I'm the president of Turkish chai!

...or something that sounds like that but probably makes more sense if you actually understand Turkish while attempting to negotiate the bill for dinner. Which was a delicious meal for five, but for quite a bit of time yesterday it appeared my sister would be flying to Istanbul solo since I got stranded in Philly and my parents and brother were stuck in Cleveland. I made it to JFK shortly before our connecting flight to Istanbul thanks in large part to the fact it is only actually a twenty minute flight. I'm sort of surprised they even fly it. The Clevelanders however, had two cancelled flights, a double secret rebooking on another flight, a high-speed race from LGA to JFK, and managed to arrive in Istanbul with remarkable grace only four hours after we did. So far my big adventure today was taking a nap; international travel tuckers me out. Tomorrow I'm going to convince my brother to ask people how to get to Constantinople. Time for bed before the our next door neighbor the Blue Mosque's early morning call to prayer... not mentioned in the Trip Advisor review, shockingly.

Top chef I am not

I entered a bake-off at work. The last time I entered a bake-off I lost. I don't even think I got an honorable mention. My friend has long maintained that the reason I didn't win was because my dessert was not sexy enough. So for this bake-off, I thought about the sassiest desserts in my arsenal and settled on a Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Frosting and Chocolate Ganache. Well hello lover! I baked it yesterday morning at SIX A.M. so that I wasn't rushing last night when I went to put it together. I lovingly swathed the cake layers in plastic wrap while I went to work, which made me feel slightly weird and serial-killerish. Like Dexter.

I labored over the icing, making sure it was smooth and artful, with no crumbs showing because that just wouldn't do. I gently smoothed the ganache over the sides and tried to shape the perfect drips because it was not as drippy as I was expecting. I carefully settled the cake into the refrigerator for bed. One does hate to have a sassy cake sleep alone, but it needed its beauty rest.

I dragged the cake in this morning (it weights like 8 million pounds) and got it settled for the bake off. It was definitely the most alluring cake there if I do say so myself. I ended up winning 2nd place in the cake competition (after the lady that entered four desserts and is a huge cheater). And the prize for second place? Well, it is a 49 piece Dollar Store food storage set... which appears to be made out of shady looking poisonous plastic. Awesome. I don't know if my ego can take the cognitive dissonance between my effort and the prize. But then I came home and the valet guys in my building (who were the recipients of a Red Velvet Cake last weekend) said they would pay me to bake them a cake for a family party instead of getting one at the store. Validation station! Who needs a bake-off?

Choose your own shoe adventure

I have intense decision making problems. Mostly about small meaningless decisions rather than big. Big decisions I just go with my jungle instincts. Small decisions I needlessly agonize over. Restaurants? You're guaranteed I will send the waiter away twice before I am ready. I require time to develop a delicate balance between the main dish, its side options, appetizers, what other people are getting so I can have a taste, and how excited I am about the dessert menu. Sometimes I feel the need to make marks on a menu so I can keep track of my decisions. I've always been like this. When I was younger, I couldn't just read a Choose Your Own Adventure book like a normal child. I had to go back and forth to determine every possible permutation of the storyline. Quite sad. I don't think I ever actually got through a story because I was always curious what would have happened if I had chosen the other choice. And then given the mini bit of attention problems, I'd lose track and have to start over again.

I am going on a big vacation this weekend that requires non-sneaker comfortable footwear for walking. I'm a big fan of Reef flip flops but they don't stand up well for any sort of volcano hiking or Grecian ruins climbing. My mom suggested European walking shoes... not my style.

My regular sneakers are great, but bulky, and would look goofy if thrown on with a skirt. Sort of evocative of the HR rep walking to work in the 80s. I decided I wanted mesh sneakers like my friend has and embarked on a mission to find them. Google let me down and they do not appear to be made anymore.

After HOURS of scrolling through sneakers on Zappo's and DSW, I found these. I ordered, they arrived, and they were missing shoe tongues. Weird, but kind of Euro-ish, so I went with it. But something didn't feel right; I went back to where the path diverged and ordered a second and microscopically different pair of Skechers.

But these arrived instead. Flashy! And a little too sparkly. But they had a shoe tongue, so that was an improvement. I took them all into work for a poll. The first pair won by a mile. The light blue ones were described as crass. Point taken. So I went to DSW this weekend to return them, and found them in different, less crass colors. So here I am in DSW with like 6 pairs of the almost-exact-same sneaker obsessing over which one to buy. And then I turn, and I see these.

And I love them. They make me feel like a very spry ninja. I spent more time thinking about my footwear for this vacation than I did about college, grad school, and job decisions. Sort of pitiful. But pink ninja shoes are totally worth it.

