carrot cake

i hate carrot cake.
maybe it's because I used to hate carrots. but now I love them (esp with peanut butter!!!!!)
but alas, my sister loves it. and it was her birthday (well last month it was!). and the birthday girl should always gets what she wants (even though she bought me a carrot cake on my birthday... i guess we weren't all meant to bake, but that's a different story).
So on July 30th, I made her a carrot cake from scratch. Like "hand-grated 3 cups worth of carrots"-scratch. And my arm was sore for a straight week! But ya'll, that's the secret. If you don't grate the carrots by hand, you don't get the finely grated carrot that melts into the batter with the nuts and the (golden) raisins, instead, you get those coarse cuts of carrots that stay stiff in the batter and do the opposite of melting in your mouth. and the last thing that I want to taste in my cake is a piece of raw carrot. Which is why this carrot cake worked for my taste buds. Maple cream cheese frosting didn't hurt either!

Recipe loosely based on this smitten kitchen recipe. And when I say loosely, I mean I made a rectangle cake and not cupcakes. :)

I forget if my pan took longer or shorter to cook but I used the trusty toothpick test and checked the cake incessantly after the 15-minute mark!

the color run.

Last Saturday, I got my butt up at 6am to participate in the color run.

and it was so fun!!!

not the waking up when the sun rises part (seriously, who does that?!)

but having color thrown at you while you're jogging was pretty excellent.

it was a 5K (that's 3.1-something miles for us Americans), which I totes trained for because I did NOT want to finish last!!! Also, running on a treadmill and running outside is not the same. I was sore for 2 days after the run!

the run was also my first race. will it be my last? it's hard to say. I don't really see the point of running for a long period of time with no color being chucked at you... but never say never!

By the way, we looked like bandits because we were trying to prevent the color powder from entering our respiratory systems! And because we're super cool.

I'm singing along to "Call Me Maybe" in this pic. It also looks like I'm skipping. which I was.

At the finish line was a color rave where we all emptied our color packets on each other while dancing to whatever Top 40 hit the DJ put on. It was awesome, and it wasn't even noon yet! Can you tell I love my sleep? Because I do. A lot.

BTW, I didn't finish last!!!! WOO-HOO!!!!

Bistro Petit

Have you eaten at Bistro Petit? It's really cute right? Blue and white stripes, cute French-y font with the promise of something buttery to eat, purple paint lining the red door.

Apparently cute comes with a cost. There's no tap water. No bathrooms. No wait service. No tables.

I read the H20 part on yelp so of course I decided to hydrate myself before we left my apartment because we were biking there.

And because I hydrated myself, I had to pee. And wash my hands after locking my bike up.
So when we walked in, we were stared at blankly. No 'hello', but a 'yes? what do you want?' look on the cashier (? i have no idea what his purpose was... I also couldn't decide if he was rude or just didn't know how to talk to a person). I asked for the bathroom and he said they didn't have one (uh, WHAAT?!) but to go to the bodega next door. So I go and wash my hands only because it wasn't a "pee at the bodega" emergency. While I was next door, my friend did some serious investigating and discovered that there is no wait service and there aren't tables. Just counters that you sit at on stools. Which was fine (and cute!). Except that upon observation, we learned that it wasn't a "first come, first serve", rather it was a "oh good, you're getting up just as we're walking in so we'll take your seats thank you!" type of seating arrangement. We discovered that while we were waiting outside for someone to finish their fabulous French brunch because the cute Bistro is too damn petit that they can't even fit waiters or tables or bathrooms or tap water in the place!

So we left and went to another cute brunch place with a normal dining experience. It wasn't French, but they had a bike hanging in the air out front! I'll write a review of that place later. But I will tell you they had bathrooms! And tap water! And the nicest waitstaff! And delicious food! It was great.

The menu at Bistro Petit looked really good, so I'm going to save her for the next Full Moon (is that the secret? go on a weird day?) and write an article titled "How to successfully eat at Bistro Petit" that will explain the dining method at BP. It will obviously be published in the NYTimes. A girl can dream.

