Mr. Morty Gage.

I signed for my house a year ago today.

One down, 29 more to go.

Queen of the Bungalow.

For the most part, I really enjoy living alone: I can talk to the cat in funny voices and no one looks at me oddly. I can make pasta and eat it directly from the pot I made it in, while standing over the sink. I can let all my weird little quirks flourish, because no one is around to squash them.

There are two instances in which living alone is less than desirable....

1. No one is around to hold open a garbage bag when you're trying to dispose of 17 day old meat that was hanging out in the back of the refridgerator. You'll end up trying to hold the bag open with one hand and heaving the fridge-dweller in, hoping that nothing will splash the parts of the bag that you'll have to touch to tie it up. ugh.

2. If you're fiddling around with the fuse box in the basement, trying to figure out which fuse connects to which part of the house, there will be no one upstairs that you can yell to as you're flicking fuses on and off. This will cause you to run up and down the basement stairs 47 times, checking what light went off when which fuse was reset.

There are many more positives than negatives to living alone, although last night as I was trying to heave a meatloaf of undetermined age into a flimsy garbage bag by myself, it really made me reconsider things for a minute. But that doubt went away as Dolemite slinked by and i called him "Doodlebug" in a squeaky, fake-mouse voice.

Note to self: Label fuses in fusebox.

It's in a bucket on the porch...

This year, as a thank-you to my family for helping me re-hab the house I recently purchased, I hosted Thanksgiving.

I did everything myself, except for removing the bag of turkey guts from inside the turkey. I cannot handle sticking my hand inside a bird carcass. I even had rubber gloves and still couldn't do it. Call me a wuss if you like, but this wuss was not about to fist a fowl.

I decided, under direction of an Alton Brown Thanksgiving cooking special on television, to soak the turkey overnight in a brine. This worked well for two reasons... it made for a juicier turkey and also eliminated the need to bast the bird at all. (anything that eliminates a cooking step is okay with me!) I didn't have a pot large enough for the turkey to fit and be fully submerged in brine, so I had to buy a big ol' bucket from Home Depot. The bird/brine/bucket combo needed to be kept cool all night, so I ended up putting it out on the porch with the windows open.

Everything went well except for...
...the right side of the bird. Charred!

Luckily, he was dead before he got here, so he didn't feel a thing.

Everybody eats when they come to my house...

My friends and I started a Supper Club, where once a month one of us will cook a big meal and everyone shows up to eat. There are 10 of us in the Supper Club, so even though it's quite a large group to cook for, you only end up having to cook once every ten months or so. This month was my turn....

The main dish was a meatloaf cake frosted with mashed potatoes. I got the idea from someone on this here internet..I wrote about it a month or two ago and that post is somewhere in the Suburban Wonderland archive, if you're so inclined to see the original. I wasn't sure if I would be able to actually succeed with this, and admittedly, it's not as good-looking as the original meatloaf cake, but it tasted quite good...



Teeny Jello® molds...


Cherry and Orange Whip...


All in all, things went well. I had the phone number of the local pizza shop handy in case the meatloaf cake was a failure, but it wasn't needed. No one got food poisoning and everyone seemed to have a good time.

Hot damn, I'm glad I don't have to do this again for quite a while.. I just have to show up somewhere next month and eat!

The Electric Slide

When I lived in apartments I never cared about leaving lights on. Even though I was responsible for the electric bill, If I left a light on all day, it didn't faze me. It never bothered me.

Since moving into my house, this has changed. I have now become really aware of lights being left on in my house. I don't know why. It's technically no different than if i left a light on in my old apartment.. I was responsible for the electric bill there, and I'm responsible for the electric bill now. But, for some reason I have this notion that it costs so much more to power a lightbulb in a house than in an apartment. Crazy. It's not even logical. Gah.

I'm turning into my mother. If I start physically unplugging the toaster oven and microwave when they aren't in use... I'm really in trouble.

Oh my! What a lovely yard you have...

The lawn flamingos are thriving in my front yard. Right now there are four pink plastic beauties out there and I'm going to slowly add to the flock until I run out of room or my neighbors become so disgusted with the tackiness of it all that they birdnap them. So I've been hunting around the internet for the original Don Featherstones. The ONLY flamingos in my yard are Featherstones. If you don't know what I'm talking about, just look up "Don Featherstone Flamingo" and you can read all about them. I do realize how insane it sounds to be a flamingo elitist, but really.. who wants inferior plastic birds? If you're aiming for suburban splendor, you have to go with the original.

