Mimosas and Mom

Hello hello. Today was a fantastic day and it isn't even over! My mom journeyed from the Valley all the way out to the big city. It was a day full of chuckles, coffee, mimosas, burritos, cleaning, and baking.

After lunch, instead of driving around the city in traffic looking for parking and then trudging along the slushy sidewalks in the bitter cold, I suggested we bake something together since she is always curious about baking vegan. She wanted something cakey and I wanted to bake something new so we tried our hands at a classic bakery staple (at least here on the upper east coast), the black and white cookie!

I was in charge of the actual baking while my mom flexed her icing skills.

In the zone.

The royal icing turned out just perfectly.

Voila!

Hazy Shade of Winter

Last week, we were walloped with a snow storm. And this time it was a doozy! My school even closed for two days which is crazy since it has not closed for snow in over 9 years.

Luckily, I had planned for this and made my house an igloo of comfort with all the amenities, including but not limited to:

1. Snacks (pita chips, sesame sticks, cheese poofs for the nonvegans)
2. Boozes (champagne, wine, baby bottles of Bacardi, vodka)
3. Baking supplies (flour, powdered sugar, choco chips)
4. Vegan black pepper steaks
5. Emergency mini-pizza for Cesar

All of these things came in handy. I ended up baking a huge batch of Russian tea cakes, chocolate mini-bundts with choco glaze, and a miniature three layer cake that for reasons such as not letting the cake cool enough and three mojitos looked awful.

Tuesday night was spent tidying up my room and hanging a wall of paintings (I have a phone-photo of it, but I want to hold off on showing it until I can get a better quality image). I also watched Lost and clocked out early.

The following day was all about takin' it easy and take it easy we did! Eventually, friends, including Anabelle, trekked it out to hang. We played Mario Party, snacked, and I ChatRouletted a baking show. The aforementioned disaster cake was laughed at and then promptly consumed on the spot. So good.

They're calling for more snow tonight and tomorrow! What the heck. I cannot wait for summer...

Blood Orange Sunday

Happy Valentine's Day everybody.

I have been so lazy with posting here and even lazier with uploading photos from my camera to my computer. I could blame it on school, work, and this annoying cold, but really it just boils down to laziness...

Anyways, V-day was enjoyable. Woke up early-ish and made some delicious vegan coconut waffles with blood orange syrup and homefries for us. The syrup did not thicken as it should, but since it was my first time, I am willing to try try again. I was inspired by these treats from Vegan Yum Yum:

I read about these awhile back and thought that the blood orange with coconut would be the perfect red for Valentine's Day without being overtly "romantic" and cliche a la strawberries and chocolate. I had no idea that was the chef's original thought as well! Great (vegan) minds think alike I s'pose.

Additionally, I whipped up some pomegranate orange mimosas. The rest of the day was spent tending to both my cold (via Tropical Emergen-C!) and also to a slight hangover (via mimosas and coffee...). Finally, the day ended with these and a fantastically endearing card with two giraffes on it:

Not a terribly attractive picture, but I snapped it on my phone before leaving for school.

Now on to the rest of the week!

First photo from The Satorialist, second from Vegan Yum Yum

Hairy Dreams

The other night I had a dream I had this haircut. It looked really good. Is it a sign?!

Promener

This semester I am taking a French class that is focusing on the portrayal of youths in (French) cinema. While I am not the biggest fan of kids, I am very fond of la nouvelle vague and films like "Ma vie en rose" so this class should be interesting.

The other day we watched "Quatre cents coups". The film focuses on a young boy and his not-so-lovely life. Contradictorily, the opening sequence takes my breath away (a bout de souffle, non?) with its beauty. Oddly enough, I used to walk around Paris listening to this song on my iPod long before I ever knew that my promenade was immensely similar to the promenade in the film.