New books that have appeared in my library in the past month:
The Happy Hooker by Debbie Stoller
Amigurumi World, Seriously Cute Crochet by Ana Paula Rimoli
500 Chocolate Delights by Lauren Floodgate
How Baking Works by Paula Figoni
The Simple Art of Japanese Papercrafts by Mari Ono
We went on a really great vacation to Denver over Easter weekend. My main goal was to purchase a Wii, but that didn't happen so we went to the Tattered Cover and spent a little money there instead.
A baking goal:
My friend Amanda successfully defended her dissertation on Thursday and is going to be getting a Ph.D. in Math in May. We went to a local restaurant called The Spitfire to celebrate, and she ordered this incredible chocolate cake soaked in Irish cream. I went to epicurious.com and discovered if not the exact recipe, then one that's pretty darn close. I will bake it this summer, I will!
I also recently persuaded my mom to give me her extensive collection of cake decorating stuff, collected over about 30 years of decorating cakes for people. She has pretty much every size of pan imaginable, as well as dozens of sugar molds, all the fancy tips, and tons of decorations and cake toppers.
Today, I'm going to make some champagne truffles from the 500 Chocolate Delights book. I might even remember to take pictures and post them! I'll be experimenting a little bit, because my mother-in-law, brother-in-law and b-i-l's girlfriend don't/can't drink because of medications and such. So some of the truffles will just have vanilla extract in them for flavoring. I hope it works ......
As for my goal of losing weight, I have lost about 5 pounds. An unexpected problem: I had to try on the dress for the wedding in January. So, I tried it on again recently to make sure that my undergarments would work with it, and now it's almost too loose. So if I lose any more weight between now and June .... We'll be trying the dresses on again in a week or so to figure out what alterations need to be done, so maybe they can take it in a little and then it will work with whatever weight I manage to lose between now and then.
