Cupcake Monster, Bluffin’ With Her Muffin

Did I say monster? As in, I love cupcakes, and I’m going to be one of GaGa’s little monsters on Dec. 27?! Yesssss. Because I’ve never seen one like that before, and I’ll eat your heart! You love this girl. Bluffin’ with her muffin, er cupcake!

Raspberry balsamic dark chocolate.

These cupcakes are a modern marvel. I’ve never made anything this beautiful before. Almost everything I make has to be carefully positioned for photographs because there’s a highly flawed side, a burnt side, something.

Cupcake nirvana. (Show me your teeth!) May I again sing the praises of mixing balsamic vinegar with fruit? Tastes just like glitter mixed with rock ‘n’ roll. Don’t be scared. I’ve done this before, with apples.

Citations favorites – féministes

Nothing like the inspiring words of one of the first female writers, a feminist, Louise Labé.

Le plus grand plaisir qui soit apres amour, c’est d’en parler. (The greatest pleasure that comes after love is talking about it.)

Incontinent que les hommes commencent d’aymer, ils escrivent des vers. (Unrestrained as the men beginning to love, so they write in verse.)

Bien je mourrais plus que vivante heureuse. (Better I die than live happily.)

An Irish Thanksgiving: Belfast

I was already freezing as we boarded the top story of the Belfast double-decker tour bus. Sarah overheard the two kids in front of us (approximately 9 and 7 years old) discussing whether a man playing a Stroh violin looked exactly like Mister Bean. This was undeniably the U.K.

And Ireland … you could tell it was by the low haze that hung around the city and encircled the hills in the distance. Tubby sheep grazed on that distinct, hilly, sad-looking Irish land. People spoke an English I could sometimes barely make out.

Parliament building surrounded in fog.

I couldn’t have been more grateful to get out of mainland Europe. Everyone spoke my language in Belfast. People waved and smiled on the streets. The puff pastries bulged with pepper-seasoned potatoes or chicken and beef cubes. My limp blond ponytail was the norm. I wanted to hug everyone in Ireland for speaking English with such a charming accent. They wanted to hug me too, in the sense that cold French double bisou were not welcome. I think I could be seduced by nearly any Irish person if he or she said the c-word enough and talked about Snow Patrol.

Citations favorites

I’m awful with paper and journals. I write in them and love them for a few days, and they’re gone. I only successfully keep a journal when required for class. But for writers, journals serve a very important purpose: writing down all those inspirational quotes and things to remember. So, I’m going to start keeping those here too.

This one is from On ne badine pas avec l’amour (You can’t play around with love) de Alfred de Musset:

On est souvent trompé en amour, souvent blessé et souvent malheureux ; mais on aime, et quand on est sur le bord de la tombe, on se retourne pour regarder en arrière et on se dit : « J’ai souffert souvent, je me suis trompé quelquefois, mais j’ai aimé. C’est moi qui ai vécu, et non pas un être factice créé par mon orgueil et mon ennui ».