Cupcake Royale

I recently had a chance to visit one of the fancy shmancy cupcake shops that are in the process of taking over the world. Cupcake Royale has a number of locations; we visited the one in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood. "We" being me, Laurie and her very sweet husband, Wayne. This would be Laurie from the Hawthorn Tea Room who is now a good friend. I guess she felt sorry for me after all my whiny blog posts about having no friends. So, see? You can make friends over the age of 40. Or I can. I don't know about you per se. You might have a gypsy curse which has forced you to become a recluse who never leaves your home to eat cupcakes. Or something.

The shop is super cute, lots of pink, brown and white with other very bright colors thrown in here and there. It's also very Seattley. Very trendy, lots of laid back cool people lounging about. And of course, there's coffee. Cupcake Royale also has some good marketing happening. Lots of cupcake related merchandise for sale and they also sell their products through Metropolitan Market, the upscale grocery store. My favorite item was the "Legalize Gay Cupcakes" shirt. It cracked me up.

We went to check out the selection and I had to spend some time wiping saliva from my chin. They don't like it when you drool on the display case. Sorry!

I've actually had their cupcakes before because, as I mentioned, they sell them at Met Market which has a location near my house. So I knew I'd be getting one with a white base. I absolutely LOVE the texture of their white cake. I'm usually a flavor person, but I'm all about the texture here. It's extremely dense and rich. It's almost like pound cake, but not that heavy. I wish I could describe it better. For me, it's the perfect cake consistency. I've tried other flavors, and they're all yummy, but the vanilla buttercake is my idea of cupcake heaven.

I chose the Lemon Drop, which has a lemon head candy on it. Even though these are super cute, this is too much frosting for me. This is how they frost all of their cakes, so I've learned to deal with it. But if they handed me the spatula for a minute, about half the frosting would come off. Not to say I didn't enjoy it, I just think the thickness of it is a little overwhelming. This plate, on the other hand, rocked my world. I adore it and am actually kind of glad they weren't selling this pattern, because I don't have any room for it in my house and I wanted to buy twelve of them.

They bake the cupcakes on site, which means they frost and decorate them here, too. They have an open area in the center of the store so you can watch. I was enamored with the sprinkle jars. Feel lucky you only have to look at two of the fifteen pictures I took of them. Not even joking.

After I ate my Lemon Drop, and Laurie and Wayne shared their vanilla and chocolate babycakes, one of the bakers came out and started frosting a tray of chocolate cakes. I freaked her out when my flash went off for this shot. Oops!

But she was so sweet and came over to the other side so I could take pictures. And she didn't call me "weirdo" or anything. In fact, you can see in the second picture she was talking with me about what she was doing and how long it took her to learn the signature swirl. This is the cream cheese frosting (which is phenomenal, by the way) and because it was a warm day it wasn't cooperating with her. But I still think they looked beautiful.

I know you may not live close to Cupcake Royale, but I'm sure there is an independently owned cupcake shop somewhere near you. Since they are taking over the world and all. So go support them and eat a few cupcakes. Unless you have that gypsy curse thing going on. In which case, never mind.

Tea and Sympathy

Well, I am writing this at 5 a.m. It is concert week for me, which means I have a hard time sleeping. Which means I was very awake at 4 a.m. I tried to go back to sleep, but no such luck. And it's WAAAYYY too cold to get up. Like temperatures in the teens cold. Right now it is about 11 degrees outside. Yeah. So I am snuggled up in bed with my very warm laptop.

Last Saturday was the Holiday High Tea at the Hawthorn Tea Room. I was still in a pretty grumpy mood after my little melt down from my last post, so not as many pictures as there could have been. But it was very nice and Laurie tried hard to cheer up my downer self. Plus, I went with my wonderful friend Jill, so that made it even better. When we walked in, we were greeted by this:

Such a pretty little composed plate! Besides the fruit there was a tiny jam tartlet with pomegranate seeds and some pecans and walnuts that I think were spiced. I just love this Christmas tree plate, too. So cute! It was nice that they had the plates ready for us. They serve their "special day" teas all in one sitting, so even if people arrive at different times you have some little nibbles to tide you over until they are ready to serve everyone.

Next came a champagne flute of Sparkling White Jasmine Tea, which was very light and refreshing. Definitely reminiscent of champagne, but no bite and a very light flavor. I enjoyed it and it was nice to have something unique like this. Good choice, Hawthorn!

On to the main courses! This is where I got lazy and should have taken more individual photos, but as I said, not feeling it that day. Anyway, on the bottom were some savories; pesto cheese pastry and chicken-apple-brie crostini. Very fancy! The sandwiches were yummy. I think the turkey with cranberry cream was my favorite, but I also really liked the cucumber with feta and mint. The feta added a lot of flavor and was somewhat unexpected, but in a good way.

