A Stomach Never Forgets

Me: Oh man! Yesterday was my 28 1/2 birthday and I completely forgot to celebrate. . .well, at least I'd already made cupcakes.

Matt: Your stomach didn't forget.

Happy Birthday, Mrs. Mean!

I'm not one of those people who has lots of friends. No no no. Instead, I'm one of those people who finds a handful of amazing friends and never lets them go.

Friends like Caitie. Caitie, who lived diagonally across the hall from me freshman year of college, who was my roommate at our beloved Grattan Street home my senior year, who was my maid of honor, who is loyal, who is kind, who is passionate and compassionate, who is a dedicated teacher, who is wildly creative, who is honest, who is in so many ways the kind of person I want to be. She's hilarious, she's a fan of New England sports teams (and was even when they sucked), and she oozes charisma.

Oh yeah, and she does a hell of a velociraptor impression.

Today Caitie celebrates her 28th birthday, and I'm sad that I won't be there to share in the birthday fun, but I'll be there in spirit. And next time we see each other, I'm making her these.

Caitie was, after all, the other participant in our Fattest of the Fat contests.

Happy birthday, old friend.

Summer Consequence

Oh dear God.

If you've been keeping up with the blog, then you know that I've spent the last two months of my life drinking massive amounts of boxed wine, baking and eating dozens of cupcakes, napping with the dog, and completely abandoning any semblance of a healthy lifestyle.

And it's all caught up with me. School starts tomorrow.

Tonight I went to the closet to pick out something to wear for the big first day of school. You know, something modest but nice, something that says, "I'm your bitchy teacher; fear me." (I haven't so much as looked at my school clothes since June 12.)

So I grabbed one of my 5 pairs of black pants, and put them on--barely. Uh oh. And then I tried on the other 4, and it wasn't pretty.

"But, you know, I just washed them and I just ate dinner and I'm pretty sure I'm retaining water."

Yeah, right.

I can't, in good conscience, even pretend that those are the reasons for this, shall we say, "growth." The real reason is that I've been in an eating contest with myself for the last two months, and the consequence is a body that's spilling out of my teacher clothes.

I know what I have to do, and it's not a pill or a binge diet or some other "get thin fast" kind of gimmick. Tomorrow I'm going to have to reconcile with Jillian Michaels and the elliptical machine and the Wii Fit balance board.

And I have to get back to daily plate (amazing online calorie counter!) and stop eating like it's my last day to live or like I'm in a hurry to have my leg amputated.

But, still I face the immediate question about what to wear for my first day of school, and the Snuggie may be the only thing that fits me right now.

At least they come in a variety of colors and patterns. And at least I have cute shoes!

Suckcake Emporium and Feelings of Superiority

Weeks ago, on a walk with Mitch, I spotted something downtown that was VERY exciting--the Cupcake Emporium. I'm obsessed with cupcakes (as evidenced here and here), I thought it would be a fun thing to do during Chloe's visit.

The Cupcake Emporium was a disappointment. The cupcakes looked nice enough, I suppose. Here's Chloe's carrot cupcake with cream cheese icing.

And here's my red velvet with cream cheese icing.

But the flavor and texture of these cupcakes was mediocre at best. The icing hardly tasted like cream cheese, and it had a gritty texture. The flavor of the cakes was just whatever and they were kind of dry. Blah.

It did seem like the Cupcake Emporium is actually more of a store than it is a cupcakery (nothing like Matty F's Frostings). Also, while we were eating ours we heard the cashier recommend the key lime cupcake to another customer, so it's possible that we just made poor choices during our visit.

The Suckcake Emporium did wet my appetite for cupcakes, though (like it takes a lot). So Chloe and I decided that we needed to spend an evening baking cupcakes that would be far superior. We made ourselves some carrot cupcakes and some strawberry cupcakes. Mmmm.

The carrot cupcake recipe is one from Martha Stewart. You can find it here.

During our night of baking, I also got to use one of my favorite new kitchen items, this pretty orange wisk. It makes me happy in my heart.

They are a million times tastier than the suckcakes.

We used this recipe for the strawberry cupcakes. If you're a strawberry cake fan, I'd highly recommend making these babies. We use cream cheese--smooth, cheesy cream cheese icing--on top of ours.

I do believe it's time for Porky Jean to make an appearance.

Porky Jean

Oh, the delights of gluttony. . .

During my freshman year of college, I won a pie-eating contest. It was a sunny Saturday afternoon, and I was already stuffed with brunch from D-hall. Somehow my friends entered me in the contest, and I was against these giant football boys. My competitve drive kicked in, and I kicked ass. I beat them easily, and I even ate the crust when I didn't have to. I puked afterward. It was disgusting. Disgusting.

Also during college, when I worked at the beloved Buffalo Wild Wings, my coworkers and I would participate in what we coined "Tapeworm Tuesday." Tuesday was the day that the restaurant had a wing special, and since we got 50% off, we would order wings by the dozen, inhale them, and then do it all over again. It was disgusting. Disgusting.

And also during college, my roommate Caitie (who is still one of my best friends and was the maid of honor at my wedding) and I would compete in a very, very special competition: the Fattest of the Fat. Seriously. What was the Fattest of the Fat, you may ask? It's pretty simple, really. It was a competition to see who could eat the most in a single day. We would sometimes go to the Golden Corral to make the competition more interesting. And there was a default rule. If you had food on your face for more than an hour without realizing it, you automatically won. It was disgusting. Disgusting.

I'm starting to notice a pattern here, and it's disgusting. Disgusting.

A couple of years ago Matt and I came up with a name for my super fat alter ego: Porky Jean. (My name is Amanda Jean--it's iambic.) Oh, Porky Jean. She's so gross.

Porky Jean:

• is so fat that her eyes are squinty
• always, always, always has food on her face
• only mumbles--her mouth is always so full of food and you can never understand what she is saying
• has condescending older female relatives who all have Southern accents
• is very fat

A typical exchange between Porky Jean and one of her female relatives:

Relative: Pawky Jeeean, you have ranch dressin' in yaw ahbraw.
Porky Jean: Mmm, bah, mmm, bah.

Also, Porky Jean has the mannerisms of a dinosaur. Enjoy the video. Sorry it's sideways; I can't figure out how to fix it.

If only I had a super skinny alter ego. . .