This started off as a cake, I swear!

I’m sorry to say I killed a cake earlier this week.  And not only that, it was a birthday cake.  Being as the Man With The Hidden Talents is a fan of both coffee and chocolate, I decided that for his birthday I’d try the Mahogany Cake out of Rebecca Rather’s Pastry Queen cookbook.  (I have, by the way, yet to make a recipe out of this cookbook that I didn’t like.)

The problem was, well, me.  I was a trifle too impatient to actually wait for the cake to cool adequately before taking it out of the tube pan.  Unfortunately, hot cake = floppy cake.  Oops.  You can imagine what happened next.  So I made the glaze and drizzled it on top.  This was the result.  I actually considered making a second cake, but frankly, it looks pretty decadent like this, doesn’t it?  I let the boy help me glaze it (somehow the sloppiness of the cake made the whole process that much more fun), and we served it up with big spoons.  I might actually have to do this again sometime.  No, it’s not exactly fit for company, but could it possibly look this sinful if it was all in one piece?

That's right. It's a wedding cake.

Thanks to the Official Star Wars Blog (yes, this exists), some amusement for the fans on this gloomy Friday: the Tauntaun groom’s cake, complete with Luke Skywalker spilling out of the so-cozy warm entrails. The mind reels.

I have a confession.  From being conspicuously single when Femmeiniste launched, I have rapidly progressed to being in a full-blown relationship. You’ve heard about The Man With The Hidden Talents before.  We have been “temporarily” cohabiting since July.  I can now say definitively that he is also The Man With The Hidden Weirdnesses, but as I am the owner of a stuffed Malaysian tapir, I am not in a position to throw stones.

I’ve actually been shocked at how easy and natural it was, and I can’t quite decide if it was easier or should have been harder because we had no actual intention of the living together lasting this long.  I’ve never lived with a guy before, and this is supposed to be a BIG DEAL.  So far?  There’s nothing easier.  It actually makes me a little suspicious. Isn’t this supposed to be hard?  I’m sure it’ll be more challenging if the temporary cohabitation becomes permanent, but for now it’s all hearts and flowers and caramel macchiatos in bed.  (Benefits of a guy who has to settle for street parking.)  I always imagined that moving in with a guy would mean putting up with a lot of annoying personal habits, but possibly I was just assuming that because The Ex had annoying personal habits.  I guess we’ll see.

The fact that a theoretical two weeks has extended into three months has finally brought home to me, however, the need to make room for the boy’s stuff.  Living out of a suitcase was okay for the first few weeks, but it began to seem a little inhospitable by the time we hit September.  I have cleared him two drawers and some closet space, but he owns stuff.  The same kind of stuff I own.  The stuff that is currently all over the place.

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Friday is here again.  THANK GOD.  Need we say more.

Here’s your dose of snarky, hilarious goodness to kick off the weekend …

Someone should start a variant for NYC!  Any singles (or otherwise) out there want to give it a shot?

Gorgeous Ted Baker at Bluefly -- too bad it's not his size.

So, I mentioned last month that despite my talking big in March about being the most conspicuously single Femme, I recently started dating someone.  (Amusingly enough, a friend of The Ex’s, and a guy who I’ve known for years and whose Hidden Talents I have mentioned in previous posts.)  One of the most entertaining parts about dating a new guy?  Dressing him up after your own tastes, of course!  Assuming he’s cooperative, there is a special kind of fun in ignoring his actual wardrobe and putting him in exactly the outfit in which you think he will look the hottest.  This is particularly true if you have been admiring said guy’s looks for several years but have not previously been in a position to do anything about it.  Now that we’ve been dating for a couple of months, I figure this is all fair game.

Despite the fact that I’ve known The Man With The Hidden Talents for years, what I didn’t know is that he has a previously hidden talent for hoarding plaid.  He has a truly impressive collection of button shirts, long and short sleeved, in a rainbow array of plaids.  I don’t really have a problem with that — there’s nothing wrong with plaid in concept.  It’s in execution that it becomes problematic.  Anyone with eyes can hardly have failed to notice there are some really horrifying plaids out there.  I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to exercise my fashion talents/treat him like a giant doll and play dress up.  He needs a few more shirts that are not plaid, for choice green.  (He also has several shirts that snap rather than button, but I’ve decided to leave that alone.  I was initially unconvinced by the snap thing, but I am willing to admit I’ve been converted to the point that I suspect he is slightly sorry for having convinced me.  Snap shirts do in fact provide good entertainment value.  Particularly in public.)  And hey, I have time on my hands!

