BitterSweet

… And on May 4th, that was my beloved dog’s day- Or to be more precise, her birthday! I can hardly believe it myself that this little puppy who’s been the love of my life since I was in elementary school is now 11 years old. Since I’ve been getting a lot of questions about her lately, I thought I would take this opportunity to give her the spot light and give you guys some answers.

As you may have already gathered by now, she is a she, even if the majority of people simply assumed the opposite. Her name is Isis, pronounced “eye-sis,” something that it seems is difficult to decipher just from the spelling. Don’t worry, we still have family members that can’t spell it correctly anyways! What many readers picked up was that yes, she is indeed a Basenji; an African-Egyptian breed that hates getting wet and simply adores warm weather. That’s why you’re likely to find her doing this in the summer:

Sunbathing. You know it’s nice and hot out there when she’s willing to spread herself across the pavement!

While many guides will tell you that Basenjis are barkless dogs, they won’t tell you that they can still be quite noisy, just in different ways.  She doesn’t exactly “yodel” as they say, but she does whimper, grumble, whine, yip, and otherwise make her presence very well known.  Barkless does not equal silent by any means!

If you have more questions, shout them out, because I honestly can’t think of too much else to tell you. She’s just a simple, sweet little pup.

So to celebrate her birthday, as per usual, I baked her a small cake made with peanut butter and oats. To give it some extra “flair,” I frosted the top with some leftover tofu cream cheese. A treat fit for a human, even!

She started off by cautiously licking off the frosting, much like any other excited child… But it wasn’t long before the teeth came out! From there, it was pretty much all over.

Happy birthday, Isis!!

91 comments in just under 12 hours. Wow. That’s definitely a record for this wee little blog; you guys must really want bunnies!

I wouldn’t want to cause any trouble by drawing this out any longer, so here are the 12 names selected at random to get one of these critters in the mail….

Lisa
Ugliducklyn (Comment #55)
Amanda
Liz (Comment #26)
Josefin (Comment #48)
Sarah (Comment #71)
Samm (Comment #25)
Vegan Addict
Stephanie Anne (Comment #29)
Brenda W. (Comment #20)
Gretchen Noelle
Jenna (Comment #11)

Do you see your name up here? If so, shoot me an email with your address, and let me know if you’d like me to make your bunny into a magnet, ornament, or leave it as is. Also, you could list a couple of color preferences, and while I can’t make any promises on that front, I will do my best to get you the bunny you want.

In case your name wasn’t chosen this time around, don’t worry! Another contest or random lottery drawing is always just around the corner.

I’d also like to just take the time to thank Joanna for rating my blog as “E for excellent,” but I’m afraid I have far too many favorites to pick 10 myself. The blogs listed in my blogroll aren’t even a fraction of what I check- I think there are at least 350 - 400 blogs on my reader now!

A while back, Chelsea also tagged me to tell 5 things about myself. I really do hate talking about myself, but I promised that I would do this one and have been slacking, so let’s do this real quick…

1. I sleep with a giant stuffed strawberry. Most normal kids would have a teddy bear or something, but no, I have a plush strawberry that’s about as big as medium-sized cat.

2. I’m absolutely, completely terrified of doctors. I don’t have a problem with needles or medical procedures per say, but if I see those creepy guys in their white coats, I’m running the other way.

3. My favorite [commercial] frozen dessert ever is Whole Soy’s Creme Caramel. Holy crap, it’s tough not to eat the whole container in one sitting.

4. I probably sprained my ankle a couple days ago because it’s rather swollen and painful to walk on. Boo!

5. Finally, I’m planning on doing a little one-week vacation in Portland over the summer, so if anyone has suggestions, I’d love to hear them!

Two years ago today, a very timid message went out to the world: To whatever curious eyes may be peering in, I’m here to share a few crafts, nothing more, nothing less. No name, no age, none of those personal details that might flesh out this weak voice. A few brief sentences would accompany rudimentary photographs, the occasional online pattern may be divulged, and that would be it, nothing more for another day or two. Through many shaky posts, it was uncertain whether this unknown other might continue to whisper through the keyhole.

But somehow, by some incredible miracle, here I am. I don’t believe I’ve formally introduced myself once through this entire wild ride, so Hello, it’s nice to meet you. My name is Hannah, I just turned 19 years old, and today is my second blogiversary. Can you believe it? I sure can’t. Making the leap from no one, absolutely nothing at all in just two short years, this blog has changed me for the better. Not just the blog itself, but more to the point, you: You lovely people who have been reading, commenting, trying my recipes and patterns, encouraging me to break from my re-enforced, bullet-proof shell. It’s impossible to deny that you guys out there have shaped the person that I am today, and the path that I am headed down, looking toward the future. Thank you all, a million times thank you. If I could bake a cupcake for every last reader out there I would, but my stats have soared from my early numbers of maybe 30 page views a day, to over 3,000.

