Baketown, Battery Park

After an afternoon of slaving away in the kitchen and throwing away my first batch having burned them on the bottom here we are... cupcakes!! Thanks to Patent and the Pantry for the base recipes!
1. Red velvet chocolate cupcakes with a white chocolate frosting...

2. Apple cinnamon spice cupcakes with a brown sugar cream cheese frosting dusted in cinnamon.

3. Finally a Rocky Road cupcake which is chocolate sponge cake with white and milk chocolate drops in, covering in a peppermint chocolate icing with marshmallows on top, dusted in graham crackers. HUBBA HUBBA!

Goodbye waistline, hello holiday season!

Betty Crocker-me-up

I've been living here in the grand old U.S. of A for just over a year now and I'm really get into the swing of these 'holidays'. As a Brit, back home in London 'Christmas' (which we basically refer to everything that happens been the end of November and the beginning of January) means going out drinking after work with colleagues and friends several times a week, going into the office a little later than usual the following morning, all leading up to a few days of eating and drinking non-stop with your family. The same is true over here but I think people take more pride in it all over here, perhaps taking it all a little more seriously and literally too.

When I think of 'Christmas' back home - I think of... booze, parties, turkey, chocolate, more booze, family, more booze, left overs and that's it. Maybe with some Christmas music and shopping thrown into the mix.

Over here in New York the 'holiday season' takes on a whole new meaning. It's more structured, there seams to be more meaning to all too. We went to see 'THE tree' outside the Rockefeller center. We put up our Christmas decorations on Dec 1st, on the spot. People write Christmas cards to each other, every one seems to do it! Ice skating rinks have popped up all over the City, the stores are covered literally all over in Christmas lights.

I don't know, maybe the grass is just greener over here.  The same sort of things happened each Christmas back home in England but I feel that over here I'm more at ease 'getting into the holiday swing'.

Anyway, on to the title of this blog post, we're having a Christmas party this weekend. A proper friends over for dinner and drinks with a Christmas theme, Christmas party. While this would usually just have me making sure there are a few crates of beer in the kitchen and a big bowl of crisps (potato chip, sorry! ;) for everyone to snack on we're going all out, taking it pretty seriously in comparison and what's more... I AM taking it very seriously!! I'm finding myself totally caught up in it all.

So...

Betty Crocker-me-up? Yes. I'm baking. Baking like it's my mission to feed the masses with sweet cakes and mouth watering frosted covered STUFF. Here's my first attempt at cupcakes... Pumpkin Spice cupcakes with vanilla cream-cheese frosting with white chocolate drops and they are AWESOME.

They were so good, I'm chuffed to bits that I actually managed to pull them off. First attempt!!

I can't take the praise though. I came across this awesome blog called Patent and the Pantry (check her out at http://patentandthepantry.wordpress.com/). This girl can cook!! (Plus her red shoes look rude, I like them... might get me some of those for Miss Musical!! ;)

Anyway, Mrs P. Pantry clearly knows her way around the kitchen and I'm hooked...

The first pumpkin and apple cupcakes are Mrs Pantry's, well basically. I've tweaked them a little just to see what happens. And the other couple of ideas she has totally inspired me to come up with... For our Christmas party this weekend I'm going to try making:

1. MORE pumpkin spice cupcakes with vanilla cream-cheese frosting
2. Red velvet cupcakes with a white chocolate frosting
3. Rocky Road cupcakes - chocolate sponge filled with marshmallow with a chocolate graham cracker and chocolate chip filled peppermint chocolate frosting.... *drool*
4. Apple spice cupcakes with an apple crumble flavoured cream-cheese frosting.

Plus, having just gone back to Patent and Pantry to make sure I got the web address correct, I saw Egg Nog Sugar Cookies?! WHAT?! HELL YES I'll be trying to make these too....!!!!

BRING

IT

ON

Why see a movie when you can watch the TRAILER?

Friends, colleagues, movie enthusiasts together. Who else is sick of watching movie trailers that give away ALL of the plot, the twists and most of the best shots?? 

So often I hear about a movie that sounds pretty good, or see a teaser campaign's series of posters and I get really excited about it... I then watch the trailer and it's RUINED.

