In My Neighborhood...

I was shocked when my friend "Surfer Drew" emailed to tell me that Dirty Heads were playing a show in Toronto.  A mix of reggae & hip-hop, these four surfer dudes from Huntington Beach are amazing!  My corporate sisters and I found out about them during the first California summer - the guitar player's brother taught us how to surf.  Since then, their songs have been featured in the movie Surf's Up and several tv shows.  L&R, Ryan and I all went to see them do a show during Canadian Music Week last night at Revival and it was awesome.  They're SO good live, catered to all my brother's shouted-out requests "I didn't even know we had fans in Toronto and now they're requesting songs, we'll play whatever you want buddy!" and the lead singer and him did shots together after the show.  

I've seen them three times now and they just keep getting better!  www.dirtyheads.com 

Redondo Beach, May 2008

Happy Birthday Barbie!

Today Barbara Millicent Roberts turns 50! This is an exciting day for Caleigh and I since we both just loooooove Barbie, but unfortunately for our bank accounts, it has renewed our love of buying Barbie memorabilia: 50th Anniversary Barbie (who bears a striking resemblance to Jessica Simpson), Debut Barbie - a jazzed up remake of the original black and white striped bathing suit doll, and Barbie for Cake Beauty products!

Happy Birthday Barbie, you don't look a day over 25!

Sprinkles Cupcakes

Sprinkles Cupcakes are my favourite things in the world! If you haven't had the luxury of trying a Sprinkles cupcake fresh from one of their stores (www.sprinklescupcakes.com/locations.html), their mixes are pretty much equally as delicious. My friend Courtney is usually the one to notify me when Williams Sonoma has a new flavour of Sprinkles Cupcake Mix. However, when she told me their newest flavour was banana, I was hesitant to believe her. Could they actually be making it possible for me to make my very favourite flavour in the comfort of my own kitchen?! Was this just an American Williams-Sonoma phenomenon? Or did she just mistake the yellow label for lemon... I dashed over to my nearest WS as quick as my legs would carry me and was overjoyed when I beheld the pale yellow "banana" label. So I brought them home, started collecting all the ingredients and was crushed to realize that the mix didn't call for a real banana. No fresh banana meant that the mix probably had artificial banana flavouring... I would just have to wait and see.

After 30 mins of baking time I tasted the final product... a normal cupcake eater probably wouldn't notice the difference, but a Sprinkles connoisseur like me was disappointed - I make a better banana cake than this mix :(
Instead of going with the vanilla or bittersweet chocolate icing as recommended by the mix, I paired them with cinnamon cream cheese icing and cinnamon chocolate cream cheese icing - delicious! Although they didn't live up to store-bought Sprinkles, they were still eaten up by the end of the weekend. But next time, i'll stick to the Red Velvet mix.

Jacqueline Susann

I just finished reading Jacqueline Susann's The Love Machine. I 'd rank it 3rd out of Valley of the Dolls and Once is Never Enough but it was still a great read. I just love reading her books because they totally bring you back to the craziness that was the life of beautiful people and jet setters in 60's LA & NY, and they're just so damn juicy! I was saddened when I finished it because I thought I had read all her books... but after further research in the used & out of print section at Barnes & Noble, i've realized there are two more!