Backstage with The Cheetah Girls

and in the dressing room.

I was asked to help assist with Kraft's Mac and Cheese-a-Palooza the other night, which consisted of an orange carpet and a concert with The Cheetah Girls at Hollywood's House of Blues. I had to wikipedia them, but The Cheetah Girls are a Disney girl band popular with tweens. They sing, "Shake a Tail Feather" and "Cheetah-licious." I recognized one of the group members, Sabrina Bryan because she's been a contestant on this season of Dancing with the Stars.

So my part was to assist with the PR side of things as Extra did a behind the scenes filming and other media from Tiger Beat and Bop came to interview the girls. But before the interviews I mainly sat in the hotel suite while the girls got their hair and makeup (MAC) done in the room. All the girls were super energetic, Kiely especially who would break out into song and would entertain the other girls with stories, she also designs their clothes for the show. While getting re

ady they were mainly discussing Britney Spears' new album and how they love it and the TMZ false rumor about Sabrina's engagement to her dance partner, Mark Ballas (she's not egaged, she was just kidding, but they are dating and apparently went to see Wicked the other night). There was a lot of talking on their cell phones and saying the word bam with a jab of the hand for aded emphasis.

The audience for the cheese-a-palooza included a bunch of tweens in cheetah prints, Radio Disney winners, Kraft Mac and Chese website winners, kids from The Boys and Girls Club and Jennie Garth (also a Dancing with the Stars contestant) with her hot hubbie and two little girls. I was most excited to see Jennie, who still looks beautiful.

I also of course got to eat some mac and cheese for dinner while there, which is still among my favorite foods, so I was satisfied. Anyway, although the event was fun and it was neat being so inside, thank goodness I'm not in entertainment PR, I'm not down with the schlepping and coordinating so many minute things like which entrance to enter and room service.

Here are some photos:

Video: Extra! clip

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Patty cake, patty cake, bakers man

Since I spend so much time eating cupcakes, I figured I should also learn out to make them, outside of a box mix that is. The opportunity presented itself in the form of a private cupcake baking and decorating class offered via L.A. Foodies+! and taught by pastry chef/owner of Gormandise Desserts, Clemence Gossett.

We started the class with a chocolate cupcake recipe and while that was baking we moved on to a vanilla bean recipe. When they were both in the oven, we learned how to make a chocolate ganache and unbelievable meringue buttercream frosting. We filled both the chocolate and vanilla cupcakes with the ganache and learned how to apply the buttercream like a pro.

Tips that I learned:

• If your cake recipe comes out too dry, add an extra egg yolk next time for added moisture
• You don't have to mix a batter to death, in fact it's OK to have some lumps
• It actually matters when you add certain ingredients
  
• Keep all ingredients at room temperature
• When adding flour and milk, begin and end with the flour
• Also place a cookie sheet/pan underneath your cupcake trays so that the bottom of the cupcake's don't burn
  
  

Chocolate Cake Recipe (I'm usually a vanilla person but this was really good):

• Bring to simmer 1lb butter and 2 cups water. Cool and add 1 cup cold water and 1 cup cocoa powder
• In a large bowl, whisk together 3 1/2 cups flour, 3 3/4 cups sugar, 2 tsps baking soda and 1/2 tsp salt.
• Pour butter mixture onto dry ingredients and mix until smooth with a wooden spoon. Whisk in 4 eggs and 1 egg yolk. Add 1 cup sour cream.
• Bake at 350 until knife comes out clean.

Here's one of my decorated chocolate cupcakes with buttercream frosting:

Oh and I almost died laughing when Clemence asked the class, "Anyone ever bake a baked Alaska?" I almost responded, "No, but has anyone ever baked Tollhouse cookies?"

