Dining in the dark

This is another genius restaurant, where you eat in pitch darkness. I can personally attest to this restaurant, it was one of the coolest dining experiences of my life. The food is just OK, but the challenge of eating in utter inky darkness was worth the price of admission tenfold. I highly recommend this and with a bigger group the better so that you guys can hear all the foibles that people are going through as they try and eat normally! It's awesome, look here!

Water Dining

This restaurant looks so cool! Check it out!

Mourning pink animal cookies!

Since Mother's Cookies closed their doors a couple months ago I thought I would pay homage by including the recipe for them here...Man these were the best, but maybe you can do right by them....

Vanilla Sugar Animal Cookies with Royal Icing

About 3 dozen 2 1/2 inch cookies

1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup softened unsalted butter
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1 egg at room temperature, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Royal icing (recipe follows) and colored sugars if decorating

1. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and set aside.
2. In stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar on medium speed for several minutes until light and fluffy.
3. With mixer on low speed, gradually add the egg and vanilla and mix until well combined. Add the flour mixture gradually. Mix until fully incorporated and the dough is smooth and uniform.
4. Divide dough into 2 pieces and flatten into 1/2 inch thick discs.
5. Wrap dough and refrigerate for 2 hours. At this point the dough can be double wrapped and frozen for up to 2 weeks.
6. When you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat oven to 325°F. Grease several cookie sheets or line them with parchment paper.
7. Place dough on a lightly floured surface and dust with more flour. Gently roll the dough 1/8 inch thick.
8. Using a cookie cutter, cut out cookies and place on sheets about 1 inch apart.
9. Bake for 14–16 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through, until edges are golden brown. Transfer cookies to wire racks with a metal spatula to cool completely.
10. Once cookies are cooled, decorate them with icing and colored sugars.

Royal Icing
2 egg whites
1 tablespoon lemon juice
3 cups powdered sugar
Food coloring in desired colors

1. Using a mixer with the whisk attachment, combine all the ingredients and whisk for several minutes on high speed until the mixture is thick and shiny opaque white. It should have the consistency of glue. If it is too thin, add more powdered sugar by teaspoonfuls as needed. If it is too thick, add water by teaspoonfuls as needed.
2. Divide icing into bowls for coloring. Keep the bowls covered or the icing will dry and harden. Add food color to icing to achieve desired hues.

recipe courtesy of dessertfirst

Candy Bar Expiration Dates

I found this great article on how to avoid stale candy by understanding the expiration dates. Here is an excerpt that is the jist of it...

"For M&Ms and Mars candy, there's usually a 10 digit code of numbers and letters, but you only need to worry about the first three. The first number is the last number in the year (8 means 2008, 7 means 2007, etc) and the next two numbers stand for the week of the year (so, a number like 804 would be the fourth week of 2008: February 2008)

For Hershey's candy, there's a 2 character code for the month and year. The year is like the other code, with the number being the last number in the year, the second character is a letter that represents the month. A = January, B = February, and so on. So a code like 9A would mean that the candy expires January of 2009.

Stale candy isn't really "expired" in the sense that milk and other perishable goods "expire." In this case, the candy is merely stale and isn't as tasty as it should be. Still, why buy old candy?" article from consumerist.com.