This afternoon I went to see The Tourist with Johnny Depp and Ang-g-g-g-elina Jolie (who still has it - HAS. IT.).

I won't discuss my thoughts of the plot itself too much, nor will I tell you to see it nor skip it, but I will tell you this - besides the last 5 mins of the movie, I felt like I had already seen the first 98.

Honestly, no joke. There were no surprises, no 'wow' moments that I didn't already know were coming, no one-liners I didn't see coming, no matter how pithy or well delivered they were. I basically could have fast-forward to the last 5 mins to see what I already thought was probably going to happen. ROBBED!

Angelina my dear, you're smoking (and your English accent is pretty good). Mr Depp, you were pretty cool and charming but guys, I want my $12 back AND the $12 I spent on a bottle of water and popcorn. ROBBED I tell you! ROBBED!

Leading up to the movie though let's talk about the trailers themselves...

• First up, The Eagle - looked pretty good but it was spoiled. ROBBED

• Guy goes out into the wilderness to find his Dad's missing golden eagle thing from the top of his Dad's legion's standard bearer that was lost 20 years ago.
• Guy takes slave with him.
• Slave turns out to already know where the Eagle is.
• Guy and Slave get captured by the people who have the Eagle and defeated his Dad's legion.
• Guy becomes the Slave's slave in a not so curious turn of events (that you see in the trailer)
• Some kind of brotherly, respect based relationship develops between Guy and Slave, who's now the Slave's slave.
• Some kind of grand, Ridley Scott / Gladiator-esque battle sees Guy get his Eagle back, sees Guy resolve his Slave-like issues, blood, guts, glory... blah
• THE END. 
• I'll skip it thanks and wait for DVD. Even then I might not even bother because I'll see the DVD cover and remember what happens because the trailer spelled it out for me in crayon like I'm 5.

• Next up, Battle: Los Angeles
• Actually looks pretty good and although is basically looks like a smash between Independence Day and Skyline (barf) with the look and feel of District 9 (AMAZING). And while they didn't give too much of the plot away this probably doesn't have much of a plot to begin with, which is a bit of cheat in this context so I can't count this one for or against my argument. Bugger.
• And the rest... they don't deserve having their posters put up on display...
• The Dilemma. Do we really care if he tells fat-boy Kings of Queens dude about his girlfriend cheating or not? Let's face it, the movie is the trailer and you don't need to pay your $$ to find out what happens at the end. Who's cares. Besides a few quality Vince Vaughan rants it will be utter bollocks. DVD, maybe. Next.
• Morning Glory. Fun, struggle, stress, going out on a limb, laughs, old guy's redemption, young girl's salvation, everyone feels a little inspired but not sure about precisely what. The end. DVD, maybe. Probably not actually, and Rachael McAdams isn't particularly engaging, interesting or hot. NEXT!
• Green Hornet. Looked brilliant, looked funny, we were shown all of the good parts and it ended up being such a long trailer that I didn't want to find out when it starts to show and what happens at the end. DVD, maybe... urrghh. But it did make me think of the Green Lantern... 

I'm crossing my fingers for you Mr Green Lantern, even though you're being played by Ryan Reynolds which will therefore probably mean the style of the movie will be mildly sarcastic (trying to be extremely sarcastic) and almost so tongue-in-cheek it will make me cringe. BUT you're married to Scar-Jo and I quite like how you remind of Ben Affleck, but you're NOT Ben Affleck, so I'll probably go see your movie.

Did you people not SEE Batman Begins though?! Sit down, kick back, take note. Chris Nolan and David S Goyer rock rebooting a genre that Tim "I'm an artist, I'm an artist" Burton and Joel Schumacher nearly f*cked up forever. 

Anyway, I suppose I can look on the bright side and thank you movie studios for saving me an average  2 hours of my life and $12 per movie every time you release another pile of donkey crap on film (Hollywood has a 1 in 10 average for producing watchable, quality movies I feel). Your trailers tell me I all I need to know about what happens and I see all the cool bits for FREE and can then do something else for the next 2 hours. Score! (?) Hmm. I feel like I'm happy about being robbed. It's just wrong.

It's time for us all to skip watching trailers for good or give up on going to the movies.

Movie industry - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!