More photos from Abby

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Go Trojans

On Saturday my friend Laura and I went to the USC homecoming football game vs. Oregon State. Her younger brother plays the trombone in the marching band and hooked us up with tickets while she was visiting from NY. It was my first time on the campus and unlike the UCONN homecoming that I went to a few years ago, where the tailgating took place in the stadium parking lots, the partying at USC took place on every inch of grass on the campus. It was a sea of red and gold with tents stacked with beer and BBQ, yet I still managed to run into two friends by accident, which was awesome. The marching band even plays through the courtyard with a police guard on bikes and Segways.
The USC stadium is also the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which was built for the 1932 and 1984 Olympic games. At the end of the third quarter they light the same Olympic torch. The torch is ignited by a flip of a switch located in the scoreboard control room adjacent to the press box.

Given the fact that the stadium seats 90,000 people, I figured we'd be up in the nose bleed seats, however we were right on the field with the band. Right behind the goal post.

The massive marching band meanwhile was very impressive in their trojan costumes complete with hats and capes. I can't play an instrument never mind march in varied formations and dance.

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Ear today gone tomorrow

The other day poor Raphael decided to stop and get his haircut and the hairdresser accidentally cut his ear with her scissors. It’s not just one of those nicks that you can sometimes get from a dentist, but a good chuck of skin was snipped.

It took him and a couple beauticians a half hour just to stop the bleeding with some gauze and bandage at the salon. He went to the doctor the next day and when they removed the bandage it again started bleeding for another 20 minutes, which is why I stopped removing the bandage the night before once I saw that it would pull on his skin again. The doctor finally made the bleeding stop using the stuff they give boxers to stop bleeding. The doc also recommended a tetanus shot be administered and told Raphael to wear a patch on his ear for the next few days.

Here he was just getting his hair trimmed, who would have expected such a mess? I never heard of such a thing happening. He wasn’t at SuperCuts either; he was at a salon in Abbot Kinney and the hairdresser says she had been styling hair for four years without incident.

For those who can take it (not me) here's a photo of the cut (click here) two days later.

My DVD Review: Mr. Brooks

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Yearning for batter days

During When Tara Met Blog's last LA Cupcakes MeetUp at Crumbs bakery, Lauren Schick from UCLA's newspaper--The Daily Bruin came to interview me about the cupcake trend hitting Los Angeles. Below is the resulting interview that hit today. I'm quoted quite a bit in it and at least I don't sound as trite as I did in past interviews.

Yearning for batter days
Lauren Schick
Published: Wednesday, October 31, 2007

A hopscotch jump from Rodeo Drive, the young and posh wait 30 minutes to shell out $3.75 for a bite-sized childhood treat. Three blocks away, a grown man orders a glass of milk to accompany his multicolored sugary snack while a group of students leaves the shop with a 12-pack for a study session on campus.

Los Angeles’ sweet tooth is craving cupcakes and never has a blast from the schoolyard past tasted so good.

“The stores are cute, the cupcakes are cute and there’s a childhood-like (quality) to it that everyone remembers,” said Tara Settembre, a journalist, blogger and public relations executive who moved to Los Angeles from New York City, where the cupcake trend took off at Magnolia Bakery around 2000.

Settembre started the Los Angeles Cupcake Meetup Group, where
people can munch on cupcakes and meet new people at different local cupcake stores.

“Coming out here I missed not having all my girlfriends going out for
cupcakes because it’s so traditional in New York. ... So I thought I’d start this group, have cupcakes and meet people,” Settembre said during the group’s seventh meeting at the newly opened Crumbs in Beverly Hills.

Outings among friends that were common at local coffee shops are now becoming increasingly popular at cupcake shops such as Sprinkles Cupcakes, Yummy Cupcakes, Dainties and SusieCakes, which have sprung up in Los Angeles.

“I think (cupcakes are) really popular because it’s a cake that, literally, you can hold in your hand, and you get the entire package and it’s relatively inexpensive,” said Evan Aldrich, a second-year mechanical engineering student, who frequents Sprinkles Cupcakes at least twice a month. “It’s a very L.A. thing to do, like Pinkberry.”

