Tag: food

the ultimate birthday cake

A lot of people are making birthday cakes with video game themes these days, but this one I’m about to show you really takes the cake.  (That was a really bad pun, wasn’t it?  Nonetheless, I refuse to apologize because some of you deserve it.   You know who you are.)   The design of this cake comes from the Nintendo Wii game Super Mario Galaxy (which is one of the best games ever, in case you didn’t know).  Not only is it cake, but it’s also animated.  There’s cake and Rice Krispy treats, but also electrical wiring, motors, MP3 players, a wooden frame, fiber optic lights, and so forth.  (Obviously it’s not all edible, at least for normal people.)

For starters, here’s a picture of it:

super-mario-galaxy-cake

But that picture is not a good representation of it.  At the creators’ homepage, you can see a lot more pictures of it, up close and from different angles.  (Just scroll past the text, unless you’re interested in that.)  But they also have a video of the cake in motion, as well as a few behind-the-scenes shots.  For your convenience, here’s the video:

I read the FAQ by the cake’s creators, and they’re not professional cake-makers.   In fact, they make just 2 cakes a year, or 3 if they volunteer one for a friend.  In the FAQ, someone asked them why they don’t start a cake business, because someone would pay a lot of money for that.  The creators said they don’t want to make it a business, though if someone offered them “a lot of money” they would build them a cake.  However, no one has ever offered them money for it.

The same people have made numerous cakes, with themes like Elmo, Halo, Wheel of Fortune, and so on.  That’s a lot of work for a birthday cake that gets destroyed rather quickly.   But, then again, there are sites that are talking about it (such as this one), so they are getting some publicity.  Maybe they feel famous.

I think it’s pretty safe to say I never got a birthday cake like that… but that’s okay, because I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and people like me.   I don’t need any fancy cake to tell me I’m special.

give thanks for food

Well, we’re nearing the annual Turkey Day (or Thanksgiving, as most call it).   It is, of course, a day to give thanks (which I covered on my other blog), but here at Buffet o’ Blog we tend to take a lighter look at life.  So here’s some of the things I’m thankful for (and will be extra thankful for on Thursday):

pecan-pieturkey and dressing
ham
macaroni & cheese
hashbrown casserole
mashed taters
gravy
sweet tea
cookies
pecan pie
chocolate pie

I could probably think of a few more things from a typical Thanksgiving feast, but you get the idea.  I am VERY thankful for the great food that we get to eat.  It’s easy to take it for granted, because for most of us it happens every year, but not everyone gets to enjoy such a great feast.  So I really am thankful for the wonderful food I’ll be eating a lot of.

Whoops, I was getting kinda serious there.  It’s good stuff, what I said, but I don’t want to let it take over this blog.   So here’s a Thanksgiving joke for you:

After Thanksgiving dinner, some guys go out in the yard and pass it.

Do you know the answer?   The “correct answer” is football, but there are other possibly correct answers.  🙂  That’s all I’ll say about that!

Now, in closing, I hope you all have plenty of food to eat, and a comfortable place to rest afterwards.  🙂

ending my world hunger

World hunger is a big problem.  So I’m going to do something about it, starting today.  I thought about all the different organizations that want my money, so they can end world hunger.  And they’re mostly good, I suspect.  But I thought of that Michael Jackson song, from back when he was cool in the ’80s, called “Man in the Mirror”.  And then I realized that I should start with myself.  You shouldn’t try to change the world without changing yourself!

So today I’m going to Larry’s Pizza, with some friends.  If you read this before lunch and want to join us, go ahead.  If you show up and can’t figure out who we are, then I reckon you just didn’t want to eat with us bad enough.  We’ll be the coolest ones there.  It’ll be that obvious, if you have discernment for such things.

Of course, there are a lot of eating options that would end my world hunger, but I might as well do it right.  There’s no pizza like their chicken-bacon-ranch.  Mmm…  And to have it (plus many others) in the all-you-can-eat format makes it extra awesome.

our buffet o’ bacon

Last night I had the entire Buffet o’ Blog staff at my house, and we created a Buffet o’ Bacon.  There was regular crispy bacon, baked bacon-wrapped smokies with BBQ sauce (which were awesome!), shish-ka-bobs with bacon, ham, and cheese, and there was some bacon-wrapped croissants.  It even got a little crazy when someone put candy corn on some of the bacon-wrapped croissants before putting them in the oven.

Needless to say, we had a great time.  We shared our unique analysis of the second presidential debate (and it’s too bad our discussion wasn’t recorded for a podcast), and we did some multiplayer network gaming (to build an empire and conquer the world), and we ate lots of bacon.

I do have to say the bacon-wrapped croissants didn’t turn out as well as expected.  Here’s a picture before cooking, when it seemed like a good idea:

The problem was, most of the croissants absorbed all of the bacon grease, and thus were quite “heavy”.  We’re gonna have a talk with that “Important Doctor” that frequents this blog, because he’s talked of using bacon grease in your diet, and there’s some flaws with that plan.   I still think the bacon and cheese plan might work, as long as you drain the bacon grease.

Ironically, the ones with the candy corn turned out pretty good.  The candy melted and most of it ran off, and the bacon grease drained off some, too.  So what was left was like a cracker with bacon and a honey glaze.

All in all, that evening was the awesome!  I do think we’ll have to do this again…