And when I die, I expect to find him laughing

Our eventual destination - the funeral home of course. The gravestone is almost finished. It is my goal to get it done before the Old Lady kicks it herself.

The funeral director LOVES O.G. (as most people not related to her do) and she has gotten to know me since I am always there.



FDirector: "This must be your favorite Grandchild!"
O.G. : (shaking her head) "Nope."
Jenn: "Gee, thanks."
FDirector: "HAHA! Why not? She's always taking care of you!"
O.G.: "She's always mad at me."
Jenn: "Geez, I wonder WHY."
FDirector: "You guys are so much alike!"
O.G.: "I wouldn't say that if I were you..."
Jenn: "Someone kill me..."

The funeral director could not stop laughing. I should have left that Old Lady in the hood...

glen...DALE!

Navigating through Glendale is like being punched in the boob. It leaves you feeling achy and confused. I don't know what it is but getting around I feel like my GPS's bitch - just tell me where to turn cause I have no clue. Perhaps I was disoriented because of the heat. It was 83 degrees, and I had just come from my house at the beach where it was 69. Sixty. Nine. That's a big difference.

I had very good reason to go out there though, I invited myself over to a friend's house. I know, rude - right? But she was going to show/inspire me with the wonder of her letterpress. In exchange I brought her cupcakes. Even steven? Maybe not.

I'm big on inspiration, and seeing different processes, and seeing what others create really gets my ideas flowing.

Since she is having her second baby we sat in the lovely patio, and laughed at how 'easy' having a newborn was. We thought it was so hard back then. Things just get harder, in a different way. I'm very excited for her growing family - I miss those days of being pregnant and having a newborn. It sounds stupid but life was so much simpler then.

I said goodbye and headed back down the freeway to the beach. Watching the thermometer slowly tick back down...to sixty nine.

He ask how I do like that, fit my jeans over baby phat

My MIL's biggest pet peeve with me is that I don't make meals with rice. Scratch that. Her biggest pet peeve is that I am fat. But anyone bigger than a size 4 is fat to her.

True, I don't make much rice, but there is one rice dish the kids adore, that is Inari Sushi. Here's how pathetic I am. I didn't know that was the name of it til like last year. We ate it as kids and O.G. always called them FOOTBALLS, cause that's what they looked like. Our entire family has called them that my whole life! How lame. Worst. Asians. Ever.

Anyway, it seemed like something I could make it at home, though I've never tried. OMG it is so damn easy. I can't believe I went all these years buying them. Now I just make them at home anytime the kids want!!

As far as me being fat, that's not going to change. I like ice cream.

Inari Sushi recipe

Bite me

Whenever I do Con or a craft show I bring along Burger Bites to hand out to blog readers, or friends who stop by. Just as a little thank you. They are small, and portable and don't really have a spoilage factor especially since I heat seal everything.

Now that I've started putting them into little origami paper cups, I can't stop. Looks like I will be folding those mofos for life. They are the easiest of things (which is the only reason I am willing to do it) so here's a little step by step. Oh and germ-a-phobe that I am, I didn't just use regular old paper to wrap them, NOOO, I went out and got food safe patty paper, which is used for actual burgers. These are just burgers too, just...mini.

My life has been such a whirlwind since I saw you, Ive been running round in circles in my mind

A week later, and I'm back from the Con! I have to say, this was the best one yet. It felt very smooth, I wasn't overly tired, no Con Flu (thanks, Purell) and there were so many amazing things to see. Lots of celebs walking the floor - Hiro (Masi Oka) stopped by Small Press and there were tons more.

Bad:No less than two attempts of stealing at my booth - one resulting in rudeness, the other in throwing my items back at me. Insanity.

Good: I got to spend a lot of time with friends I see only once a year, I got three roundabout job offers/opportunities while sitting there, and I came home with a lot less product. Some things even sold out, which means I can't rest and have to restock. A good problem to have.

Odd: I ran into Lou Ferrigno 3 times, who was staying at my hotel. Someone asked me if I was sharing a room with him, uh - no.

I had a lot of blog readers come by and they even brought me presents which was awfully nice, and they weren't ticking time bombs - thanks stalkers!

The biggest hit was the FREE Hello Kitty Wolverine buttons that I handed out. People came from all over just for those! Also I got to sit next to my favorite booth mates and got to watch her make her Beastlies in action. Truely adorable. Buy her stuff! She is amazing!Oddly enough, I really missed cooking and driving my car. Weird. Oh yeah, and my kids. Forgot about them. Of course I didn't. Like any good mom filled with guilt, I brought home a ton of junk for the kids to make sure that they still love me. It should last a week. Then I'll have to get creative.

