A State of Design: Alabama

The first of a series of postcards representing state foods. Each postcard is supposed to be designed in a certain amount of time, every day.

Alabama: Pecans

What does a girl have to do to keep a blog going?

It seems my efforts in trying to keep up with posting have failed me! ugh! BUT there are some new and exciting projects that I think will help me show some love for my blog. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep up with both of these projects in the next month or two!

My first project is a collaborative design challenge: A State of Design. Three girls and 50 states. The three of us will be designing a postcard for every state, every day. We each have a different category: food, animals and insects.

The second project just came recently to me (as recent as 10 minutes ago!). A high school friend started doing "The Happiness Experiment." She captured every happy moment every day for a month and gave it a rating from 1-10. It's a good way to appreciate the good times and to not take every moment for granted. Check her out!

Stay tuned folks!

Falling in Love Fridays

Bathing suit season is just around the corner. I love these swimsuits from anthropologie. Hopefully I'll be ready enough to fit into at least one of these!

Parched Desert Maillot / Golden Days Bikini / Maine Event Bikini / elephant Ears Maillot

Toulouse Lautrec

Some of my favorites from the Toulouse Lautrec exhibit at the High Museum.

Simply Sublime

If and I do say IF I was a student at Georgia Tech, I would have gotten even fatter than I did when I was at Georgia because I would be at Sublime Doughnuts hungover every Sunday... okay, okay...every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And maybe Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday...

I guess I was either hungry or I didn't feel like choosing just one doughnut out of all the different flavors, but I definitely got a dozen. You would have gotten a dozen too if you were looking at their menu. It's so hard to pick just one or two but I got the following:

A-Town Cream

Dulce de Leche with Caramel Icing

Strawberry N Cream

Reese's Peanut Butter Cup

Raspberry Filled Heart

Chocolate Banana Fritter

Cheese Danish

Smores

Nutella

Oreo

A-Town Mocha

Black and Tan

Each doughnut (yes I've already tried all of them in the same day!) was so light and fluffy that I didn't feel too bad going back for more! I think my favorite (and it's hard to pick a favorite out of this group) is the Strawberry and Cream. I just love the fresh strawberries!

So, what are you giving/taking up for Lent?

Pancakes for a rainy day

Waking up to a rainy day on the weekend is no bueno. As I laid in bed Saturday morning and my stomach growling, I thought that this would be a great morning to make chocolate chip pancakes with bacon and maple syrup on top! Well...maybe just the syrup since my bacon was no bueno as well. :(

I love making pancakes because they're so easy and you usually have all the ingredients in the pantry!

Click on the image to get a larger view of the recipe! The recipe doesn't include chocolate chips, but I usually put in at least a cup.

Shoya Izakaya

I'm always in the know about new restaurants popping up in the ATL, but when it comes to Asian restaurants I stick with the uge (short for usual. Just watch I Love You, Man and you will know what I mean).

Friday night, my friend Maggie took me to Shoya. She had gotten a gift certificate for her birthday from her Asian boss :) He described the restaurant as Japanese street food and said to order the ramen noodle soup. I'm not an expert in Japanese food, but ramen...I mean I love me some ramen.

As we were making our way to the restaurant, I realized that it was in the same shopping center as Super H! So I told Maggie that her and her dad were going to be the only white people in the restaurant and that I wanted to stop by Super H after dinner to buy some tofu. So Asian.

After we sat and looked over the menu, we realized that it was a "tapas" style restaurant. She of course asked me what I wanted (I'm thinking she had no idea what to order, but she did point out one or two items that she wanted). I'm glad she trusted my judgement on what to order because everything was delicious. The menu for the night:

Edamame

Koebi Karaage (Crunchy fried baby shrimp with sea salt and lemon)

Seaweed Salad

Georgian Roll

Pork Belly Kushiyaki (skewers)

Japanese Conch Kushiyaki

Saba Shioyaki (Grilled marinated mackeral with dashi soy sauce)

Asari Butter Yaki (Manila clams with soy butter sauce)

Unagi Kabayaki (Grilled eel with BBQ Sauce)

Tan Tan Ramen

It was a lot of food, but it didn't surprise me that it was just enough food for 3 people. Well, I guess 2 because Maggie and I ate most of it...

Who wants to join me and Maggie next time?

Falling in Love Fridays

This Friday I'm falling in love with the one and only Adele. First of all, I didn't know she was 21 (hence the name of her latest album). She definitely has the soul of a woman who has lived a life. Sometimes I like to listen to her music to fall asleep at night...maybe I'm hopeful of a good night's sleep with sweet dreams.