One of my favorite things for this tea was the scone. Usually I am a plain scone girl because I like to put lemon curd and devonshire cream on it so it will taste like lemon meringue pie. Mmmm, pie. But the Ginger Pumpkin scone was really good! Neither flavor was overpowering and they complemented each other well. The scones were also baked perfectly. Definitely a highlight!

The dessert course was lovely. Jill was most excited about the chai-infused shortbread. I, on the other hand, could have eaten about ten of the Chocolate Cherry Christmas bars, which are the ones with the pink filling. For those of you that don't know me, I generally dislike fruit with chocolate. Because the chocolate is so sweet, it makes the fruit taste sour. Icky. But these were SO GOOD! The bar part was super moist and delicious, while the filling wasn't overly sweet or fruity. The cherry flavor was subtle enough to taste fabulous with the chocolate. I would love to see those on the menu again. Hint, hint Laurie!

For our tea we had three choices, and Jill and I both chose the French Breakfast, which is a black tea. It was excellent. It had the flavor of an English Breakfast, but wasn't quite as bracing. Much more gentle. I will probably buy some the next time I'm there. I really enjoyed it.

Thank you, Laurie and Cathy, for all you do to make us feel comfortable and happy at the Hawthorn!

Now, on to the sympathy part. Thanks to everyone who reached out after my last post. I just have the single girl blues sometimes and throw a little pity part for myself. I will try really hard to stop throwing them on my blog. I'm sure you all are sick of hearing me whine. So I am making an effort to reach out and build my relationships a little more, as well as widen my circle of friends. Soon I will have lots of exciting adventures to post as I do lots of fun things with my wonderful friends. See how I'm being positive there? And not whining? Go me!

Thanksgiving and Tea

Wow, I can't believe it is almost the end of November. Only two more days of NaBloMoPo. I really do intend to keep posting. But it will definitely be less frequent as December is a very busy month for me. And you too, I'm sure.

Anyway, thought I'd catch you up on my holiday weekend.

My niece, Madison, made these cutie-patootie decorations in school out of toilet paper rolls. I'm not sure why they are looking to the side and sticking their tongues out. Maybe they are full from too much turkey. I do know that my nephew Max enjoyed pulling their hats off repeatedly.

My poor sister, Monica, came down with the stomach flu on Thanksgiving, so no turkey for her. It was a pretty rotten holiday for her overall. She's trying to look cheery in this picture, unlike her daughter. Madison is a very sympathetic girl, so she's hanging out with mom on the couch.

Mmm, turkey! You can tell it's done because its little timer popped up. It's sitting on this neat rack my mom found that lets you easily lift the entire bird up out of the pan.

Here's the center of the table loaded up with food. Why, yes, we did have a ham as well as turkey. No, I don't know why. Because we did, that's all I've got for you.

After we recovered from pigging out at dinner, we further did ourselves in with pie. Besides pumpkin, we had pecan made by my brother-in-law, Steve, (it was very good!)

and apple pie without any cinnamon. My step-father is allergic, so we had to sprinkle our own cinnamon on there if we wanted some. It didn't really taste the same, but what can you do?

The next day was tea at the Queen Mary Tea Room in Seattle. You may recall that we did this last year, too, but with a different cast of characters. Unfortunately, my sister still wasn't well enough to come. So besides me, we had

my Aunt Kay (left) and my mom (right). They are wearing crowns because the waitress offered tiaras to the little girls but they wouldn't wear them. So we put them on instead. Plus, we made them look GOOD!

Madison drinking her Almond Cream tea, looking pensive. Actually, I think she's mid-sentence, but I wanted to get bonus points for using the word "pensive."

Kenzie is trying her hardest not to smile in the top picture. Obviously, that didn't work too well for her!

Our tea trays, loaded up with lots of yummy stuff! You would never have guessed that we pigged out at Thanksgiving the night before, because by the end of tea, our trays looked like this:

Overall, I ate WAY too much. But I was able to spend time with my family so that makes it all okay. That and the healthy eating I plan to begin again tomorrow. Right before Christmas. When there is food literally everywhere. Yeah. Oh well, holidays come just once a year, right? Thank goodness!

p.s. Welcome to my 6th official follower, Pam from Sidewalk Shoes. I feel so honored to have all these people reading my lame little blog. Thanks, guys!

Supper Club, DS, and the Big Hole

Aaaaannnnnnddddd, I'm back. That wasn't too bad, was it? Did all 5 of you survive without my thrilling comments to keep you entertained last week? Yeah. Anyway. This week will be better. After Wednesday my schedule lightens up a bit. I will be back with Shrink My Butt Cooking Light Mondays and will try to be more consistent. As long as I have something interesting to say. Well, at least I'll think it is.

