Magnolia vs Crumbs

I've just returned from a trip to DC and NYC. Some work, some play.

During the day and a half I spent in New York, I managed to sample cupcakes from three different venues.

Dean & Deluca, which I stumbled upon while looking for Zara, did a fairly good Red Velvet with cream cheese frosting. Ina Garten does divine cream cheese frosting on coconut cupcakes and this was pretty close. I wasn't planning on having a snack there but I was hungry after walking through Soho, Tribeca and Little Italy and the cupcake looked better than anything else in the pastry case so I indulged. I was pretty excited to have found Dean & Deluca's original location as I'm a fan of the St. Helena outpost and have sent many a wedding gift from there.

The Magnolia Bakery, in the West Village, has been credited with starting the 1990s cupcake craze. You may have seen it in Sex and The City and The Devil Wears Prada. Frankly, I was underwhelmed. They make vanilla and chocolate cupcakes with vanilla and chocolate frosting. That pretty pink frosting you see above tastes the same as the white one: vanilla. And that's just not right. I ate a chocolate on chocolate one and it was like eating Betty Crocker frosting right out of the can.

Crumbs, which has several NYC outposts, does more than 50 daily varieties. They are large cupcakes. I'm a fan. I even managed to bring some home for Dave and the kids: Apple Cobbler, Caramel Apple, White Hot Chocolate, Oreo, Blackout and Yankees. Fortunately or unfortunately, they have a shop in California quite near my sister-in-law's house in Calabasas.

My treat.

While trick or treating with the kids Saturday night, my neighbor Jill lent me a book.

It's called The Most Beautiful Villages of the Dordogne. Oh my.

It's pure eye candy. Medieval villages perched on cliffs. Undulating hills and warm limestone valleys. Have you even heard of the Dordogne? It's not an especially popular tourist destination, at least for Americans. But in addition to stunning scenery, it offers some of the best food in France including truffles (yum!) and fois gras (not my thing). Did I mention I'm going to the village at right, Beynac, in April?

Perhaps 15 years ago Dave and I took the Glacier Express from St. Moritz to Zermatt. Since then I've thought that the Swiss Alps are the most beautiful place on the planet. We'll see if I still believe this after visiting the Dordogne.

Who's calling please?

I finally learned how to make custom ringtones for my iPhone.

Only a few of you have special ringtones, though. I'm working my way through the rest of you.

Mom, you are Marc Cohn's Walking in Memphis.
Dave, you are Honey, Honey from Mamma Mia.
Ice Cream SIL is Cheetah Girls Cheetah Sisters.

My client, who is the most frequent caller to my cell phone, is Wild Thing. She selected this herself.

Amy and Paige -- suggestions for yourselves?

Neeracha -- the options are numerous for you. John Denver's Leaving on a Jetplane? One Night in Bangkok? Something by Madonna?

Anyone else?

Halloween 2009

12:45am
Dave comes home from Tracy & Matt's Halloween Party. Try to engage him in conversation. It's futile.

8:20am
Thing 1 decides to serve us breakfast in bed. It's a very sweet gesture yet it's too bad she had to wake us to do so.

8:45am
Get out of bed and doll up because I absolutely positively have to shoot my work video while my hair is still perfect from my Friday afternoon trip to the salon.

9:30am
Set up the Flip camera and stage the living room. Coerce kids into being human teleprompters. Eldest Daughter yells at me that she doesn't like being told what to do. After all, she's taking Video Production in middle school. Bite tongue to stop from telling her what I think of her attitude. Give husband two extra strength Tylenol and a bottle of Propel.

10:00am
Am starting to get frustrated with the video shoot. Not as frustrated as the human teleprompters, though.

10:30am
Realize we need to be at soccer in 20 minutes. Throw soccer clothes at Thing 2 and tell her she can get dressed in the car. Check on husband. He decides to meet us at the game.

10:55am
Arrive at soccer for pre-game face painting and then warmup. It's Halloween after all.

11:30am
Soccer game. Greet my parents, who have come to cheer on Thing 2. Notice that my mom and I have very similar haircuts these days. Discuss easy appetizers with Soccer Moms.

12:20pm
Console Thing 2, who is either hysterical that the season is over or that they lost. I never did find out.

1pm
Grocery shop. No idea why since I am leaving town for the week. Earn bonus points for not purchasing the People New Moon special issue. Figure I can buy it at the airport if I still want it.