But who cares, you just want to know who won the Hello Kitty pasta, right? Random Number Integer came up with #31 Kate and #1 Jennifer. Say, that is random. Congrats! Email me your address so I can send it right out!

Thanks for reading - more Con photos, here!

Venice Obon

It's summer - when Japanese American churches celebrate with dancing and more importantly gorging themselves on homemade carnival food....as we did last weekend in Venice. Ugh. My tummy.

Give it away, give it away, give it away now

~GIVEAWAY!~

You know when you come across something that is just too cute for words? This was it. Hello Kitty pasta!! Just too freakin' adorable. It's a very small bag, just 100 grams each which is like a cup or so.

I decided to make baked pasta in little ramekins. The baked pasta recipe works with ANY shape of course, not just Hello Kitty. They were a hit and the kids happily dug into their little bowls. Of course dino shaped garlic bread made it taste even better.

Since I'll be busy the next few days away at Comic Con, I am giving away some of this adorable pasta - and I have two bags, so that means two winners! Leave a comment on this post (you have until Sunday midnight) and the winner will be announced next week. And if you're in San Diego this weekend, stop by Small Press! Good luck!

Baked Pasta recipe, here.

Everything I've ever done,Everything I ever do,Every place I've ever been,Everywhere I'm going to,It's a sin.

I knew I'd used part of this song as a post title before, but I went back to check to make sure and this is what I found. Things haven't changed much in two years. sigh.

ANYWAY, my friend had a birthday, and while I do enjoy making cupcakes, they certainly don't mail well. So I figured who doesn't love cookies - especially...Chocolate Chip Cookies. YUM.

It was a good excuse to bust out my Baked cookbook again. Those brownies were the bomb, and I was itching to try something else.

Oh...wow. Those things were GOOD. Probably due to the massive amount of chocolate chips in there, the recipe calls for 16 ounces and who am I to argue?

While I shipped off the birthday cookies, I must admit I kept a few for myself. As if they weren't sinfully rich enough - I got the bright idea to sandwich them with...homemade coffee ice cream. Good god, somebody stop me.

Puff daddy

What have you been craving? I've been craving creampuffs. I have no idea why - but Beard Papa's sounded fantastic lately.

I usually get my fix at Hollywood and Highland, but I knew there was a location in Gardena inside the Japanese market, Marukai. I also knew it'd be a good way to take a night off from cooking, since they have a mini food court in there.

The kids had a Sushi Boy kid's meal. For $5 you get teriyaki chicken and rice, cucumber sushi, a mini jello, a toy AND a drink. Now that's a fast food meal I can get behind. Cheap and healthy.

I decided to go to Shinsengumi, an outpost of the original noodle house, this one still had all the same noodle dishes, but a little bar to sit at - just like in Japan. The kids made themselves at home and looked like two little old men having lunch and reading the paper. Ah, a look into 60 years from now.

For $8 I got the Ramen set, which was a big steamy bowl of hot ramen noodles, a side plate of gyoza dumplings AND some freakin' delicious fried rice. Man, was that tasty.

As I went to sit the kids at a table, I stopped dead in my tracks. The next restaurant over had a sign that they were selling...RABBIT SHAPED MOCHI. What!? Sadly it's only for three days - July 23-26, of course I'll be out of town, dammit!! Still, I hope to send out some of my Mochi Scouts to try it out in my absence. Mochi Scouts. Like Girl Scouts, but chewier.

Finally the whole point of the trip, Beard Papas. They only had original and the chocolate covered eclair ones left, but that was fine with me. Sometimes they have flavors like mango and green tea, but I don't need my creampuffs fancied up anyway, thanks.

Afterwards we went shopping in the market, but can someone tell me why the hell Asian markets are so FREEZING COLD. It's like they pump the a/c to Antarctica levels. We bought some snacks and headed home. Full of noodles and creampuffs.

Fat Bastard: I ate a baby. Baby: the other, other white meat. Baby: it's what's for dinner.

I spent the weekend making babies. Not like that, ew.

I made desserts for a baby shower - 50 cupcakes, 100+ cookies. Looking back I probably should have asked for help with prep work, but no one was available so I had to do it all on my own...

Usually I'm fine - I've had to do more than by myself before, but these particular items were VERY labor intensive.

