Out Of Africa...Or Indonesia

After three long months, Laura Robertson has emerged from the jungle and has returned safely to Yale! Sorry farmers, jungle dwellers, researchers and primates, but this girl is mine and I'm really glad to have her back!!

A few Monday afternoons ago I went to her apartment (which I must say is absolutely GORGEOUS!) to hang out and we ended up going out to dinner and for bubble tea, but the tea house was closed. So we walked back and forth from her apartment to the store about a thousand times until I figured out that we'd gotten all the ingredients for me to bake a chocolate cake, but by the time we were done doing that it was after 10pm and I didn't feel like baking anymore, so we hung out while I made peanut butter almost-buttercream frosting for the next day, chatted and caught up, and then went to sleep.

Then in the morning I started work in the kitchen. I absolutely love to cook and bake, and I love doing it even more when it's for Laura. I don't know... something about her being pretty much a vegetarian and loving everything I prepare for her, and I'm so mommyesque anyhow-- makes it all feel so good. Anyhow, so I prepared a huge stock pot of hearty chunky vegetable noodle soup with lots of ingredients from my garden that cooked all day long so that by evening time it was completely infused with rich flavor. Mmmmmm. Then, in the afternoon while she was at class, I baked that double layer chocolate cake, layered it with frosting in the middle, covered the entire outside with the peanutty-creamy yum I'd made the night before and stenciled on a really pretty heart pattern with cinnamon. It came out great and when me and Laura, and her roommates Abby and Leila sat down to eat everything, discovered that it all tasted great, too. I'm such a homemaker!

After dinner had been cleaned up and I collected my things I had to go home since I was working the next morning and had a 70 mile drive ahead of me, but the feelings of having just had a really great visit lasted a long time. It was so good to see my friend... I can't wait to see her again.