Happy Birthdannayversary!

Man, I love August! It's, like, the best time of the year! The sun is usually out, there are so many things to do, and, most importantly, it's both my birthday AND my (our) anniversary month! My birthday was pretty fantastic. A lovely friend of mine had this waiting for me when I arrived at work.

That is one beautiful orchid! She also brought a tiara. Yes, I wore it while serving tables. Why wouldn't I?

That's Kristy who gave me the orchid and tiara on the left,
 Erin is on my right and behind me is professional photo bomber, Sarah.

Hard to see the whole tiara, but the pink fuzzy stuff kinda gives it away. Our lunch sous chef, Jose (I call him shoomie cause that's his xbox gamertag) made sure I got two tacos that they make for the crew in the kitchen. The bartender bought me an after work drink. Everyone was very sweet and kind about the happy birthdays. The very best part was how everyone made me feel so special. Everyone should have a birthday like mine if they have to work. 

Moving onto my (Oops, sorry!) our anniversary. We both took Friday, Saturday and Sunday off to enjoy the weekend together. We started out on Friday at Tulalip Casino and resort. Fun, but we really blew through our money and left relatively early. Saturday, we didn't really have any plans, so we went to Salty's (yes, where we work) and enjoyed brunch. Y'know, for a place I have worked at for so long, I still really enjoy eating there. Don't get me wrong, I have very specific things I choose to eat off the brunch buffet. I've never been one for oysters, and I have a, erm, sensitivity (read: projectile vomiting problem) to crab, so I stick to prawns, bacon, omelets, and the wall of dessert. Specifically, getting a snicker doodle and dipping it in creme brulee. Oh yes, I know all the good tricks. Grab a small belgium waffle and top it with a little syrup and the fresh whipped cream. I swear, I'm drooling right now. Here's a couple of nice pictures of our table and the view from our table.

Yep, fresh donuts from the donut robot...

Taittinger, no Slurpee Laurel! This is the good stuff.

A piece of anniversary white chocolate cheesecake dipped in chocolate.

Look how clear the water is!

We spent the rest of the day recovering from our brunch. We really had a great anniversary weekend. We had so much fun, as a matter of fact, that I think we will do it again next year! 

Xenomorph

Hi all! I'd like to introduce you to Ripley.

I love how the photo looks all dreamy

Ripley is a Kitchenaid stand mixer 620 Professional. Basically, that means it holds up to 6 quarts and is grey. I've wanted a stand mixer for a very long time. Baking has been bringing me so much joy, and anytime I can make something from scratch, I do. I love her. The very first thing I made in her was butter! 

I was surprised the butter came out yellow. Since milk is white, I thought the butter would also be white. After looking it up, I now know that when churned, the butter cream separates from the watery liquid (which is sold as skim milk, so I guess I'm also making my own skim milk!). The butter cream contains all the fat which has a high concentration of vitamin A. Vitamin A has a natural, yellowish tint. Who knew? Now you do! 
Tomorrow I plan to make some shortbread cookies using this butter in Ripley followed by pizza dough. The twins are coming over for the weekend and we are making pizza from scratch. Dad and I took a really great pizza making class last year and I've been wanting to make the really silky pizza dough we made in class. It took, like, 25 minutes in the stand mixer they provided to get it done, but it was really worth it. 

Hmmm. Really wish I'd taken a picture of the pizzas...

I'm sure I'll be posting a lot of food stuff in the near future, but I am also going to try some other types of posts. For now, though, Bill Cosby and Groucho Marx!

Superb Owl!

Hm. Something looks wrong with my title... Ah, I'll worry about it later. Let's talk about the Super Bowl! More importantly, let's talk about what my hubby bunny made for eats. He likes to cook and is occasionally absolutely inspired! This was one of those times. He started with the marinara. Oh, it's heaven. Tomatoes, oregano, red wine, a touch of vinegar a few other loose odds and ends and, voila! a pot of the best tasting marinara evah!

He then made meatballs. I am not a big fan of meatballs, they remind me of meatloaf. Guess what? I don't like meatloaf. The meatballs were good, but I think maybe next time we'll add some spicy, flavorful sausage to the mix. I think that'd zing it up nicely. 

When he finished baking the meatballs, he tossed them into the sauce and let them simmer for awhile. 

I had made whole wheat hoagie rolls the day before. He heated them up and, I gotta tell ya, wow were those sammies good!

The sauce was perfect with the meatballs and the bread. Ravens and 49ers? I will watch every year as long as the good food keeps on coming.

Oh! Now I remember what's wrong with my title!



Corny, but, well, not even cute. This one kinda creeps me out...

Weekly Wha?

I work at a very popular restaurant with an amazing view of downtown Seattle. Every weekend we do an almost more amazing brunch. Brunch is busy, but a couple of young ladies always find a few minutes to create a piece of 'art'. The art is made with whatever is available to them at the time. It's funny to me because I never see them actually make it. It's not there, it's not there, it's not, oops! There it is! I thought it would be fun to post a picture every week of their creations. This one is from last weekend. I think we should name it. What do you think?

Work

I worked a double at my restaurant job yesterday.  It was very,  very slow. We did maybe,  150 covers the entire day. The one thing that really saved the day was this.

(Hmmm,  trying this on my phone and not sure how it's going to come out)
We cannot see the sunset from where we are,  but the reflection of the sunset off the buildings is magnificent! The buildings look, at first, golden and like a digital display.  Then,  they turn a fiery copper that is very intense.  Finally, we get this deep,  rich orangey-red-pink glow.  All this by 5:30. Not a bad day.

A project!

A project, a project! Yay! A project! I've done several things recently and had a V-8 moment where I realized that a couple of pictures of the process of whatever I was doing and (pop!) I coulda had new blog entry! So, you can count on future blogs where I make my own body whip (the last batch wasn't quite right, so I need to try it again anyway), and my own Irish cream. Um, yum!
Okay, the project. My bonus mom really wants a scarf to go with her brown jacket. There is a fabulous book out there called Scarf Style and I have tried several scarves from there. She chose this one in particular.

I love how the yarn looks like crushed velvet!

The pattern doesn't look like something I cant do. It wouldn't matter anyway because you can learn how to do just about anything on the web. YouTube has great tutorials on complicated knitting techniques. Bonus mom and I went to the local yarn shop and found this amazing Muench Touch Me yarn in copper. Absolutely gorgeous! Unfortunately, they only had 3 skeins and we needed 5. We settled on this beautiful dark green color instead. Oh! And it was 40% off!

I'm going to go now, so I can get started! I'll keep ya'll posted.

A Visit to Bellevue Botanical Gardens

I've been wanting to get out and about in nature recently. My birthday and one year wedding anniversary were last week and the idea was to go camping in Mt. Rainier Nat'l. Park. Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling very well all last week, so my entire vacation was spent mostly at home. Ah, well. It was nice having some quality time lounging around at home. My Dad showed a lot of interest in getting out and about also, so he suggested going to the Bellevue botanical gardens.

This is a lovely garden. Some of it is wild, like this nurse tree above, and the rest is manicured and planned.

I took some random shots of beautiful plants and features. Here they are!

One of my favorite parts of the trip was the 'Ravine Experience'. It's a suspension bridge, but you'd think you were at an adventure theme park based on the sign.

 

 

 

 

 

The bridge is one of those great bridges that bounces around a little as you walk over it. I guess that's why the sign says 'take a walk on the wild side'!

Here is my last picture to share with you today. the best picture taken all day was taken by D and D.

 

I love how they both look so very amused with themselves!
If you get a chance and you happen to be on the east side, I'd recommend getting yourselves out to the Bellevue botanical gardens.