The Flavor of Karma is Bittersweet

In Bali, Superfro and I learned a little bit about the Hindu religion. It's the worlds third largest religion and most of it's followers are found in India, Bangladesh and Nepal. Bali is the only Indonesian nation that is predominately Hindu. Unlike many religions, Hinduism grants the believer complete freedom of their belief and their worship. They believe that "God" is everything and therefor everything is worth worshipping. Also, they don't believe in blasphemy, so, that's pretty cool.

One thing they do believe in is karma, which is sorta their version of a "golden rule." It is often referred to as  the Hindu law of moral cause and effect. This means that good actions will happen after you do a good action and bad actions will follow your bad actions.

Recently karma has entered my life in two separate but food related events.

The first time was right after the candy machines at my store were refilled. One of the sections was filled with Boston Baked Bean candy, one of my all-time faves. During a particularly stressful afternoon I decided, knowing quite well it was totally against my diet, to have 25 cents worth of Boston Baked Beans. I slid my quarter into the machine, and turned the handle. Except the handle would not turn, it just jammed, wedging the quarter in the mechanism. No candy was eaten that day.

The second event was on Easter Sunday. Superfro and I had a pretty laid back day and enjoyed using our grill for the first time of the season. As we were eating it occurred to me that I really wanted to treat myself. I wanted a warm cookie. I really wanted ice cream. I really wanted a Zookie from Zoey's. I knew it would blow all my hard work for the day, but I convinced myself that I was worth it. After some discussion Superfro relented and we walked uptown to Zoey's. Of course Zoey's was closed. That had never even occurred to me considering they open in the evening for nearly every holiday, including Christmas. But closed, they were, and all I got was a few extra thousand steps on my pedometer.

So, twice I went against my better judgement and against my diet, and twice I reaped only disappointment instead of reward. Karma - 2, Erin - 0.

Getting the Most of Your Visit

I'm not sure if you've noticed, but I've got a few other pages on this blog. One is keeping track of my One Million Steps goal and the other is a list of books I've been reading this year, Better Read Than Dead.
You can access either of these pages by clicking on the link on the left, below that awesome 4 year old picture of me. Over there  <-------------  See them? Good, you should check them out once in a while!

Tree.Com - Gentleman Easter Bunny

My latest post for the Food and Dining channel on Tree.Com is a nostalgic and fun cake decorating project, the Gentleman Easter Bunny. This was a cake that my Mom made when I was a youngster and that I have tried to make as an adult but rarely succeeded at due to my impatience. This was an opportunity for me to take my time, do it right, and maybe even improve on it in my own way.

I hope you will take the time to venture over to the Tree.Com site and take a gander at the Gentleman Bunny. Let me know what you think and share you ideas for fun Easter cakes!

As a little bonus, I present you with some of the photos that I took while making the cake but that didn't make the cut, enjoy!

This is the start of the crumb coating on one of the ears. I was using leftover Easy Frost icing in the spray can.

Here is a pic showing how I always have to break my eggs into a smaller dish because I'm so terrible at breaking eggs and always get shells in them!

Here is me operating my awesome mixer.

Cake pans, with batter.

Paxton enjoying licking a beater!

A Thousand Pardons...

I've been a bad blogger. It's not that life hasn't been full of exciting stuff, it has, I've had a hard time sitting down and putting fingers to keyboard and getting into "share" mode. So, I'm sorry. If you've been waiting on pins and needles for a new recipe or a new anecdote or a new set of photos of my pug, I'm sorry. I have let you down.

So, I've got a little bit of everything for you today; updates, a recipe, a few pics..let's go!

Superfro and I took a quick trip to Chicago a few weeks ago to see Queens of the Stone Age. Queens were on a small mini tour where they were playing the entirety of their self-titled album. We got tickets for the Chicago show, on a Friday, and a Des Moines show, on the following Monday. Both shows were great but the Des Moines show was extra rock-tacular, featuring ten extra songs during 2 encores.


Queens of the Stone Age - Chicago, IL - April 2011

 

Queens of the Stone Age - Des Moines, IA - April 2011

 While in Chicago we got to visit the new location for the Rotofugi store and gallery. Rotofugi is a store that specializes in vinyl toys and art. It's one of my favorite places in the whole wide world and their new store is exquisite!

An ice cream sandwich plush. Want!

Beautiful vinyl toys!

You can just see the gallery in the far back.!

We also stopped at the Threadless headquarters and picked up some new shirts for Superfo, ones that fit!

Part of their fancy murals.

Not a bad place to work, huh?

While in Des Moines we got to visit with out friends Jeff and Sarah. They have a new baby girl in their family and we were excited to meet her!

Wee Norah

On the 11th of April I celebrated my 37th birthday. I enjoyed a wonderful day off and Superfro surprised me with a selection of cupcakes from Jules Bakery. Later in the week I got to have celebrations with my family.

My sister and me.

Way more exciting than turning a year older was my pedometer turing past ONE MILLION STEPS! My year long goal was realized four months early, a new goal was set and I'm off and running (or really, walking!)

After a couple of guest posts on When Nerds Attack, I was asked to be an official contrubutor. I'm hope to post more great ideas for Comic-Con attendees, including in one of my obsessive topics, packing!

Speaking of obsession...
I'm absolutely obsessed with this cook book:


It's 250 recipes from the Food Network magazine (which is also incredible)and features delicious pictures of each one. The recipes themselves are easy to follow, and many are easy to convert into more healthful options. Superfro and I have been trying to tackle one new recipe each week. We've only tried one recipe that we probably won't make again and that was more of a personal flavor problem than any problem with the recipe.

Many of the recipes have suggested side dish recipes and their corresponding page numbers.

At the back of the book are the dessert recipes. I have not tried any of the desserts but I've done my fair share of drooling over the pics!

Well, that about brings you up to speed with me...now what's new with you?