Phill-ay is cray

Two weekends ago, I went on a girls' trip to Philly. It involved lots of eating, singing (mostly 90s tunes) and boozing. All of my favorite things.

It also involved a lot of craziness! I don't know if it is me that is attracting the crazy, but I felt like it surrounded us the entire weekend!

On the first day there, we were waiting for the valet to get our car from the garage. I see an abandoned flip-flop in the middle of the street. So the normal thing to do is snap a couple of pictures to instagram... right?!

(the problematic flip-flop)

Wrong. Moments later, a tree stump in the form of a lady (she was short and fat) appeared out of nowhere and stood over the flip-flop. She proceeded to shout at me. Conversation went as follows:

TS: why did you take a picture of this flip-flop? *for a moment, I thought the flip-flop might be hers, it was not.
JP: um, because I thought it was cool and interesting.
TS: you wanna know what's cool?! Going to the club, spending money and drinking. THAT'S cool. Now tell me why you REALLY took a picture of the flip-flop!
JP: Honestly, I did not really think about it. I just did it.
TS: YOU UPPITY BITCH!!! YOU AND YOUR STUPID GREEN SUNGLASSES. TELL ME WHY YOU TOOK THE PICTURE!!!!
JP: I do not need to explain myself to you.
TS: TELL ME WHY YOU TOOK THE PICTURE OR I'M GONNA F*&! YOU UP!!! GO BACK WHERE YOU CAME FROM... ASIA, CAMBODIA!!!! *yes, it got racial 
FRIEND STEPS IN: SHE DOESN'T HAVE TO ANSWER TO YOU!!!
TS ignores my friend: YOU'RE A STUPID SMURF!!!!

*TS = tree stump

TS then picks up the controversial flip-flop and CHUCKS it at me!!!
I step back to try to avoid the flying flip-flop but it doesn't land near me at all. Instead it hits this elderly couple who just happened to be walking down the sidewalk. They were caught in the line of fire and were completely innocent and I am so sorry!!! So we all head into the garage to get away from TS and hear her still screaming at me all the way down the street corner. Like a CRAZY person! ... Do you think she reads this blog?

So that was the worst... here's the best of Philly!

LOVE protecting us from the rain.

 LOVE on our last day with my favorite Hawaiian Princess Jenna!

The other weird /crazy thing we saw was a man either peeing or touching himself in public while walking to the Art Museum. It was gross and we couldn't figure out which he was doing nor did we spend a lot of time thinking about it because I had some running up the Rocky Steps to do!!!

Break-Up Ice Cream

KStew is an IDIOT for cheating on RPatz!
Seriously, how dumb do you have to be to jeopardize a relationship with one of God's finest creatures with a barely palatable, married man? Straight up stupid is what that is.
Not that I was rooting for the couple or anything, but losing R-Patz... that is not something I would wish on my worst enemy.
On the plus side (because we are optimists), Cedric Diggory/Edward is now single and back on the market!!!
But before we get in line ladies, this man needs to heal!! Poor R-Patz!

Enter ice cream. Did you watch Rob on The Daily Show? John Stewart consoled him with two pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream.

(ice cream makes everything better)

Which left me inspired to propose that B&J make their own "break-up" flavored ice cream! (I can't make it myself because sadly, I do not have an ice cream maker... who wants to buy me one?) So what does "break-up" flavored ice cream taste like?!

Definitely not something fruity.
Something dark to reflect that place you're in [chocolate, and lots of it].
Something marshmallow-y to mirror the pillows you're crying into [fluff].
Something nutty to reflect your state of mind [walnuts].
Something thick that matches your heavy heart [condensed milk].
Something boozy to help you forget your troubles [kahlua].

Or how about Garlic-flavored ice cream to turn that "bad-taste-in-your-mouth" metaphor into a real life scenario! Did I take it too far?

UPDATE: Anderson Cooper will now also require break-up ice cream because his lover just got ousted for cheating on the silver fox. Seriously, what is happening in this world?!

Does this thing still work?

Why yes it does!

So that means I should pick up blogging again right?

Why yes it does!

OK, let's do it.