Cake Deco.

I have been taking advantage of my time off this summer by taking recreational classes. In addition to pilates, I took a cake decorating class. The instructor was Toba Garrett; she is quite a famous cake artist. Silly me didn't know that until she started telling stories and I looked her up when I got home. I just took the class because this school had the lowest rates :)

I learned how to do lots of fun things. There were only 10 of us in the class so it was entirely hands-on and she gave lots of feedback and assistance. The first three days focused on piping and then the fourth day was marzipan and the last day was chocolate plastique. Here are some of the things I did.

For FHE on Monday I showed Sky what I learned on the first day and he tried a few things out. Not a beautiful cake, but it was fun practice. Don't worry, I know those designs are too much!


This is a piped rose out of buttercream frosting. Yum yum.

Making and molding the marzipan was my absolute favorite. I couldn't believe how real these looked. That day my creative juices where flowing and I now have tons of ideas for cakes...now I just have to make it happen.

This was our final cake.

I made the chocolate plastique and then molded the rose, leaves, and bow. Pretty fancy. I like the molded pieces better than the piping, but piping helps to finish it off.

Not professional, but I am happy with my work and now feel like I have the skills to make beautiful cakes for family and friends. That has always been a priority for me since my mom did that for our family. Sometimes those domestic skills are very special to family and I know that it was that way for me.

Dinner and the ballet

Last weekend we had a fabulous night out on the town.

My handsome husband looking so confident in NYC.

First we went to dinner at Bar Boulud, a French Restaurant right in Lincoln Center and across the street from the temple. The meal was outstanding. For the appetizer we had lapin de la garrigue provençal: pulled rabbit, carrot, zucchini and herbs. Skyler had boudin blanc: truffled white sausage with mashed potatoes for his entree and I had confit de canard: duck leg confit, cranberry beans, spring vegetable fricassée, duck jus. We both loved it and the experience was quite exciting.

The restaurant. We took this picture the day after, hence the rain. I had forgotten to take pictures while we were there. The rain turned out to be quite a fun and exciting adventure, but that is a different story.

After dinner we went to the NYC Ballet at Lincoln Center. It was quite beautiful and the first piece was my favorite. It was set in the "swanky" 1920's at a dance hall. It told the stories of four couples and their relationships and how they each fell in love. Needless to say, the girl in me was quite giddy. The second piece was a retelling of the Prodigal Son. It was very interesting and the emotion was strong, but both Sky and I weren't in love with it because they added a lot of their own interpretation to the story--which is fair considering it was a ballet, but it didn't mesh with our own interpretations.

Right outside the theatre. They are doing renovations to the courtyard area so that it way there is a little tunnel thing.

Answers and Winners...

Though my title suggests I will give the my answers first, I don't think I should keep the winners waiting...since I know you are all so anxious to hear! :)--okay, maybe not so much.

I have selected 4 winners and the winners are...

1. Angella
2. Chelsea
3. Jenny
4. Molly

I will send the prizes out soon. Now the four of you gals can host your own "Pay it Forward."

Now, my responses...

1. Greece
2. A perfect chocolate cake, which in my mind is a cake similar to my mom's or Wegmans' Ultimate Chocolate cake. I asked this because the night before we did just that. We walked 2 miles to find cake for our FHE treat. We found it, and a little more...I now love Magnolia's white chocolate macadamia nut cheesecake. The chocolate cake didn't turn out to be what I was dreaming of.
3. Theatre, especially musicals.

Pay it Forward...

I'm a winner ! And you can be too. Here's the one I entered. So now it is my turn to host the game.

Answer these 3 questions in the comments section of this post.

1. If you could live in any country without any consequences (such as language or work) where would you choose?

2. What is a treat that you would walk 2 miles to find?

3. Which cultural activity do you enjoy most? Such as theatre, ballet, concerts, etc.

I hope this is fun for everyone. Everyone that responds with their own answers will get be put into a virtual lotto and I will draw out 4 winners. They will get a prize in the mail! Don't worry, this isn't gambling :)

I'll choose the winners in one week, on Friday June 20th. So play before then!

City folk...

Whenever we told people that we were planning on moving to Manhattan they would always respond with something to the effect of, "We didn't know you were city people." People probably didn't know, because we didn't know.

The view from the top of the Rockefeller building that Skyler works in. It is quite amazing.

