What Takes the Cake?

For the past couple of years, I have tried out cake recipes that I haven't made before for my sister's birthday. Last year I made these yummy cupcakes:

This year I wanted to make a Red Velvet cake! I have searched for YEARS for a decent recipe of this. I have tried out several versions, including one you can now buy during the holidays from the store, but none of them tasted quite the same.

The first time I had Red Velvet cake was in kindergarten. Jimmy Englar's mom brought these red cupcakes that I just loved. I ran home to mom and asked her if she could make them for me sometime. She had no idea what I was talking about. Red cupcakes that sort of tasted like chocolate cakes, but not really. She thought they were just chocolate cupcakes with red dye, but they are not.

Years later, my dad brought home a Red Velvet Cake he won at an auction. It was the same taste as I remembered! So I asked him to get the name of the cake. I searched in the stores and recipes everywhere to duplicate it, but nothing tasted the same.

Finally, this year, Dad won another Red Velvet Cake that came with the recipe! After tasting it, I decided that this was closest to the right one. I made it for my sister's birthday. By the next day, two of them ate over half of the cake I made! It was definitely a hit!

Hmm... these guys look familiar...

For those of you who already know me, you know that I am a long-time fan of the comic Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson. I was excited to find this illustration drawn as a tribute to the former comic strip, by Nina Matsumoto of Space Coyote (as posted by NeatoRama ).

The image is a cross between the comic itself, and caricatures of the philosophers it was named after (John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes). The print is available for purchase here.

Cool Tunes, Cool Covers

I went to my hometown for the long weekend, and was browsing though some of my dad's record albums. I have a good size collection myself, but the music is limited to just a few groups/singers. My dad has a variety of good albums - he has such good taste! I never thought of buying the same albums because he always had them. Now that I have been gone from home for quite awhile now, I miss hearing the old tunes. Sometimes I still hear the more popular songs on the radio though.

Here are a couple of records that he has that have really cool covers:

Supertramp: Breakfast In America. Cool because it takes several white kitchen dishes and food items to make it look like New York. The waitress with a cheesy look on her face is supposed to be the Statue of Liberty. The orange color creates a great contrast as well. It is awesome. I love this cover. The music is quite humorous too, so the cover suits the music inside.

Fleetwood Mac: Rumours. Love the music. I love dance photos, probably because I really used to love dancing and took classes for a short time when I was younger. A couple of my favorite dance movies are Center Stage and Strictly Ballroom.... oh, but I guess that kind is off the subject, but that is how I am sometimes.

As I was browsing looking for the album cover images, I found this spoof! At first I thought it was just a funny drawing spoofing only Fleetwood Mac. However, it is also supposed to be spoofing two characters from the Harry Potter series, Professor Treelawny and Professor Snape! Whoever illustrated this did an awesome job!