Brian and I were making chocolate dipped strawberries for a birthday party we are attending this evening. I am not able to eat them due to my allergies, so with the extra chocolate we went around finding everything in the house we could possible dip in chocolate!

The result was a delicious and attractive treat made from Trader Joe’s Honey Wheat Pretzel Sticks, Ghirardelli 60% Cacao chocolate chips, and sprinkles!

Tools: double boiler, silicone spatula, baker’s parchment, tray, space in the fridge

Ingredients: Trader Joe’s Honey Wheat Pretzel Sticks, Ghirardelli 60% Cacao chocolate chips, and sprinkles

Step 1: Fill lower pot with water and set to boil. Reduce water to a simmer and place top pot on top. Dump in chocolate chips I prefer to work with about 12oz at a time. This should be enough to cover a bag and then some.

Step 2: Stir the chocolate until melted. Begin dipping right away, you want the chocolate cooking as little as possible. You may even turn off the burner at this point as the heat of the water will be enough to keep the chocolate fluid (if its really cold in your house you may need to leave it on).

Step 3: After letting excess chocolate drip off, you can shake on the sprinkles and then place on the parchment paper. Once you have filled the tray place it in the fridge to harden.

Step 4: That’s pretty much it. Eat and enjoy!

Well I have a three day weekend, we have not even reached Sunday, but it already rocks. We kicked things off Friday night down at the Mobile Feast food truck meet up. Brian and I choose to partake in the Louisianan fair from a truck hosted by Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. I have to say it was amazing. I recommend the bread pudding and ginger ale (fresh made).

Then today we finally made it to the Tech Museum to see the ‘Islamic Science Rediscovered’ exhibit which is currently free to the public, no admission required. We had a good time with some new friends. Especially fun was trying to construct an arch out of foam blocks. I would recommend this for people of all ages interested in learning more about how backwards most of Europe was in the aptly named dark ages, while science flourished in China and the Islamic world.

After we finished there we headed to a new downtown cafe La Luna Sucrée. They carry crepes, quiche, and sandwiches on fresh baked bread (made in house). They also have small pastries and treats. It was a bit pricey, but every thing was amazing! I can’t recommend it enough.

We ended today with our traditional D&D night. Which was most enjoyable as always. Our group consists of a group of good friends I have known since high school. Our shenanigans seem destined to lead us to create a pod cast I doubt any one will want to listen to but us. I am kind of ok with this idea, as in some ways what has been proposed has the quality of being like home movies or vacation slides. Something no one really wants to watch but the maker.

Yeah that's me, stroking my mustache. What can I say, it was about 2am.

Telling A-manda and I something is difficult or near impossible to do (but requires little or no special equipment) is a sure way to get our fire going. This has been the case with the sweet little diva biscuits known as macarons.

If you are like me the first thing I think of is macar-oo-ns the nasty little coconut hay stacks. They are great, if you like shredded coconut, which I don’t.  If there is one thing we know here at with-an-a, one little letter makes all the difference.  Macar-o-ns are delicious little cream filled sandwich cookies.  The cookie is delicate, moist, and melty!

Posts about are adventures in perfecting our technique should follow soon. My diet is going to suffer…

Tea paste filled pastry and eucalyptus green tea.

I have included photos of our dainty treats, which I edited experimenting with a technique I picked up here. The directions are clear and easy to follow, and produced the fun results you have seen in my last few posts.

Pineapple Chai tea with coconut butter cookies.

Pineapple Strudel and Roobi Ginger.

Tea Pair Three: Eucalyptus Green Tea and Sweet macha paste filled pastry (pictured at top of post)
Result: Both flavors were strong but complimentary. I think they each would benefit being paired with something less intense. The tea is once again a custom blend and is very fragrant. It would be wonderful for cold season.

Peach Danish and Peach/Cranberry Oolong.

Tea Pair Four: Momoberi (Peach/Cranberry) Oolong, peach custard danish
Result: I can find not faults here! The tea was sweet and tart, a wonderful complement to the rich sweet peach danish. We had been looking for a replacement for the Peach Wrap, found in the best bagel shop in Monterey County, and this is definitely in the competition.

Blueberry cheese danish and Pumpkin Chai

No photographed we each also sampled the Chiffon cakes, and we were not disappointed there either! So the moral of the story is, if you are ready to pack on some pounds head over to Paris Baguette. At least we didn’t sweeten the tea : )

(Stay tuned for a post about a local honey provider who is to dye for!)

While the snow is bad for star viewing, it makes for really cool pictures of the observatory.