We are officially city lovers. At least NYC lovers. It is easy to love the city when you don't have to drive. I haven't ridden in a car for over a week and I can't say I miss it. We will have to see if come my first stressful moment I will need to go for a drive. We don't even have a gas bill. Skyler's commute is a mere 20 mins. spent listening to NPR car talk and/or reading The Count of Monte Cristo (Crystal, aren't you proud :) ). I can walk anywhere and everywhere that I want in a 10 block radius. It is so nice to get out and move. It might be a figment of my imagination, but I am feeling healthier.

The perks of city life are quite numerous. We have found many fun restaurants that are now on our list of places to try out. Not to mention all of the exciting cultural events that are right at our fingertips. Just walking down the street is a blast for a people watcher such as myself. I have begun my pilates classes and will soon start my cooking classes.

Yesterday we enjoyed a nice stroll in Central Park (we live 2 blocks away). We just wandered around and then sat in the grass to talk. We had a nice view of the lake and of the skyline above.

Skyler and some of the other summer associates.

The main reason I am posting is that I just had a funny moment of realization. Sky wrote me a quick email simply saying that his secretary had faxed something out for him. I just laughed. Can you believe that my husband has a secretary!!! It is just too funny to have those moments when I remember that we are adults. When did that happen?! We grew up without even knowing it.

This is a picture of our neighborhood from the top of the Rockefeller. We are on the Upper West Side near the Jacqueline Kennedy Reservoir.

P.S. Those of you who are waiting for pics of our apartment, I promise I haven't forgotten. I have video of it all and am just waiting for my firewire cable to come in the mail.

Yucky, yuck, yuck!

Okay, so I am totally grossed out right now and I am not usually a total wimp. I am officially "on my own" in NYC. I have spent the day bleaching our new place. No offense to the gal we are subletting from, I just like to be the one to disinfect where ever I am living. I did it in Ithaca and I am going to do it with any place we move to.

Anyway, so I just finished scrubbing the bathroom floor tile with a toothbrush and was going to start on the shower walls. As I was looking to see how intense of a project it would be, to my disgust, I saw a "water bug" aka cockroach. I had been warned, fair enough. I know that these nasty things live in big cities, Skyler dealt with them in Venezuela, and I knew they were inevitable in NYC. But I still have the hebee-jebees. It was disgusting! I thought it was dead, but it wasn't. I didn't squeal, but I have been shaking for the last little bit and now I can't convince myself to step in the shower, though I definitely can't be seen in public without cleaning up a bit. I can't even put my feet on the ground without tip-toeing. I just need to buck up and be a big girl.

GROSS!
No, I did not "seize the moment" and grab my camera. My horrified fascination led me to google water bugs and this is what I found. Pretty much exactly my experience, except my shower is the "almond" yellow-ish color from the 60's.

Graduation, NYC, and now OV

Cassie has officially chastised me twice for my lack of blogging. I deserved it, so I thought I would quickly try and make it better.

Family was in town to visit us for my graduation on Friday last week. It seems like a long time ago and I am still not sure that I feel the closure. I feel like in a week, after visiting family, I will go back to school. Please tell me that isn't a sign that I should go back for a PhD?! Maybe I am just not quite sure what life as an "adult" really is like.

THE beautiful shoes. :)

We had a great time with our families in town. My parents both came out and Sky's mom and Chandler came. We were able to show them around upstate New York. I am working hard to convince my family that they should come to NY; it isn't hard to convince Mom, but Dad might never leave the evergreen trees of Washington. We were able to do lots of fun things with everyone and I think everyone had a fun time...then we took them to the city...

Graduation dinner...Thank you Mom and Dad

We moved into our apartment in NYC on Saturday. It is a great studio. I really love it. The block that we live on is gorgeous and I feel like a "real" New Yorker. We took our family around NYC. We wore them out quickly and they probably felt like NYC was a little too crazy. We tried to cram in as much as we could because we know that it will be hard for them to come out frequently.

At the Statue of Liberty.

Now we are in Orangeville with Skyler's family. We have been doing various things around the house and trying to help get things in order for this weekend activities. I spent the day on a field trip with Brinler (4th grade). We went to a place called "Goblin Valley." It was very neat. And needless to say, I wanted to step right into teacher mode. I restrained myself--my shyness won the internal conflict. Goblin Valley was very neat. Definitely nothing I have seen before. It was fun to watch Brinler and his friends act like explorers.