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This last Saturday was Authors After Dark in Philadelphia. The event went on for the weekend but I was only able to make it to the author signing on Saturday. Among the 150 awesome were Dakota Cassidy, Larissa Ione, Allison Pang, Carolyn Crane, and Lara Adrian.
I was able to gush my love to these gals, gather some signed books, and meet some wonderful new people. Chatting with a few authors lead to my TBR pile growing substantially. I love these type of events. I get to pick up their books and have the writer give me their own pitch for them. I always find a few that may have slipped through the cracks. Plus all of the little goodies like bookmarks, trading cards, and pens make me insanely happy. My favorite may have been Carolyn Crane’s Disillusionist trading cards. For those who follow me on Goodreads, you know I lost my mind over that series when I discovered it. The bright red cherry was coming home to find that my copy of A Brush of Darkness was signed, “All your bacon are belong to us!”. I giggled.
Authors After Dark is much more intimate than something larger like RWA. RWA pretty much falls into the organized chaos category to me. The day they have their signing there are thousands of folks lined up for their change to get to me one of 700 some authors. Since this was a significantly smaller venue the crowd you would have a better opportunity to chat with the authors.
I have such a blast at these type of events I think you should all go at one point or another. I always bring along a sidekick. They usually have a look of intense pain on their faces but they are great for carrying your stacks of books and waiting in a long line while you are in another.
Afterward we headed out to feed the ravaging beast, and by that I mean me. Scoping out what was closest we found a Chinese restaurant that was part of the top 100 Chinese restaurants in the USA several years in a row. I remember when these awards were handed out earlier this year and I was going on and on about how we need to go to all of the local ones. I of course completely forgot about it. Happening upon this one was fun and reignited my excitement to go restaurant hopping. I had a lunch special of wanton soup, fried rice, and chicken in black bean sauce. It was good, but it didn’t rock my world. I’d like to go back and try some of their specialties.
Unable to resist the seduction of chocolate I couldn’t be so close to Max Brenner and not go there for dessert. I’ll be honest, if you have friends or family who are not okay with you reaching over and diving into their plates, make sure to leave them at home. Once you get the dessert menu in your hand it is impossible to not start playing “let’s make a deal” with the ordering. “If I get this one, you should get that one and we can share.”
I ordered a double macchiato to drink and it came with pretty foam swirls, and squares of milk chocolate. It pretty much kicked my ass in the strongness department. For the sugary goodness I got the hazelnut crepe. Hazelnut sauce, toffee, crunchy chocolate bits, and bananas all in the middle of a light beautiful crepe. On the side was served a handmade toffee caramel ice cream, mandarin oranges, and extra chocolate sauce. It was even more divine than you are imagining. No, really. It was. I only have one tiny itty bitty complaint. They caramelized sugar on the top of the crepe which gave it a little crunchy layer. That took away from the yum of the crepe itself if you ask me.
My partner in crime ordered a chocolate tiramisu. It came in a small mason jar with a side of fresh berries and sauce. The jar was filled with marscapone cheese, espresso soaked lady fingers, and a chocolate ganache. It was to die for but not as delish as that crepe.
We have plans to head back with empty stomachs and order the other two crepes. I’ll make sure not to eat at all that week to make up for the calorie intake.
Once I was so full I started to enter into food coma area we hit the gay bars, where I was the only woman sitting in my pretty dress and pearls. We will end the retelling of our night’s adventure right about there.
During the last winter I had a friend who would whip up a batch of Tom Ka Gai soup when there were several feet of snow outside. The slightly spicy, Thai coconut chicken soup hit the spot especially if you were not feeling 100%. I felt like I got ran over with a truck carrying several infectious diseases last week and I could think of nothing else.