This picture I’ve included was taken in May 2007 by my good friend Nancy (Thank you so much for your patience! I’m still not good about being in pictures) and demonstrates my usual setup. This is exactly how I shot the pictures of My Sweet Vegan- In my kitchen, a poster board is propped up against the back of my laptop, house lights are turned on or off accordingly, and I would snap away with my little point-and-shoot. Now I do have a new and improved model, but everything else has stayed the same. I just wanted to illustrate this little “secret” for you, because the truth is that I don’t have any secrets about how I put together my blog or book: I simply love what I do, put a little thought into the presentation, and the rest follows.

[What? You should know that I don't drink!]

Here’s to another wonderful year, full of joy, crafting, and good food!

I’m still in shock. Even though I don’t always write about food, even though I up and disappeared on you guys for a whole week, even though I was up against some seriously incredible food writers out there in the blogosphere, I still won for the Well Fed Network’s 2007 food blog awards for Best Writing. Talk about unbelievable, part of me still wonders if it might all be a joke, and any minute now I’ll get a joking email saying “Ahaha, you fell for our trick!” Well, until I see such an awful message waiting in my inbox, I’ll just have to take your word for it and let you all know how incredibly honored I am, and grateful for all of your support.

Now, I’ll do my best to prove that I deserve this title by returning to a normal pattern of blogging again, since I’m finally back at home and mostly done with school work. If you sent me an email eons ago and are still waiting for a response- Sorry!- I will be sorting through my mess of emails and returning your letters very soon, I promise!

This was the best holiday gift I could ever ask for, and hopefully I’ll find some way to return the favor to every last reader out there who made this possible!

Hannah our loyal Bittersweet Blogger is a bit bogged down with her very first round of college finals this week, and has felt dreadful about not having wonderful sweets and crafts to share with her readers. Luckily, there is something that I wanted to share with everyone this week to fill in the posting void, and Hannah has graciously allowed me to take the spotlight for a quick post.

For two weeks in December, Chez Pim is uniting food bloggers for the Menu for Hope, a fund raiser for the UN World Food Programme. Each year, food bloggers from all over the world join forces to host the Menu for Hope online raffle, offering an array of delectable culinary prizes. In 2006, Menu for Hope raised US $60,925.12 to help feed the hungry, and I am sure that they would like to do even better this year.

Hannah, the crafter behind Bittersweet, is a “starving” college student (literally, vegan dorm food is hard to come by), so she is unable to give a large monetary donation. However, what she can offer is her wonderful work. Hannah has generously donated an autographed copy of her new cookbook, My Sweet Vegan, as a raffle prize for the Menu for Hope. Did I mention how positively gorgeous My Sweet Vegan is? Hannah is far too modest and shy to say it, so I felt the need to tell everyone.

Getting back on topic, you can help the Menu for Hope fund raiser by donating just ten dollars U.S. For every US$10 donation, you will receive a virtual raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. Beyond Hannah’s great cookbook, there are scores of wonderful prizes to assign to your raffle tickets.

Thank you for allowing me a moment to share this wonderful event. Good luck with your finals Hannah!

- Alisa

The Well Fed Network is holding their 2007 food blog awards right now, and it seems that someone must have confused the entries or something, because it was just brought to my attention that my humble little blog has been nominated for Best Writing. And really, the best part of this is that I’m so surprised, I don’t even know what to say except… Wow! If you could toss a vote my way, I would really appreciate it, too!

The entry period for the printer contest is now over!  I’m so impressed with all of the creative, funny, and beautiful series that everyone has come up with, and let me tell you, this will not be an easy competition to judge.  The sheer volume of emails stacked up in my inbox is quite terrifying at the moment, so please forgive me if it takes some time to get through them all, or reply to other comments and messages.   The round up is on it’s way, along with the announcement of the winner, so sit tight!

The most interesting new book came in the mail the other day…

I can’t believe it’s really real, and I’m actually holding it in my hands. But… It’s true!

[My apologies to everybody for my sluggish responses- I'll get back to you guys asap, I just need to get enough time away from classes and homework!]

I guess I should have known better. Here I was, thinking that I had given you all a really tough image to decipher… and 30 minutes after posting it, in the very first comment, it was identified with ease. Jeez, I have no idea how to stump you for future contests! I guess this little event will need to go back to the drawing board… But for now at least, since it became immediately obvious so quickly, I treated this one more as a raffle and entered everyone who commented into a random drawing.

So without further ado, by using a random number generator and then selecting the corresponding comment, I’ve determined that the winner is… Kya! Congrats, your new puppy pal will be on his way soon!

Thanks to everyone else for your enthusiasm too. All I can say is… Next time I’ll have to do some different sort of contest!