PrissyCook

So, far my trip to Texas has given me a change to disconnect. It’s easy to do with no computer, no Internet and no cell phone reception.

I’ve spent hours on this porch sitting in a rocking chair, drinking sangria and watching the water.

I bought a box of sparklers at this firework stand.

I drove to Snook to try an order of chicken fried bacon. The consensus at the table, it’s lighter than you’d imagine.

I hope you’re having a good Holiday weekend!

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When I walked in my parents house on Thursday, my mom greeted me with a big hug and said, Moo made you a pineapple upside down cake! I think I might be the only one in my family who loves that cake, but I made a beeline straight over to her place. It was delicious. But, there was a funny conversation that happened between she and her beau Charlie.

SCENE

Charlie enters the house from the front door carrying a white color carafe. It’s four o’clock in the afternoon.

MOO MOO

Oh! Did you bring me some mo?

CHARLIE

You brought it over empty I assumed you wanted it back full.

MOO MOO

Oh! I did!

CHARLIE

Well that’s what I did.

MOO MOO

(to me) Do you want some mo?

ME

(confused) Um. No thank you, I’m going to finish my iced tea.

MOO MOO

It’s good.

ME

Maybe later.

SCENE CHANGE TO PARENTS HOUSE

ME

Moo Moo asked me if I wanted some mo?

MOM

Oh! Oh! She was asking you if you wanted a mojito. Moo Moo loves her mojitos.

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I literally smiled so much at the grand opening of the Children’s Museum of Phoenix that my cheeks hurt. My assigned station was the Noodle Forest upstairs. Most of the exhibits at the museum are set up to be multi-sensory, so that the kiddos can really connect with the art and most importantly have fun.

My job was to tell the kids to walk, enjoy, don’t run. There were three different types of Noodle Forest explorers:

1. The ones who would look at it, look at me, look at their mom, look at the forest and cautiously enter.
2. The ones who would look at it, look at me, look at their mom, look at the forest and kamikaze in.
3. The ones who would look at it, look at their kids, look at me, shrug their shoulders and head in.

But all had the same look on their faces when they would come out, these huge big smiles. It was awesome. I had so much fun and like I said, my cheeks hurt from smiling so much. I bet there were lots of kids who slept really well that night. I know I did!

My passion for volunteer work has swelled over this past year and it makes me happy that for the small little audience I have here on this blog, that I have a supportive place to share my stories. Another blog I found by way of Geggie is Mike Lawson’s Benevolent Blogger Project. I love that he’s working to build supportive community. To show solidarity in his mission, I also made a donation to two charities this month, the new expansion of Ronald McDonald House and Gift for Gavin.

Some of my other volunteer experiences this year:

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I was born in Dallas and before my dad and I moved to Central Texas, we were mostly in East Dallas. As an adult when I moved to Dallas for work, I would see things around town and have deja vous moments. I would see a building or a street corner and know that I had seen ‘that’ before.

So, it was one of those moments when I moved into my Dallas neighborhood and went to the grocery store. There was a sign out front that I knew in an instant, but everything else around it looked different.

I remembered this sign in front of the Dr Pepper factory in Dallas at the corner of Greenville Ave and Mockingbird Lane. But the factory wasn’t there, instead, Kroger grocery store had purchased the old factory and converted it into a huge store. As a nod to the building’s history, they kept the old sign.

I can remember driving by that sign when I was in kindergarten with my Mamaw and talking about how silly it was that they didn’t put all the numbers on their clock. Later, I would learn it was part of a brilliant 1930’s ad campaign to get people to drink a Dr Pepper at 10AM, 2PM and 4PM.

Even now I get nostalgic seeing that Dr Pepper picture. I remember warm summer days riding in the middle of the truck seat with my grandmother, looking out the window at that funny sign. And, I remember 20 years later as an adult living the neighborhood next to that sign. Both were really good times for me.

**snap out of it**

I owed someone at work birthday cupcakes.

I once watched SP down an Airborne tablet with a Dr Pepper (it makes my gut hurt just thinking about it) and so, it wasn’t a stretch that he deserved (cherry) Dr Pepper cupcakes for his birthday. I found several generic recipes online. I surfed to So Sweet it’s Sinful and created a recipe she claimed was a home run!

I read over the recipe and it read a lot like a traditional Texas Sheet cake, with Dr Pepper substituted for the liquid. I made these and although tasty. I felt like the cinnamon completely took over any other flavors in the cake.

