Zach G and Fiona

Zach Galifianakis is popping up all over the place to promote The Hangover III. For some reason I keep thinking about how I was first introduced to him with Fiona Apple's video (included in the specials of Extraordinary Machine). It still cracks me up.

Rainbow Cake

For my daughter's birthday we had a rainbow themed birthday complete with rainbow cake. I don't know why I was so intrigued to make this cake, but at times I wish I had just gone with the chocolate princess cake that my daughter requested at first.

Most of the recipes I saw on pinterest and the like where often from box mixes or this Martha Stewart recipe that did not appeal to me for some reason. I chose to use this vanilla recipe from Smitten Kitchen - I pretty much love all the recipes from the Sky High recipe book and I need to get myself a copy soon. Fairly quickly I decided that I could not stomach using traditional dyes in the cake. I had bought the dyes and just stared at the box thinking that there was no way I could eat something saturated with it. It is one thing to have the frosting be dyed, but the whole cake was too much for me.

I ended up using the natural dyes you can get at Whole Foods and some of them ended up pretty faded (particularly anything that involved red), but once it was all together it didn't seem to make a difference. There were many times during this process that I thought it would be an epic fail, but it turned out good and tasted awesome.

Wednesday Dance Video

Awhile ago I was worried that all I would end up posting on a regular basis was dance videos and now it seems I haven't posted one for too long.

I became aware of these videos by the Royal Ballet after this post a week or so ago on this blog. I love Alicia Markova (I read her biography when I was in 5th grade and became obsessed with her. I tracked down every dance video I could find of her) so I was immediately intrigued by the post.

These videos seem to be from a lecture and there is nothing uniquely special about how they are filmed. Most live events are shot similarly. What I love about these is the purpose behind sharing them and creating each short video. So often dance companies seem to post random shots from rehearsals or a performances into a montage video and it is really boring to watch. I love how these videos are giving us information about pioneer ballerinas by showing us how and what they danced. It is such an interesting way to learn about ballet history without just spewing facts out at a viewer.

I really loved watching the Fanny Essler piece - the dancing so interested me. I also liked the dancing in the Anna Pavlova piece, but the costume was a bit too much.

Of course it would also be fun to do something of the same purpose by not just shooting a lecture, but making short films. Hmm...

Music on Pearl Street

A few weeks ago we had the chance to watch a friend and his quartet perform on the Pearl Street mall. One of the loveliest parts about living in Boulder is watching all the buskers perform downtown. When I was a teenager (or perhaps preteen?) I was able to dance with my ballet school on the mall and it was by far my favorite performances ever. I don't know what it is about being down there, but I love it. Even just spending an afternoon with my daughter playing on the rocks and a busker playing music - just a man with a guitar (or banjo) is rather idyllic to me.

Cinco De Mayo Cake

I know I am really behind on posting pictures of the cakes I made last month, but I still want to share them. For this particular cake I don't have the greatest pictures of the final cake, but I love the pictures I have of me while baking.

I used this recipe with just a little more cinnamon to bring out the Mexican Chocolate-ness of it. The filling didn't work for me at all and I had to re-do it using this ganache recipe from Smitten Kitchen. It worked perfectly and even added a little cinnamon and substituted honey for corn syrup. I am not big on whipped cream frosting and was worried about it holding together a triple layer cake so I used my go to buttercream recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, but adapted it by using Amaretto in there. It was fabulous.

The New Orange

For awhile there I was doing pretty good at regular posting, but then we all got sick in the house and I fell behind on everything. My daughter has also started taking swim classes three days a week so I need to figure out how to revamp our daily schedule. I think this is sort of how it goes with writing a blog though. Unless the blog is your main source of income; there are times in our lives that we have to focus our energy elsewhere.

Our neighborhood has been abloom with oriental poppies. During walks to the park I have noticed some backyards that are completely covered with them. They seem to grow almost like weeds around here. I don't recall ever seeing them, in a substantial way while in North Carolina (daffodils/jonquils were predominant there) and in Denver we didn't live in an area with yards. In the past few years orange is becoming a favorite color of mine. It started with a painted chair, then a rug, and now I even have an orange shirt. Who'd have thunk it?