Cupcakes

I'm a big cupcake fan and am very psyched that they have made a comeback in the past few years. Some of my most favorite cupcakes have come from Billys Bakery (the best) and Magnolia Bakery (second best) in New York, and surprisingly......M&S Grill in Kansas City, MO. I say surprisingly because M&S is really known for their steaks and seafood and not cupcakes. But....I would recommend getting the red velvet cupcake at M&S the next time you see it on the menu.

I was tres excited when I heard about a new cupcake bakery in Davis Square...with my love for the cupcake and all. I stopped by Kickass Cupcakes this afternoon to give it a try. The bakery is really cute, they make everything from scratch, and they offer some creative concoctions......here is my review.

My least favorite of all the cupcakes I tried was the blue velvet cupcake. The blue velvet is the Thursday "flavor of the day" and consists of a blueberry cupcake with creamy mascarpone frosting. The frosting was good and it had fresh blueberries on top, but the cake part tasted more like a blueberry muffin than a cupcake.

My second favorite was the vanilla cupcake with chocolate frosting. Again...the frosting was yummy, but the cake part was a little dry and for some reason it tasted a little like bacon to me. B did not agree with the bacon part, but did say that she too thought the cake to be a bit dry.

My most favorite was the chocolate cupcake with vanilla frosting. The cake was a little dry, but it had good flavor, the frosting was yummy, and the purple and brown sprinkles were pretty.

I really wanted to love this place, but it seems that Kickass Cupcakes needs to work out a few kinks before it can move into the greatness category. I'm hoping that Kickass Cupcakes will be able to fix some of these issues and become a thriving cupcake business in Davis Square. I'm looking forward to it.

Lousy Left Side

In the past I have had left ear infections, left-side TMJ pain, left eye issues, left arch pain, and a broken left leg. Overall the left-side of my body is relatively weak and everything bad seems to happen to that side. Now I have another left-side injury to report. Seems I might have a left-shoulder labral tear. I'm not sure how this even happened. I went swimming one day after work about two months ago and everthing was good. I was happy to be exercising, I didn't have any shoulder pain etc. That night I went to sleep and remember rolling over on my arm and thinking..."that didn't feel good...in fact...it hurt." The pain didn't go away so I went to the doctor. They said I had a rotator cuff injury and needed physical therapy. The doc did not suspect that I had torn anything. He specifically said he didn't think I had torn anything. He said I needed physical therapy twice a week for two weeks and should be fine. I tried to make an appointment with my old physical therapist (she isn't old....she is young in fact....but you know what I mean...I saw her when I broke my leg), but I learned she had moved to California. So....I had to find a new physcial therapist. I was bummed that I had to go to someone new....establish a new relationship......but Meghan is good so far. I have been seeing her twice a week for six weeks (It appears the doctor under estimated or didn't really know what he was talking about) and she thinks I might have torn something. And...the chances of my needing surgery are likely. This is not cool. Plus....I hear the recovery time is something like three months. Argh! I'm going to continue to do my exercises and make an appointment with an orthopedic doc to see what they have to say. Maybe they'll surprise me and say something nice like....just do more pt and your pain will go away. I'll keep you posted.

Chestnut Farms

We recently joined a meat CSA at Chestnut Farms in Hardwick and were psyched when we heard they would be having an Open Barn yesterday. We got up early yesterday and drove out to the farm to meet the farmers and their animals. Chestnut farms believes in the humane raising of animals and only feeds them grass and hay. The animals were so cute. They raise lamb, chickens, turkeys, pigs, and cows. We even got to meet some baby pigs and a few week old lamb. We really liked the farmers and the farm and are looking forward to our CSA.

Cranberry Harvest Celebration

We went to the Cape Cod Cranberry Growers Harvest Celebration on Saturday. We had a great time. They had music, crafts, helicopter rides, cranberry products, and demonstrations. My favorite part was the harvest tour. They had both wet and dry harvest demonstrations going on. Admission was only $2.00 and totally worth the drive to Wareham from Somerville. Plus the weather was beautiful. We had talked about going to the National Cranberry Festival at Edaville USA instead. I'm glad we did the Cape Cod Cranberry Growers Harvest Celebration instead. We got to speak to a real cranberry farmer for a good 15 minutes and hung out in the bog for an hour or so.

