Another Cupcake Heard From

No falling sprinkles today but one good cupcake leads to another. My sister said cupcakes aren’t her favorite as the frosting is disproportionate to the amount of cake involved but many people are crazy for cupcakes. I have seen a line around the corner on Bleecker Street at the Magnolia Bakery, many times.

A couple of weeks ago on a Monday, I went to a friend’s house and these chocolate cupcakes were the dessert. Here is the recipe for Chocolate Heaven with Chocolate Buttercream.

I’m on a team for the Biggest Loser at work and we weigh in every Monday morning. Good thing I had the rest of the week to try to make up for the indulgence.

I looked through the cookbook where J got the recipe from and everything sounded enticing. Old fashioned baking with plenty of real ingredients. From Savannah Georgia, the Back in the Day Bakery is the name of the cookbook. J had heard the owners, Cheryl and Griffith Day, featured on the radio show Splendid Table. Their specialty? Vintage Desserts!

Miniature Sprinkles Cupcake and Clementine Scene

Once again inspired by Christopher Boffoli and his tiny food worlds.

I had taken the cupcakes and fruit into school on the student teacher’s last day. The little HO train people were in my desk.

I thought “food scape” and some students photographed the little people shoveling in the icing. But I thought it might look like a food museum and there were falling sprinkles to be mindful of so

the little hand-painted mom picked up her baby out of the stroller and held it close. Maybe she is waiting for transportation.

Night on Bryant Street- Italian(2), Belgium, Japanese, Thai, a PayPhone, the Laundromat, a Market and a Bus

Monday night when we drove through the neighborhood in the rain, none of the restaurants were open except for Smiling Banana Leaf. (Thai).

Joseph Tambellini’s is the first exterior I photographed and you should taste the delicious meatballs.

Continue reading “Night on Bryant Street- Italian(2), Belgium, Japanese, Thai, a PayPhone, the Laundromat, a Market and a Bus” →

Weekly Photo Challenge: Neighborhood

Phoneography special. The weekly photo challenge I have been talking about it for days. Unable to do it for a variety of reasons. Out of town. Too dark. Many people shoot with their phones. All day, everyday. Don’t think much of it, the photos sit and take up space. They have them in the phone and that’s about it.

This is just a snippet.

Tonight Steve drove us over to Shadyside for 1/2 price burger night at Shady Grove. I’ve added some shots around town I already had in the phone. This is not an attractive time of year to showcase where I live. If you want to see Pittsburgh at it’s best you can check out Francine in Retirement of Frizz in Germany. I take photos of Pittsburgh frequently. This is a collection of the everyday. The Historical Marker is where musician Billy Eckstine lived in my neighborhood.

The snowy park is the neighborhood I live in Highland Park. There are 80 neighborhoods in our city. The edges of neighborhoods are where I drive through everyday to school and across the bridge, over the Monongahela. I’ve thrown in a few you’ve seen before just to round out the gallery.

Last Wednesday’s view of the Highland Park Entrance. The second one is what my driveway looked like! It’s all gone now.

Music and Chocolate Cake in Zagreb, Croatia

So I got home from my weekend in Ohio, Sunday night with no chance to photograph the neighborhood for the weekly photo challenge as it was dark outside. Changing the clocks didn’t help me with enough light by the time I pulled in the driveway

-but in my inbox I found a message from my son Matthew who lives in Zagreb, Croatia (9 years already!)

The subject of his email: Guest blog 🙂 The dilemma of what to post? SOLVED!

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Dear Ma,

Yesterday I spent the evening with the Kaplowitz family. My dear friend Joe Kaplowitz is pretty much the only American I know over here and he invited me over for an American-style chocolate cake. Not only is he a brilliant jazz musician but he is quite an accomplished baker to boot! His beautiful wife Lela is a marvelous singer and they recently came out with a big-band album of original compositions called With Every Breath that you can hear (and buy!) here

After enjoying a generously-sized hunk of cake chased by a glass of milk, Joe, Lela, their daughter Lucija and I played a cut-throat game of Name That Tune. Lucija is also a budding musician, so as you might imagine the competition was pretty stiff. Then we headed to the parlor for a concert. Joe and Lucija, who plays the violin, teamed up for a set of traditional Croatian melodies played over some soulful blues piano.

Perhaps I was witnessing the concept for the next album being born.

Joe’s cake was so tasty that I plan to go back over tomorrow for another sliver.

