HAPPEE BIRTHDAE KATIE

I baked a cake for my niece Katie's birthday yesterday even though she criticizes my art. I love her anyway. I wanted the cake to look like the one pictured above, but I didn't take into consideration how much my stove tilts. The final product ended up looking more like the birthday cake Hagrid brought to Harry in the first Harry Potter movie.

Did you know that what distinguishes a red velvet cake from an ordinary chocolate cake is the addition of an entire bottle of red food coloring? Neither did I. The knowledge creeps me out a little and I don't know why. It didn't, however, stop me from eating a nice big slice. I'm brave that way.

Nightmare

I just know this is how it starts. One week I'm dreaming of cake, the next week I need to be weighed on a truck scale at a DOT weigh station.

My Favorite Turkey EVER

Behold The Gobbler Supper Club and Motel, which used to perch in Wisconsin but alas, no longer exists. The exterior was supposed to look like a turkey, but I'm not seeing it beyond the fact that there are creepy bird-eye shaped windows.

My friend Monica sent me the link. We both fervently wish the place was still open and decorated exactly as it was back in the early 70s, because we would gather up my sister Rachel and Monica's friend who sent her the link and go on one hell of a road trip.

We'd have dinner here in the empurpled main dining room. I'm dying to get a look at the menu, but it seems to have been lost to posterity. I'm guessing there were a lot of turkey dishes and salads of a congealed nature. After dinner drinks and/or desserts could be enjoyed in the plush comfort of The Roost. Classy!

Finally, after an evening of fun and an eyeful of 1970s elegance, I'd snuggle up in one of these circular beds and drift off into happy dreamland. What could be better?

You owe it to yourself to take the full tour. The Gobbler was a festival of crazy decorating ideas, and the commentary is hilarious.

Culinary Quote: Leppy

I Has A Sad

Not that I want anyone to feel guilty or anything. Oh heavens, no.

Salvation

After a particularly rough day at work, I came home exhausted and discouraged. I walked through the door, however, carrying a plastic container of beef stew given to me by one of my co-workers, and a package containing Sade's new CD sent to me by my awesome sister Rachel.

I heated up the stew, popped the CD in the player, and sat down to eat. In just a few minutes I went from feeling like the spot marked with police tape where the bomb went off, to feeling like everything in the world was just fine.

Such is the power of good food and good music.

Artist's Block

I had dinner with this handsome devil last night. I guess it was National Be Kind To The Elderly Week and his grandma isn't back from her condo in Florida.

I'd draw you my dinner, but I haven't the foggiest idea what was on my plate.

NaCl

Salt makes everything taste better. Even sweet dishes and desserts benefit from a little bit of it. It drives me absolutely crazy when people cook without salt. Everything tasts flat, and you end up using twice as much salt at the table trying to get the food to taste good. Which never works.

The only way I'd stop cooking with salt is if my doctor told me I was in danger of imminent demise unless I cut all the sodium out of my diet. And maybe not even then. There is, after all, such a thing as quality of life.