It's hot in these rhinos

I love food. I love the food truck revolution that I don't really get to take part in because they don't have them during lunchtime in Wilmington (that I know of). There are, however, tons in University City. I don't head over there often for lunch because it would be a long commute but I dream of the day when I work at a place surrounded by gourmet food trucks. So you can imagine my excitement when Philly Night Market time came 'round again. It's a roving urban ethnic food festival. The last time I went it was in the uber-trendy Passyunk area of South Philly. It was in a space the size of an anthill, parking was a nightmare, and it was cash only. We arrived late to the crush of people, couldn't find parking (felt judged for not riding our bikes), had no cash, could find no cash, and were tired and grouchy. So I had big plans for this Night Market, this time located in University City. I blocked off my afternoon schedule, left work at 4.30, drove home, parked my car, changed into comfortable shoes, got cash, and headed over on the bus. As I was waiting for the bus, I thought it seemed a little warm. As I got off the bus and walked up 39th Street, the true swelteringness of the summer draped over my shoulders like a bear skin rug. It was so hot I couldn't breathe. We stuck around this time, waiting in line for a beer (three cheers for Ithaca Apricot Wheat!), Guapos Tacos, Tyson Bees Korean inspired tacos, Jimmies Cupcakes (who unfortunately had a Lebron James cupcake which the guy explained was only because he was running out of "James" names for cupcakes), and Capogiro Gelato. There were many other dining options, those are just the ones to which I can personally attest. I had a delightful time in spite of the stifling heat about which I complained almost constantly. As my Freud post-it notes say, if it's not one thing, it's your mother.

update: ...and Renaissance/Revolutionary Sausage...thanks to Kari for the reminder!

I've been remiss

I have been so busy feeling frustrated with our travel agent and/or learning how to use my camera that I forgot for a day that I had a blog! And loyal readers! As I try to keep this blog relatively friendly, I'm not going to waste time discussing our travel agent who is not detail oriented to say the very least, and just hope that when it is all said and done, in just under 2 weeks I will be boarding a plane for a lovely and long awaited vacation to the Republic of Congo Istanbul, Paros, Santorini, and Athens. On the learning how to use a camera front: I took a class, "Take Your Camera Off Program Mode I," with Okello Dunkley of DSLR Workshops on Sunday. He had offered a deal through Living Social that I scooped up immediately. It was a great class; he is very knowledgeable about both Canon and Nikon, made some reasonable lens recommendations, and taught me the basics within 3 hours. I am now terribly overwhelmed by the influx of information, but I am so excited to know more about my camera. Even though I'm going to be flubbing around trying to take a photo of the white slavers in Indonesia who are stealing my family for looking like American tourists in sneakers lovely white cliffs of Santorini, I am so glad I took the class and highly recommend it for all of you DSLR owners out there who have no idea what you're doing but kind of feel like a badass for having a fancy camera. I'll do some photo experimentation this weekend and post the results.

Polo (aka croquet on horseback)

To answer a friend's question: did I feel a little bit like Pretty Woman at polo last night? Well yes, yes I did. I felt like a classy lady of the evening in a sea of people who make like 10 times my salary. As we drove in, a grouchy woman handed us a program and stuck her head in the car and said, "is there any alcohol in there?" I felt like I was 19. Not that I was doing that at 19, but really? My friend and I got ourselves settled, bought some wine from Chaddsford Winery, and got settled down to watch. Given my significant horse phobia, I did a quick check around the grounds to determine the most likely place a horse would go rogue and trample me to death. Nowhere was safe! No fences! We sat behind a few handsome wealthy looking older gentlemen wearing boat shoes and polo shirts and watched the game. For 2 minutes. Before I got distracted by wafts of cigarette smoke. If you are a smoker and a reader of this blog, I apologize, but I also imagine you know my thoughts on this matter already. I hate cigarette smoke. I turned around to demand that the smoker go elsewhere and came face to face with Old Man River, a man whose tan was so deep and grey/blond hair so wild and unkempt I thought he must be a hobo. I looked closer... boat shoes and a polo shirt. He and his wife (we'll call her Virginia Slims in honor of her 80s style lady cigarettes) have a home in the British West Indies. Of course they do. And then as I was paging through the program, there was a little advertisement for the Polo Club which gave a description of typical polo patron: highly educated (check), median income of 300K (not check), median house price of 600K (also not check), and many mentions of elite, culture, and society. It was clear you were not allowed to join if you were not of the most impressive breeding stock. I'll keep my eye out for a rich husband... or just take my white zin and head to the OTB to watch the ponies.

(All kidding aside, if you're in the Delaware/Pennsylvania area, this is a great Friday night activity. The weather was beautiful, you can bring a picnic dinner, and sip wine from local vineyards. You can buy tickets online here).

Fancytown

It's interesting to figure out what to blog about when nothing absurd happened, I didn't bake, I didn't take a picture, or I've realized that telling stories in my real life is redundant because this blog tells them first. What do I blog about if I don't have something that strikes me? A few things.

1. I did bake. Make these cookies. They are deliciousness in a cookie. Little bit chewy, little bit crunchy. Perfect about 5 minutes out of the oven.
World Peace Cookies

2. I am taking a photography class this weekend! I am also going to polo this weekend. The latter should be interesting given my irrational fear of horses. I'm so fancy!

3. My friend suggested I make him a "pumpecapple." A what? He described it as the dessert version of a turducken. We'll circle back to my turducken making next November. But. This confection is interesting. It's a pumpkin pie baked in a spice cake layer, covered with frosting, topped with a pecan pie baked in a chocolate cake layer, covered with frosting, topped with an apple pie baked in a yellow cake layer, topped with frosting. I love sugar. And I love baking. And I love eating baked sugar. But this is even too much for me. Check out the original version (the cherpumpple).

Well there we go. I'll stop now lest I run out of things to talk about with people tomorrow around the water cooler.