I did not become a lifestyle guru overnight, my friends. It has taken years to perfect my kitchen skills but it all started with this cake recipe from an American Girl magazine.
I was 10 when I pulled my first baked good out of the oven and I never once looked back.
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Saturday breakfast is for real. Waffles make it happen.
Making all these pumpkin treats means I have a lot of half empty cans of pumpkin chillin’ in the fridge. When it get a little too out of control then it is waffle time.
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My taste buds at first were like, what up? Then they were like thank you, since both of those things were delicious.
It is a scientific fact that if you make both root beer and vanilla ice cream you must make root beer floats, and in popsicle form they just may be better than in a glass.
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The first thing I do when I arrive in a foreign country is head to the nearest grocery store. Not only to you almost always avoid your annoying fellow tourists, it is the quickest way to feel the pulse on what “the locals” are doing. Plus, people running errands in other countries are entertaining because they aren’t YOUR errands. You are on VACATION. Ha!
It’s also good to remember that no matter where you go, you still have to wait in line for a half of a pound of smoked Gouda while a little grandma behind you complains about the Deli man.
The best of my grocery store finds come home. In Mexico, I got these glasses at a fancy gas station. Not the most sturdy of souvenirs and unfortunately I found them early on in the trip. Trekking across Mexican countryside with four champagne coup glasses is high up there on my crazy-lady-in-training list.
We picked up this honey in the Czech Republic. Also, not the smallest and most portable of objects. It made it back to Brooklyn fine, but baked into this cake even better.
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Liquored up Negroni jello…oops, wait. Silly me, I meant to say JELLO SHOTS!
Yes, I made jello shots. Yes, these are classy. Yes, they are what happens when a cocktail becomes friends with a jello shot.
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I love dinner parties because I get to hang out with awesome friends, and I get to make ridiculously indulgent desserts. Case and point.
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I haven’t figured out how to make diamonds yet, or get out of a bead store without spending at least $89, but making vanilla extract is so easy! Do it today because it takes two months to become magical.
Guess what every one is getting for Christmas?
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My key childhood memories can be summarized in the following bullet points.
1. I was the only kid I knew who had a worm bin. If you don’t know what that is, you probably didn’t grow up with hippie parents in the Northwest.
2. The only thing I wanted for Christmas in 1994 was a Fantastic Sticker Maker. Guess what I got? 17 nature books on the life cycle of orca whales.
3. We had scones every Sunday. “Every Sunday” are the important words here, since the scones rarely turned out the same way twice. Substitutions were the name of the game. My dad would sometimes make them with orange juice. Sure, why not! Sour cream almost gone bad, eh, put it in! Once in a while they burned because my mom would start talking on the phone to my aunt and wander out of the kitchen completely.
But in a recent email about Scone Sundays, my mom confessed, “on a Sunday morning with a little butter, raspberry jam, and a cup of fresh coffee even the slightly burnt ones taste great!”
Truth.
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Breaking free of the cubicle to follow my dreams has been a series of countless joys, like for example, the time I spent three hours on a Tuesday afternoon looking for sassafras extract to make homemade root beer syrup.
What were you doing? Let me guess. Probably doing normal person things. It’s okay, I’ve made peace with my insanity.
I finally found it at a store that made yoda’s swamp hut look like Versailles. When I walked in, there was the token health food store cat staring me down (what up with the fact they are always fluffy?!) and two employees drinking mugwort tea while loudly over-sharing their home remedy stories for random aliments. They went on the whole time I was there, not even pausing when they rang me up. The cat was super pissed. I felt bad for the poor guy, I mean I would be too if I had to listen all day to how garlic solved your athlete foot problems.
Minus my regrets not saving the cat, it was totally worth it.
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It was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. 100% for realz. And I never exaggerate.
But seriously, what could be better than toasty charred bits of marshmallows? Well, toasty charred bits of marshmallows with booze and pumpkin pie spice.
Yet another example of a great thing made greater through the addition of bourbon.
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