To begin, I FINALLY got to go out for Dim Sum today. I have been looking for someone to go with me for almost a year. People would say, "Oh, yeah. We should do that." And then we didn't. Then my Supper Club decided to do a restaurant version of the group in which we are too lazy to cook and just go out to eat together. We went to the Imperial Garden Seafood Restaurant in Kent. For the uninitiated, Dim Sum is basically lots of little servings of foods, like appetizers, brought out and guests choose what they'd like to try. You pay per plate that you select. We had a great big table and as soon as all of us were there they just started bringing cart after cart of the most yummy looking stuff. I didn't know what half of it was, but I didn't care. I love to try new food and have new experiences. As long as it tastes good, I'm in. There was a giant lazy susan in the middle and things kept flying by. You had to grab stuff quickly before someone else took it. I missed out on a couple of things that way. We probably should have asked for two dishes of stuff. But oh, well. I'm sure I will survive.

A couple of these photos have plates of half eaten food or are way out of focus. I'm tellin' ya, it was every man or woman for themselves. I snapped the pictures as quickly as I could before things disappeared.

Here's our big lazy susan loaded up with goodies.

Shrimp in a mildly spicy sauce. Deep fried, heads on, not peeled. We ate as is. Yum.

(No, I didn't eat the head. I popped it off. POP!)

What was left of the fried calamari before it completely disappeared.

This must have begun as a LARGE squid. The rings and tentacles were pretty big.

On top, chinese broccoli with a yummy sauce poured over it. Two remaining fried shrimp balls.

Can you tell we really like fried stuff?

Maura and Dan enjoying the steamed Shrimp Dumplings. These were my favorite.

Fresh, hot and tons of flavor. I could have had a whole bowl of these to myself.

I have no idea what this was. But this was the last one and they went fast.

It was like a very large rice noodle wrapped around shrimp. The sauce was poured over and the dish was very good. Again, I would have liked more than one of these.

Here we have on top some kind of pumpkin dessert.

The disembodied hand is grabbing a doughnut-type thing. I didn't get one,
but heard they were yummy.

Below are deep fried spring rolls. Maura rescued the last one for me before they all went.

On the right, top are a steamed pork dumpling (I think, they disappeared.)

Below that are baked hum bao.

A closer pic of the hum bao. I always think I like these, but I don't. The sauce is too sweet with the pork filling. I do like the outside of the steamed ones, but those didn't make it to our table.

A closer, fuzzier, picture of the pumpkin dessert. The outside was kind of gelatinous
and had the flavor of  marshmallow. The inside reminded me of almond paste.
I liked it, but should have shared with someone. They were very rich.
And it didn't really taste like pumpkin. But still good.

We didn't try this but it was really fascinating to me.

A big wooden bucket full of a warm soy...beverage, maybe? It looked really neat.

We had a language barrier the whole time, so I never really knew what was what.
If you are a Dim Sum connoisseur, or just smarter than me, please write
and tell me what all these things are.
I am very curious about different cultures, especially the food.

Here's our demolished table afterwards. Look how big this sucker is!

There were more things than I could get photos of, sometimes because they never made it all the way around to me, sometimes because I was busy eating and enjoying. We also had clams in a black bean sauce, pork spare ribs, a beef dish I never saw, some kind of baked roll, don't know what that was. A couple of interesting desserts I did get to try. A fried sesame ball, which was batter wrapped around sweet bean paste, with sesame seeds on the outside, and the same type of thing that was green with a black bean paste inside. These were super sweet and I only ate half of one. I would have preferred more of the savory things, but I guess that's what I get for being near the end of the clockwise moving lazy susan.

All the happy eaters.

From left to right around the table:

Curt, Jennifer, Jill, Pat, Cheryl, Nancy, James, Maura and Dan

Do you see the look Curt, the guy on the left is giving me? I saw that face a lot. I don't know him well, but he didn't really get my take-pictures-of-everything-so-I-can-put-it-on-my-blog approach. Oh well, I'm a nerd. I get that face from people when I'm not taking pictures, too!

So after writing all this, I realize I need to go back to Dim Sum again. This time I want to try more things and eat less of the desserts. It seemed like the actual eating part just flew by. Fifteen minutes, done. Then we sat and talked, which was great. But I'd love to go with a smaller group where I could actually see the food and hear the servers and take more time to enjoy each dish. But other than that, it was fun and very yummy. And each of us only paid about $16 for the whole she-bang. That's including tax and tip. Quite a bargain. Dim Sum, anyone?