2pm
Reshoot video, this time with husband as teleprompter. It still sucks. Bathe Thing 2. Prep appetizer for tonight.

5pm
Drop Eldest Daughter at Halloween Party then go Kristin & Mark's for dinner.

6pm
After dinner, trick or treat with kids in nearby neighborhood since ours is dark on this holiday.

8pm
Go to Maddy & Tim's for their annual Halloween Chili Feed while all the kids in our neighborhood trade candy upstairs in their house. Discuss bike shopping with Jill and Leeann. Ooogle at our neighbors' beautiful babies. It makes me want another. For about thirty seconds.

9:30pm
Walk home from Maddy & Tim's just as Eldest Daughter is dropped off. She tells me that she has returned with 176 pieces of candy.

10pm
Consider raiding Pinks' candy but decide to hold off until morning. Also consider shooting video again but instead, crawl into bed, thankful that we get an extra hour this weekend.

Penelope Trunk is a freak.

But her blog is an interesting read and she occasionally has a nugget.

For example, she blogged on how to write a blog post people love. You can read it here.

Ms. Trunk writes on the intersection of work and life. One of the things I like about her is that she freely admits that she has limited social skills.

She has an editor for her tweets and blog posts and still they are out there. Here are some examples of her bizarre posts.

High Income Women Get More Oral Sex Maybe

Miscarriage is a Workplace Event

Why Men Should Give Women Flowers

This last post reminds me of my friend Bobby, who once told me that during stressful times at work he wishes he'd made a career of arranging flowers. He'd go to work every day and be surrounded by beautiful things. And then he'll take them, make them even more beautiful and they will go to people and make them happy, too. I think about this from time to time.

They make me happy.

Cherokee Purple. Stupice. Green Zebra. Yes, heirloom tomatoes. Our neighbors bought them in local farming community today and delivered some to our doorstep. They made me silly happy. Silly happy because it's the end of October and silly happy because they taste so damn good. I made a special run to the artisan cheese shop this afternoon to get fresh mozzarella to pair with them. Stand back, sisters and brothers. I'm not inclined to share.

Two weekends ago I made dinner at my parents house. My mom is a phenomenal cook. I may have said this before but it deserves repeating. I never knew how good my brother and I had it growing up until I went away to college and started going home with my roommates.

The funny thing is, I never clued in to how different our kitchens were until that weekend. I have a gas cooktop. Hers is electric, the kind that's flat and easy to wipe clean. It was her choice; she remodeled her kitchen perhaps five years ago. She has two kinds of salt: table and Kosher. I have seven. I have four sets of dry measuring cups. She has a single set of wet ones. (No idea why I have so many -- one was a gift and they are very cute.) She has McCormick Schilling Vanilla. I have Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla and Mexican Vanilla.

Our generation has been taught that the best food comes from the best ingredients, thank you Alice Waters. Yet, my mom can outcook me any day of the week blindfolded. I can cook. Fairly well. But cookbooks were made for me. I don't deviate. I follow the recipes step by step and come out with the expected results. Timed correctly with the other courses if I'm lucky.

Can someone explain this to me? Is love the secret ingredient or are some people just born with the gene?

Top 100

Have I mentioned lately how much I LOVE to travel?

Each year Conde Nast Traveler comes out with its Top 100 list of Hotels and Resorts Worldwide. Dave and I go through the list religiously and see how many we've been to. I think Neeracha does this, too.

This year I've stayed at 12 of the top resorts. For the record, The Four Seasons Chiang Mai was the best of them. It was like staying in a manicured jungle and we spent a few hours on the pavilion attached to our room each day when Eldest Daughter, then three, napped. The Oriental Bangkok, however, was a close second because of the gold embossed stationery with our names on it and the bathroom the same size as our bedroom at home.

I've stayed at 10 of the top hotels. For the record, I do not think that the Hyatt Regency Reston, where I spent three months of my life, is deserving of this honor. I do, however, think that the Westin Excelsior Florence was. I clearly recall the view of the Arno from our terrace and also that we used Westin points to pay for our stay, which made it all the sweeter. The picture at right was taken on the boat at the Westin Excelsior Venice, where we went to celebrate our 10th anniversary. It made the list, too.

Full disclosure: there are more than 200 properties on the list; they are sliced and diced a few ways.