More delicious treats for mother's day and Brian's birthday

1) Lemon meringue cupcakes I made for Brian's birthday. The recipe and cupcake papers were Martha Stewart's. P.S. Her cupcake book comes out next Tuesday!

2) Angel food cake (a mix) with homemade dark chocolate frosting. This was delicious and at least the cake part was low-fat! Also, I was very happy with my frosting job; it's not easy on a very crumb-y angel food cake.

Morgan is the cat's pajamas...

Our cat is so amusing!

Mainichi Sushi o Tabetai yo!

This means- Everyday I want to eat sushi! And I probably could, except that I don't want to get mercury poisoning, like Jeremy Piven did from eating so much sushi.

Anyway, Brian told me a few months ago that if I wanted to take a sushi class at the vocational high school that offers adult education classes, he would pay for them. My two classes were held the last two Wednesdays. The instructor, although not Japanese, seemed to know his way around making sushi. I thought he was a good teacher and I felt liked I learned some informative basic techniques for making this fine Japanese dish. The only thing that was slightly annoying was that the teacher kept pronouncing words in Japanese incorrectly and since I've taken several years of the language, it just bothered me. But I was happy with what I learned, and tried to replicate some of the sushi this evening for my husband. I just made simple California rolls, with shrimp, carrots, avocado, and cucumbers and avocado nigiri. It wasn't like eating at Fugakyu or Oishii Sushi in Sudbury, but I'm proud of my efforts!

Talk Derby to me...or to my cupcakes

For my Kentucky Derby party, I made these special Derby cupcakes. My original idea was to make mint julep cupcakes because the julep is the official drink of the Derby, but honestly, they didn't really sound very appetizing. My mom bought me a Sprinkles lemon cupcake mix for Easter and I had a great recipe (and they turned out to be delicious) for key lime cupcakes, so I decided to go with the citrus theme for the party. Besides, the lemon cupcakes from Sprinkles are some of my favorite cupcakes! I also bought yellow and green sanding sugar for additional color effects. When I was in Louisville, I bought plastic fleur-de-lis's and horses at a cake supply store, and felt they would look very festive on top of the cupcakes. They were delicious, too, and I will definitely make the key lime cupcakes on another occasion.

The Derby party was really fun and it was bigger than last year. We're totally about to outgrow this apartment! We had sixteen adults, two small children, and a chihuahua! Our good friends, Keith and Sarah, were supposed to come as well, but they were sick, as well as their son. We wouldn't have had enough chairs if they had come! Most of the girls wore hats dresses and a few of the hats were decorated with fake flowers, ribbons, etc. For the race, we had a random betting pool going where one would pay two dollars and draw a random horse out of a hat. I actually had the favorite, Friesan Fire, but he got eighteenth place, and my friend Kate, who had Mine that Bird, won part of the money. We split the pot up into 1st place won $19.00, second won $14.00, and last (haha, a booby prize) won $5.00. I kind of got that system from bunco. This year, we had a very Southern dinner, consisting of BBQ brisket (from Texas BBQ in Northborough), BBQ chicken (which I made in the crock pot with the sauce from TX BBQ), a cheese grits casserole, a chipotle sweet potato dish that was really spicy and yummy (made by Holly), a fruit salad, green salad, cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches (made by Natyra), a tomato, cucumber and mozzarella salad and deviled eggs (made by Mary), the aforementioned cupcakes, strawberry cupcakes made by Seneca, and Derby pie, of course.

Overall, besides the crowdedness factor, I think all had a good time and learned a little more about the Kentucky Derby! Now, I am just hoping Mine that Bird wins the Preakness and possibly the Belmont. We need another Triple Crown winner.