Luckily, there was a change in the air this past Monday, a calling in the wind, “Ahhhh-manda, it’s time to pretend you’re a rockstar…” hahaha, but no really, something got under my skin and set me into a frenzied hair-design thought process. On my last train ride home from Palo Alto (I quit my job at MomTrusted!), I decided I wanted to dye my hair again. And then I decided I wanted two colors and that they would be daring, contrasting, but yet still a bit elegant together. The result? Two-Tone hair!! (for lack of a better description). Dark brownish red and au natural blonde (not straight up bleached). I think a honey blonde with a bright red would have looked great as well!

Anyways, if you’re looking at the post thinking “I would LOVE to do that, but could never pull it off.” then STOP. STOP thinking about it so hard. If YOU want it, and for all of the right reasons, then hell yes you can pull it off!! Call that hair stylist and start thinking of colors that compliment your skin tone and each other! You can rock it!

(Thanks to Josh for taking these pictures! He did amazingly even though I’m not quite model material! haha).

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Enough with the gushy, this was my Easter :
- Ben (a talented Industrial designer/cook) came over to cook fresh dariy-less frittata, salad & dumplings with roasted chicken (uhh, he even cut the heads off in my very un-butcher-eque kitchen). YIKES! YUM!
- I made Cream Cheese Cinnamon Coffee Cake that turned out much yummier than I expected…like, much yummier. It was gone quick, though that might have been because everyone was hungry whilst sipping mimosas and waiting for Ben to finish cooking.
- Chloe as the Easter Bunny : lil cups of jelly beans and chocolate and vibrant grass! For all! We probably should have hid them in Golden Gate Park, but that might have resulted in the homeless nomads joining in…hmm.
- Josh + others as deliverers of scrumptious mimosas of orange and pomegranate juices.
- Friends helping + learning how to cook dumplings.
- Guests from Ireland…but they left only a little bit after brunch, so sad. COME BACK!

So overall, Easter was a blast. I was a little sick for it, but NBD, I got to eat delicious things and had an enthusiastic group of people helping cook and clean. Can’t complain there! As for Easter itself, the holiday, well that was good too. I still missed being home, but only a little bit. I had a long week at GDC (Skrillex VIP party! what?) and it was nice to unwind in our clean apartment with people who rock and food that rocked my tastebuds almost as hard a Skrillex rocked my eardrums, but no, really, that’s not even possible, so never mind.

recipe below!

Cream Cheese Cinnamon Coffee Cake

THINGS YA NEED

13 x 9 cake pan, greased.

CHEESECAKE PART
2  8 oz. packages cream cheese, room temp.
½ cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp vanilla bean extract
1 large egg

CAKE
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup sour cream

CRUMBLY TOPPING
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup flour
9-10 tablespoons butter, chilled (more butter never hurts!)
1 heaping tablespoon cinnamon

OVEN TIME : grease that pan & preheat your baking machine to 350 degrees.
CHEESECAKE FILLING : With a sexy kitchen aid mixer (or what have you), mix the cream cheese, sugar, egg and vanilla on medium low. Stop at creamy.
DRY INGREDIENTS : Evenly mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
CREAM IT FOR THE CAKE: Clean that sexy kitchen aid mixer and then beat the butter and sugar with it.
EGGYS : Add eggs one at a time on medium low speed. + the vanilla extract.
ALTERNATE : Pour in a wee-bit of flour, a wee bit of sour cream, more flour, more sour cream, more flour. end.
SPREAD : Half of the batter into the greased pan.
DROP : the cream cheese mixture in blobs evenly over the pan.
POUR : the rest of the cake batter over it.
KNIFE : take a knife and run it through the two mixtures, swirl it, combine it to make a pretty pattern.
TOP IT : Sugar, flour, chilled butter, cinnamon : dump it in a bowl and use a pastry cutter (or your hands) to create crumbles. It’s important that all of the dry ingredients stick to the chunks of butter. That’s what makes that yummy crumby texture on top.
BAKE IT : for about 40 minutes or a few more. Test it. Your tester should come out clean and gloopy-free.

Cheers to the original recipe that I altered a wee bit!

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The hostess called our name after about 10-20 minutes and we happily took a table outside under the heaters. The atmosphere was great, brick walls, wood accents, but it was so busy! Kids were running around, the inside was packed, long lines for the bathroom per usual and on top of all of that, they were out of certain dishes and all of the muffins…sigh. Anyway, I ordered a blood orange mimosa, a pancake and the chicken apple sausage omelet. Josh ordered some sort of Benedict as well as a side of chicken sausage. I’m certain people must crowd in here for the homemade chicken apple sausage because that’s just about the only thing at our table of 5 people that stood out as excellent, everything else was okay – but nothing super special.

I’ll spend a tid bit of time praising the homemade chicken apple sausage for it’s yumminess and uniqueness. I’ve had chicken apple sausage at plenty of brunch places but this one stood out because it didn’t seem like it was store bought from whole foods and it definitely wasn’t Aidells brand that some restaurants proudly claim on their menus. It was truly “homemade”. The sausage was shaped into a circular patty, seasoned with some mysteriously delicious combination of spices, maybe curry or something else addictingly yum, and it was moist. It fell apart in your mouth, released savory deliciousness onto your tongue and left you with a non-greasy feeling, which is a super plus when it comes to sausage. It tasted great in my omelet with some cheese and spinach!

As for the rest of the food : meh. Zach wasn’t too happy with his chicken sandwich, my pancake was rather unfluffy and unmoist, Josh’s Benedict was not worth it and Chloe’s French Toast looked burnt. I do hear people just love the gingerbread cake with pumpkin ice cream, but that’s more of a lunch/dinner option. Bottom line is don’t waste your time here for brunch unless you are craving some chicken apple sausage. Otherwise, just go on the weekday because the food is not worth your entire precious weekend morning.

After Park Chow we all headed back to our apartment (emerald lounge!) for a bit of roof mischief. Despite having just had brunch, we felt the need to grab some cheese and bread from the Cheese Co. in Cole Valley. This, accompanied with champagne and Trevor’s suave playlist made for a fancyschmancy gaming afternoon of asshole on the roof (asshole is a card game, fyi!).

Oh yea, all of this was on a Sunday, since Monday was President’s Day. We had a blast and continued our weekend party into the night! Mmm for the chicken apple sausage, cheese and champagne – a girl can never go hungry in this city, that’s for sure. On a side note, I’m quite worried that I am becoming a horrendous food snob…haha, but I will leave that decision to my stomach. He knows best.

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Enjoy your chocolatey holiday, and if you don’t have a date, I hope you still go to a nice dinner with your girlfriends or alone to eavesdrop on all of the interesting couples that are bound to be out and about getting tipsy on red wine.

Love all around!

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SusieCakes is now my new favorite cupcake in the Bay Area. In fact SusieCakes has dethroned Sprinkles. Why? The frosting is absolutely  nostalgic and lovely. It’s buttercream that tastes like it came straight from my great grandma’s mixing bowl.  It weakens my knees.

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