Celebration Time ... Come on

Let's Celebrate

We celebrated my Dad and sister, Sandy's birthday this Friday. My Dad and sister's birthdays are one day apart and she happens to be born on tax day! So April 15th, I would say the entire nation is celebrating her birthday by either paying the US government their taxes or getting a nice chunky refund.

I want this blog to be more about creativity, color and texture - as well as my travels, writing and/or special projects - but I couldn't help myself recently by talking about FOOD. I think this is a topic I will slip in once in awhile. Forgive me but I love food and so I can't help but talk about it from time to time. I blame the influence of the Thorntons. I'm talking about Andrew Thornton and Cynthia Thornton, of the Green Girl Studios family. I don't have much time to read other's blogs but at times, I jump over to theirs to see what they are up to. Andrew and Cynthia often talk about delicious foods. So I'm in good company in this topic. I just saw Cynthia, Greg and Azalea in Miami too as we were all at Bead Fest Miami. What a beautiful family!

Well, I can't have much dessert as you know, but on special occasions I splurge a bit. I was in charge of the birthday cake and I found a beautiful sculptural cake at Vanille de Patisserrie, the one on Huntington Dr. in San Marino, CA.

The Beautiful Cake Box

(click at any of the photos for an enlarged view)

Just look at the box which was just the beginning in the presentation of the beautiful cake! I had dibs on the box and took it home to be filled with goodies later. I tend to keep these things, beautiful boxes and papers, for inspiration later. And I'm driving Nick crazy with this "hording" behavior. Not only are books piling up and filling the house but I am starting to collect paper too! (as well as other hidden secrets, please don't tell Nick. hahah!)

The cake was a buttercream 1/2 strawberry filling and the other vanilla - 3 layers of scrumptious goodness. I was good and only had a small slice. Everyone loved it. Look at all the chocolate decorations on the top! There was dark, milk and white chocolates with HUGE sugared strawberries. They were able to fit both birthday names on a piece of chocolate. I'm sure you are reaching into your screen trying to grab a morsel of this deliciousness. So, if you are ever in Southern California, there are three branches to tempt your sweet tooth. (Irvine and Hacienda Heights are the other locations)

The COOKIES

Okay, so I didn't stop at just the cake, I bought the above cookies to give them a "test drive" and also gave the pecan cookies to Nick. I figured for putting up with me and bad-mouthing his Kodak, he deserved some treats. It turned out the green tea cookies were very tasty but TOO SWEET so I ended up giving those to Nick too. What a lucky guy. I think I will just have to test drive some other cookies, maybe biscottis (without anise, thank you very much!) next time, to find the ones with the least amount of sugar. So many mouth watering sweets at Vanille de Patisserrie.

Here's to yummy cake and cookie dreams!
Eat up and enjoy life
(in moderation)

Be at Peace,
Lisa