So It Was Hot This Weekend: Ancho Almond Caramel Corn

-Perfect for those outdoor picnics, baseball games, or if you have the munchies.-

It is 98 degrees outside. I'm told Fahrenheit, but I believe it to be Celsius because I am sweating like a homo in a hardware store*. The fan is set to full on Arctic Chill, which is more like Delta Breeze because I'm learning that the sun penetrates our house in the warmer months like a hooker's anonymous John making it a veritable hot box of scorchy death.

It's April. People... God... Why is it in the upper nineties in April?!

I'm in the kitchen right now, which is in the hundreds right now because I have the oven preheating and I'm over a gas burner cooking pots full of popcorn and stirring together a caramel sauce. Baked air, coils of steam caressing as much skin and surface as possible, and wrathful sunlight all invade the kitchen at once to destroy me. And I, masochist that I am, am choosing to be here.

Why? Because it's springtime. Baseball season is here. And it's April. And darn it I have a potluck to be at.

-A seriously slammin' potluck.-

Missing: Spring Vegetable Cheese Dip

-Cheese: A wonderful way to deal with stress.- 

I unexpectedly found myself in dress pants, my gardening shirt, a hunting jacket, and sockless in my old kitchen clogs that were still stained from flour and sugar the weekend before walking southward on Calford Avenue screaming out my cat’s name – Cid – at 7:23 in the morning. I was only just showered and my hair still wet and tousled. Unready in the slightest to be seen by another person and barely sure what day it was still. Yet, regardless, and even without my usual jolt of caffeine, fear was enough to propel me through the cold drizzle.

Because my baby was missing.

All I could think of was last night - sitting in bed reading with Cid purring contently on my lap - could not be the last time I had him with me. The universe could not allow it to be this way. The universe and circumstance could not let my last interaction with Cid be me kicking him off at four in the morning because he insisted on sleeping over my knees and buckling them as a purr-crazy feline show of affection.

Cid, my companion of the last ten years who had seen me through break-ups and an engagement, college and grad school, who had listened quietly and intently to my ramblings, who creeped on to the couch to sit on my nap like a ninja so that I couldn't possibly see him coming in case I wasn’t in the mood, and who rode around on Fiance’s shoulder’s like a pirate’s parrot…

This could not be actually happening.

But it was.

Suit Up: Strawberry-Lime Buttermilk Cake

-Who says you can't have your cake and then try on fourteen different jackets?- 

I'm on the verge of getting my Pink Card rejected for a number of infractions - last and probably most prominent of which is my total inability to dress myself like an actual adult.

Most days I just sort of throw myself at the closet and hope for the best. On some days I somehow cobble together an outfit that's actually passable, and if the light hits me just right rather dapper (to match my cunning, rather witty personality that I envision myself having). Other days it looks like I'm on the Fashion Police's Most Wanted List, needed for questioning on the brutal murder of good taste and matching socks.

Of course, this probably stems from my other - and far greater - gay crime: my total apathy for shopping. I hate shopping for furniture, a new broom, paper towels, frames, and so on. I despise dragging myself through throngs of people who invariably bump into you and who have no sense of decency or manners. I despise salespeople who don't get that I want them to leave me alone and who somehow vanish off the face of the earth in order to have a collective coffee break the moment I do. I despise comparing and trying on clothes and the fact that making out in a changing room is apparently a crime. (Fun Fact: I'm banned from the Gottschalks in Davis, California.)

-Getting to second base is the best way to break in new shoes, amiright?-

Most of my homos are abhorred by these admissions. I shrug. I explain it's just how it is. My gay genes were skimped a bit. I blame taking wood shop and golf as my electives in Middle School. My scarves are practical knits and none of them have fringe or patterns.

I'm just not that swishy.

Lessons: Chocolate Avocado Mousse

-A strange but fascinating combination. No, seriously. Hey, don't you dare click away to stare at LOLcats. Just trust me...- 

I like to think that I can find new learning experiences every day. Every activity from the mundane sweeping of the floor to the more exciting ventures of cobbling together a wedding registry offers the chance of discovery if you’re paying enough attention. For example, this week I have learned the following:

1. Having sex on a your brand new, high end comfy sack chair may seem like a good, rather whimsically naughty activity. Coy, suggestive eyes and a smack on the bum may encourage such things. It is dear readers, not so fun. It's similar to doing ballet on a sinking ship in a hurricane; stupid, clumsy, and more awkward than you might expect it to be.

2. Another note on said comfy sack. I love otherwise un-stainable, svelte, chocolate brown microsuede it comes in. But I swear to God if Fiance spills his coffee on it I will literally die.

3. Scratch that. Fiance will be killed.

4. Puppies like to nap in dirt. I’m not sure why, but they do. Furthermore, they will sniff it out whenever possible as said dirt is the most comfortable thing ever. You can fence off every bit of vegetable garden you have and seed as much grass as you want. A puppy will somehow find that one tiny, two square inches of mud and contort their body in such a way that it all fits in that tiny square ensuring that they emerge caked in crud. Said puppy will then whine when you have to give him yet another bath. Eventually, you hope, the puppy will make the connection between the two.

-I do it on purpose.- 

Maple Bacon Cupcakes with Maple Frosting

-The Original Maple Bacon Cupcake. Salty. Sweet. Awesome.-

From the Cupcake Archives. Originally posted in early 2007. Some of you may argue that the bacon dessert fad is passe and overdone. Yet this posted up way before the craze went overboard. Studded with bacon and with bacon grease and butter as the base fat you get plenty of bacon flavor. Brown sugar and maple syrup ensure an addicting sweetness. I've rewritten the post and taken new photographs of the recipe.

This is the original bacon cupcake recipe. Enjoy.

~Garrett

So the original impetus for this - as with so many other projects I take on - was an inside joke. Back in high school, in the ancient years of dial-up and when the Spice Girls were still on the radio, my friends and I had a little thing call The Passbook.

-Because we were nerds in high school. Probably still are.-

The Passbook was essentially a choose your own adventure-like story of inside jokes and snide humor that was crafted by our little group. One of us would start a story and then after some set-up, would pass it on to someone else who would write the next section. Often it was all rather inane, though after Columbine we had to keep it hidden as in many of the pages characters who were real people were often killed multiple times (always in humorous manner such as being run over by a HomeGrocer.com truck or death by irony). One of the inside jokes and characters we created was Beatis Goddessa, the Bacon Goddess. B.G. for short.

She became the central mascot of every little project we made and passbook we wrote. B.G. had white hair, spoke in Middle English, wore a skimpy little outfit, and had the power to turn anything or anyone into bacon. Her Ultimate Attack? The Hyper Bacon Cannon where she would fire a beam of bacon flavored pain at her enemies and, verily, smite them with much badassery.

It sounds silly now, I suppose. (Okay, I know.) However, we loved her.