Showing posts with label dessert. Show all posts

The following is best when read aloud with a snobby English accent.

This season's biggest fashion trend? Why it's the cupcake! Just take a peek at luxury retailer Louis Vuitton's current window display, featuring a chocolate cupcake with sparkly white icing in a gold wrapper.

Louis Vuitton window display in Century City

While they do not actually sell cupcakes or any products with images of cupcakes, Swarovski more than made up for this author's disappointment by providing mini-cupcakes to all visitors.

Swarovski Crystal Society 25th anniversary celebration in Century City

You'll note not only the glitter in the frosting, but the edible pearls topping each delicious piece. If you are more concerned with how you look than how you dine, perhaps a trip to kate spade is in order.

kate spade in-store t-shirt display in Century City

I assume that since this $58 t-shirt is size XXS, they simply didn't have room for the "CUP" part of cupcake.

Barnes & Noble themed display in Marina del Rey

Should you desire something more sparkly with which to contact your dear compatriots, these notecards on a nearby shelf may suit your needs.

One of the best things about my job is the free food. Not just instant mashed potatoes and bags of cheesy poofs, but delicious gourmet cooking everyday. And if you don't believe me, just ask my mom about toasted almonds.

Last week I grabbed chicken for lunch on my way to a meeting. About an hour later, Matt stopped by for a free lunch to say hi. I mentioned that I had the chicken, which prompted him to look at me as though my nose had retracted and come out the other side of my head. While I confirmed that my nose hadn't gone walkabout, he pointed out that it reeked of bacon.

"No, it's chicken. It says chicken. And the first ingredient is... bacon!. WTF?!"

"How could you not have smelled it?"

"My nose is still stuffed. Stupid useless nose."

Well, that sucked, but at least I learned my lesson - always read the ingredient lists.

Fast forward a week, and I found myself staring at a glorious pile of ice cream sandwiches.


Being the patient and practical being that I am, it seemed perfectly natural to have one before even considering the standard entrees. After all, ice cream sandwiches is a subset of sandwiches, and sandwiches are perfectly reasonable lunches. Not liking chocolate, I chose the snickerdoodle one. Everything was going splendidly until one of the food workers asked me if I liked the bacon ice cream.

Cooking chicken in bacon fat is one thing, but bacon ice cream? Who on earth expects little piggy particles in their desserts? The loons over at Coolhaus, that's who. Lesson double plus learned.


Later on I found out that the candied bacon bits were very obvious in texture and taste, so I managed to eat the part of the sandwich without my current arch nemesis. As a side note, since when did people candy bacon? Eww.

There are very few things in life that are better than coming home from a stressful day and finding a cupcake on your desk. And not just any cupcake, mind you. My favorite cupcake (which, sadly, is from Starbucks): delicious vanilla frosting with yellow and white round sprinkles sitting on top of moist yellow cake. Now, a cupcake is a very small item that gets used up very quickly, but the effects last for hours. Today, about 15 hours later, it is still making me happy. :-)

As most of you know, I don't like chocolate. Therefore, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that I've never gotten a box of candy for any occassion. As far as I can tell, they all have some sort of chocolate in most of the pieces, if not all. When Matt gave me a small box for Valentine's Day, I was quite confused when I discovered a box of See's Candy underneath the wrapping paper. However, upon opening the box, I discovered about 20 pieces of candy, none of which contain chocolate. Matt had put together a custom box of candy with every kind (all 6) of candy without chocolate. So far I've discovered key lime pie and crunchy nut things covered in yogurt. I am immensely pleased, even though Matt wouldn't let me eat the candy for breakfast. Definitely the best Valentine's Day gift I've ever gotten.

The quarter is over, and I have regained most of my original status as a human being. Recent things of note:

1. Somehow I managed to get a parking permit for the Winter and Spring quarters. This was nothing sort of a miracle, considering that I live down the street from a bus stop and that it involved being on line at the Transportation Cashiers Window at 8 am this morning.

2. My new printer is awesome (aside from the intrusive drivers that add a "Supplies..." button to every print dialog box, and no, not every print dialog box is the same - many applications have their own). It is the HP Photosmart 8250. What makes it especially awesome is that every ink cart is separate. And there are six of them. And somehow the ink is cheaper this way, especially if you get the 150 photos pack, which has 150 4x6 sheets of photo paper and enough ink to print 150 photos. Even if you don't include the photo paper, since I don't plan on using it particularly often, the ink is still cheaper. Oh, and it prints ~30 pages per minute, color and black and white, has an LCD, and has various memory card slots. But most importantly, it is shiny and has blue LEDs.

3. One of my new towels, that I purchased in September at Bed Bath & Beyond, dissolved in the drier. It went into the drier as one solid, continuous piece of cloth, but came out as one and a half. Stupid towel.

4. My chocolate mousse cheesecake was a success. It only took five hours to make, during which time Matt almost exploded from not being allowed near the chocolate.

5. It looks as though I'm going to have to take CS 51A. Not just an undergrad class, but an intro undergrad class. It's bascially digital logic, but since I never actually took the class at Columbia, I'm going to get pinned for it here. Moop.

6. Parking in general sucks around here. A lot. Holy fuck does it suck. I still haven't gotten over the whole "validation" thing, and now there aren't even enough parking spots, so you lose [5,30] minutes of your free time (and life) trying to find a damn spot. It completely baffles me that a shopping mall (Westfield-owned) would have the first 3 hours of parking be free, then immediately jump to $7.00 for [3, 3.5] hours, then tack on and additional $1.50 for every half hour after that. Am I the only one that thinks it is incredibly dumb to have a parking policy that encourages people to leave so they won't get ass raped by parking? Sadly, this parking policy is almost sane compared to Bel-Air Camera. They give you 20 minutes free, with purchase and validation. After that, it is $1.20 per 20 minutes. Considering that they sell incredibly high-end equipment, you'd think that a validation from a purchase would give you free parking for at least an hour, but alas. There are so many more ridiculous examples, but I won't subject you to further rants.