Birthday Cupcakes

I went to Sprinkles to pick up my birthday cupcakes. First I went inside and got four cupcakes. But as I was leaving, I saw the cupcake ATM and thought I should try it out.

I made my choice and paid using that little black thing to swipe my card. Then the door opened and out came a cupcake!

As it was opening, I thought I better take a video of this, but by the time I got out my phone, it was finished opening. So then I was trying to make sure I had at least a still picture of it. But then the door started closing and my cupcake was still inside!  So I grabbed it out of the ATM, but the door was already closing like a garage door coming down, and it almost caught my box. So then the door was stuck for a minute and I'm thinking "I can't believe I broke the stupid cupcake ATM on my very first visit!!" 

 

But I didn't. It took a second and then closed and I was on my way. 

Birthday

JM was not touring again this year, so a low-key birthday was on the agenda.  I went to NJ to spend it with Jill & Chris and my cute niece. Lara and Candace came down, too.  Here's my niece with auntie Lara, looking for birds, which is her new thing. 

The next day, I was babysitting while Jill worked. So we went to the park and on the way home, stopped at this bakery, Carlo's. Their town has several bakeries, so I like to try different ones when I come visit. 

I got the chocolate peanut butter cup.  The cupcake was too dense (not moist) and not very flavorful. The frosting tasted better, but it was almost crunchy with sugar crystals.  Not too impressed. It wasn't until afterwards that I found out these are famous cupcakes by Cake Boss. Of course I've seen the show once or twice, but I didn't recognize the name. 

Luckily, Jill got us cupcakes from Cupcake Magician the night before. So much better, and cheaper, too! 

Here's my birthday flowers from KB. 

While I was babysitting, we took long walks, went to the park, and went "swimming" in the play pool in the back yard.   I'll be saying good-bye to this cute face tomorrow and going back to work!

Jersey girl

I got these awesome pencils for my birthday. Thanks Valerina! 

My birthday week

 For my birthday this year, I spent the weekend in one of my favorite places (New Jersey) with three of my favorite people (Jill, Chris and LT). 

The weekend started with a red velvet cupcake from Crumbs, which a friend gave me. 



Here's Jilly Lou making my cake.  I asked for chocolate cake, so she went ahead and made a chocolate ganache.  So rich and delicious.  And three layers!

In the morning, we stopped at one of the many diners for which New Jersey is famous.  This is the Americana.  This photo doesn't necessarily capture it, but I got the most amazing brunch -- Monte Cristo French Toast.  It was so good. 

Overall, a good and low-key birthday.  Next year, I hope to be somwhere listening to John Mayer, but if that doesn't happen, then I hope it's just as sweet as this birthday. 

Birthday week

Another year has gone by. Since my boyfriend John Mayer has been taking a much needed break from the limelight and is not touring this summer, I had to come up with something to do for my birthday this year.

My birthday started a few days early with a BBQ at Jill and Chris's house. Chris is an awesome BBQ'er and basically made a dinner made to order for me. We had burgers with blue cheese in the middle and bacon on top. He also grilled some corn on the cob for us and we had some cut up watermelon. It was all delicious!!

After dinner, we walked over to one of their three cupcake spots, Mr. Cupcakes. These were good, but not great. Clockwise from top left: Lemon, Tiramisu, Vanilla/Vanilla, Coconut.

This is the Vanilla/Vanilla, which they named "Birthday cake" so it was a perfect choice for me.



Last year, I went to see JM with Anne Lise in a venue near her town of San Diego. About a week before my trip, I sent an email to another one of my Norwegian friends, Sara, and told her she should come down too. I don't know why she couldn't drop her life of a full-time job and three kids and husband on one week's notice, but she couldn't. This year, I didn't wait until the last minute to invite her and when she said she could come, our reunion was on!! Sounds like a perfect birthday to me!

The day I arrived, Lise picked me up and we went straight to the beach. Afterwards, we found the closest cupcake place (thanks to smart phones!) and ended up at Sugar & Scribe. The owner/baker was there and we chatted her up for a bit. My first thought was "never trust a skinny chef" but in this case, that saying does not apply. My routine is to go straight for the Vanilla/Vanilla but the chocolate buttercream frosting looked so good, I went for that one. And it was a good choice. It was maybe the best chocolate frosting I've had. (except for maybe Lise's norwegian chocolate frosting.) It was super creamy, but not super chocolately, which is good for me. I didn't get a picture of it, but this is what their display looked like:



On my actual birthday, we went to the famous Sprinkles, which has opened a location in San Diego. Although these are good, it sort of bugs me that they are so basic but cost $3.50 each. However, I do like them a lot. The cake is so moist and the perfect density, and the frosting is the perfect sweetness.