But Krystina Castella, author of the cookbook “Crazy About Cupcakes” and former UCLA Extension professor of product design, was one of the first to recognize and capitalize on the trend. She sees a bigger cultural picture to the cupcake frenzy that has caused its popularity to spread. “People are staying younger longer; they’re getting married later and having kids later. Before ... people got married in their early 20s and they were immediately adults and now people have an extra 15 years or so to be kids themselves. That’s why the flavors (can be) adult but at the same time it reminds you of being a kid,” Castella said.

Still, the incredible success of cupcakes in a health-and-diet-conscious city like Los Angeles has been an unusual surprise.

“That’s part of the reason that I didn’t know if cupcakes would be very popular here, but obviously they are, and there’s a lot of different recipes that are vegan or low-fat,” Castella said. “It depends on the
recipe, but the average cupcake recipe in my book ... is about 250 calories, which is the same as a Nature Valley Granola Bar. It’s one of those things that you’re willing to splurge for.”

As the trend adapts to its new locale, Los Angeles manages to make its mark on the cupcake.

“You’ll see a lot of places doing all-natural ingredients or the mini-sized cupcakes. I didn’t see mini-sized cupcakes in New York. Out here, they want even smaller than a cupcake,” Settembre said.

With over 10 specialty cupcake shops in West Los Angeles and Santa Monica, some wonder if the trend will last or if the taste of cream cheese frosting will soon go stale.

“I think there will stop being so many (cupcake shops) but I don’t think it will go away. I mean, cakes haven’t gone away,” Settembre said.

Similarly, Castella is optimistic about the near future of the miniature indulgences. “I think it will last a couple of years and ... there will be a few that climb to the top and become franchises. ... I think they’ll stay but I don’t know if they’ll always remain at the top of the excitement list,” Castella said.

Amy Berman, owner of Vanilla Bake Shop, one of the newest L.A. bakeries, isn’t concerned about the longevity of the cupcake trend. “Everybody likes sweets. People may not necessarily want a huge cake or a slice of it and have to deal with a fork and knife and plate. But (cupcakes) are just easy. They’re sheer convenience and indulgence,” Berman said.

Adults and children with soft spots for the spongy and sweet now have plenty of variety to satisfy their palates. But, for those who in true L.A. fashion are ready to move on to the next big fad, Castella offered her hint to the next phenomenon in kid food gone adult: Popsicles.

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We do the mash

the Monster Mash! And it was a grave yard smash.

In prep for the upcoming holiday many spooks, tarts and tricksters headed to a penthouse Halloween party, complete with live dancers and plenty of decorations.

Let me introduce the players in attendance:

There was the royal Super Mario Bros.' Princess Peach and her faithful plumber Luigi

The Joker himself was spotted by the bar on the arm of a flapper girl

Then there was the determined nurse and her unwilling patient

And from all the way across the pond came a Scotsmen and his merry maid

There were also wild strawberries, busy bees and angels parading about

As the night went on though, the enthusiastic strawberry and Princess Peach proudly showed off their hose

But sadly the festivities turned ugly when a cat fight broke out over the bachelor and his roses

More to report next time, dear readers.

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The lullaby of chimes and jackhammers

When I lived in New York City, people would assume that I woke up to car horns and garbarge trucks, but that wasn’t the case where I was living. I woke up to birds chirping in the back and unfortunately on windy days, to the sound of chimes. Both are oddities in Manhattan, but we had a tree in the back and this one neighbor had hung chimes from her section of the fire escape. Because this tenant liked her chimes, it meant that all 50+ of her immediate neighbors then had to hear her chimes and was forced to like or hate them too. I hated them, they used to annoy the heck out of me. At times it would sound like an alarm going off late at night.