The soup itself is rather simple. A basic version could be made with chicken broth, coconut milk, lime, cilantro, and little else. Being sick I was entirely too lazy to get near any of that. I headed into Wegman’s to grab whatever looked decent enough to my sick head to eat. In the soup aisle I discovered that they had a Wegman’s brand pre made boxed Thai chicken stock. Reading the label I saw that it contained everything that I would have added to the soup. Lemongrass, lime, chili, and ginger all showed up on the ingredients. Being sick, wanting the soup and most importantly wanting to become one with the couch made me give it a try.
I used a box of the Thai broth along with a can of coconut milk to make the base. I added in some chicken, mushrooms, lime juice and fresh cilantro and called it a day. I dumped in some rice noodles near the end.
Of course making this from scratch would have been better, but for whipping up the entire meal in ten minutes or less I would say this was a huge success. It is good to know that you can keep that broth in your back pocket when you don’t feel like making anything from scratch or you can’t find all of your ingredients. Turns out that fresh lemongrass isn’t always something easy to come by.
xoxo
Mia
Summer Sundays are super indulgent for me. They usually include some lazing around, a delicious dinner, sinful dessert, a good friend, and of course True Blood.
The lazing around portion of my day seems to interfere in the obtaining of the sinful dessert from a bakery. This week I took a shot and drove to a nearby bakery that I have driven past for the better part of my life but never stopped in. The Cookie Jar is located right off Main Street in Woodbridge, NJ. Turns out they are open till 7 pm on Sundays. That alone pretty much secures a chunk of my weekly paycheck.
This time around I ordered one of every type of cupcake they had at the moment. Thankfully that was only six. After the post True Blood squeal-fest, my friend and I peeled back the papers, grabbed some forks, and lazy-susaned the dish as we dove in.
The first was a good old fashioned yellow cupcake with butter cream icing. While not remarkable it was tasty. The cake was moist enough and had a nice texture. The icing wasn’t overly sweet and incredibly fluffy. I think I would like that icing on a cake that was a lot more flavorful.
After that we dove into a classic chocolate with chocolate mousse icing cupcake. Here again the cake itself was good but nothing all too special. The mousse stole the show. Nowhere near a semisweet flavor, but yet more chocolatey than sugary. The bakery seems to lean in the direction of light and airy icings. Which is my favorite, so that works out for us.
It is pretty much all downhill from here.
Next was the oh so yummy looking turtle flavor. I seem to remember that turtles are suppose to have caramel somewhere in there. This was more like a plain chocolate cupcake with some sort of indeterminable icing topped with walnuts and a chocolate drizzle. Walnuts? Those should be pecans. I was pretty disappointed because it sure looked yummy.
I am a huge fan of anything you can slather cream cheese icing on. Anything. Try it. I am pretty sure I would devour an eraser if it had a thick enough layer. That is honestly the only reason why I go near red velvet cake. I just don’t see the fascination. Imagine how much I wanted to cry when I discovered that they clearly forgot the cream cheese in their icing! This tasted like some sort of bastardized royal icing. Honestly I am not sure exactly what it was suppose to be, but cream cheese it was not.
Ditto to the carrot cake. The cake however redeemed them. It held no resemblance to carrot cake but if we called it a nice nut cake light on the spice, it would be a hit. The cake itself was moist but not oily. The nuts were so finely chopped that they added only a tiny crunch in your bite.
The strawberry shortcake cupcake was their special of the day / week / whatever. Same plain vanilla cake with syrupy strawberries in the middle and topped with a stiff vanilla icing. My Daddy taught me that sometimes is better to say nothing at all.
Would I go to this bakery again? Well, they keep really good hours so yes. The inside was impeccably clean and the girls behind the counter were very friendly. Would I go there if there were other choices open at the time I drag my behind out of the house? I don’t know. Everything was fine. It was okay. Nothing was really bad, just not that great. I want to try some of their other items first. It looked like they had some things that leaned in the specialty direction. Maybe they keep their cupcakes simple. That seven layer mango cake was begging for me to buy it.
xoxo
Mia
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