Anne Lise, Me, Sara

Sara & Me plus 4 delicious cupcakes (guess who got two??)

Clockwise from left: Lemon, Vanilla/coconut, Vanilla/chocolate w/sprinkles, Key lime



For our last cupcake adventure, we went to Corner Cupcakes . Lise had heard about this cupcake truck and then this week, the owner won "Cupcake Wars." We drove way out of our way to find the truck and were able to congratulate the owner personally on her win. However, the congratulations were a bit premature because these cakes were very marginal.

We tried all three of the show-winning cupcakes: (bottom from right) Belly Buster (Peanut butter & bacon cake, chocolate ganache filling, salted caramel frosting), Full house (coconut cake with lemon curd filling and lemon coconut frosting) and Two Pears (self-explanatory). We also got (top from left) Vanilla/Vanilla, Chocolate cake with salted caramel frosting and red velvet with cream cheese frosting.



The Belly Buster:



The verdict: The winner was the Two Pears cupcake. I have never had a pear cupcake before and it was pretty good. The lemon curd was not tart enough and the whole Full House cupcake was bland overall. But the peanut butter/chocolate/bacon/salted caramel cupcake was NO GOOD. The cake was really dry and crumbly, and did not taste good. The salted caramel frosting was pretty good, so I just ate that off the cupcake and left the rest behind (can't go wrong with salty and sweet).

The non-winning cupcakes were another story. One bite into the vanilla and chocolate cupcakes and we all agreed they were clearly from a mix. I could not be more disappointed. Again, the best part of these cupcakes was the salted caramel frosting.

So, the winner this week was Sugar and Scribe. Plus, they had lots of other tasty looking treats. I indulged in only one besides the cupcakes and that was a no-bake cookie. YUM!!

Opening number

The Culmination

The highlight of my big day was 2 + hours with my boyfriend. As usual, he put on a great show. Here are Anne Lise and me waiting for the show to start. We got there a full hour before the opening act (Owl City) so I got a new t-shirt and a poster to remember my big day.

Because I got tickets through the fan club, we got GREAT seats. We were in the sixth row, over to the right side.

Yes, I did bring a sign, made by my cute sister, Valerie, but he didn't see it. Some people had the fantasy for me that he would see the sign, think I'm awesome, and bring me up on stage. But since I would probably pass out and die, I didn't really want that to happen.

On the way home, we got In N Out Burgers and shakes. PERFECT birthday.

Birthday cupcake report

Birthday morning, I woke up to presents and birthday cake! Since I obviously love cupcakes, Anne Lise made them the theme of the day (and that's so like her to have a theme). All of the things in this gift bag had cupcakes on them -- note pads, post-its, those silly rubber bracelets, paper clips, etc.


Then she gave me this cute little cupcake on a pedestal, where it belongs. It was her famous Norske skjokolade kake with raspberry filling. So delicious and so many memories eating this cake together.Unfortunately, sometimes you have to eat something besides cupcakes. Therefore, we went out to breakfast to a place recommended by Esther called Hash House a Go Go. Little did we know that when we ordered a dish, it was supposed to feed a family of four.

This is a dish that is a signature HH meal. It is like eggs benedict, but they do it all on top of a biscuit. This was Lise's breakfast. She made a valiant attempt to finish it.

Below was my meal, which was turkey & bacon hash over fried potatoes, with a side of scrambled eggs and a biscuit. In case you are wondering, biscuits are second only to cupcakes for me.

Next, we were off on a cupcake adventure. We looked online and found a few places. Here's one, called Eclipse Chocolate. They mostly have amazing looking chocolate, but most places have some version of cupcakes in addition to anything else they serve, and so does this place. We got three cupcakes--all yellow cake with chocolate ganache frosting. From left -- PB&J, salted dulce de leche, and in front, apricot/peach.

