Chicago Women's Skillshare - Gardening

Chicago finally has its own women's only skillshare! If you're a woman, live/are visiting Chicago, and would like to contribute or learn a skill, add yourself to the group on facebook to stay in the loop. This group was mainly inspired by the desire to initiate an intentional community of women. I realized that I have so many unique and amazing friends that would benefit from both learning new skills and teaching others their own amazing talents.

Here's my schpeel:

Chicago Women's Skillshare aims to create a women's only space where learning and teaching are used as mutually beneficial and empowering tools. Women are invited to a monthly skill share hosted on the first Sunday of the month. "Skill" is an extremely open ended term and is completely dependent on what you feel like you should share with the group. This could include teaching a hands on skill - knitting, fixing bikes, cooking, gardening, playing tennis - an informative skill - teaching a language, talking about geography, discussing your favorite author - or even telling a story.

Check out the photos of our first skillshare on gardening at the Campbell Co-op Garden.

Showin' off our dirty hands and cover crop

Our raised bed complete with carrots, beans, beets, swiss chard, potatoes, cucumbers, and tomatoes (seedlings from Thomas Jefferson's estate provided by Slow Food Chicago)

Our squash mound

Giving the low down on compost for the neighborhood

Cleaning out the 3 bin composting system

Collecting our edible wild greens for a snack

It's Summa Time, Y'all!

Thank the fucking lord. It's summer time. It's been a long winter and a nonexistent spring and I'm ready to break out the sunblock, the mini grill, and All Girl Summer Fun Band. This memorial day I went to Millennium Park for the free concert...I don't even remember who played, I just go there to drink beer in the grass with my friends. I made homemade oreos from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. I finally had an excuse to use the 100 set of cookie cutters that I found at the thrift store last fall. I was tempted by the money sign and bike cutters, but settled for hearts and a brontosaurus.

After talking about my heart and dinosaur shaped oreos, I believe this is an appropriate time to announce my nomination for the Adorable Blog Award! A kind thank you goes out to the ladies at Girrrl!!! comic and Things I Like.

Now I guess I have to tell you 10 things about me...

1. I really love fireworks. I carry snappers around in my bag everywhere I go and the bottom of it is covered in saw dust. Sometimes they fall out of the box and snap in my bag and it scares me and everyone around me.

2. I'm REALLY good at hula hooping.

3. I'm the real life Harry Potter. I have terrible dreams with voldemort in them and my friends and I go horcrux hunting.

4. I think carnivals, cotton candy, and fair rides are the best things in the world.

5. I'm passionate about animal rights and feminism and use baking as my primary form of activism.

6. I love my job as a cooking instructor for children - I get to teach kids about vegetables and I turn moms on to tofu and tvp.

7. I enjoy breaking rules.

8. I will kill you in a game of four square.

9. I have an insatiable desire for sugar.

10. I enjoy being a bakery snob.

I will now nominate this award to my wonderful friend Adrienne over at Crack the Plates. She named her cats "Baby Rar" & "Baby Perl"...I mean...come on.

Adventures in Pad Thai

Who knew that something so annoying and completely metal would push me to finally teach myself to make vegan pad thai. Most of the Asian food markets in Chicago are way north all the way in uptown...which is a huge pain in the ass. After doing some sleuthing, I discovered JoongBoo Market (AKA Chicago Food Corporation) on Kimball, conveniently somewhat near my apartment. I am proud to say that I've officially found my Asian market. Has anyone else always had their go-to Asian market wherever they have lived? Well I have. And it's taken me a year to find one in Chicago...but it was worth the wait.

Here is a shot of all the amazing stuff I got at JoongBoo: concentrated cooking tamarind, roasted peanuts, firm tofu, silken tofu, rice noodles, green onion, cilantro, bean sprouts, red cabbage, sweet chili sauce, and anko & taro mochi.

Eat shit, vegan metal chef. I'm better than you.

I mainly used this recipe as a base, but changed a whole lot of things. I didn't put in carrot, broccoli, or shallots and added fried tofu. I also doubled the tamarind sauce, added about 1/3 c. more soy sauce and agave nectar. I found that it was really bland without the additions.

Making pad thai is easy!! Now I'm going to save boku bucks instead of ordering it all the time from Penny's.

Birthdays!!

