Treats, Tea, Breakfast and Lunch with friends...

As mentioned in a previous post, last week was spent meeting up with friends and sampling various treats! Here are Mary's PB Reindeer Cookies and her Snickersnaps...

So many sweets...I like how one pretzel antler was "snow covered"! :)

Just look at that combo!

N from NY sent me a couple of Cinnamon Swirl breads from Harry and David...

Cathy from Mmm-Yoso gifted me with Pulla, Finnish coffee bread

The bread is not too sweet and is flavored with cardamom seeds which were flecked within the bread. I love how beautiful the braided bread looks. The top is brushed with butter (or is it egg?) and topped with white sugar. My husband and I really enjoyed it and it went well with coffee.

C from CAB Cooks also was quite the busy baker...(Can you spot our Star Wars ornaments? Geek alert!)Within this box lay a veritable bounty of baked awesomeness.

The first "strata" were her peppermint meringue kisses which TC really loved. In fact, she pretty much had most of them (not at once).

Next was one of Bert's favorites,  the Meyer Lemon thins with lemon glaze. He enjoyed it with his coffee as well. I only had one cookie and he finished the rest over the next few days...

Now this was my favorite, the almond crescents. I ate 90% of those (hangs head in shame). As Jay (from Jay and Silent Bob) would say from the Oscar worthy classic flick, "Mallrats":

"Holy shit! Mother fkg Yoda 'n shit!"!!!

Yes, they were that good!

And if this wasn't all, the bottom layer unearthed these awesome renditions of Buckeyes.

These are ballz of PB and powdered sugar dipped in chocolate. To read about CAB's Christmas baking of these goodies, see her post here. Isn't it great to be friends with fellow food bloggers? Seriously, it was really generous of them to share the products of their skills and I am so glad I met them this year at various events.

During our Christmas gift drop offs for our friends, we were pleasantly surprised by an evening "tea" set out by TORC. She had a few savory appetizers out - mushroom turnovers and palmiers with parmesan cheese. I was happy to see the cake stands I made her last year put to use! At the risk of sounding maudlin and cliched, we felt so "special" that she took the time to put out this little spread for us.

She also had a plate of Russian tea cakes (snowball cookies) out...

The tea she served us was really good. I'm not much of a tea drinker but I would drink this again. Ironically, the tea itself isn't pictured here (bergamot) but I wanted to highlight TORC's beautiful tea seat and her pretty creamer (I like the scalloped edges).

The next day, I met up with D at a mutual friends housel; she made us breakfast which I didn't expect either, so this was really nice! Fried rice, scrambled eggs, bacon, and fresh fruit. Did I mention bacon?

Later that same morning, we met up with MFH (Mi Firme Heina) at our hairstylist's place. MFH was getting her hair done and TC and I wanted to drop off some goodies for R, our stylist. After MFH was finished, we had a small lunch at Pho Hiep Grill Chateau (what a mouthful) at Eastlake Village Walk.

We were still full from breakfast earlier and MFH wasn't too hungry either so we just had a couple of items. One was the Goi Cuon, or fresh spring rolls with pork and shrimp...

MFH had hot tea while TC had milk tea with boba (Remember, "boba" means "BIG BOOBS" in Taiwanese!) while I had my caffeine fix with the iced coffee. I was wired the rest of that day I tell you.

Our second dish was the Banh Xeo (crepe) served with lettuce, fresh herbs, pickled radish and carrots, and sweetened fish sauce.

The server working there already knows what I like to order so this was no surprise to her. I don't know her name but she's super gracious. Our light meal was perfect for the three of us. I don't think we could have had a full meal with rice or noodles.

The next day, I met up with Darlene and had lunch at Koon Thai (which I always want to call Kunta Kinte; so sue me, Koon Thai also sounds vaguely dirrty).
After lunch, I met up briefly with Jenny (Jenny Wenny Cakes) to drop off a little something for her. She was kind enough to gift me an authentic British Christmas pudding which we enjoyed later that evening...

All these treats are making my head spin like Linda Blair's...

Wut? I'm glad I didn't get any pea soup!

As I type this, we are watching our latest obsession, "Invader Zim", a now defunct animated show created by Jhonen Vasquez (author of "Johnny the Homicidal Maniac") which used to air on Nickelodeon in 2001. It was cancelled after a year, and then resurrected in 2006 for an additional season. They just recently re-aired the older episodes on TV. Call us late to the party, but we love it!

The DVD compilation we are watching is "Invader Zim - Vol. 2 Progressive Stupidity". Some of the episodes were written by Roman Dirge (author of the comic series "Lenore - The Cute Little Dead Girl"). Both Vasquez and Dirge, at the time, worked for Slave Labor Graphics. The episodes are hilarious. Zim is an alien from the planet Irk; his goal is to conquer the world. Everyone always speaks at shouting level, the voices are hilarious and the animation is crude and funny! I'm going to wait for Seasons 1 and 2 to go lower in price. Right now, it's going at $54! Yikes! So, I got a couple of cheaper (waaaaay cheaper) compilations instead for our viewing enjoyment...

"I am Ziiiiiiim!!!!!"