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July 05, 2008

NY egg cream

I am still here! I have been feeling a little more tired lately but still trying to keep up with drawing and creating. We are also still going on our two half hour -40  minute walks a day. I think that makes me really tired but I want to keep it up. That's about all I can handle.. well plus getting ready for baby- reading, getting supplies and going to classes
Here is me walking at the park, notice my shockingly white legs...
Walking

But this post is supposed to be about egg creams.

When we were visiting my family in NY my mom made Wes and egg cream..She used to make these all the time when we were younger. (Did you say you had one a day  at one time mom or was it two?) It's a NY thing and there is no egg and no cream, just chocolate syrup, seltzer water and milk. The milk has to be cold, as does the seltzer and you have to mix it the right way. It may sound weird but it is so good- drinking a few sips recently took me back to my childhood.

So it seems that it was invented in Brooklyn at a candy shop in 1890 and the original syrup  used was Fox's u-bet syrup. My mom always used Hershey's, I am not even sure they sold u-bet at the stores around us in those days. Funny enough though we spotted u-bet in the Santa Monica Vons grocery store recently..Wes has been enjoying egg creams ever since.
Ubet1

Eggcream2

Eggcream

Recipe

Apparently Lou Reed even wrote a song about egg creams..I learned that from some Yelpers (side note: do you Yelp? I think it's great)
Here are the Lyrics.

When I was a young man, no bigger than this
A chocolate egg cream was not to be missed
Some u bets chocolate syrup, seltzer water mixed with milk
You stir it up into a heady fro, tasted just like silk

You scream, I steam, we all want egg cream
You scream, I steam, we all want egg cream

Now you can go to juniors, daves on canal street
And I think theres kens in boston
There must be something in l.a.
But beckys on kings highway, was the egg cream of choice
And if you dont believe me, go ask any of the boys

You scream, I steam, we all want egg cream
You scream, I steam, we all want egg cream

The only good thing I have to say about p.s. 92
Was the egg cream served at beckys, it was a fearsome brew
For 50 cents you got a shot, choco bubbles up your nose
That made it easier to deal with knife fights
And kids pissing in the street

You scream, I steam, we all want egg cream
You scream, I steam, we all want egg cream

So the next time youre in brooklyn, please say hello for me
At totonnos for pizza and ice cream at al and shirleys
But mostly you go to beckys, sit in a booth and say hello
And have two chocolate egg cream, one to stay and one to go

You scream, I steam, we all want egg cream, ah
You scream, I steam, we all want egg cream
You scream, I steam, we all want egg cream

June 24, 2008

West coast baby shower pictures

Wes' mom and sisters hosted a baby shower for us this past weekend.
Here are some photos
Me_2

Sasha and I were all fancy. Here is me finishing the tarts. Gluten free, agave sweetened lemon blueberry tarts. Below  that is a picture of the tarts and then the gluten free mini cupcakes I made (from a mix) and vegan frosting from scratch.
Fancysashandme_2

Cakesandtarts_2

Wes' sisters made this cute diaper cake
Diaper_cake_2

Wes made a baby stroller fruit salad
Babystrollerfruitcart_2

food!
Food_2

Family1

Fam2

Ffam3_2

Fam4

Fam5

Fam6

Fam7

Fam8

Fam9

Fam10
Sabrina was the game host:
Gamehost
Playing games
Howwide

grandma wins!
Grandmawins

Fun gifts!
Goodgifts

Goodgifts2
a little cutie:

Cutie

Wes' mom and sisters were great hosts. Thanks guys!

June 20, 2008

Baking for the baby shower..

