22nd Birthday Treats + Baking French Macaroons

I spent my actual birthday in the workroom at school-- 17 hours of sewing, pattern making and all around fun. There was a slight break taken however, when Angy and Joanne surprised me with this amazing brownie tower cake topped off with a raspberry cheesecake and served with hazelnut coffee from our home away from home, Brooklyn Bagel.

(If you live in NYC and are in the Chelsea area, go there immediately. I eat like 2 meals a day there and have converted all my friends to serious addicts.) Their brownies are possibly the best i've ever had. (Sorry Mom.)

On Monday night after i'd finished all my classes for the semester, my korean bffls took me to Mad for Chicken in K-town for a lovely b-day celebration feast of fried chicken and amazing sushi. If you haven't had korean fried chicken-- get to it. Soo delicious. Served with carrots, celery and, my favorite, (korean?) radishes. The sauce is half soy garlic and half extra extra spicy. It's hot.

I have officially mastered eating drumsticks and wings entirely with chopsticks. I am not kidding.

Thennn, upon returning to Texas, my mom cooked up a legit feast for the fam + Katie, Amanda, Samantha, Marcus and Carrie. The meal consisted of my favorite salad, steak au poivre, pomme frites, and this amazinggg pumpkin tart.

I didn't get any pictures of the meal because I was too busy snarfing it down. I did however, pause for long enough to document this magazine cover worthy dessert. It was soo amazing. I promise to add the recipe asap.

For Christmas Day, I made some French Macaroons. I had been wanting to make these for a while, because they look so good. They were definitely a little tricky to make, mostly because they are very fragile, but they turned out perfectly and were really, really tasty. I didn't even put any flavoring in, so mine just had the traditional almond flavor and then the dark chocolate filling. So good. Now that I have a food processor of my own, I will be able to make these often.

My dad doing his best French face...

macaroon recipe

As you can see, a lovely and sweet 22nd birthday.