The lovely Brandi tagged me a few weeks ago with that “11 things” meme that was going around. So in honor of my 30th birthday (THIS SUNDAY!!!) and my penchant for oversharing – I thought it would be fun to share 30 things with you, instead of 11.

30 Things you (probably) didn’t know about me:

1. My right ankle cracks (loudly) every time I take a step. I broke it in high school and something just never healed right.

2. Because of my ankle – I’m not very good at sneaking up on people

3. I believe sandwiches and burritos should be made in an orderly fashion. If a sandwich or burrito artist makes mine sloppily – my entire meal is ruined. I don’t complain at the restaurant, I just whine and pout the whole way home.

4. My eyes are blue – but my left eye has a huge brown spot in it.

5. The very first time I met Mike, I knew I wanted to be with him for the rest of my life.

6. The very first time Mike met me, he thought I was an annoying drunk college girl.

7. I’m physically incapable of whistling.

8. I’ve had four surgeries in my lifetime, and only one has gone completely right the first time.

9. I think people who use non-glove pot holders to take things out of the oven are superheroes.

10. In grade school, I was 1 of 2 lucky 8^th graders that got to be the dismissal announcers (I’m sorry – is there anything cooler than being able to use your school PA system?)

11. I had braces from 4^th grade until the very start of my senior year (8. Freaking. Years.) I got them off 2 days before my senior picture.

12. I do not have adenoids, tonsils, wisdom teeth or a gallbladder. (The adenoid surgery was the only one that went right).

13. I’m oddly terrified of splinters, pink eye, and hemorrhoids. Luckily the first is the only one I’ve ever really an issue – the second I realize I have a splinter I go into a cold sweat and start freaking out.

14. My college degree is in Middle Childhood (specialization in Science and Social Studies, with a minor in Special Education.)

15. I taught 4^th grade for one year and then quit. Quitting was the one of the scariest, and simultaneously best decisions of my life.

16. I’ve never been to Disney (World, or Land).

17. I lived in North Carolina for one year and loved every single second of it. (PS. Duke is puke, Wake is fake, the team I hate is NC State….)

18. I’d pick a pound of gummy bears over a pound of chocolate – 100% of the time.

19. I think people who don’t get their driver’s license the day they turn 16 have something seriously wrong with them.

20. My head is 95% filled with useless, irrelevant song lyrics. (and yes, I’m awesome at Name that Tune).

21. Two words, listen carefully: Diet Coke. NEVER Diet Pepsi. Do you understand me?

22. I have a super sensitive nose. I’m pretty sure Mike cringes every time he hears me say “do you smell that?” because he never can, and he knows I’m about to complain or worry.

23. I’m super weird about numbers. Even numbers = good. Odd numbers = mostly bad, with the exception of 11, and any multiple of 5. The volume on the TV, on the radio in my car, the time on my alarm clock – all need to adhere to these rules.

24. I want lasik surgery so badly, but am too terrified of a laser being in my eyeball to actually get it.

25. I’m the oldest child of two oldest children – and I’m the oldest grandchild on both sides. And yes, if you are wondering – I act like a typical oldest

26. I think flossing is one of the best feelings in the world.

27. I can’t burp on demand.

28. When I was little, I went fishing with my Dad. I stood “way back” like a good kid. Didn’t matter – the first time he went to cast – I ended up with a fish hook in my nose. IN. MY. NOSE. So I guess I could say I was a bad ass and tell people “I got my nose pierced when I was 7”.

29. I still tie my shoes “bunny ears” style – it’s the only way I ever learned.

30. I loathe bananas. I want to like them – but I just can’t handle the texture. Banana bread? Delicious. Plain banana? GAG.

BONUS: 31. After 4 years – I’m leaving American Greetings for a new job! I’m excited, scared, anxious, and everything in between. Lots of good, but crazy stuff has been happening over here – thanks for being patient with my once a month posts!

And because I feel like it – hey look a picture of Harvey and Lando:

Thanks for loving me and all my weirdness over the years! Ya’ll are the best!

Thank goodness for this leap year – it gave me one extra day – which means you get a post in February!

As I’ve mentioned – baking does not come naturally to me. Shocking, seeing as all of my recipes involve “I didn’t measure, just threw some stuff in”.

So when I got an email from the lovely folks at Oh!Nuts asking if I’d like to try to create two of my own recipes – I just HAD to accept the offer. Because you know I’m a sucker for a challenge, and any time it’s me vs. baking?

Well you know it’s going to be a good show.

The two products I picked as the “star” ingredient for my recipes were:

• Chocolate Covered Cherries
• Gummi Bears

I’ve never been a huge sweets fan (but give me a bag of chips and it’s entirely gone in 20 minutes) – but these two items are typically my weakness.

For the chocolate covered cherries – I had some inspiration from my Mike. He gave me the idea of stuffing a cookie with some frosting – and I ran with it, because really? Who doesn’t love a “stuffed cookie”?