Baking
Today I am busy baking away for the West Coast baby shower. How lucky am I to have two baby showers? This one Wes and I are cooking/baking for because of my gluten free diet. But we still aim to please the masses so we are baking up some yummy treats. I liked the blueberry lemon tarts that my mom made for east coast shower that I am making them also. I like them even more because they are made with agave instead of sugar! But that certainly doesn't mean they are good for you, but they taste so good. Thanks mom for sending me home with the tart pans...
Tartpans

Tarts

They turned out good..I think I still need to make more for a total of 26!
OK so this is kind is funny.. I had to make the lemon custard. So far I made 3 batches. The first two batches I made them with the whole egg instead of just the yolk! Even though I was reading the recipe. Must have been pregnancy brain. I kept wondering why I had to strain it out. But thankfully it still tastes so good.I guess it's not technically custard, I don't know what it is. And good thing it tastes good because that is 10 eggs right there. I think I will be making another batch of custard too. That will be a total of 20 eggs for the custard! Luckily we get cheap flats of organic eggs from the farmers market!

Lemoncustard

To really please the masses I felt the need to make some butter cream frosting for the mini cupcakes I am going to make.
Buttercream

Better get back to it.. lots more to do today.

June 17, 2008

Our weekend in Seattle

goI never got to post some pictures from our quick weekend in Seattle a couple weeks ago. A lot of it was spent with Wes working in the hotel room and me watching tv or drawing. But we got to check out some sites.
Saturday we put on our tourist hats and went to Pikes Place Market.
Pikes_2

It was an anniversary, so there was a street fair also. The place was mobbed

Fishpikes_6

Crabpikes

Fruitpikes

I finally got to wear my new raincoat for a couple hours
Rain

I heard this little bakery stand had a bunch of gluten free goodies and it was true! I got a couple cookies to try.
Cinnamon_works

Cookie

Later that evening we went to the pier for dinner. We ate at Elliot's Oyster Bar. Wes was very happy there, eating oysters


Elliots

We took a couple pictures outside, by then the sun was shining brightly in my eyes
Menwes

Sun

The next day we just had time to go to Kerry park for a easy to get to, virtually crowd free view of Seattle

Seattle


Meandseattle_6Wesnme_2


After that we went over to a raw food/ vegan place called Chaco Canyon. After having a lot of sugar the past week (and usually never eating sugar) I felt the need for a green juice. I also got a really healthy tasting raw carob pie.
Healthypie

We were hoping on getting gluten free pizza after, if I knew the place we wanted to go to would be closed I would have tried some of these at Chaco Canyon
Cupcakes

I was so sad the pizza place that had gluten free pizza was closed, I heard it was pretty good. Luckily the Seattle Airport had a place with really great salads...

June 13, 2008

More Baby Shower Pictures

Here's lots more pictures from the shower
Napkin

These gluten free scones were so good, my mom did so much work testing gluten free, dairy free, processed sugar free recipes. She did an amazing job.

Scones

Sandwich

Glutenfreechickensalad

Endive

Lemontart
 
Cupcakes_2

Flower2

My niece, isn't she so cute?
Celina

Me

Me2

People

People2

People3
Kids

My sister-in-law (with my mom below) made these awesome felted sculptures, it looks just like our dog Sasha

Momakiko

Felted

Flower3

June 11, 2008

Check me out on MakeBabyStuff.com





Makebabystuff


I was interviewed for this cool website recently, you can check it out here.

June 10, 2008

Back from NY

I'm back from NY, where I had a lovely shower. I have lots of pictures to share in the coming days.
Here is just a peek.
Tablesetting

It was a tea party!
Peacepops

I requested for my mom to make peace pops. Yummy sugar cookie lollipops (gluten free!)
Floralarrangement
My sister-in-law did and amazing job with the flower arrangements and the table setting

June 04, 2008

Just a little more Wedding stuff.. Etsy style.

You can find some amazing wedding related stuff on Etsy. I just have to share some gorgeous wedding dresses (and pictures) from the kt jean design's Etsy store
Weddingdress

Weddingdress1

If you are having an earthy, hippie or reniassance type wedding you will probably love these crowns from the Which Goose Etsy Store
Crown

Crown2

For more gorgeous, unique headpieces check out Twigs and Honey by Myra Callan
Flower

Wedding Season...

