eclectic cakes take on baby shower

2-4 hours of sleep a night and a few all nighters aren't going to keep me away from my love of baking!  Especially when asked to bake some of my vegan cupcakes for a friend Jessica's baby shower last Saturday. (check out her blog here)  I did vanilla with blue fondant on top and my famous chocolate orange cake with orange vanilla buttercream frosting.  Architecture school will never keep me from baking!!!

Schulzie's (non-traditional) bread pudding

Food Network is my favorite channel.  Dessert is my favorite course.  Put them together and you get "Sugar High" a new show hosted by Duff Goldman.  Each episode Duff goes to a different city on the hunt for their most unique and delicious desserts.  Thanks Duff, for letting me know about Schulzies bread pudding on Venice Beach!

Schulzies is a place you could easily miss in the midst of pot dispensaries, rappers making you listen to their new tracks, and the typical Venice Boardwalk craziness.  However, when you come upon the little stand you will feel happiness, followed by agony over trying to decide on one flavor (there are 108, though probably less than 10 on any given day).  Don't expect your grandma's bread pudding, this is somewhat of a bread pudding/ice cream hybrid.  It is baked traditionally but with different toppings (mine had fudge in it) and then it is put in the fridge and served in scoops.  Yep, cold bread pudding.  Mmmmm, yum.  Makes me want to bike to Venice every weekend.  I think the 12 miles there and back probably burns off any calories present in the pudding.  Next time I'll probably get two scoops!

Tony Smith sculptures ::: tetrahedrons and octahedrons

Week 1 of my work from SCI-Arc 1GA in pictures.

this looks like it was easy, but it wasn't.  what a trick.

playing with the 10 of each shape

playing some more

using a system for symmetry

And then of course there were amazing thesis presentations and Thom Mayne spoke at commencement and now we begin week 2...

Firm Tours

Friday we got to sign up for tours of different architecture firms around the city instead of having to sit through a lot more talking during orientation (totally boring.)  I chose to go to Gensler and H+F.

During my undergrad I had always admired Gensler and wanted so badly to work there.  I never had the opportunity and after working at a similarly ranked large internationally acclaimed firm and hating it, I figured Gensler would be the same and pushed it off my radar a bit.  Yesterday all of my ideals and reasons for wanting to work at Gensler were confirmed.  Gensler is awesome.  That is all you need to know, oh and that they are moving downtown in November and that is really awesome!

H+F is the firm headed by Ming Fung, SCI-Arc's Academic Director and her husband Craig Hodgetts.  Ming wasn't able to be there so Craig gave us the tour.  He is adorable and sweet and compelling.  Basically I love him!  They have a lot of great looking models and are very interesting in pre-fab and got there start in exhibition design.  In fact, he showed us some plans of an upcoming exhibit at LACMA that I cannot wait to go to!  It's going to be fabulous!

i heart farmers markets

Reasons:

1)  Free samples without feeling bad about not making a purchase.  After all, the guy who is shouting "free samples" obviously does not care about making every sale.

2)  Produce that is local, in season, and generally pesticide free.

3)  Hugemongous heirloom tomatoes.

3.1)  Heirloom everything.

4)  Pluots (in the summer, unfortunately the pluot season has almost passed)

5)  Fresh goat cheese.

6)  French crepes, Mexican tamales, and Afghan bolani all in one place!

7)  Year round in LA!!!

8)  Making yummy food like this mushroom ragout with crispy polenta for dinner with mostly farmers market items.

What do you love about the farmers market?