Productive weekend

We hate our apartment. My upstairs neighbor is noisy and dirty. My downstairs neighbor his smelly and dirty. My floors sag and my bedroom floor has a big hole that I covered with a box. In the kitchen, you can get stuck to the edge of a board that's starting to splinter off if your pant lets are long (all of my pants). And let's not get started about the assorted bugs that dirty neighbors attract. Thank you, craphole apartment, for introducing me to roaches and water bugs (aka gigantic roaches). It's time to move on!

Despite the fact that our lease doesn't end until July, we've been looking at apartment listings for months so we could figure out how much we could spend to get a bigger place in an area that was safe and offered relatively easy street parking. After defrauding one scammer (wanted a deposit check for an apartment he refused to show because the keys were supposedly with him in Maryland), I made a couple appointments for this past Saturday. The first place was really promising and the second was a total dump with holes punched in walls, graffiti on walls and doors, footprints on doors from being kicked open, etc. And the previous tenants left all their food behind, so there were roaches. The landlords wanted the new tenants in by May 1st and the tenants would be responsible for fixing up the place and pay for the expenses with some sketchy deal where you deduct the total amount of renovation over 12 months.

We were all set on the first apartment because it was so new and gorgeous, but after Sunday brunch, I got a call back from one of my inquiries that I gave up on, thinking the apartment had gone to someone else. She wanted to know some more about us and after she figured we were normal people, she offered to show us the place in the afternoon. Poor Josh, after a day out on Saturday, he just wanted to play Xbox in his sweats. He hadn't been in them more than half an hour when I told him we had to jump on a viewing. After we saw the place, which is more than we ever thought we'd get, Josh didn't mind losing a couple hours of Xbox time.

I'm so excited to move, because I love our new apartment, but then I have to remember that we have two more months (technically) in our current place. Maybe if I speed the move through, I'll be able to spend most of June in my new place.....

I'm coco-nuts!

Yet again, I broke my rule for bringing baked goods to work. I normally bring only tried and true recipes to the office, but for my boss's birthday, I wanted to do something special. I decided on a big, old-fashioned coconut cake. This is not something I wanted to practice beforehand because it's expensive to produce and makes a BIG cake. I dorkily recorded the process of putting the cake together, just in case you want to be bored.



Here's the first layer, on top of a foil wrapped cardboard cake round. The cake smelled so good because of the coconut mixed into the batter and it was hard not to cut a piece for myself. I had to be satisfied with the bit I cut off of the bottom to make the layer level.



Then came a layer of cream cheese frosting, which was surprisingly not too sweet. The problem I ran into while frosting was trying to figure out how much was enough. I didn't want to put in too much, because the top layer's weight might make it ooze out the sides, and at the same time, I didn't want to have a lot of leftover frosting.



And there's the top layer in place. It looks like a gigantic whoopie pie.



The cake isn't naked anymore! Turns out I could've put some more frosting in the middle because I had a lot of frosting left over.



I didn't want to make that big a mess or risk dropping the cake, so I gently pressed shredded coconut onto the sides. I probably could've gone with a heavier application, but I figured I was already dropping enough coconut.

It was a little taller than 4", so I had some problems with my cake box, which is 10 x 10 x 4. I just smushed the top icing down a little and put parchment between it and the box top. Thankfully, the cake was a huge success and fed 20 people! I'm definitely making this cake again.

'Nana Bread

After tasting Julie's banana bread last week, I couldn't stop thinking about making some of my own. I got a copy of Julie's banana bread recipe, which comes from the Silver Palate Cookbook and bought a couple loaf pans (long overdue in my kitchen). So I made the loaf pictured above last week and then figured the next time, I could make some adjustments. Not that it wasn't good already, of course. The next time I made it, I added cinnamon (I was surprised there wasn't any cinnamon in the recipe) and a teensy bit of vanilla bean paste (not sure if it made a difference).

I've put Nutella on it, and when I ran out of Nutella, I put a little butter on with a swirl of honey. Yum!

Southern Comfort

Last Friday, I left NY for a weekend mini break in Chapel Hill, NC, visiting Jennie and Julie!

Their new home town is so pretty and quaint. I suppose it helps that UNC was on spring break, so everything seemed really peaceful. I really appreciated the relatively TV-free weekend, as we watched only the UNC basketball games, and left the set off when we were home. In my apartment, if Josh is home, the TV is always on, even if there's nothing on.

I had some genuine southern barbecue at Mama Dip's and the biggest, fluffiest, tastiest biscuit EVER at Sunday brunch. Julie also baked a delicious banana bread while Jennie and I were out shopping for books that we really don't need. But we really do. We tried a used bookstore that even Jennie hadn't visited yet, and it had a romance section (lots of used bookstores are too high in the instep to stock romance) and a gentle giant of a boxer dog.

It took me forever to get home on Sunday evening though, with my original arrival time in NY scheduled for 8:00, my flight was delayed so boarding didn't start until 8:00. Add the backed up flights at JFK, and I didn't get off the plane until 11:00. I have the most wonderful boyfriend in the world who waited for 1 1/2 hours and didn't even get mad about it.

People at work who hear my description of the weekend (books, no TV, reading, and playing cards) probably think it was terribly boring, but it was just right for me.

Thanks for having me over, ladies. I can't wait for my next visit!

Weekend trips

My favorite part of our weekend routine is food shopping at Fairway in Red Hook. Josh has been digging his feet for months, saying we can't go because Red Hook is a shady neighborhood. My friend was telling me that it's perfectly fine if you go in the daytime, so Josh gave in, and when we got there, he asked me why haven't we been going shopping there all along. Ha!

The market is right on the water, with a lovely view, and it's a really nice weekend thing for us to do together.

Farewell Wellington

Wellington, or Wellie, as I've been calling him lately, has left his bathroom in my apartment.

His new mommy came by this morning to meet him, after a week of my telling her how sweet the little guy is. I was afraid that I'd cry when she said that Wellie was a wonderful cat. But I was a good foster mom and went through his checkup at the vet's, his remaining antibiotics and the canned and dry foods I'd been feeding him.

Then the time came for Wellie to go to his new home, where Morty and Eli wouldn't swat at him from under the bathroom door. I went to the bathroom by myself to pick him up for the last time, give him a snuggle, and back out of the room so he wouldn't see the carrier. Then his last memory of my hospitality was being stuffed into a carrier and holding him down so I could zip the top up.

Then he was gone, and my bathroom feels strangely empty when I walk by.

Happy new year!

Happy new year, from my kitties to yours!