Wedding season has been upon us for a while. Even though we didn't have a formal wedding, I love to hear other people's plans and see what they come up with. I thought my friend's April wedding pictures (below)were a colorful, fun departure from traditional photos.Cheyannewedding

Ahh weddings...Wes and my 3 year anniversary was this past Monday! Wes has been working non stop, so we are putting off celebrating until we get back from NY.

I wanted to share a picture from our wedding. We got married at Yosemite park, just the two of us..it was such a gorgeous day. It always makes me happy to look at the pictures.
Happy Anniversary Honey!

Weddingpic

Also I have been meaning to show the fun new plates I got right before we moved..It seems unrelated to weddings but actually it is related. You see, three years ago, I put god awful brown plates from Macy's on our registry. Of course at the time I liked them. I didn't look at them in person (big mistake) and the picture on the website made them look more like artsy pottery and like they had more blue in them. I don't know why I wanted tan/brown plates though, today I just think it's not the most appetizing. Anyways the past year or two I have been wanting to get more interesting plates to go with them. I loved these unique plates from Fishs Eddy store and ordered four when they were on sale.
Plate

Fishs Eddy really has some great unique dinnerware in their online store.

June 03, 2008

More of Kirkland

The second day in Kirkland, Washington I walked around the tiny village and then sat at the lake for a long time.
Lake

Later in the afternoon, at 2 the farmers market was open. I was starving. I thought there would be a bakery there that has gluten free stuff, so I was waiting to try it. I went a little crazy but it's so hard to find stuff to eat when you are traveling and are gluten free, dairy free, sesame and peanut butter free, safflower and chocolate free. I normally don't eat sugar at all (just agave nectar) but I wanted to try and see how these were and I was hungry! These snacks seemed to have a ton of sugar and I wonder if it some how contributed to the cramps I started to experience the next couple days.
Food

A couple of the pastries were ok but mostly they were too grainy for me (a problem with some gluten free stuff). I ate some of them anyway because I was hungry. I also ate them the next day. That kettle corn was so good! But then later in the afternoon I started to get cramps- they felt like menstrual cramps and lasted all day. The next day I still had them, it was very uncomfortable and a bit painful. I just wanted to lie down. I got a little worried about it and called my hospital. I was annoyed  and more worried when the woman who answered just told me "that's not normal" and "you should come in", when all I told her was I had cramps. I knew it could be braxton hicks or something else.  Wes found the number of a local clinic and I talked to a nurse there who listened and asked me questions. She told me just to watch it and if it lasted or I got other symptoms to come in. At that point I just wanted to make sure it was nothing because they didn't go away. I ended up going to the urgent care of an affiliate of Kaiser (my health care company). The people there were so nice and the hospital campus was so pretty.. I wish it was in Los Angeles. It was weird though because they made me get wheeled to the ultrasound room and I was thinking I never thought I'd be in a wheelchair getting wheeled down the hallway of a hospital in Kirkland, Washington.

So it turned out that everything looked normal. They didn't exactly know what it was. I don't think it was Braxton Hicks because it was only on one side. The Ultra sound tech said it was possibly the small cyst I've had on that side. I think maybe all the sugar affected the cyst because the pain was just on that one side, maybe that and a combination of changing hormone levels. I am just speculating though. The cramps lasted the rest of the day. I felt totally fine the next day and have felt fine since.I was reading about it and around this time in pregnancy- 27 weeks, the hormone levels are changing again. Which explains also why I felt a little nauseous again last night and this morning. How fun :) but I feel good now and am glad everything is going well.



That morning was a little scary. I felt that everything was fine, but still you never know. Plus being so far from home and not knowing where to go to the Dr.was initially upsetting.  So after I left the hospital I went to Whole Foods to try to find something to eat. They had baby stuff and I decided if I saw something cute for the baby I would get it. It just seemed like the right time to get the first thing, I hadn't gotten a single thing before that. I found this and just thought it was so cute and perfect since we live by the beach now.
Romper

The next  morning I showed Wes Jaunita Bay Park  before we headed off to Seattle.

Marsh

Meandmarsh

Look- how cute is this turtle family?
Turtles