Aang upside down cake for Ben's last day at work

I have to admit, I've been seriously neglecting this blog. I think I might have posted more frequently from Costa Rica! However, the current lack of content contribution had a very worthy cause. I have been putting together a little party for Ben to celebrate his last day at work. Although it really was a small affair, I wanted it to be very silly and very fun - not to mention, of course, tasty. The true star of this party was the very unprofessionally decorated chocolate cake you see at the end of this post. It turned out well considering the challenges I faced (having used entirely too much frosting, namely). This is Aang, protagonist of a Nickelodeon series called "Avatar: The Last Airbender." Here, he is frozen in an iceberg in the Avatar state. The image is taken from the first episode of the show, entitled "Boy in the Iceberg." However, since he is mercilessly trapped in this cake, I referred to him here as Boy in the Cakeberg. In any case, it was a very humorous adventure and I really didn't mind that it turned out looking so silly because, after all, it is chocolate cake. Very hard to mess up the taste of such a delicious and highly coveted dessert item. Like I anticipated, although aesthetically unimpressive, it turned out wonderfully in terms of taste!

The most important part, however, is that Ben and Josh found it to be very amusing and tasty. I myself am still eating it as I make this post, a day later :P (just a couple bites for my midday snack). I normally am NOT a fan of frosting of any kind but I used a cream cheese frosting and I rather enjoy it. Dangerous! But I can talk myself out of feeling guilty by going into the city later to walk around with Josh.

Although this cake was the main attraction, it followed some pretty darn tasty skewers that I failed to photograph. I had to make them in the oven and therefore got very impatient, throwing all the pieces in the skillet in the end. I used steak, chicken, zucchini, mushrooms, orange pepper, pineapple and shrimp. I seasoned half of the skewers with teriyaki sauce and the other half with Italian dressing, but in the end they all ended up tasting pretty similar because when I combined it all in the skillet, I poured the remaining pineapples and juice into the mix which overpowered the marinades. Before serving the meats and veggies I piled them onto some basmati rice. Fantastic!

After dinner we played Pin the tail on the Appa, our own special variation of Pin the tail on the donkey. I included a couple of pictures of the original Appa and Ben's attempt. He and Josh were much closer than I was, so they both won "prizes," goody bags full of candy and silly party favors. Finally we shared the cake. All in all it was a very fun evening and well worth the planning that went into it :D

Now I can get back to my regular posting! I've got about a week before I head to Texas, which should be full of food adventures! For now, I'll do my best here in NYC.