as lauren would say, nom nom nom

Julie and the Trouts are the best! Aside from turning us into big hippies and teaching me the purpose of a crisper drawer (as it happens, not where the butter is supposed to go), they also BAKE. And they bake very, very well. First, there were Julie's cupcakes:


How perfect are these bad boys? I think they are really highlighted by Lauren's considerable Vanna White skills. And even though these cupcakes look too good to eat, you eventually get over it and discover they are offensively good. There is a cherry center. It's like a gusher, but also a cupcake. Which makes this cupcake eating experience like, the best day of elementary school EVER. (Get it, because when I was in elementary school, Gushers were hot lunchtime trading commodities, and you got cupcakes whenever it was someone's birthday? Speaking of elementary school, did anyone else have that whole day where you brought a sleeping bag and snacks and just read all day? I LOVED that day. But that is entirely beside the point.)

And then Karen made banana bread for tonight's viewing of SYTYCD. With no nuts! (And noooo high fructose corn syrup.) She and Jim had all these fancy toasting/buttering tricks to make it a particularly bomb banana bread experience. I wish I'd thought to actually take a picture of Karen, since she's the one who actually made it, but instead I took a couple of awkward pictures of a half-eaten slice on a plate, and one of lauren eating her piece. And that picture includes Jim looking more comfortable in our kitchen than I do (but we're working on that).