Now our condo neighbors, which are only 15 feet away from our back window, of course have these gargantuan chimes dangling. The recent Santa Ana winds then had the stupid things chiming and clanking away all night. If those were mine I’d be so embarrassed knowing that they were causing such a racket. It’s one thing if the chimes were inside their home for decoration or outside a house where neighbors were further apart, otherwise you’re just a selfish jerk in my book.

Then as if that wasn’t annoying enough, a persistent jackhammer started to ba ba bang steadily after midnight and for the next couple of hours, thanks to the nearby I-405 highway widening. In the past, I’ve heard the sound of a beeping truck, backing up late at night because of the same construction, but that would at least fade away. This evening though, their work sounded like an Army helicopter was on our roof and playing new age/spa music involving chimes. Worse even, the ear plugs that I keep under my pillow for just such chime/jackhammer emergencies didn’t do anything to mute the sounds.

Study: Redbook writes “Sleep deprivation doesn’t just leave us groggy and grumpy—it also puts us at great risk for obesity, heart problems, depression and motor vehicle accidents. Unfortunately, more than half of American women get a good night’s sleep only a few times a week, according to the National Sleep Foundation’s 2007 Sleep In America Poll. One likely reason [besides jackhammers and chimes going off late at night] 87% of us opt to zone out in front of the tube for an hour before bed rather than turning in early, and watching television stimulates the brain, making it harder to fall and stay asleep. To ensure sound slumber, TiVo your favorite late-night shows for later viewing, and crawl into bed.

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LA Cupcakes #7: Crumbs

For the 7th LA Cupcakes Meetup we were invited to New York’s cupcake chain Crumbs, which recently opened shop in Beverly Hills. Decorated for Halloween with orange cobwebs, the pink and black awning shop near Rodeo was surprisingly inviting. Inside, the staff was super friendly asking our opinion on each cupcake that we tried and offering mini sized cupcakes as "samples" to each customer. I tried their sample of Cotton Candy, which was too pretty to resist in pink, blue and purple. It was basically a vanilla/butter cream cupcake with cotton candy like rocky sprinkles on top of pink frosting. It was moist and simple.

The first thing I noticed when entering the shop though was the huge sizes of the cupcakes on display. I’m also a fan of diverse flavors and Crumbs did not disappoint with large cupcakes for $3.75 in varieties that included key lime, blueberry cobbler, pina colada, banana split, cookie dough, Boston cream, caramel apple, pistachio, hostess, carrot cake, fluffernutter and so many more. My favorite though is the Raspberry Swirl, which is a vanilla cake with raspberry jam swirled inside it and on top of the frosting. Yum.

Later the owner, Harley Bauer, introduced himself and so generously wow’d us all further by giving our group 20 free regular sized cupcakes to try. So with a handful of forks, napkins and drinks, the 18 of us headed to a nearby outside seating area in front of a Wells Fargo to try them all. Overall, everyone was saying that Crumbs was now their favorite stop yet and I found it hard to disagree after eating the creamy, massive and inventive cupcakes. It seemed that people especially liked their pumpkin and raspberry swirl.

Harley also mentioned that they plan to open a total of five Crumbs stores throughout the Los Angeles area! In response to mentioning that he had a friendly staff, Harley said that he had wanted Crumbs to be the exact opposite of nearby Sprinkles (only two blocks away) meaning that hewanted Crumbs to be a "fun experience" for eaters. With the fun decorations and knowledgeable and welcoming staff it didn’t have the sterile or pretentious look of Sprinkles, so I’d say that so far he’s succeeding.

I brought home some leftovers for Raphael and he said they were the best ones that I've brought back since starting the group and considering that all he had this time was some crumbs (no pun intended) and half eaten cupcakes, that's pretty impressive. I need to go back and try the key lime and pina colada (more photos).

Which bakery in your area has the best cupcake dessert recipe? Oftentimes the best cup cake recipes come from bakers who love sweets and know how to make great treats. The biggest cupcake lovers even turn festive cupcakes into traditional Christmas food!

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