Just a little reminder to take two minutes to run outside, or pull over and check out something new, or just be silly for a moment or two! I was driving Manda back home today, and we started to drive past a very strange and magical-looking sculpture made out of STICKS.

I was like, “What is that?! WHAT. IS. THAT?!”

This is a road that I have driven down more than a few times in the last year or so, but sometimes we just kind of follow our regular patterns on auto-pilot without noticing the details. This was in in Manda’s neighborhood, so she had seen it a lot already, but this was new to me. I swung the car around into a parking lot so we could get a closer look!

Put it on my Christmas List, guys! It’s a stick sculpture by Patrick Dougherty, and apparently there are a bunch of these, in different shapes and configurations, all over the country and all over the world. He studied ancient building techniques, and he uses tree saplings and no nails or glue. I really love when art is interactive and you can be all up in it. I also really love that we saw new leaves/vines/trees growing on the sculpture.

If you’ve seen the movie “Where the Wild Things Are,” you’ll definitely feel like these stick huts are the place to start the wild rumpus. I tried to research whether Dougherty designed the stick shelters from the movie. It looks like he didn’t, but everyone thinks it’s obvious that the set designer was influenced by him. Who knows!

Regardless, I’m so glad we had our two-minute adventure, and we’re so lucky to have this magic in Palo Alto!

I have one copy of an awesome new cookbook to giveaway! Are you ready? It’s my buddy Natalie Slater’s Bake And Destroy: Good Food for Bad Vegans. I’ve seen her on TV as a judge on Cupcake Wars, so I think that means she’s pretty legit. I’m totally not vegan, but I guess I am a curious and somewhat guilty omnivore. I also have vegan friends, so it will be nice to have some tasty recipes in my back pocket for get-togethers. I had already pre-ordered this book before Natalie contacted me to check out a free copy, but when someone asks if you’ll post a recipe for Banana Bread French Toast Cupcakes … YOU SAY YES.

What Natalie may not know… is that … I AM THE WORST BAKER EVER. But I always give it my best! I’m optimistically terrible. And what I like about the recipes as I’m flipping through them is that a lot of them fit on one page. This tricks amateurs like me into thinking that the recipes will be really easy, which I like very much, and it keeps me optimistic. Some morsels that catch my eye are: Totchos (tater tot nachos), Spaghetti Cake with Grandma Sharon’s Hater-Proof Sauce, and Whole Wheat Choco-Coconut Donuts! PLUS, the photography is gorgeous AND there are bad-ass illustrations by the one and only Betty Turbo.

And now for your viewing pleasure: Banana Bread French Toast Cupcakes. (My cooking confessions and video summary are below the recipe.)

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Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

CUPCAKES:

• ½ cup (113 g) mashed overripe banana
• 1 ¼ cups (156 g) all-purpose flour
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¾ cup (150 g) sugar
• 1/3  cup (80 ml) canola oil
• 2⁄3 cup (160 ml) rice or soy milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon almond extract
• ½ cup (60 g) chopped, toasted walnuts

VEGAN MAPLE BUTTERCREAM FROSTING:

• 2 cups (250 g) confectioners’ sugar
• 6 tablespoons (85 g) nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening
• 6 tablespoons (85 g) vegan margarine
• 2 tablespoons (40 g) pure maple syrup
• ½ teaspoon maple flavoring
• Pinch of salt

Directions

Preheat your oven to 350°F (180°C) and line a twelve-cup muffin pan with paper liners.

Throw your mashed banana in a blender or just smash it with a fork.

Sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and sugar into a large bowl and mix well.

In a smaller bowl, whisk together the oil, rice milk, vanilla, almond extract and mashed banana.

Stir or fold the wet ingredients into the dry. Small lumps are fine. Finally, add the walnuts, folding gently.

Fill the liners two-thirds full. Bake for 20 to 22 minutes, or until the tops spring back when lightly touched. Let cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then remove from the pan and let cool completely before frosting.

To make the vegan maple buttercream frosting, beat all the ingredients together in a bowl until they’re light and fluffy.

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Tip: If you have really UNripe bananas like I did, you can slice them and nuke them. I nuked 2 small bananas for 30 seconds. Then you let them sit a little, and they start turning brown. Apparently, according to the internets, the browning is the “ripening.”

Okay, Confession #1: I didn’t sift the flour because I’m lazy. And also I am house-sitting and have no idea where a sifter is. I know you can use a strainer thingie, but please refer back to the part where I’m lazy.

Confession #2: I used pecans instead of walnuts. I figure this is a preference thing and won’t ruin any cupcakes.

Confession #3: I forgot to add aforementioned pecans before spooning the first 3 cupcakes into the cupcake liners…. so I pushed some in with my finger and tried to cover up the evidence.

Confession #4: I didn’t toast the pecans. Refer back to the part where I’m lazy.

