Category Archives: Desserts

There are days that I really, genuinely like people. And then there are days I have to fly.

There’s something about flying that just seems to bring out the worst in people. Something about the cramped noisiness of airports followed by the stress of being 35,000 feet above the ground in a giant inescapable cylinder with far too many people…can you tell I don’t love flying? I don’t consider myself to be an irrational person, but airplanes defy my (extremely limited) understanding of the laws of physics, and every little bump sees me clutching my armrests and wondering exactly what my breaking point is before I spring up screaming “I AIN’T GOIN’ DOWN LIKE THIS!” and storming the drink cart.

Okay. Maybe flying just brings out the worst in me. But I do feel like flying exposes the lowest common denominator within each of us. If you feel like you remain a decent human being while flying, have no fear! I’m going to help you. Based on my extensive experience with air travel, I’ve written a handy instruction manual to help you make everyone else’s flying experience (and maybe even yours!) as miserable as possible. It’s easy! Just follow these steps.

How to Be an A-hole at 35,000 Feet (and below):

1. Do NOT, under ANY circumstances, turn off your phone, Kindle, or iPad when the flight attendants tell you to. That text you’re working on is far more important than FAA regulations, and if you don’t hit “like” on your buddy’s Facebook status before takeoff, you just know you’re going to hear about it when you touch down. And a Kindle isn’t really electronic, is it? It’s books. BOOKS, man.
2. If your bag doesn’t fit in the overhead bin, continue trying to cram it in there. The space will increase in direct proportion to the volume of your grunts. When it still doesn’t fit at the crazy diagonal angle that was your last-ditch effort, just leave it. Someone else will take care of it.
3. Bring your tuna salad sub onboard. You don’t want your fellow passengers to miss out on the gustatory delights that await you.
4. Be horrible to parents. They are pinching their babies and forcing them to cry just to annoy you. The nerve! Act like you are in a chapel, a library, the Holocaust Museum, or somewhere else where silence would be a reasonable expectation. Sigh theatrically with every whimper. Turn around and give your best hairy eyeball, making sure to break eye contact quickly if the parent happens to look up at you.
5. Recline! You know how uncomfortable airplane seats are. We all do. Thank God we can recline them three inches, thus making them exactly like our favorite armchair at home. As soon as the chime dings, get your finger on that button and don’t even mess around. Launch, no, hurtle yourself backwards. Do NOT check if the person behind you has a laptop out. That will just ruin the fun, and besides, don’t you want to witness the first-ever instance of seppuku by laptop?
6. Be ready to deboard. And I mean ready. Upon landing, we all know that everyone can get off the plane at the exact same time (that’s the laws of physics again). Be sure to stand up immediately when the seatbelt sign goes off. Glare impatiently at the people sitting in your row if they haven’t yet attempted a game of human bowling with the 150 people in front of them. Also, leave as much garbage as possible in your seat even though the crew came around with trash bags 14367 times. Gotta keep ‘em on their toes, right?

There you have it – if you don’t travel much, or if you do but you’ve been acting like a normal person for some reason while doing so, I hope this helps. Many people follow it very closely – which is why the only thing that cures my traveling woes is a big bowl of ice cream. Homemade? All the better. I’ve found that store-bought ice cream, even the really good brands, just don’t hold a candle to homemade. There’s something just so eye-rollingly amazing about homemade ice cream – I don’t know if it’s creamier, or richer. I can’t put my finger on it. But the ice cream I make in the ice cream maker has the same quality as the ice cream we used to hand-churn at summer camp – it’s just uniquely homemade. And maybe, after traveling, the “home” part is the key.

Source: Adapted from the vanilla recipe that came with my ice cream maker

I made these pretty cupcakes for my friend Emily’s bridal shower last weekend. I was really excited to write up the post where I talked all about our friendship, intermingled with pictures of all the good times we’ve had over the years.