Being the lame perfectionist that I am, it took longer than it should have. I made 'Sleeping Baby' cupcakes, neapolitan cookies and Burger Bite Cookies.

In typical Jenn-fashion, I went overboard and made little origami cups to hold the Burgers so they looked like they were wrapped. Ingenious! Except that I hate origami and I had to make 50 of them. Not so genius.

I think people get the most excited when they SMELL the baby cupcakes. It's that familiar sweet scent that people can't quite wrap their minds around. Yes, all the babies are sleeping under Starburst blankies that I rolled out by hand and no my arms may never be the same again. Ow.

Everything looked great when it was all laid out. Good luck to the parents-to-be!

You don't even care now, I was unaware, how fine you was before my buzz set in

The Baby's 'big boy' room is complete. The crib is gone, as well as all the little cutesie baby things that make up a nursery. Sad.

He wanted Buzz Lightyear room "SOOOO BAD!!" Normally I wouldn't fall for it, however it was three straight months of Buzz Buzz Buzz. Playing Buzz, watching Toy Story, pretending to be Buzz. So I felt pretty safe in the fact that Buzz Lightyear was a go. I kept putting it off, then I finally got my act together. I made the sheets, I got wall stickers for them to apply and I hung a flying Buzz from the ceiling.

Now he's into Batman.

That's what I get for taking my sweet ass time.

His birthday isn't til November and he's already asking for a Batman birthday. You want Batman? Riiiight. What? Transformers now? NO PROB. How about Star Wars? GO ON WITH YOUR BAD SELF. I'm smarter than that. I ain't even thinking about it til Halloween.

So enjoy your Buzz Lightyear room...FOREVER.

What up dawg?

For some reason I was craving corndogs. And while it's true, I do own every kitchen appliance known to man (as I've been accused of) so yes, I do own a deep fryer - I was not in the mood to bring it out. Plus I always want to try to go healthy...-er, when it comes to the kid's food.

Who are we kidding, I know baked corn dogs aren't as good as fried ones, but I thought I'd give it a go. I mixed up a batch of 'dough/batter' and covered the dawgz. They baked up pretty well and turned out really tasty!

Knowing I'd be giving the kids corndogs that didn't look like they usually do, I tried to make up for it with a ton of fun condiments. I took a cupcake pan and in the liners put all the things they could eat with their corndogs.

The kids loved the dogs so I don't even think the fun-diments were necessary, but they sure look cute in the tray. What can I cram in there next? A steak dinner??

Baked Corndogs recipe

RoboBaby

You said I wasn't your kind, only here for the ride

A few weeks back I had the pleasure of hosting two back to back playdates in my house. Six kids one day, three the next. All boys (plus one girl). Talk about crazy. That's a lot of kids. The sure fire way to get children to come together and play? Thomas trains and lots of them.
Luckily (or not) my house has every Thomas Train ever made. With all this inspiration around I knew Thomas cupcakes MUST be made.

I made the faces out of fondant, quite pleased with myself til the Kid cried "WHERE'S THE BLUE. THOMAS IS BLUE." Er. I'm out of fondant, Kid. So I made some red velvet cupcakes but dyed them...blue. Works for me.The kids adored them and ate all that fondant and mostly left the cake. GROSS. The mommies all ate the cake and left the fondant. SMART.

After the cupcakes, like any good hostess, I sent the kids home with their moms to deal with the inevitable sugar meltdown. It'd be funny except I still was left with my own two kids to deal with. Dammit, can I get a Nanny up in here?!? Eventually the downhill crash began and they finally fell asleep - dreaming of sugary Thomas faces staring at them, I'm sure. Creepy.

Thomas Train fondant how-to, here.

She's crafty - and she's just my type

Whew! Half my Crazy Month is over. Renegade was FANTASTIC. There were so many fun things and cool people there, but I didn't get to see any of them. Not because I didn't want to, I just didn't have the time. I didn't even buy anything, which is a first! My booth was busy all day - both days, which was great, but it ruined my plans for doing things like...eating.

Luckily LilSprinkles was kind enough to come 'relieve' me all day long. She brought me food, and let me out to pee every 3 hours. I'm like a dog, apparently.
Someone said, "I thought your pins said 'FAT WHORE'!" Er...no.

The one downside was a large marching band that played around 4pm on Sunday. They were good...it was just super loud...in a penthouse...on the 13th floor. Yikes. It drove away a lot of customers, and when the band stopped, I made sales. Ha! Funny how that works. Is that why muzak is so important at malls?

