Your Friday Awesome: Food Blogs (Nom Nom)

Joy the Baker: clean plates = happy friends

I have a handful of cookbooks, but I very rarely use them. Because here's the thing: I like cooking - particularly baking - but its not the the process that is always the awesome part. The awesome part is feeding people the food I make. I really like feeding people. But, I don't want to spend forever in the kitchen (though I take pride in my increasing knife skills), so I very rarely use a recipe that wasn't given to me by my my mom or sister, or something I threw together with what was in the fridge (note, that last option does not end well with baking).

Unfortunately, most cook books think seventeen ingredients that you can only get from fancy, pricey specialty stores is totally appropriate for a mid week dinner. Strangely, the exception to this is my old-school Betty Crocker binder. Most of the recipes can be thrown together in twenty minutes with easily found ingredients. And people love everything that has come out of it because, despite what the New York Times tells you, when people want a chocolate chip cookie that is what they want - a simple chocolate chip cookie.

However, while Betty's got the cookies down, I'm not a big roast kind of gal so I've turned to the interwebs for inspiration, and let me tell you, these folks know how it is done. Here are the awesome food blogs I've found:

Cheap Healthy Good is fantastic because (as their name implies) they provide simple, tasty, inexpensive recipies, but very detailed break downs of nutritional information. However, my favorite part is Links of the Week which give you an update from the social conscious food world with a smidge of feminism.

Our Best Bites also has an extensive list of quick, simple and delicious recipes. But they also have an awesome treasure trove of tips on the basics of cooking and food preparation, like how to pick the best cooking oil for the job and how to cut a mango, which came in handy for this next one.

Poor Girl Eats Well: And so easy

Poor Girl Eats Well totally wins the Super Easy Recipe contest hands down. With a limited budget she makes really awesome and super duper easy recipes. So easy that I read her post on Mahi Mahi with Mango Salsa on Monday and made it on Wednesday (with cod) and didn't have to reference the recipe. Oh, and it was delicious.

Joy the Baker: mmmm....butter...

Sometimes you just need butter. Butter makes people happy, especially when mixed with lots of sugar and baked into something that makes the house smell awesome. I have a bit of a crush on Joy the Baker. Not only will she tell you when she drops a cake or she over-whipped her egg whites, or how to substitute buttermilk if you don't have any in the refrigerator (which is handy for someone that bakes on a whim), she also titles posts with things like Bikinis Are Stupid. I'm working up the courage to make this. It's weird, but tempting.

Bittersweet's Chocolate Mountain

And while were on a baking theme, I've yet to try anything from Bittersweet, but it might just be the funniest baking blog yet, mixing jaded sassiness and pop culture trainwreck references in with (sometimes) boxed cake mix. My favorites? Red Velvet Break Up Mug Cake and Heart of Darkness Truffles.

There is only one problem with using your laptop as a cookbook: it tends to get really dirty.

PS: I've also got two friends with food(y) blogs. You can check them out here and here if you want to see how they make more complicated things looks easy.

Update: In the Epic Battle of YouTube vs. Teh Gays...

GAYS WIN!

There is an update to my post about boys with beach balls, Katy Perry's ejaculating bra, and YouTube's adult content double standard up at Mother Jones.

Unfortunately, Yezak never got a clear answer from YouTube about why the warning went up. But the good news is it has been taken down and people love watching boys in shorty shorts.

#MusicMonday: God Help the Girl

I might get kicked out of the Bay Area for this, but I probably couldn't name a Belle & Sebastian song if I tried. In fact, its pretty hilarious that I've got a Music Monday trend considering I haven't actually plugged my iPod into a computer in three years.

But, you know we all have to have goals. And like me, Mighty Girl is working on expanding her musical horizons which is where I was introduced to God Help the Girl, which is evidently a project of Stuart Murdoch's that may eventually become a movie. Anywho, I think this song is hilarious and catchy:

I sit for hours just waiting for his phone call
I'll leave the chocolate hidden in the fridge
I'll play his messages
Analyze his intonation
Please stop me there, I'm even boring myself

PS: Is it just me or do we think the plain dress with the brown belt thing will be chalked up with the skinny jeans and leggingsaspants trends as fashion missteps of the teens? I'm guessing yes, even if I'm guilty of it myself.

Your Friday Awesome: ComicCon vs. Westboro Baptist Church

Science fiction takes on science fiction. The happy and inclusive one wins.

Buddy Christ sides with the geeks.

Happy Comic Con.

