i got accepted into the university of edinburgh! in scotland! yay! i'm so happy to have gotten into one of my top choice schools. my other top choices are tufts and northwestern, which i won't hear from until april, so it will be a long time until i make a final decision. but i'd really love [...]
british english is so much better than american english.* especially the insults. i'd much rather call someone a tosser or a prat than an idiot or a dumbass. i'd also like to start saying "cheers" in place of "thank you." apparently brits call sprinkles "hundreds and thousands"?? that's cool. it's sort of a mouthful but it [...]
i made this cake in honor of claude debussy! two days ago would've been his 154th birthday. debussy is amazing. his work is breathtakingly beautiful, and his nontraditional use of dissonances and intervals sculpted music's impressionist era and hugely popularized chromaticism. not only was debussy an incredible musician but he was also extremely eloquent. this is an excerpt [...]
a few years ago, everyone became obsessed with red velvet cake. ben & jerry's came out with a red velvet ice cream, oreos released red velvet cookies, and pop tarts invented a red velvet toaster pastry. in recent months, the red velvet craze has died down and been replaced by a new flavor: birthday cake. birthday [...]
the cheesecake factory has a massive tome of a menu, filled with a huge number of appetizers, entrées, and desserts. "over 250 dishes," it reads, "made fresh every day." WHAT? HOW? OVER 250? WHAT DOES "FRESH" MEAN THEN? you can walk into any of the restaurant's 185 locations and order filet mignon, or an egg roll, or a mac n [...]
while stuck in the sweltering reality of durham's 98 degree heat, i've found myself entertaining reveries of winter days spent in minnesota - what i would give to be taking a long walk through freshly fallen snow, or climbing up the first few icy rungs of a grain silo's ladder! i've built a little fantasy farm with gingerbread [...]
i don't mean to brag, but i think it's safe to say that i was the tooth fairy's favorite little kid. our relationship went waaaay past the conventional money-for-tooth exchange. she left notes under my pillow every night, regardless of whether i'd lost a tooth. sometimes the notes were even accompanied by small gifts: a thimble, [...]
throughout most of middle school, i was set on pursuing a career in neurology. this was not because of a love for science or the medical field; rather, it was a result of reading ben carson's autobiography, "gifted hands," in sixth grade language arts. i grew out of the neurosurgeon phase, but carson remained in [...]
soil profiles! wow, talk about something i don't give a fuck about! i'd rather pass an entire slim jim through my sinus cavity than have to learn about loam and bedrock again. APES was such a bullshit class. that might've had something to do with my teacher not believing in climate change, but who knows. so WHY [...]
remember when i went to minnesota and hung out with molly and we made a cake for vanity fair? probably the best week of my life. this cake uses the same sponge and frosting as that one, but i added chocolate mousse and chocolate ganache to make it extra rich. i also left the decoration pretty simple and [...]
LENA'S LUNCHBOX 