This morning looked lovely in San Jose, so I thought, “Hey lets go on an adventure to the Lick Observatory!” I have lived in San Jose for 20 years in total and have never managed to make it up there. So in the car we hopped and up the mountain we drove.

At the bottom of Mt. Hamilton road.

Everything looked lovely. Blue skies, fluffy clouds. It seemed like a perfect day for a trip up the mountain.

Blue sky, toy house, hurray playing with tilt shift.

We were bobbing a weaving among the hills and, h’mm hard to see the observatory up there.

The Lick Observatory looking mystical in the fog.

So just as we get the the parking lot, full on snow fall!

Top of the mountain, there was not just a little snow!

I guess we should have been prepared, but well look at us!

Me in front of the large reflector telescopes dome.

Brian caught in the cold.

Any way other than freezing our toes off we got to see the observatory. In brief, it was awesome!

Hurray early Californian architecture.

The 100+ year old Great Lick Refractor telescope.

The inside of the refractor dome.

As I said a few weeks ago, we have developed as special relationship with a local tea house. Satori Tea Company recently opened a Tea Bar in downtown San Jose.

Pic Courtesy of Yelp

Featuring modern-kitschy Oriental-Occidental fusion decor, and a unique selection of high quality teas, they have experienced an explosion of business. It’s really not hard to see why I felt the need to have my party there!

Pic Courtesy of Yelp

The owner’s love of Alice and Wonderland informed the theme of my party. I encouraged my guests to dress for a time traveling tea with the Red Queen (when in doubt think of tea in a garden with your grandma). The result fulfilled my fashionista dreams!

Do you require tea?

We had the Cornish Cream Tea which consisted of two amazing scones (not pictured as they were stuffed in our bellies) and a pot of tea each. We sampled some unusual blends including: Drunken Concubine, Coconut Ginger Snap, Cherry Bomb, Earl Grey, Tangerine Oolong, and my personal favorite Gummy Bear (the first ingredient is Gummy Bear Juice).

Amanda marvels at the sugar Katamari!

All of them were fantastic, and for those who preferred their tea sweetened I provided Konpeito.  These are a traditional imperial ”thank you for coming” gift (see the wiki) and when you drink them in tea they sometimes leave a little sparkle of colored sugar in the bottom of your tea cup : )

All in all, we had a wonderful time. I can’t thank Tori enough for all the hard work she put into the preparations, and the amazing service she and her mother offered even when they had a store filled with other customers.

For those of you who care about such things, a more detailed post on the costume will be up later. I still need to do a photo shoot in the dress.

Stay tuned for the next and final installment of our adventures. Day 3; In which, we watch childhood cartoons and eat cereal till we puke.

P.P. (post party) After the official party a few of us took a trip to my favorite fabric store, got dream cup cakes from Santana Row, and then met up for all you can eat sushi at my new favorite Japanese restaurant. I will make a separate review post for each of them later.

For those who did not make it to these events because they were busy, or I did not let you know, I apologize and will work to make sure this does not happen next time around.

Ok so I did so many things for my Birthday that I need to tell you about it in 3 installments a week later. Truth is this is more of a digital scrap book for my self, but if you get something out of it well then, bonus!

Day One; In which, we visit the Marina dump and eat soup.

An explanation for those who don’t know about it; the city of Marina, CA has implemented an experimental program at their local refuse facility. Any item that is deemed still usable is brought to Last Chance where it is sold to help fund their free recycling programs and such. This means you can get some AMAZING deals.

I gave my self a budget of $20, a bit extravagant for the local but I got some amazing stuff.

These little lovelies were a quarter each (from a previous trip but included in the budget). I plan to fill them with sand and pellets and use them as fabric weights.

This is a lovely punch bowl and set of glasses I got for $7

Last but not least I found a pair of cameras that fulfilled my kitschy photo dreams. I don’t know if they work (beyond the fact that the shutter does snap), but for five dollars each I just had to give it a try.

So that was my birthday bounty! My friend, Nicole, also found some great stuff for her art booth table decor and spent a total of $2 (not a typo).

After that we went to eat my favorite clam chowder at Louie Linguini’s. The Soup was awesome as always, the bread bowls sadly a little stale. But still yum soup!

So that concluded day one of what we are thinking of calling Jen-Con from now on.  Stay tuned for the next installment. Day 2; In which, the Queen of Hearts goes a little mad and has a tea party.

TLDR

Astolpho survey's his territory.

A character pin portrait of Niko!

Niko paws!

A pin portrait of my friend Tugrik's Monosaures.

Felting Needle Holder

I created and instructable on how to make this economic and cheep felting needle holder.

http://www.instructables.com/id/1-Felting-Needle-Holder-1-4-Needles/