Minor hitch – this friendship appears to be entirely undocumented on film, digital or otherwise. How, in this age of Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and camera phones, is this even possible? And it’s not like we just met – we’ve been friends for seven years now! I dug through everything on my computer, incredulous that I could not find a single picture of us doing something awesome together (although I did find over 1300 emails from her). And then I realized that the reason I couldn’t find pictures of us doing something awesome together is the same reason I couldn’t think of a noteworthy “Emily story” at her bachelorette party last Saturday night – because we don’t do anything awesome. Generally, when we get together, we drink wine (or margaritas), eat way more than we should, catch up on our lives, and act like goofballs until we run out of steam (usually by 9:30). And it’s great. Maybe not so photoworthy, and certainly doesn’t make for good bachelorette party stories, but great just the same. I like to think that we’re too busy having fun to take pictures, which would definitely explain why I could find exactly five pictures of us together (three were taken last Saturday at the bridal shower and bachelorette party, so only TWO in seven years of friendship). And the two that pre-existed last weekend are just ridiculous. Here’s one:

So…maybe a good thing that there aren’t many pictures?

So let me explain that one. We were at our friend Wendy’s apartment, and she had just gone on a blind date (to a wedding, ugh, seriously, think of your worst blind date and then pick it up and move it to a wedding) and the date in question had a bit too much to drink. Wendy brought him back to her place (JUST TO CHANGE SHOES. Don’t get any ideas) before they headed out for a nightcap. He took one look at her sofa with the chaise lounge section, enthusiastically proclaimed, “I LOVE CHAISE LOUNGES!” and did a gigantic, theatrical belly flop onto the couch. And then immediately passed out. Wendy, being a good citizen, documented this before rousing the gentleman and putting him in a taxi. Obviously, we had to reenact this the next time we got together. The picture above is Emily photobombing my reenactment. After several more takes, our job was done. See?

It had to be done.

The only other picture I could find is equally ridiculous, although you can’t really tell just by looking at it.

Wholesome, right?

That picture just looks like two gals out on a Saturday bike ride, right? As ‘murrican as apple pie. What you can’t tell from the picture is that we have just committed the egregious offense of bringing our rogue bicycles onto hallowed ground – George Washington’s Mt. Vernon estate. I don’t know if GW just hated things with two wheels or what, but you’d have thought we’d been caught with black tar heroin. However, U.S. Park Service employees are insanely nice, so as we were being removed from the property, we got one to agree to take a picture of us breaking this sacred Constitutional rule (what amendment is that again?).

So, two pictures over seven years, and both very silly, but the lack of photographic evidence does no justice to the depth of this friendship. Emily is an everyday friend – an all the time, over the years, everyday friend – and that’s the best kind. When we worked together years ago we’d entertain each other on boring days with walks outside or happy hours on the downstairs patio. We’ve cried over the low points – breakups and layoffs – and laughed ourselves into happier tears over the (fortunately) much-more-frequent high points. She even took a critical look at my blog before I first published it – I handed it off to her because I knew she would give me substantive and honest feedback. And now, she’s about to get married, and I got the high honor of making cupcakes for her bridal shower. I only did it in the hopes I might get another thank you note like this one:

We’ve been recycling this one thank you card for like five years. Seriously.

Emily and her future husband Nate are a great match – they have so much in common, chiefly that they both love Emily (calm down, I have Emily’s permission for that one). Seriously, though – they have an absolutely perfect balance of love, respect, independence and devotion. It’s a relationship that absolutely should be celebrated, and I’m so glad I got to help them celebrate it. I made two batches of cupcakes for her shower – lavender for the wedding color, purple, and these peach cupcakes with champagne frosting, a.k.a. bellini cupcakes in honor of the brunch shower. I really, really loved these – the fluffy cupcake with the burst of diced peaches, topped with the slight tang of the champagne frosting. I’ve tried a few champagne frostings in the past and this was the first where I could actually taste the champagne – cooking it down first really allowed the flavor to stand out, even in a traditional American buttercream. I could definitely see these becoming a staple at brunch parties or bridal showers.

Left: I don’t get out much. Top right: the only normalish picture of Em and me. Bottom right: the cupcakes!

Oh, was I supposed to include a recipe or something? Right. Here is the recipe for these luscious peach cupcakes. And one more congratulations to my under-documented but longtime friend Emily, who deserves every bit of happiness that she’ll find throughout her life with Nate.

Source: Cupcake recipe from Indulge