Determined to make a stronger cherry flavored Dr Pepper cupcake, made a second batch. This time, I took a whole jar of marachino cherries and pureed them to add to the batter and subtracted the cinnamon. I think I got closer on this batch. I decided to make a swiss meringue buttercream frosting with Kirsch to add a little spike of cherry flavor into the frosting. Here’s my adapted recipe:

Chocolate Cherry Dr. Pepper Cupcake

* 2 ¼ cups of Dr. Pepper
* 2 cups of sugar
* 2 ½ cups of cake flour
* 2 eggs
* 4 ounces of unsweetened chocolate
* ½ cup of diced maraschino cherries
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
* 1 cup of unsalted butter (2 sticks)
* pinch of salt
* 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla
* ¼ cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 325º. In a medium size sauce pan bring Dr. Pepper & cherry syrup to a boil. Place chocolate and butter into a bowl and pour hot Dr. Pepper over, cover and let sit for 10 minutes. Whisk mixture till smooth. Stir in sugar, salt, baking soda, baking powder, vanilla, and sour cream. Add flour in 2 parts alternating with the eggs and whisk till smooth. The mixture will be runny. Fill cupcakes cups and bake approximately 15-20 minutes or until skewer comes out clean

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Tags: Cherry, Clock, Dr Pepper Cupcakes

In Phoenix, it’s all over the new news and I’m not sure if everybody has gotten the memo. GAS PRICES ARE GOING UP. I’ve never paid attention to the actual fuel economy of my car. But this week, I finally decided to pay attention and I set my odometer with this last fill up. 19 mpg.

That doesn’t help my little fledgling green heart, but I do try to car pool, ride the bus or take my bike to work when I can. But, I’m a little freaked out over my fuel economy and gas prices. AND the worst part is that I’m freaked out simply because everybody else is freakin freaked out.

Staycations are the newest trendiest thing. It’s where you take a vacation where you live. I’m lucky that I live in the Phoenix Valley in Arizona. There’s a lot of nice places to stay for your vacation. This weekend, I stayed at the Clarendon It was nice taking a day off from the office, staying at a nice hotel and more than saving on the airfare for travel, it was nice that when the weekend was over that home was only 30 minutes away.

AND on this staycation, I made sure that I was at the computer at 10AM PST to purchase my New Kids on the Block tickets for the October 13 concert in Phoenix. Whoo hoo! See that big smile, that’s 4th row happiness baby!

Stay tuned for more news on NKOTB (if it doesn’t make you too queasy) and for another new term; hypermilers.

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Blue Bell and I go way back. When I got pulled over for my first time for speeding, the officer said, “I clocked you going 60 back there by the creamery (aka, Blue Bell).” For a 16 year old, those words would change life as I knew it. I would after that night, proceed to get myself grounded for a few months. Cry my eyes out because my parents didn’t understand me and swear that they were out to ruin MY LIFE. Fast forward 15 years later, and that IS still one of their most favorite stories to tell about my tumultuous teenage years.

And even with the coincidence that one of my lowest moments as a teenager happened to have a landmark like the Blue Bell creamery, I still don’t bear any hard feelings towards the ice cream, if anything, I’ve grown to love it even more! So, the fact that I can get it in Arizona makes me happy.

More than ever, Blue Bell is introducing more flavors, than I’ve ever seen. I think it has something to do with their Centennial celebrations. Southern Hospitality is a special, I’m afraid to predict, one time offering. It was created by a lady in South Carolina as part of a 17 state ice cream competition. And to Mrs. Hegley, who submitted the winning flavor combination, thank you!

I do NOT know how an ice cream could get any better than Blue Bell’s new Southern Hospitality. Click the images below to see more on my Blue Bell experiences:

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In my last conversation with my dad, he said that my grandmother and her “boyfriend” had decided they were going to buy a riding lawn mower for the lake house. They were tired of hiring a yard crew at $75 a visit and that they were just going to start doing it themselves. The local Western Auto was having a Memorial Day sale and they wanted my dad to help them go down and pick one up.

They get around quite well (she’s in her 80s and the Mr. is in his 90s). They’re always working on projects, going places and are always up to something. But the idea of them, out in the Central Texas humidity, mowing the yard at the lake was almost more than I could bear.  I in a stern voice, gave my dad my opinion about them mowing the yard. He said it was their choice and we dropped the subject.

…fast forward a few days later…

My grandmother called to say hi (she says Hi darlin’). She was catching me up on what was happening around town and I asked her about the lawn mower. She said that she thought they could handle it. “We might be old, but that just means that we’ll take a little longer to do it. But we’ll be alright,” was her answer.

Then she said, “I’m too short to reach the petals and the Mr. can’t figure out to turn it on.”

Something tells me that I don’t have to worry about too much right now.