I used this recipe from Six Sisters as my inspiration from the cookies – and then made some adjustments. My ingredients consisted of:

Devil’s Food Cake Mix, Cream Cheese Frosting, Chocolate Covered Cherries from Oh!Nuts and more dried cherries for good measure.

First – I chopped up the chocolate covered cherries into small bits, and then mixed them together with frosting, to serve as the cookie filling.

I mixed the cake mix together according to the package (adding oil and eggs), and then added some extra dried cherries to the cake mix.

Then – I (quite messily and fairly gross looking-ly) put a dollop of cream in between two scoops of the cookie dough batter and rolled it together.

In the picture above, the top row here is finished, and the bottom row is half way done.

The end result:

I thought the cookies turned out looking pretty decent (I feel like it’s hard to make chocolate cookies look REALLY good – you can’t do much for the color)

But I was VERY disappointed when I bit into the “taste test” to find – the cookies had completely absorbed the frosting during cooking.  So the while the taste WAS delicious – you couldn’t see a fun glob of frosting in the middle.

Don’t things taste better when you feel like you are being very bad?

So YAY for great taste – boo for the “stuffed” factor not turning out exactly the way I wanted. Gives me something to work toward next time!

For the gummi bears – I had some pretty big plans as well. Because here’s the thing. When you tell me I can’t do something – I only want to do it more.

So in my research of awesome gummi bear recipes – when I continually found “You can’t bake them into anything as they melt” – I took that as more of a challenge than a piece of advice.

Yes, I’m a child. I know.

Since it was so advised against – I had trouble finding a recipe for inspiration/direction.

I ended up just making the cupcakes according to the Betty Crocker packaging. filling the cupcake tin half way, throwing five gummi bears into the center of the cupcakes, and then topping it with more batter.

But then at the end – I had more gummi bears left over so I figured I should top some of the cupcakes off with extra gummi bears as “sprinkles”.

You know the funny thing with children?

They never learn.

Only 6 of the 12 cupcakes were salvageable. It turns out – you really can’t bake with gummi bears. I thought the end result would be some funkier, cooler version of a funfetti cake.

Wrong.

It was weird, glob-y, hard in some spots, soft in others…really just a mess.

I’d say this fight went 1:1 – the chocolate cookies were successful in taste, just didn’t end up with the appearance I was going for, and the gummi bear cupcakes were a huge fail.

But hey – how can you get better if you don’t fail, and learn from your mistakes?

But seriously – if any of you know how to bake with gummi bears – let me in on the secret!

*Disclaimer: I was offered two products of my choice in exchange for making two recipes. As always – the thoughts and opinions in this post are very much my own.

Oh HAI there 2012!  Only took me 26 days to get situated with you and get a post up. Ain’t no thang…

So it’s only fitting that my first post of 2012 wrap up my 11 in 2011 Restaurant List, right?

The final tally:

1. Lolita
2. Ponte Vecchio (closed down)
3. Dante
4. Umami Asian Grill
5. Chinato
6. L’Albatros
7. Happy Dog
8. Flying Fig
9. Sokolowski’s University Inn
10. La Cave du Vin
11. Three Birds

I went to 8 out of my 11 restaurants (I could be greedy and say 9 out of 11 since Ponte Vecchio closed, but that would just be cheating.)

Not too shabby for my first attempt at a year long restaurant list.

Now, allow me to tell you about my final stop on the 2011 tour.

It just happened to be THE restaurant I was most anxious to go to. We actually had plans to go in March for my birthday, but then something came up and we had to cancel. 

But alas, thanks to fabulous friends like Michelle and Suzanne (and Katrina in spirit!) – I managed to get my butt to L’Albatros with exactly 1 day left in 2011.

It was cold, wet, and blustery on the day we went, so I very thoroughly enjoyed the warm, soft ambience of the restaurant, AND the fact that we got put in the far back room, right by the fire place.

While Suzanne and Michelle opted for wine – I went the drink route and ordered a signature cocktail:

And I actually can’t tell you what was in it! It was one of their specials so it isn’t on the regular menu!   It was very good – I believe it had St. Germain and some Hendricks Gin – so while my description of it may be lackluster, I promise it was delicious!

If you don’t know about L’Albatros – I’ll let you in on the secret.

They are known for their cheese.

Wonderful, amazing, phenomenal cheese.

Cheese – as in – they have an official expert dedicated to it (cheesmonger? fromager?). A person whose SOLE job is to present and recommend cheese (!!!!!) – I think I chose the wrong profession.

We ended up choosing 14 (yes, 14) cheeses to sample:

- and it was amazing. I already know where I want to go for my birthday dinner this year.

And then, as if I hadn’t had enough cheese already – I went ahead and ordered the Croque Monsieur (a sandwich with french ham, cheese, and bechamel sauce)

I’m smiling just thinking about it.

The whole meal was so amazing, and I’m mad at myself for delaying my trip to L’Albatros for so long.

If you try ONE new restaurant in Cleveland this year – my recommendation to you would be: “It MUST be L’Albatros!”