Don’t you just hate it when you want to make something, and you find that you’re missing that one ingredient that is indispensible?
We had some shawerma meat leftover from a birthday party we attended, but didn’t bring home enough of the soft lavash bread to wrap it all with. No matter, there are some flour tortillas stored in the freezer that we could use in a pinch, right?. Lemme check the freezer… DUN DUN DUNNNN!
You know how something isn’t in your consciousness at all and then one day, you discover it, and suddenly they seem to be everywhere? That’s how it was for me and Red Velvet cupcakes. The first time I ever heard of red velvet cupcakes was when a friend recently told me about the most amazing red velvet cupcakes she had in Chicago. It still didn’t really register in my mind then because I had not really had any opportunity to try them.
Then on my birthday, my friend Jessica brought me a red velvet cupcake from Sugar Butter Flour (no, not the blogger), a local bakery that she had just discovered and loved. I took one bite of the cupcake… and the next thing I knew, all that was left were crumbs on the table. That cupcake was amazingly good. I started going back to Sugar, Butter, Flour often, just to get my red velvet cupcake fix.
I drink tea all year round. My morning routine is to have a cup of Earl Grey or Lady Grey (Twinings being one of my favorite brands for these flavors). At other times of the day, I will indulge in a cup or two of tea in the mid-afternoon and in the evening.
I have a drawer full of teas that I go to for tea during this time. I have teas from so many places, sometimes it’s hard to keep track. I try not to buy too many at a time as I want to be able to finish the ones I have while they are still fresh. But it’s really hard to resist buying when I walk into a tea shop. Hence, my stuffed tea drawer:
Annie’s Tea Drawer
My current favorite tea shop is Lupicia (oh, how I wish they had a Mariage Frères near me!). If you are fortunate enough to have a Lupicia store near you, do check them out. They have a vast array of different teas and lots of flavored teas galore!
We were at Costco the other day when Annie noticed that there was a large group of people congregating in and around the fruit aisle. They seemed to be especially thick and frantic around one particular fruit. Curious as she always is, she went over to investigate and found what everyone was so excited about:
Mangoes
Apparently, there was a shipment of mangoes that happened to be particularly sweet, and all the folks were busily opening the plastic six-pack containers of mangoes to find the absolute best ones. If there were any mangoes in the pack that didn’t look as good as those in another pack, they’d swap them out. (Come on, I know you do it too, just like you do for egg cartons!
Annie snatched up three six-packs and put them in the cart. All the way home she was dreaming of what to do with these luscious, oblong fruit. Of course, we’d be eating them straight off the skins, but she also had something else in mind for these mangoes. Continue reading There’s More Than One Way to Dice a Mango→