April 24th was my birthday, and I received two of the most wonderful cakes in the world! The first is from my mom:

This is a vegan lemon cake with a lemon curd filling and a lemon buttercream. This was the first vegan dish/dessert that my mom has ever made me...and I was so appreciative...but it was so terrible! It's ok. The whole family was laughing and I would have never wanted any other cake. The cake was extremely dense, the lemon curd didn't set, and the buttercream separated and was really runny. We kept dunking the dense cake in soupy lemon curd and I got a tummy ache from laughing and consuming so much sugar. I have the best mom in the whole world.

The second cake was made by Stephanie Schreuich - a strawberry cake with strawberry buttercream and chocolate ganache...in the shape of a cupcake!! It was so so so fucking good. I had 3 pieces, ate a ton of candy from my pinata, had a ton of tofu dogs, and shot off a bunch of fireworks. It was the best birthday ever, but I've had a tummy ache for the last week from all the sugar and the laughing.

Passover!

The Great Northern hosted an anarchist seder tonight, which meant everyone brought an item of food or kosher wine to share, and we picked out parts from the haggadah to read and discuss at random. We also collectively recited the exodus and searched for the afikomen, as well as decided that gluten free matzo is far superior to the regular kind.

I decided to make a sweet vegan kugel with raisins, granny smith apples, and a cinnamon & ginger custard. This isn't a very attractive picture, but I always remember to take pictures of the food only after I've eaten part of it.

Then we talked about Star Wars...

and who our Harry Potter boyfriends would be....

and drank lots of kosher wine.

The Mixing Bowl Happenin's

What the hell have I been up to? I'll give you a quick summary - working my butt off too much, lovin' kids, going to too many art shows with crazy paper maiche, seeing weezer cover bands, baking my brains away with cupcakes, and watching old school green day and sum 41. Oh my god...I love the 90's...you know what I love even more? 90's boys. you know what I wish the most? that I was in that sum 41 video. I wanna skate that half pipe and be that girl who shaves her whole head except for her bangs.

Enough wishful thinking, let's get down to baking business. The Mixing Bowl Bakery's main project has been creating latin infused desserts. Here's the line up:

traditional flan

shot glass of traditional flan

tres leche mini cupcake with coconut whipped cream and slivers of mango

spicy brownies

mango lemon bars with a guava glaze

You may see some of these at El Nuevo Mexicano's restaurant benefit night for Mercy For Animals...stay tuned.

Up next - stay tuned for some new cupcake creations that I'll be creating for Bon Bon in Wicker Park.

Plus, a logo for Mixing Bowl Bakery is in the works and should make its debut soon. Visit next time to hear the story behind the name, what the hell i'm doing, and maybe some new updates and baked goods.

In other news, CHECK OUT THIS COMIC ABOUT ME - Girrl!!! -

"Girrrl!!! is a comic that we have been scheming about for months now. It is all about the adventures of your typical vegan activist radio DJ Jenny and her trusty sidekick, Aaron at a small, Midwestern liberal arts college. Together they protest evil corporations, face chicken pirate mascots, have the occasional identity crisis, and sometimes even go to class, all while giving their loyal listeners a fabulous radio show every week. There will be a colorful cast of characters including a badass Japanese exchange student and a grungy teenager who goes by “Gravy” in addition to our heroes Jenny and Aaron."

If you don't know me, no sweat. Just read the first issue and you'll get a perfectly good idea of who I am. Plus, my friends Laura and Caitlin made it...I'm not THAT vain enough to make a comic about myself.

Happy Anniversary

It's the one year anniversary of A Cupcake Chronicle. I didn't have time to blog today, so this picture of a cat wearing a hat will have to suffice...actually...I'm going to write, goddammit, even though i'm tired because this blog is THE BEST.

A Cupcake Chronicle started with a notebook.

Now it contains silly posts on cupcakes filled with obscene vulgar language from yours truly. I've thought about toning it down a little bit because, you know...my mom reads it and all and I'm trying to start a little baking business...but who the hell cares! It's been great to have a creative outlet, especially with writing since I was only used to writing papers in college and angst-y journal entries in high school.

Stay tuned for more cupcakes and other exciting happenings. I've been going on some baking adventures and I'll document them soon. Thanks, readers, for a wonderful fabulous blog year!

<3<3<3