Going Green

Nice to have a little bit of new growth when everything else outside is dying off from the winter freeze.

Late summer, I started two plants and now they're all grown up

Hot Pot

Where I grew up (China), hot pots were a staple in the wintertime! I loved the smell and taste of simmered vegetables and tender meat in a pot of bubbling deliciousness, always perfect for fending off the cold.

Hot pots, I realized, are the root of my love for lamb and to this day, I still can't say no to lamb or to hot pots. It may be the taste, or the personal participation in cooking, or possibly the flood of warm memories that always comes with eating.

When my friends invited me to a hot pot, I couldn't resist and we trudged through the snow for a Friday night gathering. We followed the adage, "the more the merrier."

It was definitely merry!

Two Cakes

1) A cake I made for Victor (who was from Puerto Rico, of course):

Layer 1: Turtle Cake; Layer 2: Caramel Cream; Layer 3: Rum Cake (What's a 21st without alcohol?)

2) A cake I made for the head-honcho, the big cheese.

Tres Leches cake with whipped cream frosting.

Mice were dark chocolate brownies with hardened chocolate ears. (Agouti mice=peanut butter; Black mice=nutella)

Special thanks to David and Dave who added the eyes and fashionable hairstyles to each of the mice.

My Orchids

Needless to say, my mom is amazingly talented. One of her many side talents "stems" to her green thumb and innate ability to keep delicate and VERY fickle orchids in full bloom year after year. If you have ever been to my house in San Diego, then you may have noticed that she usually has orchids everywhere (especially after my brother's wedding).

This is probably one of the many reasons that orchids are one of my favorite flowers (the other being lilies, and a few more up for debate). Unfortunately, they are also probably the most expensive of flowers, and thus keeping them alive is always worth striving for but always hard to accomplish.

So you can imagine my shear joy when I received a pot of beautiful, brilliant, beaming orchids as a gift for successfully completing one of the more difficult weeks of my PhD. They were perfect, but as I placed her (yes, it's a girl) on a pedestal in lab, fear set in that I would kill all the flowers instantly.

Well, weeks later, I'm happy to report that the mixture of fear, careful monitoring, love, and calls to my mom were the perfect recipe for keeping my orchid alive. She has not only grown, but she's doubled in size!

Here she is in all her glory (Then & Now):

Christmas Time

Our Christmas Tree

Distant Mountains

A painting I did on a snowy weekend in Boston.

Cookies

Nothing better than fresh, hot-out-of-the-oven cookies on a cold, snowy day.

(chocolate chip & Peanut Butter)

Diaper Cakes

I recently hosted a baby shower for a coworker, and what's a baby shower without cake?

There were two cakes that day:

1) Diapers in the shape of a cake, and 2) A cake in the shape of a diaper

Here's the mother-to-be with her cakes as a reference of the sheer size of the diaper cake.

The first cake was made with the help of Xi Chen and used over 150 diapers, and the second one was a gluten-free, dairy-free cake that garnered the best praise of the day: "this cake actually tastes like real cake."

***The really exciting news is that a Parenting & Pregnancy magazine as well as two blog sites for pregnant women have asked if they could feature the cakes in one of their upcoming issues or online (more details to follow)!!!

More stuff from the Pink-poka-dot-themed baby shower that went with the cakes from the previous post:

LOTS and LOTS of food

Make your own Onesies

Guess the Baby Food

Guest Book

Home Made Kettle Corn Trail Mix Party Favors

Cupcakes

A random assortment...

Pottery

Over the Summer, I got my hands wet with clay and threw a few pieces of pottery on the wheel. Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to document all of my pieces, but I loved the way some of them turned out.