Overall, it was really a wonderful show, and I hope it becomes a Los Angeles tradition. Thanks to all my friends and blog readers who stopped by, it really made my day. I'd love to do it again, now...next up Comic Con!

Don't stop til you get enough

One more push - this weekend is Renegade. Stop on by.

Tiny dancer

Stuck on the 110fwy with O.G. = 45 mins of discussions like this...

O.G.: "My friend Meech has only one pair of shoes."
Jenn: "Come on."
O.G.: "I'm serious. She wears a size three."
Jenn: "NO ADULT WEARS A SIZE THREE."
O.G.: "She does! And Yorie does too!"
Jenn: "You are a liar who lies."
O.G.: "All my friends wear size three shoes."
Jenn: "ALL YOUR FRIENDS WEAR SIZE THREE SHOES."
O.G.: "Yes."
Jenn: "Are you only friends with centaurs?"
O.G.: "I don't know what that means but YES."
Jenn: "You are ridiculous."
O.G.: "Since I wear a size 7 they call me Bigfoot..."
Jenn: "Shut... Up."

Grr. Have you ever wanted to strangle someone? While driving...?

Hello Pirate

This is what happens when I am at home and bored.

I've had these Hello Kitty cupcakes in mind for a while. She is the one thing I can draw with my eyes closed so it was simple transition to fondant.

People always ask me if it's hard to work with fondant. I don't think so. The sculpting part of it is pretty cathartic. Just go with the flow. It's fun to mix up colors and just start shaping things.

I made a bunch of kitty faces, with a couple of pirate kitties thrown in for good measure. You know how the trend was to bling everything out? I'm going to pirate-out everything. Whatever's not nailed down will be turned into a pirate.

I have a few friends who adore Hello Kitty as much as I do, so I knew they'd be appreciated. I put the faces on red velvet cupcakes and dyed the cream cheese frosting a light pink. It gave the kitty faces a nice sweet n' fluffy pillow to rest on.

Fondant Hello Kitty how-to, here.

Ice is back with a brand new invention

For this year's Fourth of July taste test, I decided to make up my very own entry into the competition - Vanilla Sea Salt Ice Cream. I had a bunch of vanilla sea salt leftover from the wedding cupcakes that I did recently, and for some reason the idea of ice cream popped in my head.

I looked on the internet and the only previous reference was to the Kingdom of Hearts video game. I don't even know what that is, which is odd considering I hear Disney is involved. (Someone revoke my Nerd Badge.) Anyway, turns out the maker of that game had tasted Sea Salt Ice Cream during a trip to Tokyo Disney Seas - oddly enough I remembered that I had tried the same thing when I was there ten years ago! How could you not, it sounds so intriguing...

So I tried my own recipe and it came out pretty good! I got some 'great!'s and one 'not good'. Everyone else was silent. Hm. I thought it was salty-sweet, in the best possible way.

Vanilla Sea Salt Ice Cream recipe

I got that boom boom pow

Fourth of July 2009 was...the same as last year. Same peeps. Same fireworks. I ate my weight in guacamole. Blah.

I love grilled bbq foods, however I was kind of repulsed by these hamburgers my Uncle grilled up from Costco. Why the heck are there holes in the middle? I felt like I was eating a donut burger and not the Paula Deen kind. It tasted good, it was just odd.Desserts were abundant, I made red velvet cupcakes that the kids decorated with sprinkles and my annual Watermelon Bombe. And this year, my Uncle's Annual Taste Test? Vanilla Ice Cream!

Of course it was the coldest Fourth of July ever. People were in parkas, ski hats, winter garb. I realize that we don't even live in snow country, but by the beach 50 degrees is cold, peeps! What I'm saying is, not ideal ice cream weather.

Which ice cream was the best? Let's just say that much like last year's ketchup debacle where I chose Hunt's as my favorite, I refuse to believe I'd betray my beloved Heinz and will buy that brand til I die. Er. Our family takes these tests a little too seriously.

Once again our family called foul on my Uncle's Taste Test. There's no freakin' way they were labeled correctly. I told him to show me the carton so I could eat of there directly to see if Dreyer's was really Dreyer's and Thrifty was really Thrifty. However the cartons were conveniently thrown away earlier in the day. Huh. A likely story. O.G.'s review? "Hm. They all taste like ice cream." Brilliant.

It was a good exhausting day, but too many annoying people and too much boom boom pow noise - is optimum irritation level for me. Maybe I just need to back away from the guac now and chill. Until next year...