I have awesome friends...

...who are also enablers! How can I not bake more stuff when people give me cool baking stuff for my birthday?
A convertible cupcake and cake carrier. The solution to my frequent frustration of how to actually transport what I’ve made to wherever its going to be consumed.

A three-tiered cooling rack! My counter space is thrilled! Not to mention this gives me a little bit more credibility as a baker since every recipe (almost) mentions letting things cool on a rack.
On the bottom left are a set of matroyshka doll measuring cups. Probably not necessary but definitely awesome. You know what’s great about these? There’s 2/3 cup measure! I like this because 1) it reduces measuring steps and 2) all proper science majors know that this will reduce errors in measurement (esp. since baking is like chemistry/science but yummier).
In the back right is a measuring cup with some interesting measurements on it.


In conclusion, my friends are awesome.
On a side note, as Valentine’s Day is around the corner I just wanted to say a couple things:

I love this boy. He’s been the man in my life for the past 13 years.

His birthday is next week. Happy early birthday, Brownie!

My heart also belongs to this girl. She’s smart, adorable and a brat. She hates when I try to show her how much I love her. She also doesn’t like that I disappear for weeks at a time.

See? she won’t even look at me.

Can’t you just hear her? “Can we go now? I stood still, you took my picture, time to get on with my walk!”

And this is why I love driving to San Diego at sunset, traffic and all.

A Weakness

One of my many weaknesses is spending way too long checking out kitchen stuff in stores. It’s sad, really, because I change my residence every year or two, and I really hate packing up all the stuff I have in my kitchen. When I moved out of my last apartment, my mom made me throw away one of my baking sheets! It was quite sad. It’d been in my house most of my life and we had a lovely 3 years together in college and grad school. My other baking sheet was not in much better condition. I’m not sure why I was allowed to keep it. It rattles when you tilt it side to side and it is scored in many directions from having pizza cut on it.
In any case today I came across this baking sheet set and I couldn’t resist.

Plus it’s made by “Nordic Ware” complete with a Viking head. What person with the tiniest smidgen of Norwegian blood could resist? No one, that’s who.
With respect to the chef’s knife on top of the box, I bought that today too. I had kidnapped my mom’s Chef’s knife for the past 3 years, but gave it back when I moved to med school. I was in a discount store and decided I couldn’t live with awkwardly chopping up produce any longer.
I guess I need to bake cookies with nuts now to justify today’s purchases.