Hello, Cupcake!

Hello, Cupcake is an adorable cupcake cookbook by Alan Richardson and Karen Tack containing recipes for, as the cover proclaims, "Irresistibly Play Creations Anyone Can Make". I doubt that I could make any of these, you should have seen me attempting to make chocolate chip pancakes for the first time in my life this morning!, but I'm sure I'd have fun trying. OK, I'm not sure about that, what I AM sure of is that this penguin cupcake looks almost too cute to eat. Almost.



If you're looking for a good book that goes beyond pictures and recipes, have you heard about Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously?



Author Julie Powell (pictured above with her book) describes the project:
On the eve of my thirtieth birthday, stuck in a dead-end secretarial job, living in a hideous apartment in Long Island City, Queens, and dreading what seemed like a life of terminal mediocrity, I came up with a panicked notion — to cook through all 524 recipes of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in a year, and blog about it. Julie and Julia describes my efforts to hold on to my job, marriage, and sanity while blazing a nonsensical trail toward fulfillment, with Julia leading the way.

And Time magazine says:
Powell is not a domestic goddess; she's emphatically, unembarrassedly a domestic mortal. But she is also a genuinely gifted thinker and writer about food. As we learn in the account of her culinary marathon, Child's gastronomical masterpiece teaches Powell precious lessons about herself.

Sounds good, doesn't it? Well, if you're interested you might wanna pick it up soon and get started on it before the movie version comes out. Meryl Streep plays Julia Childs. Meryl Streep! Yeah, yeah, I heard about Mamma Mia. I'm sure this will be better.