Below is the salted dulce du leche. mmmmmm.... the cake was so moist and the ganache so rich. Here are a few choices from a place called Babycakes. We got several from this place... from the left pina colada, red velvet, vanilla/vanilla, black forest, chocolate/vanilla, and black bottom. These were disappointing. All of them were kind of spongy, dry and tasteless. That didn't stop me from eating one the next day out of the refrigerator, and for some reason, they tasted better the second day.


Lest you think I was finished, two days later I got a package in the mail. Esther, knowing how much I love her friend's cakes, who is also now making whoopie pies, sent me 16 whoopie pies. SIXTEEN!! And they are good!!

Let's get this party started

I like to celebrate my birthday for as long as possible, so I started over the weekend. LT, Candace & I took the bus home with Jill after work on Friday night and stayed with her for the whole weekend. We started out the weekend right at Captain Ed's for dinner with lots of yummy seafood. I wish I got a picture of Jill's crab legs. Ridiculous.

On Saturday, we got up bright and early and went to the beach. Jill is lucky to live just a few minutes from the Jersey shore (and yet hasn't embraced the GTL culture quite yet). Here we are, protecting our skin from the aging effects of the sun. Nothing like a birthday to remind you about that. This picture was taken while Jill was at home, making me a cake. Yes, she left early and sacrificed a few hours of sun worshipping in the beautiful August weather (said without a hint of sarcasm -- we really are having a beautiful August) to make me a tres leches cake.

The next day, the cake looked like this. As you can see, it wasn't good at all (said with more than a hint of sarcasm).

Happy Birthday to me!!

I realized that if I pushed a bit, I could actually see my 40th John Mayer show on my 40th birthday. I know I said that when I went to see JM in Seattle back in March, that it was my 30th show (if you're keeping score), so I didn't actually see 10 more shows after that. What I did was I figured in shows I hadn't counted before, like the Today show and Live Earth. I figured those didn't count because he only played 3 or 4 songs, but I changed my mind and now they do count. (I still didn't count the times I saw Letterman because those shows are only 1 song. I have to draw the line someplace.)



1. November 23, 2002 -- Amherst, MA
2. August 25, 2003 -- Jones Beach, NY
3. August 29, 2003 -- PNC Bank Arts Center, NJ
4. November 1, 2003 -- Atlanta, GA
5. November 24, 2003 -- Madison Square Garden, NYC
6. February 14, 2004 -- Vancouver, Canada
7. February 2004 -- Crossroads w/ Brad Paisley at Hammerstein Ballroom NYC
8. April 30, 2004 -- Today Show
9. March 20, 2004 -- Providence, RI
10. August 18, 2004 -- Jones Beach NY
11. September 18, 2005 -- Denver, CO
12. October 6, 2005 -- Beacon Theater, NYC
13. November 22, 2005 Tower Records, NYC
14. November 23, 2005 Bowery Ballroom, NYC
15. August 25, 2006 -- Today Show
16. August 25, 2006 -- Saratoga Springs, NY
17. August 30, 2006 -- Jones Beach, NY
18. September 22, 2006 -- Vancouver Canada
19. September 23, 2006 -- Auburn, WA
20. September 24, 2006 -- Ridgefield, WA
21. October 13, 2006 -- Atlanta, GA
22. February 5, 2007 -- Huntsville, AL
23. February 28, 2007 --MSG NYC
24. July 7, 2007 -- Live Earth, Giants Stadium
25. July 20, 2007 -- Good Morning America
26. July 24, 2007 -- PNC Bank Arts Center, NJ
27. July 9, 2008 -- Jones Beach NY
28. July 15, 2008 -- PNC Bank Arts Center, NJ
29. August 23, 2008 -- Hartford, CT
30. November 17, 2009 -- Beacon Theater NYC
31. November 19, 2009 -- Ed Sullivan Theater NYC
32. February, 19, 2010 -- Mohegan Sun, CT
33. February 25, 2010 -- MSG NYC
34. February 26, 2010 -- MSG NYC
35. March 31, 2010 -- Seattle, WA
36. July 21, 2010 -- Jones Beach NY
37. July 23, 2010 -- Today Show
38. August 3, 2010 -- PNC Bank Arts Center, NJ
39. August 7, 2010 -- Hartford, CT
40. August 25, 2010 -- Chula Vista, CA