie habitats and actually eat. Trust me, it isn't like this all the time and I am far from fully recovered, but I now get enjoyment out of food about 75% of the time. I found that cooking, baking, etc was actually very soothing and made me more comfortable with food and eating. Go figure, right?

Unfortunately, I have currently relapsed quite badly and therefore have been put on a mechanical diet(my food choices for each day are planned out for me by my dietician. I don't make my own meal decisions.)so, my posts won't be about the food I eat daily. I mean, honestly, who wants to hear about or see pictures of oatmeal and cottage cheese everyday? Definitely not you. And no, I don't mind eating oatmeal and cottage cheese at the same time...but not mixed together...gross...
So instead I will be writing about the things I make, what others make or eat and my once a week restaurant outing(required by my dietician). Hopefully you will enjoy my ramblings as much as I do.

Ok wow, this post is long and terribly serious. I promise the next post will be filled with hilarious social and food related comments and be about the one thing us bloggers have in common, FOOD.

---Teenie.