Guinness in Cake? Pinch me.

I am allergic to coffee, as you will learn in a later post. Thankfully coffee isn't the only thing served at this coffeehouse and pub.

Take this five layer Guinness cake for example. Double yum.

Speaking of yum. Have I told you how much I love cereal?

This generic cereal made my day... mostly because they took the time to pay a good designer to amp up their packaging.

Don't these boxes look awesome? I'm sure they made the cereal taste better.

In all honesty I'm a huge sucker for packaging.

I probably wouldn't have tried this cereal otherwise.

(Well, the fact that they were on sale for a buck a box didn't hurt my motivation.)

After breakfast I picked me some awesome handkerchiefs at a yard sale. I love this color.

After some serious house cleaning I moved right on to lunch.

I was fortunate enough to enjoy a "doble doble" roll from Tokyo Seoul.

I needed to regain some energy for the Moscow Art Walk that would ensue that evening.

It was nice to see a decent turn out.

The fresh brewed beers might have had something to do with that. Although, as an artist myself, I'd like to think that people were honestly interested in the visual stimuli.

This asparagus was steamed, wrapped in garlic herb turkey and drizzled with curry.

Just to make sure that everyone had potent breath I toasted this thin crust garlic bread with LARGE chunks of garlic, small chunks of chicken and a good amount of mozzarella cheese.

This lightly dressed salad was complete with smoked almonds, slices of grapefruit, fresh shaved parmesan, sugar snap peas and a french vinaigrette.

I also took my first swing at an avocado mousse topped with a curried shrimp, shaved almond, a slice of strawberry, a flake of parmesan and a sprinkle of scallions. It turned out pretty tasty.

Ultimately we ended up with a fun and inexpensive snacky dinner dressed to impress.

We ate roman style around the coffee table.

Tyrone always appreciates it when we do this, it makes his job a lot easier.

Inception + Rifftrax + Graukes for dinner

Is anything better than perfectly toasted asparagus topped with olive oil, parmesan, fried sweet potatoes and spices?

Yes.

Eating it with my entrepreneurial buds JT and Kelsey who joined me for an evening filled with tears of laughter and lots of wine.

Congrats to them for starting their own business! Check it out HERE!

The variety of textures was definitely hard to beat. The sweet and savory combo was a delicate blend of crispy and soft textures.

With spring at ramming speed, I've been able to bust out the sides of seasonal fruits and veggies as delectable and darn good looking filler.

I've also recently come to enjoy roasted red pepper feta cheese on french bread drizzled with honey.

Of course I'd probably take any excuse to bust out my honey dipper. (What?!)

The peaches I picked up were at peak ripeness and tasted even better than they looked.

The strawberries followed suit just so they wouldn't be forgotten.

The warm asparagus was countered well by a fresh springy salad tossed with cashews, white onion, strawberries, cucumber shavings and goat cheese.

yum.

Although everything looks delicious, the table was a little naked without the main dish.

Once the cilantro pesto chicken with roasted red peppers, scallions, feta and bacon was brought to the table the meal looked a little more complete.

After dinner JT, Kelsey and I watched Inception with running commentary from these guys.

Don't get me wrong. Inception is a brilliant, amazing movie not to be taken lightly but,

the MST3K guys do a great job shedding new light on an inevitably transcendent film.

These past two weeks have been flying by at the speed of smell and I'm more than ready for them to be over.

Cups o' Dirt

"Cup o' dirt"

I tried to make the cups o' dirt a little less daunting and a little more classy by giving new meaning to "dirty martini".

I remember having cup o' dirt as a kid at some seriously awesome birthday parties.

Oreos, pudding and gummy worms make for a delicious dessert.

I followed that with some chalk drawings and my afternoon was complete.

Easter weekend and a whole lot more

Once again I have returned after being MIA for a week or so. Along with large quantities of homework to do as the school year concludes, the weekends have been filled with many interesting events around town AND interesting weather.

Let's take my Delorean back to 2 weekends ago.

Of course it rained the saturday after I got all of my grilling gear together. So I sufficed for indoor burgers.

You can't go wrong with bacon, beef, scallions, mozzarella and homemade jalapeno ranch.

I think I've decided not to post food pictures on day's that I haven't had lunch.

My stomach growls in concurrence.

All in all these burgers made a weekend of mass homework much more enjoyable.

The following weekend my folks were in town.

We're all pretty big fans of the bacon wrapped jalepeno popper. Here are a few uncooked.

Sizzling fresh out of the oven is the best way to consume but I'd eat them cold too. (They've never lasted long enough for me to find out what they taste like cold)

I also had a little Thai curry, chicken and rice noodles with Abby and Eliza. It turned out pretty tasty.

It tasted even better on Abby's blue and gold plate.

Real silverware = another bonus.

That friday night I had a little potluck with my friends Abby, William, Willy and Elise.

These apples would become part of my asparagus dish.

We watched this movie to conclude the night.

Toasted apples and walnuts in olive oil is one of my favorite simple flavor combos.

It was nice that we actually had some sunlight that day too!

Adding a little bacon on top of the asparagus really completes the composition.

And tastes delicious.

Because everything was so good I really only got photos of the aftermath. This was a robust salad supplied by Abby. Delectable dressing complements of this place.

Here's the ham I baked with a mixture of this, this, and this, for the glaze.

Sunday morning I had a couple more buddies over. My friends Matt and Amy, my neighbors Josh and Dylan, and my Mom and Dad. It was another potluck style dining session. The quiche went so fast I only thought to take a picture after everyone but me had finished their piece, and I was already to the crust.

Amy brought a fantastic raspberry tart!

walnuts and...

bananas and...

strawberries go great on...

vegan waffles made with rice milk.

Josh and Dylan brought some watermelon.

Yum.