A birthday and Grilled Cheese Grill

This weekend I went to a birthday party for Ginger, who is a lady. She likes to remind me of this and it makes me smile every time. I don’t know who made what, but there was lots of deliciousness at this party. Little round pieces of goat cheese with spices on top. Asparagus in a blanket (like pigs in a blanket but asparagus). Bacon wrapped figs. I’ve never really been a fan of figs, but once again, we learn that bacon makes everything better. There were these yummy crunchy flakey pastry thingies that I think her roommate Alisa made. Alisa is a chef and I love it when they invite me over for dinner. She also made the birthday cake, which was a beautiful chocolate layered cake that included a thin layer of persimmon, with dried persimmon on top. That was my first experience with that fruit and it was delicious. Although I’m pretty sure you could have put a thin layer of just about anything in that cake and it still would have been heavenly. Okay, enough food porn.

We also played pin the fangs on Edward and I did a pretty good job, but Sheri beat me. Toward the end, Ginger gave us all party favor gift bags with confetti and whistles and sunglasses and temporary tattoos and little plastic dinosaurs. We also ate on paper plates with Black Beauty on them. Like I said, Ginger is a lady.

Last night I went to dinner with my home teachers and they also invited their other home teachees. We went to Café Vita, which was pretty good. I got a spicy salmon burger. Afterwards, some of us went to a food cart called Grilled Cheese Grill. They make various and assorted kinds of grilled cheese sandwiches. Check out their menu. Delicious. I shared a dessert sandwich with Stina. Cinnamon swirl bread with bananas, nutella and mascarpone. Sweet mother. Look at me, back to food porn.

Next to the food cart is a giant school bus that you can eat on and the table tops have collages of old school, school pictures and there was some crazy fun dance music playing as well and trivial pursuit cards on the table in case conversation is slow. This is why I love Portland. If you come visit me, I will take you there.

Yesterday I ate a dove chocolate from my coworkers desk and this is the message that was inside: Keep believing in yourself and your special dreams. Why’d it have to go and call my dreams special?

Also, I may or may not have worked out at the gym last night to the soundtrack of Confessions of a Shopaholic before dinner.