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This building an Empire business isn’t easy folks. I’m struggling with site design, product inventory and what is quickly becoming an even bigger struggle; Accepting payments online. I’m a little frustrated with the PayPal integration over at CupcakeCabana.net.

But my struggles (aka learning opportunities) could be your gain. I’m going to continue my sale. I’m want to see how Google Checkout works. Let me know what you think. These bags are good for grocery shopping, holding knitting projects and for lugging stuff to work.

Here are pictures of the last cupcake canvas shopping bags I have left. They are on sale for $8 and that includes taxes + shipping to the US. I have one of each.

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The deeper I dive into the Junior League the more I appreciate the dueling facets of the membership. There are the traditional elite. The few who were raised in privilege and live lives that are tied into expectations. They have pedigrees that are stocked with trust funds and endowments.

Then theres the group within the League who are educated, self-made and polished. They come from families who put value in hard work, some come from homes where they didn’t struggle with life, but maybe they didn’t take family vacations to Hawaii either.

It’s these two backgrounds that help make the Junior League successful. The group who isn’t afraid to write big checks, think nothing of asking a benefactor for thousands and are glamorous enough to have people talking about them for weeks after an event.

Then theres the group who are willing to log volunteer hours cleaning rooms, planting shrubs and putting together projects with homeless children.

In my opinion that is what makes the Junior League a unique and high impact group. You’ll hear quite often the slogan around the League, “When the Junior League gets behind a project, Phoenix changes.” And that is so true. We are unique in that we have a group who can get out there and get the money to fund a project and we have a group who is willing to support a project with their sweat equity.

I went to a Junior League meeting this week at one of our past projects. One that was started and finished way before I moved to Phoenix. But one that,as a resident of Phoenix, I truly appreciate. It’s the Orpheum Theater in downtown Phoenix. I’d like the share this excerpt from the Orpheum’s website:

In the early 1980’s Nederlander decided to put the property on the market rather than renovate it for reuse. It shared the block with a drive-thru restaurant and a parking lot — an incompatible icon of a bygone era.

The theater’s location on the west side of Central Avenue may have had more to do with its survival than any other factor. Many older buildings fell victim to destruction by fire or were razed to accommodate high rise development in the 1970’s. But Second Avenue and Adams Street was not in the direction Phoenix’ downtown rebirth was headed.

Concurrent to the Orpheum’s near demise, the Junior League of Phoenix initiated a project to inventory historic buildings in the downtown area. Although the Orpheum was identified as a valuable historic property, some potential buyers considered razing the theater to put a new commercial building there.

Then-Mayor Terry Goddard and his newly formed historic preservation task force endorsed the idea of having the city buy the theater to ensure its long-term preservation. Shortly thereafter, the Junior League of Phoenix spearheaded a community effort to retain the architectural and historical integrity of Phoenix’ last historic theater and helped place the Orpheum on the National Register of Historic Places.

If you live in Phoenix and are interested in joining the Junior League, we’re accepting applications though the end of May 2008.

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Tags: Junior League, Orpheum, Volunteering

My obsession with packing my lunch continues. When I’m out browsing recipies or grocery shopping I want to find:

1. My main course
2. A side item
3. Fruit
4. Something crunchy

AND, I know this may sound lazy or lame, but I want a lunch that I don’t have to heat. It’s so far from my office to the breakroom, that I want to be able to pack my lunch and not have to make the long haul from point A to point B. (remind me later to tell you how I don’t drink water till the afternoon so I don’t interrupt my morning with trips to the RR).

This week my side item kicks main course’s tushey. I’ve wanted to make quinoa for a while. I’ve heard that it’s tasty and so good for you. And if what I’ve read is true, it really is a powerful little ‘grain.’

It’s not as quick to make as couscous, not as long to cook as rice. It’s snuggled right in the middle. 2 parts liquid to one part grain. Cook for 15 minutes and it’s ready to go. I chose an heirloom red quinoa. The taste didn’t deviate too far from the white. One source describes the flavor as:

The grain itself is soft and delicate and the tail is crunchy which creates and interesting texture combination and pleasant “crunch” when eating the grain. Quinoa has a fluffy consistency and a mild, delicate, slightly nutty flavor that borders on bland.

Citrus Quinoa Salad
Makes 5 cups of salad

1 cup dry red or white quinoa
2 cups chicken or vegetable broth

Cook quinoa according to directions using broth instead of water.

6 oz freshly squeezed orange juice
3/4 t. ground cumin
1 each: cucumber, green pepper, tomato, chopped
1/2 cup chopped parsley
Dash salt and pepper

Combine all ingredients into chilled quinoa. Allow time to chill and serve.

Other useful sites:

ChetDay

Wikipedia

Whole Foods

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Tags: quinoa, vegan lunch