Okay, done with Dim Sum. NEXT!

Isn't this the cutest little purse? Don't you love it? I do!

Know what I keep in it?

This.

It's a Nintendo DS.

In case you are not a 10 year old boy, this is the updated version of a Gameboy. My students kept telling me, "I have a DS." And I kept saying, "A what?" Then one of my teacher friends showed me hers and the Brain Age game she plays on it. I was hooked. So I asked for one for Christmas.

This thing totally rocks. It has a stylus (fake pen) that you use to write or tap on the lower screen, and information is on the upper screen. For a lot of the games you turn it sideways, like a book. The handwriting recognition is fabulous. There are only a few letters that I write funny, so it doesn't always get them at first. I also picked up this awesome program called Personal Trainer: Cooking. It's got a ton of recipes and spells out with pictures how to put things together. And the voice recognition allows you to use it to cook without having to touch it (if your hands or sticky, or you're busy chopping or something.) It's pretty darn cool. Technology is amazing. And now, I can say, "I have a DS!" See, Nintendo, I could be a spokesperson for you guys, too. Call me!

AND FINALLY...

The Big Hole!

What are you talking about? you ask.

I am talking about this:

During the recent flooding, there were (I think) pumper trucks or some such thing working out in this area next to my house. I assumed there was just too much water  and they were trying to get it out of a drain or something. Gosh, I sound intelligent. I should be a plumber.

Then earlier this week, I came home to a closed off street and this:

I finally got out in the daylight yesterday to get some close ups of how big this thing really is. I am assuming a pipe broke maybe?

I had to get a little too close for comfort on that last one. See how the pavement is broken off? Weird.

It isn't too big a deal. We just have to park on a different part of the street. Except...on Monday I started wondering, Hmmm, I wonder if they'll be done by Friday. Garbage Day. This thing is directly in front of our back alley, which is where they do recycling and garbage pick up. Guess whose trash is still sitting out behind the house? Yep. That would be ours. And it's not that they CAN'T get to the trash. They would have to drive the garbage truck backwards to get out of the alley again. Which is probably not very easy. But I think they just saw the barrier and didn't even try to get through. So I am a little annoyed about that.

If this thing isn't fixed by next week, I'm going to leave a very nice note stuck to the Caterpillar there, asking them if they might fill up the hole with all the trash we are accumulating.

p.s. Yes, I realize I have now broken my pledge not to post anything Long AND Boring. Only Long OR Boring. Oh, well. Too bad for you. You already read it.

The Rosewood Cafe

*picture from www.rosewoodcafe.com

I told you I go other places to eat besides Tea Rooms. Very close to my house is a great restaurant called The Rosewood Cafe. The owner is super nice and it's an adorable little spot. It was originally built as a grocery store back in the day, but now they serve fabulous homemade soups, salads and sandwiches. All of the sandwiches are great and I love the Peasant Plate which is basically a small loaf of bread with lots of different cheeses and fruit. I always try to get their soup because it is the only place I've found that makes actual homemade soup. I love driving by and checking out their soup du jour on the outside chalkboard. In the summer, they open up the large green doors on the far right and have tables outside, too. I think I've drug all my friends here, and my sister Monica and I once ate all of our meals there for an entire weekend.

Have a mentioned that I live REALLY close to the Rosewood? Like I-can-see-it-from-my-house close? I won't say too much more, in case there's a stalker running loose trying to find out where I live. Unless you are a cute stalker. In which case, send me a picture and we'll talk.

The soup today was Chicken and Artichoke, so I got a cup with my Rosewood Deluxe, which is turkey with bacon, havarti and tomato, lettuce and onion all toasted and melty...I think they use a panini press. (Did you know that "panini" is Italian for "sandwiches"?) They were both awesome. Can you see the steam rising off the soup? Mmmmmmm...

I even had an ingredient discussion with the chef/owner. He told me he had added some lemon juice to the soup because the flavor was somewhat "one dimensional." I said that it went well with the artichokes. I felt so Top Chef!

When I was ordering, I noticed they had Apple Cake as their dessert special. So I ordered it with my meal. Good thing, because I got the last piece. Also, I was pretty full after half my sandwich so I never would have ordered it if I'd waited. So it was good for my taste buds, but bad for my waist line. Or waist bulge. Whatever.

The cake was somewhat dense with nuts and raisins. The best part was the very light cream cheese filling. It was fluffy and not overly sweet. The whipped cream tasted homemade, or a least very fresh. No Reddi-Whip happening at the Rosewood.

Overall, a great lunch and a fun time watching people walking and sledding and jogging (???) past the windows. If this snow keeps up, I might be back again tomorrow.