A Spoonful of Sugar

So I’ve been on a baking kick lately. I’ve always loved to bake. But of late, it’s become sort of an obsession. Everything sounds so delicious. And the more I bake, the more excited I am that I can actually create something tasty.

This obsession has not only taken over my kitchen, but it’s taken over my entertainment choices. My favorite cake-baking show is actually Ace of Cakes. But it’s not on instant Netflix and Cake Boss is. So I watch Cake Boss. And I have to say I like it.

Recently, I went to NYC for a business trip. While we were up there, one of our local Operators surprised us with a cake made special by Buddy and his team! Check it out —

In addition to my love of cake-baking shows, I’m also an avid reader of Bakerella. You should definitely check her out.

Inspired by Bakerella’s site, as well as my bff Kayleigh’s awesome creations, I have been attempting to make some crazy desserts as well. A few months back, I created these Basketball Oreo Balls for the NCAA March Madness tournament. While they aren’t perfectly circular, they were really yummy!

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Other recent creations include peanut butter fudge, pillow cookies and red velvet cake. Yay for baking!

Based on a True Story

These five words always draw my attention when looking for a good book to read or a movie to watch. While I definitely LOVE being entertained by stories outside the realms of possibility (i.e. Peter Pan, Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, Meet Joe Black, The Legend of Bagger Vance, etc.), there is something really special about a story that needs hardly any embellishment and is worthy enough to be written about or made into a feature film.

Currently, I am finishing a book that bears the stamp of these five words, and Joel and I watched a movie based on a true story last night. Both are fantastic. Both stories are amazing. And both are stories I can’t believe I never heard of before now. Stuff You Missed in History Class should think about doing a podcast on each of them!

The book is called The Devil in the White City. The author, Erik Larson, hardly embellished anything at all. He constructed the story based on old letters and newspaper articles. And he did an amazing job! Sometimes you have to pinch yourself and remind yourself that this story is fully real! The book parallels the lives of two men near the turn of the century in Chicago. The first man is Daniel Burnham, the lead architect of the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. The other man is H.H. Holmes, a serial killer that lived in Chicago during the World’s Fair. He started his killings just years after Jack the Ripper and killed many more women than Jack did. However, he’s hardly known at all! It’s crazy. But it’s really good!

The movie was called Bottle Shock. This was a little more fictionalized than Devil in the White City. However, it was still based on true events. Basically, it tells the story of this winery called Chateau Montelena near Napa that won a blind tasting in Paris during a time when the French wines were thought to be far-and-away more superior than any others. It has Chris Pine in it, and he wears a glorious wig. In short, the movie was made for Katie Griffin. 🙂 But it was really good.

In the end, I feel so much smarter by having read the book and watched the movie. Don’t you kind of feel that way when you finish a story based on real life? It’s like I didn’t waste my time at all by entertaining myself – I was also educating myself. Gosh, I love when that happens. Dovetailing interests. 🙂

Every Girl Wants that Sparkle

Let me tell you about something near and dear to my heart. Something that I feel very passionate about. Something I really don’t want you to laugh at.

Glitter.

I know you’re laughing and I need you to stop! Glitter is wonderful and I am really kind of devastated that it’s not in style anymore.

A lot of times, we’re slaves to fashion and we blindly accept whatever Fashion Week tells us is the next big thing. But how many times do we look back and look at photos and think, “What on earth was I wearing?!” Half the time these fashion trends make us look awful! Cases in point:

Personally, I think that we should adopt only the fashion trends that make us look better. This is where glitter comes in. I truly think that glitter makes us look better.

Every girl wants to sparkle. Glitter, when used sparingly, draws attention to the eyes and brightens them. Overall, it makes the face so much prettier.

And glitter just makes people smile. Think of all the things that glitter: diamonds, football helmets, cars, etc. You’re smiling now just thinking about them, aren’t you?

So in closing, I leave you with photos of glittery things that I am very thankful for.

Heaven on Jefferson

I thought that today’s thankfulness topic would be a good follow-up to the husband post from earlier this week.

If you know my husband, you know that when he loves something, he loves it with everything he has. One such object of his affection he discovered three years ago while roaming the streets of Italy. While in the beautiful, faraway place, he stumbled across something that would change his life forever: gelato.

While in Italy, Joel would eat several cups of gelato a day, impressing many an onlooker by double-fisting two cones of gelato at a time. He knew once he had found it that he had to have it in his life in some capacity fairly regularly moving forward.

So upon his return to America, he tried to find the best imitation he could of the real thing. He went to Paolo’s in Atlanta, but it wasn’t quite right. Pizzeria Venti was just okay. The Venetian in Las Vegas had a pretty good replica, but it’s not like we are in Vegas on any sort of regular basis.

After a while, Joel just gave up on his hope to get delicious gelato in Georgia.

But then, we started seeing advertisements for a new candy store opening up in Madison. The fliers proclaimed gelato, but Joel had been fooled one too many times. He knew this would not, could not be the real thing. Especially in Madison, Georgia of all places.

Never in his life has Joel been more pleased to be wrong.

We walked in the first week Ella’s Sweet Shoppe was open, skeptical at best. The owner of the place immediately started educating us on the benefits of gelato (1/7 the fat and 1/12 the calories of a small serving of ice cream) and explained that this was the authentic thing. He told us how he weekly ships in gelato from Italy on dry ice through New York into Atlanta and then out to Madison.

So Joel tries his first bite. And at that moment, the heavens opened up, the angels started singing, and all was right in the world. Joel had not only found his authentic gelato, and he had not only found it in Georgia. But he found it in Madison, on our very own street.

We have become regular customers of this wonderful little shop. There is so much to tell about it that I am thankful for that I’ll have to save it for separate installments. Suffice it to say, you should come out and see what all the fuss is about. You’ll be very thankful you did.

For the Next 50 Years

Tonight, my husband looked over at me as we were doing our routine nightly reading and said:

I love that for the next 50 years, unless something tragic happens, you’ll always be right here.

Do you know how thankful I am for that? If I could tell you all of the millions of things like that he says every day, it would probably bring tears to your eyes. I am beyond blessed to have the most caring, selfless man as my husband. I truly don’t deserve someone who loves this well and fully.

Apart from my salvation, he is the thing I am ultimately most thankful for.