Confession #5: Let’s talk about the bananas again. Soooooooooo after I sliced my bananas and nuked them and mashed them with a fork… I totally forgot to actually measure them out. I just had 2 mashed bananas in a bowl. And then I dumped that bowl into my liquids. And then I saw all those bananas and thought: OOPS. And then….I scooped some out (covered in soy milk and various extracts) and left what I thought COULD be 1/2 a cup of bananas.

Final thoughts: YUMMMYYYYYY!!!!!!! I see now that the gel-icing moustaches may have been a mistake. The icing was hard to control out of the tube, and I just sort of made a slimy mess everywhere, so I decided to give myself an icing moustache as well, cuz, WHY NOT.

I even eat some of my own moustache in this very informative video:

For a chance to win a copy of Bake And Destroy, follow the options on the Rafflecopter widget! You have until Wednesday night at 11:59pm, September 25th!

This weekend I went to my buddy Elysse‘s bridal shower in Sausalito (this is a photo that I stole from her buddy Nicole). I forgot to take a photo, but I tried to wrap my present in what I perceived to be a more grown up style, which turned into an explosion from the floral aisle at Michaels involving ribbon, raffia, fake flowers, and plastic pears. To balance this elegance out, I made this card:

You know, when you’re cruising the greeting card aisle, and you just can’t find anything that perfectly represents the sentiment inside your heart: go home and make it.

This horse head mask isn’t entirely random. It was actually on Elysse’s registry, which made me love her and her fiance’ Peter a million times more, and of course, I got it for them. What I did not love was that apparently it was gonna take like 8 million years to send the horse mask from the particular place I ordered it from. I didn’t really notice this until the night before the shower, and I was freaking out like, WHERE IS MY GOSHDANG FREAKY HORSE HEAD MASK?!??! Anyway, to make up for this party foul, I also made some paper horse heads with real yarn hair accents, so she and Peter could practice before the real deal arrives.

KISSES!!!!!!!

When I made these hair pompoms the other day, I for some reason immediately felt transformed into a Mel Stringer girl, and I decided to take outfit photos a la Mel’s Bedroom Series.

There are OFTEN times when I’ll be like, “You’re never buying anything pink or child-like again. You’re almost 40 years old, and you look ridiculous.”

And then I’ll see this totally amazing dress with vintage toys all over it that I HAVE TO HAVE. AND WEAR. WITH PRIDE. FOREVER.

I have been told by a few naysayers that I should grow up, but who determined what grown-ups are allowed to wear or not? What is a grown-up supposed to look like? Who decided that bunnies and puppies and pastel rainbows were solely the territory of children? I don’t have to go to an office, and I can do what I want, so I should just do what I want and wear what I want! For as long as I can…!  I will allow YOU to do the same! 🙂

Obvs, if I decide to go back to the office at some point, my wardrobe may have to revert back to what it once was, but for now, it’s rainbow pompoms, candy jewelry, and crocheting the night away.

Dress: Mr. Gugu & Miss Go from Truffle Shuffle, Necklace c/o Art School Drop Out, Bracelet c/o EllegraDavis, Socks: Sock Dreams, Giant glasses: vintage, Hair pompoms: me, made of handspun yarn.

If you don’t recognize the quote from my blog title…it’s from this episode of Seinfeld!

This must-have t-shirt for all my fellow four-eyed babes is a design by my good buddy Candace of Super Good! She is world-famous for her hilarious and wacky t-shirt descriptions:

“Fig. 1: The perfect way to show the world you pride yourself in your poor eyesight!  Any inference beyond that, regarding your other appendages, is purely conjecture.  Use caution when wearing this shirt.

Fig. 2: And hey, maybe your glasses AREN’T real, who cares!  You can still wear the shirt! I won’t tell the glasses police.  But I also won’t tell the real police, when they fine you for driving without your glasses!  There’s gotta be consistency in our story or no one will believe it!!”

She’s giving you guys a 10% off code for all her t-shirts: FRIENDSOFTWINKIE10

She told me the code lasts until November, so act now!! There’s lots of cute and funny stuff! (But please note that the code only works for t-shirts and not for accessories.)

“Finally, a shirt for those who can only express their gratitude in multicolored pastels.  A shirt for those who find the hard, pointy corners of most typefaces featured in plastic bag logos to be too harsh.  A shirt for positive people, who love to display their appreciation right on their chest!!  Or for negative people, with a love for ironic garments. Neutral people can also wear this shirt by turning it inside out.  Truly, a shirt for all of mankind.”

I gotta have anything and everything to do with pastel rainbows!!! And being thankful, obviously.

These are the two shirts I bought. Which ones would you choose?

(Here are some outtakes!)

(p.s. is anyone still watching ANTM? Candace and I are. I think we might be the only 2 people left on the planet that are doing so. I was just thinking about how I have a really short neck, and Tyra would be yelling at me about it all the time.)