Fall 2007

Soo.....this is what the fall has looked like so far.....


We took my mother out for her birthday at the end of August and ran into the turkey that lives in Kendall Square.


We went with our godson and his moms to the zoo over labor day weekend.



We also went on a whale watch.


Went to the Boston Folk Festival with my mother.


Did some apple and pear picking.


Celebrated in the revelry of King Richard's Faire.


Went in search of hatching loons in New Hampshire only to find out that they has already hatched and moved on.


Hiked up Rattlesnake in New Hampshire and enjoyed the view. Saw loons from a serious distance.


Danced like crazy at Dave and Lisa's wedding.


Went looking for loons at Waukewan Park. We didn't find any.


Took the tram up Cannon Mountain. It was foggy, but super cool.

Livin Life Based on the Tide Chart Part 7 of 7

Like in the Bay of Fundy...Bar Harbor has a time sensitive attraction too. Bar Harbor has a sandbar (hence the name Bar Harbor)that can be traveled over during low time and gets covered by water during high tide. I have heard stories about people parking their cars on the bar to go hiking and coming back to find their vehicles under water. Yikes! We spent the last night of our vacation back in Bar Harbor. We tried to stay at Aysgarth Station, but had no such luck....they were full. Instead we stayed at Anne's White Columns Inn. We had fun at the wine hour at Anne's White Columns Inn. We met a fight director from England and some flower nursery owners from Vermont. We had dinner at McKays Public House and had one last scoop of Jordan Pond's amazing maple walnut ice cream. Yum....yum! The next day we set off for home.......our trip was over:(

Livin Life Based on the Tide Chart Part 6 of 7

Onto St. John. St. John is the stinkiest city I have ever been to...just a warning. Irving has a paper mill right in the middle of town...and unfortunately it permeates the air you breath. We stayed at the Vintage Bed and Breakfast. This was a nice place and conveniently located, but it was clear to us that the innkeepers really don't love innkeeping. They were nice enough people, but they had self check-in and we didn't even meet one of the owners until it came time to pay when we were checking out. Aside from all that......St. John was alot of fun. We went to the St. John Pride parade. It was raining and there were probably 100 people tops....including those in the parade and watching....but it had a nice small town feel to it. We went to the Pride dance on Saturday night and even got to slow dance to Anne Murray. We also stopped by St John City Market, listened to some music at Market Square and had a yummy dinner at Beatty and the Beastro. Now...to explain the image above. We spent the night in St. John because we had heard about this really neat phenomenon that occurs in St. John when the St. John River and the Bay of Fundy meet during high tide. They call this the Reversing Falls because the water literally changes direction. Like alot of other things in the Bay of Fundy....you really need to see this during both low and high tides to get the full effect. The above image was taken during high tide. Low tide was alot more calm. Wow...what a whirlwind St. John was. We were only there for one night, but saw a ton of stuff. One other thing to know about St. John is that there doesn't seem to be alot of people there. Overall it was fun, but it was also a little wierd. It was stinky, our innkeepers weren't happy to be innkeeping, and there weren't alot of people on the streets. One night was enough for us.

Livin Life Based on the Tide Chart Part 5 of 7

We spent the next two nights camping at Fundy National Park. It was fun even though it poured one night and was freezing cold. It is true what they say about Canadian National Parks. Fundy was clean and had great amenities. During the day we went to Hopewell Cape to see the flowerpots. You need to visit the Hopewell Rocks during both low and high tides to get the effect.....and it is totally worth it to spend a day waiting for the tides to change. You can walk on the ocean floor during low tide. This is what they mean by high tides....hence...."livin life based on the tide chart". See the images below....then you'll know what I'm talking about.


Low Tide


High Tide

We stopped off at Cape Enrage on the way back to the campground. Cape Enrage is neat too. They have a pretty lighthouse and rock climbing.

Livin Life Based on the Tide Chart Part 4 of 7

We hit the road for Fundy National Park and Hopewell Cape and made some stops along the way. First we got lost and ended up in St. Martins where we discovered this really cool cave. See above. It seems you can explore the cave during low tide. No such luck for us...it was high tide when we found it. We also did some poking around the Fundy Trail Parkway. There we saw a beautiful waterfall that we needed to climb down this scary rope ladder thing to get to.....and some small flowerpots.....that were teasers for our trip to Hopewell Cape.