In keeping with the spirit of the blog, will get the recipe tomorrow and send it to you!

Love, Matthew

p.s. Here is the recipe, just in from Zagreb this morning

only got 3 stars but i thought it was fabulous!

St. Michael in a Sunny Window

The Weekly Challenge is My Neighborhood. But I am not in my neighborhood today.

The only available photo of my neighborhood is a snow filled park with the benches piled high with snow. I figure I’ll wait until I get back home.

I saw the sun streaming into the window over the door and the backlit St. Michael the Archangel statue along with the deep blue sky and fluffy clouds. Continue reading “St. Michael in a Sunny Window” →

Raspberries and Blueberries on Vanilla Häagen-Dazs

Accompanied by ginger snaps!

This is the dessert my friend V served at a lovely home cooked dinner last Saturday. It was delicious. A generous helping, too.

A nice finish to a simply perfect meal. Walleye caught by Cousins Jeff and Jeffrey, a baked sweet potato and salad with whisked lemon juice and olive oil dressing. Found this in my phone tonight and was thinking about how everything was so good. She said she was following the same idea my mother used to profess- Buy the best food you can and do as little to it as possible. Good advice.

The Pamela’s Ginger Mini Snapz are gluten free and quite tasty. Hope you have a good day Saturday. HBTY!

The Whole Family is Getting in on this Guest Blog Thing

The number of Jelly Beans in the Jar is 528 so Gloria came in as the winner tonight as she guessed 500 and didn’t go over the total amount.

Thanks everyone for looking and guessing.

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This is a team effort. Blogging through a four year olds eyes. Could that be a stylus at the foot of the mat on the left?

I’m on the left and Maura ~~asleep~~ on my iPad on the right. You can see the computer hinged lid. ~~Maybe an iPad, too.~~

(corrected by Maura, what is really happening in the picture she drew)

Here’s a photo I received from my DIL on Thursday. My youngest granddaughter Maura (4) drew a picture. There is another version where we have ears, and I mean EARS!!! Maybe I’l lost that one, too.

When I visit in Ohio, I sleep on a mat in Maura’s room. She gets her Hello Kitty Sleeping bag and camps out, too.

So she drew herself sleeping on the right, while old Grandma(me) is next to her on the left, BLOGGING on the computer! She always says, “you can do the blog in my room.”

It is cool that everyone wants to contribute to the effort. Thanks supportive Family!!

love,

Ma/Grandma Ruthie

Guess How Many Jelly Beans in a Glass Quart Jar

I counted them.

One person guessed just two under the exact total. The jar was theirs. If you guess without going over, I’ll send Jelly Beans to the one closest. I think you could google the question but that wouldn’t be fun. The contents are the tiny jelly beans.

Lots of people don’t even like to eat them but they’re colorful and at this time of year, plentiful. There are all sorts of flavors, too Not just the fruit, spice or pectin. Did you ever put one in your mouth and guess what color it was?

Scroll down to see a simple jelly bean art design I made to photograph.

All things Jelly Bean today is inspired by fellow blogger Inside the MInd of Isadora and her post Create More Love where she showed a Kina Grannis music video with Jelly Bean Stop Action for the entire video using 288,000 jelly beans. And if you want to know more about the History of the Jelly Bean click here

And if that isn’t enough, head on over to the Jelly Belly Art Gallery and see Mona Lisa or the Girl With the Pearl Earring or Marilyn Monroe or Elvis created entirely wtth- you guessed it- JELLY BEANS. Did you know there was Jelly Bean Art before today? I just found out last week.

I’ll post the number of Jelly Beans in tomorrow’s post.

We’ll see who comes closest without going over the number!

4 Fireplaces at the Red Light on Fifth Ave and Kirkpatrick Street

Taken with the iPhone. Through my dirty windshield. I was at the end of Birmingham Bridge ready to go up the hill onto Kirkpatrick Street to Centre.

Not ideal conditions but there were those four fireplace openings staring at me as I sat and watched the cars come down Kirkpatrick Street.

Different from my daily route, it was my old route from last year’s school but I’d gotten my hair cut on Carson Street and was headed home.

You might remember Jurassic Pittsburgh from April 2012 if you ‘ve been following for awhile. I took that shot of the dinosaur-like demolition machine on the way to my former school. Added it here at the end cause who has time to back and look. But this is the result of the demolition.

Below are the photos from April 2012 that I took on the way to my former school.