354: Gingerbread Kits and Friends

This past weekend one of my old old old old (2 years, 2 apartments and 4 roommates ago) roommates came to visit from LA. Michele's been attending med school in the Caribbean (jealous much?) and I haven't seen her in about a year! With her visit I also got to see some other friends I haven't seen in a while, which was really fun. On Friday, Michele and I got House of Curries for lunch. Mmmmm so good. My go-to dish is their Chicken Curry with rice (as much as I love naan, it just tastes so good with rice...). Then we met up with Stephanie and the three of us went shopping in Emeryville. I picked up a couple of magazines (Knitting Today and Knit Simple, I think) while Michele and Steph shopped in H&M (who, by the way, is having an awesome dress sale). We then met up with Alfred and Cathy (hi, Cathy!!! <3) at Google, because Alfred has the best job ever (I so want to work at Google). We ate dinner in their cafeteria. How amazing would it be to work somewhere that provided great food for you? We took pictures by a giant gingerbread house, in front of a Google sign and in front of a giant android (in the rain).

On Saturday I baked cookies. Lots and lots of yummy cookies with the best recipe I've found (I omit the nuts because 1. I don't really care for them and 2. I never have them on hand). Both Jason and Chris love these cookies, and I got to see both of them at lunch. We went to Restaurant Peony in Oakland and had yummy dim sum with Cathy, Michele, Stephanie and her brother. Afterwards we headed to Shooting Star Cafe where they have drinks that go with your zodiac sign. I skipped out on my kumquat and something else drink and ordered some taro ice cream. From there we went to Jason's place and played games and tried on a 50-lb weighted vest and made a gingerbread house from a kit that Michele gave to Cathy. This house was epic failure, but nevertheless, fun to build. We started off pretty well, icing the pieces before we attached them and making the tiny Santa and Christmas tree look decent, but the icing wasn't solidifying so the walls to the house didn't stay up and the roof pieces kept sliding off. We tried adding super glue but that just glued the icing to icing...And then Santa and the Christmas tree got stuck together. Poor Santa. The finished product was supposed to look like this:

From Create-a-Treat

But it, well, I'll post pictures when I get them. Let's just say it wasn't pretty.

On Sunday I decided to tackle the Gingerbread Train kit that Michele gave me. I cheated and just started with glue. My train is definitely not edible but it is somewhat structurally stable. It was supposed to look like this:

From Create-a-Treat

I don't even know where they got those candy cane pieces for the wheels, because they definitely were not in my kit. I think I did an okay job of replicating the train.

I know, I can't be a cake decorator any time soon.

So, that was my weekend. Oh! I also blocked the body of the sweater for my dad. In hindsight, I should have taken a picture to share. The first sleeve is also done and the second one is so close. I should be able to finish it in time for Christmas, and if not that, then for his birthday on the 27th. Yay!