So my four-day weekend as has come to an end and it is time for me to return to the workplace. What did I do for the past four days? Nothin. Except for all that pizza making. And working crosswords. And wrangling kittens. Other than those things, I didn’t do anything. Except go to the library and Books-A-Million. Nothing except for that. Right.

So, over the weekend I celebrated my birthday. As you can tell it was a pretty low-key event. My family had a little dinner get together Sunday night at Teacher Sis’s house and she made me a Neapolitan cake held together with vanilla ice cream and covered with fondant. The whole cake was made to look like an old school NES controller. It was the best birthday cake ever. Check it out:

This is why my Sis is the coolest.

I won’t name off all of the gifts that I received, but I will talk about one, because it is a subject that I feel I need to address before it gets out of hand. Pancake Land got me Volumes 1 & 2 of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. In addition to that I am getting The Classic Italian Cook Book by Marcella Hazan, which I bought myself as a birthday present, and a copy of Ad Hoc At Home by Thomas Keller, which Teacher Sis got me as a present. After all of these cookbooks arrive, I am putting the lock down on cookbooks. This means that if you want to buy me something, don’t buy me a cookbook. I am not allowing cookbooks to be that kitschy little thing that I have a lot of and that collect dust because I use three or four of my cookbooks on a regular basis. I will not let the sacred texts of the culinary world become what roosters or monkeys in tuxedos are in other people’s homes. No sir. Not in my kitchen. So, with that said, if you have purchased me a cookbook and just have not given it to me, that’s fine, I’ll accept it, but after April 1, please don’t buy me any cookbooks.

I do want to say thank you to everyone who has purchased me cookbooks recently, though. I do appreciate them. I probably would have bought them for myself had you not given them to me. Alas, they are what actually alerted me to the impending problem. I saw a trend beginning and I had to quell it for the good of the people.

On another cooking note, Cara’s at Brunwick Place is offering their first cooking class this weekend and I will be there with bells on. Actually, not with bells. But, I will have a food processor. Hopefully. The class is on pastas and pestos. The cost is $65 and there are two classes, one at 10am and one at 1pm. Each class holds 4 people, so, if you are interested, you’d better sign up quick.

Last night at the library I picked up a couple more audiobooks. I know, I haven’t finished the other ones yet, but I could not turn down getting William Shatner’s autobiography Up Till Now. It is read by the author. Awesome. I also picked up Fool by Christopher Moore. He wrote Lamb, which was fabulous if you haven’t read it.

Well, I need to go get ready for work. Let’s hope my body doesn’t reject it, going back to work that is. More soon. ~SC

Oh, one last thing for good measure:

Well, somebody had to do it.