So anyway, I found a bunch of great links:

www.uptownflamingo.com
This site has a ton of great flamingo themed products. The odd thing, though, is that they don't sell the Don Featherstone Flamingos. They only carry cheap-o knock-offs. I'll overlook this fact because the other flamingo stuff that they carry is so great. This site is really worth a look if you're looking for things like flamingo tablecloths or nightlights.

www.thepinkflamingo.com
they carry a less varied inventory of flamingo related knick-knacks than uptownflamingo.com, BUT they carry Don Featherstone flamingos and also Don Featherstone Snowmingos! A Snowmingo is a white lawn flamingo, which is perfect for yards in the winter months. They are made from the same plastic mold as their pink cousins, so they have the Featherstone butt signature just like the pinky originals. I'm going to swap out the pinks in my yard for snowmingos on the first snowfall this year and then swap 'em back in the spring. The photo below is a good comparison between the two plastic species...


www.flaminomania.com
assorted flamingo themed goodies for purchase, and they carry Don Featherstones in the classic pink and snowmingo varieties.

www.getflocked.com
the flamingos on this site are a bit expensive... it's much easier to find them cheaper elsewhere. It's worth a mention though, because they sell spare flamingo legs which can come in quite handy, if you accidently bend or lose one.

www.mileskimball.com
this site is a treasure chest full of suburban tackiness. In addition to lawn flamingos, this site sells kitchen decor, barbeque trinkets, tablecloths and things like toilet paper cozies. I love this site. Below is a small sample of the great crap you can find at mileskimball.com...

How plastically cute!

And what about these....

...fantastic!

Hmmm...now, I'm more of a flamingo gal than a fan of lawn geese, but I think I may make an exception and find a place in my yard for these...

These geese combine two of my favorite things... midcentury rock 'n roll and tacky plastic lawn ornaments.

If I could only find tiny bowling shirts for my lawn flamingos, my life would be complete.

There is no denying the genius of this...

I'm almost positive that I will marry anyone who will make this for me on a weekly basis:

A Meatloaf Cake!

I'm assuming you had a knee-jerk reaction that was something along the lines of "eeeew" or "that's disgusting."
But think about it.. it's simply a meatloaf in a different form than what you are used to. This is a classier meatloaf. A formal meatloaf. The sort of meatloaf that you could take along to a housewarming party *ahem... cough, cough*


Several things about this are fantastic....

The "frosting" is mashed potatoes, which goes well with a meatloaf. Also, you could tint the mashed potatoes with food coloring for a more colorful, festive cake.

It seems sort of easy to make. Even if the construction comes out lopsided or wonky, it's still going to taste good.

Food is funny when it's disguised as other food.

Meatloaf is delicious.


To read more about it, visit here: http://www.blackwidowbakery.com/demo/meatcake/
(this is also where the image I used came from)

hmm, and I understand that Martha Stewart made a meatloaf cake prior to this one, but who cares? This one has more charm, and a better story behind it.

This thing is a work of genius.

Someone Left the Cake Out In the Rain

This pan....


...makes these cupcakes.

(The above images are from the Williams-Sonoma website, where the pan is available for sale. To Purchase, for a house warming gift or something hint hint, visit www.williams-sonoma.com)

I've not really done a lot of baking in my life thus far, but that is going to change. Now that I'm the owner of a fairly good sized kitchen with ample counter space, I have no reason not to whip up a batch of novelty cupcakes. Or a bundt cake. I like the word "bundt," and if I bake one of 'em, I'll be able to say that word a bunch of times.

I've made a lot of excuses in the past as to why I don't utilize the kitchen, including, but not limited to....
"Apartment kitchens are too small to do any real cooking or baking in."
"I live with a chef... why would I step foot in his territory?"
"I haven't got any good pans."
"I have no cookbooks."
"Grocery store too far.... must continue to sit on couch."

Once I'm settled into my Suburban Wonderland (notice the call-back to the name of this blog... nice touch, eh?) none of these excuses will apply to me anymore.

And...
I will do some baking.
Frost my words.