Happy 5th Birthday WITK!

I can't believe that it's been five years since I started writing here at WITK! I remember reading food blogs during my down time in the lab and thinking that I'd like to share my cooking online too! A lot has changed since those early days in the kitchen...

In 2010, I was living in Colorado and getting ready to move to Connecticut. It was probably the worst time to start a food blog, since my kitchen was about to be packed up and shipped off to the East Coast!

I spent a year cooking from my tiny studio apartment in New Haven, Connecticut, before landing my first real job and moving to New Jersey. Not just moving to New Jersey, but moving in with my boyfriend of eight years.

I spent almost two years at my first job before the company was closed and I found myself unemployed! During my six months of unemployment I started a lifestyle blog, Wilde in the City, interviewed at a half dozen pharma companies and traveled the US with the boyfriend.

These days I'm happily at a new pharmaceutical company, in a completely different position, traveling the world and occasionally getting into the kitchen. With my work and travel schedule, I've been lax with my posting here at WITK, but I couldn't let this date pass me by!

Since it's July, I thought that I would celebrate the fruit of the season - the Strawberry! The cake is flavored with ripe strawberries and layered with strawberry compote and fresh whipped cream. To top it all off, the cake is covered with an amazing cream cheese frosting.

Thank you for coming along on this exciting journey at WITK! I wish you could all come over and have a slice of cake. I guess I'll just have to eat it all myself!

One Year Ago: Neapolitan Cake 
Two Years Ago: Milky Way Cake
Three Years Ago: Sponge Candy Cake
Four Years Ago: Pizza Foccacia
Five Years Ago: Chocolate Cupcakes

Restaurant Wars 2013 - IHOP

It's about time I got back to my 2013 challenge!  With my summer of unemployment behind me, I feel like I need to get back to some sort of schedule.  While I look for my next job, I'm trying to put more of an effort toward WITK and all of you wonderful people!

Red Velvet Fudge

Did you know that at the beginning of each new year, 40% of all Americans resolve to start eating right or go on a diet?  Although, according to my facebook page, half of my friends are resolving not to make a resolution.  Personally I think that doesn't make too much sense, because right there, you made a resolution!  Rather than making resolutions for myself, I like to make New Year's Goals.

Goals are easier to track than making sweeping resolutions to change your whole life.  As you may already know, I have one major blogging goal for 2013.  Restaurant Wars!  (You see it up there under the banner?)  Boyfriend and I (along with a few of you) have finished planning the year of restaurants.  I'm looking forward to all the date nights that will be involved in this challenge!

This year, after my many weeks of being sick (did you know it can take a few months before the cough from bronchitis is gone?), I'm looking forward to getting back into the gym.  Helping me in my workout plans are some ladies at work.  We are just beginning the new Les Mills COMBAT program.  It's fun, tough and tiring.  I'm melted into the couch as I write this after completing one of the HIIT workouts this afternoon.

Finally, I want to get back into making candy.  I had such a fun time in 2011 with my candy challenge, but I really fell off the candy wagon this past year, only making a few batches of marshmallows.  There were so many candy confections that I never got to make in 2011, I'm stocking up on sucrose and glucose and getting a list together!

In my efforts to get back

to the candy bench, I started with this super pretty red velvet fudge.  I have had both good and bad results in the fudge-making department, though I've never made a traditional chocolate fudge.  Next time!  This fudge turned out wonderfully.  The color is just the beginning of how great this sweet actually is.  The mild cocoa flavor of the fudge is set perfectly against the cream cheese frosting.  Added bonus?  It will turn your tongue red!

Key Lime Whoopie Pies

There are four things that made this weekend just perfect.

1. Dogs in costumes.

This weekend was the 22nd annual Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Parade!  (procrastinate for a few more minutes and check out more pictures of the event!)  BF and I spent a good hour watching adorable golden retrievers in alien costumes, yorkies dressed up as bees, French bulldogs waddling about as hot dogs, hamburgers and lobsters.  It was hilarious to watch and there was not a gloomy person in the park.  How could you be anything but happy? 

2. Movies about food!

This past weekend was the Food Film Festival in New York City (it's coming to Chicago in November!) and BF and I got tickets to the Saturday afternon "Edible Adventure."  Short films about food and foodies paired with the very foods seen in the films!  I had a delicious apple dessert from Sidesaddle Kitchen and some of the smoothest maple syrup I've ever had from The Sugar Shack in Quebec.  Oh yeah, I had a few Bark dogs as well.  Maybe a few too many hot dogs, which made it difficult to eat...
3. S'Mac for dinner!

Saritas Mac and Cheese on 12th street is my favorite place to eat in the entire city.  It's not fancy pants food, with aged meats and hoity toity sauces.  It's good old comfort food.  Mac and cheese at its grandest.  You want four cheese?  Done.  How about cheeseburger?  Easy.  My favorite?  What else but Buffalo mac and cheese.

This place is always busy, from when the doors open until the shoo the last person out the door.  If you're lucky enough to see a table open, grab it!  Since there are only about seven tables in the little place, it is most likely that you won't find a place to sit.  Luckily, they have a take-out place right next door.  BF and I usually get it to go during the summer and eat it in the park down the street!

4. Key Lime Whoopie Pies.

Mmmm, super easy and my favorite flavor for desserts.  So, if you missed the doggy parade and aren't anywhere near 12th and 1st, you can still have a great day!  Just whip up a batch of these!

Orange Chiffon Cupcakes & Orange Cream Cheese Frosting

Can you believe that it’s been one-hundred posts already! I feel like we’ve been through so much together. Since I’m 100, does this mean that Willard Scott is going to mention me in his Smucker’s 100? Maybe make some terribly inappropriate comment about me?

I thought that we should celebrate with some cupcakes. I know some people have been on the lookout for some savory posts; that will have to wait until after the party! Savory posts later this week, after I’m all sugared up.

Every time I ask my lab mates what I should make, I get the same suggestions. There are always requests for cheesecake, chocolate and cupcakes. One lab mate even went and bought me some cupcake liners, because he really likes cupcakes. I realized that I haven’t made cupcakes in months, so I made some to celebrate this momentous occasion.

No matter what anyone says about cupcakes being “so last year,” I’m still a HUGE cupcake fan. Every time boyfriend and I go to New York, we head to different bakeries and get cupcakes. Well, we get cupcakes, then I eat them. Boyfriend isn’t much of a dessert fan. I have more cookbooks for cupcakes than anything else. Cupcakes are just that perfect single serving of dessert. They are just the right size to have two, without feeling guilty about it. Macarons might be hot right now, but they will never replace my beloved cupcakes. Especially not these cupcakes, they were delicious.