Music Monday: Music To Wake Up To

I am not sure how this song came into my life, but it was used to cue us to cut the cake at our wedding and we now wake up to every morning thanks to the wonders of the iHome.

Why share this potentially embarrassing secret? (sorry, honey) Well, because neither my husband or I are morning people. I repeat. We are NOT morning people. But I dare anyone to wake up to that song and not be in a good mood.

However, in posting this, I discovered that in the grand expanse of the internets something has been forgotten. No one has uploaded video of said baby elephants walking to this music! Sure there are still pictures, but that simply will not do. Someone in the internets needs to rectify this situation immediately. The fate of humanity rests in your hands.

Your Friday Awesome: Smashing the Patriarchy in 140 Characters

I can't believe this Friday Awesome has anything to do with Twitter. When it launched I thought it was the dumbest thing ever invented, now I have two accounts that I update daily. No, I won't tell you what I had for lunch (unless it is @KungFuTacos and I saw awesome graffiti on the way), but it has certainly helped cut down on barraging my Facebook friends with links about things that I think are awesome or horrific and 140 characters is much quicker than a blog post.

While Twitter has revolutionized ad campaigns that capitalize on parodying anxious masculinity, and  launched the careers of people who may or may not be capitalizing on family members, one account manages to prove that feminists not only have a sense of humor, but are incredibly witty and media savvy.

@feministhulk uses the most stereotypically masculine of superheros (in tiny purple shorts) to create tweets that make anyone that has ever taken an introduction to Womens' and Gender Studies giggle:

Some have wondered if a male, violence prone superhero is the best person to use for project like this (hellllllloooo, allies...) but Feminist Hulk has an answer for them:

The identity of the person behind @feministhulk is still unknown, but whoever it is lives in San Francisco so I would love to smash the patriarchy and eat cake and ice cream in tiny purple shorts with them.

Your Friday Awesome: How to Thank Your Bus Driver

Okay, sure. I've taken public transportation in a number of cities and not everyone loves their job. In fact, some bus drivers hate their job and by association you, but can you really blame them when they get to deal with not so nice, or fresh smelling people all day long?

My new bus line is like the Cadillac/penthouse/business class of bus lines. A handful of stops on a limited rush hour route, frequented by regulars who can (almost) always get a seat. The two drivers who do the morning route are super friendly, timely and one guy makes sure that we know what time it is, what the weather is like and that he wants us to have a good and productive day when we get downtown.

Remember when you learned about bus drivers on Sesame Street? Its kind of like that:



It would be awesome to do something like this for them, but I don't think the guy that takes great pride in letting us know just how early he gets us to our stop would be too excited about it. Maybe I'll just give him cookies.

YouTube Loves Boobies, Hates the Gays

Today I was made aware of this awesomeness:



It gets pretty epic in the second half - camp and choreography and bears, oh my!

The first time I watched it at Jezebel it played just fine, but when I clicked through to YouTube I got an "18+" warning. Hmmmm...

So, being surrounded by investigative journalists and with two degrees in spotting the kyriarchy at work, I hopped on over to see if the original Katy Perry video had the same warning.

Yeah, nope. I emailed the director of the parody, Ryan James Yezak, just to make sure that YouTube was to blame for this censoring of superfun gaydom and this was his response:

YouTube put it up & I don't know how to get it off. There's nothing inappropriate & so I don't know why someone would flag it. You should TOTALLY blog about it. What about the video is inappropriate? I'm going to look into it.

Well, you bet I will, Ryan! For reference, here is the original:



So, YouTube deems boys in short shorts dancing with beach balls and maybe a very, very, very, very veiled reference to boy on boy beach action as "adult content," but a bare-naked Katy Perry dancing with a whipped cream ejaculating bikini top and a not at all veiled message that she and the women (and all "California Gurls" to which I as a woman from California take offense) in the video only exist for your consumption, is not?

Sounds like a homophobic double standard to me, YouTube.

Your Friday Awesome: Kids Say the Darnedest Things (about Gender)

These kids are amazing. I hope they continue to feel supported and strong and happy so they can remain committed to F-ing with the kyriarchy.

The best part are the conversations with adults. Unless you are a total asshole (and they are most definitely out there) you're not going to tell a 3rd grader he can't wear a pink scarf, hat and pants on camera. I'd like to think there is some serious thinking going on in those adult pauses.

A place where kids are free to be themselves and push adults to question social norms? That's what I'll be celebrating this 4th of July.