After the jump, my quest for good men’s fashion… which turned out to be a little harder than I expected it to be.

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The regal Pomegranate Noir scent

Father’s Day is this weekend – hurrah!  It’s a time to celebrate dad and all he’s done for you (you know, helping bring you into the world, putting up with your preteen meltdowns, being there when you need him). Really, though, if you have a Dad like mine, you’re still buying gifts in the hopes of making up for those preteen meltdowns.  It’s a miracle I made it past the age of 14.

It should go without saying that I’m always on the hunt for great Father’s Day gifts, and I’ll be tracking my progress this week through a Father’s Day Gift Guide series.  Today: the scent gurus at Jo Malone.

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I am a dessert addict.  This, frankly, will not come as a surprise to anyone who knows me even slightly.  I have somehow become the kind of person who gets phone calls from her friends saying “We’re at 23rd and Lexington and need dessert — what’s near here?”  I have two favorite places for madeleines, a favorite for almond croissants, and do not even get me started on chocolates.  Like any serious dessert person, I make them at home a LOT.  Why?  Dude, I can’t be running out to Balthazar every time I have a dessert emergency.  I have things to do.  And no one in New York seems to make an adequate pecan pie.

My dessert addiction isn’t the problem.  I am at peace with my massive sweets consumption and the fact that I’m likely to crystallize into a giant sugar cube by the time I hit age 70.  Here’s the problem.  The new guy?  He’s allergic to milk proteins.

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Yes, that’s right, internet dating. Internet dating seems to be the way of the modern world, or at least it is here in New York.  I made one pass at it about four years ago when The Ex and I were on the outs, and while nothing much happened aside from my receiving an enormous stuffed penguin on a first date, I gave it another try following my receipt of independent verification that there is indeed life after The Ex.

Between my earlier and more recent experiences, I’ve now perused four different sites.  Boys, I have news for you.  Many of you badly need help with your profiles.  Here’s the big secret: even if you’re thinking ridiculous things about how you’ll only date redheads or women above 5’9” or women more than ten years younger than you are, you shouldn’t say so in your profile.  You would think this would go without saying, but in this age of letting everything hang out on the internet, plenty of people seem to have parted company with the concept of common sense.

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Any fans of Spike’s “Deadliest Warrior”  series out there?  For those who haven’t seen it, this is, shall we say, a show for guys.  It pits history’s best fighters from all eras against each other, with demonstrations and a final computer-based decision on who wins in the end. I saw the tail end of the “Viking vs. Samurai” episode, and, well, it was just about what you’d expect.  Big shock, the samurai with his better armor and arms won.  I have admittedly not watched much of this series, but I’d like to register an objection to a billboard advertisement I keep seeing for the “Spartan vs. Ninja” episode.  While I hesitate to be too picky (ha!), does anyone actually think that you could possibly put Spartans in a level comparison with ninjas?  Really?

Here’s my issue.  Sparta was Greece’s dominant military power as of approximately 600 BC.  Ninjas, on the other hand, were active in Japan somewhere around the 14th century AD.  For anyone who hasn’t noticed, that’s almost 2000 years. While I’m not an expert on military technology, I still feel pretty sure that there were significant advances in weaponry and armor over the course of those two millennia.  Sparta’s peak military days were following hard on the end of the Bronze Age.  The ninjas had gunpowder and cannons.  The Spartans may have been kick-ass warriors, but matching them against weaponry from the 14th century is ridiculous.

I’m thinking the next episode should be Taco with AK-49 and body armor vs. the Mongol hordes.  Want to guess who’ll win?

Military man shaving during WWII (no, this is not my father, whom I reference below)

Believe it or not, I’m pretty sure that my love of grooming and beauty comes not from my mother but from my father. Dad admittedly had a functional view of personal care, but he was also a military man – his day was filled with little rituals, a fact that certainly included his grooming habits.

I grew up watching his shaving routine (which included an old school brush, rather than a can of foam; when questioned by a young Lily as to why he used the brush, he actually dropped the word “exfoliation” into the explanation.  The man knows his ish), and knowing that his appointments at the barber were as regular as clockwork.  He had his go-to cologne and toothpaste, which he still uses.

Because of this upbringing (and my own fascination with/career in beauty), I find it very disconcerting when men don’t take pride in their appearance.  And, frankly, there’s very good reason for men to care enough to have their own stash of products – after all, male skin is different from that of their female friends.  Here are a few stats:

• Male skin is 20 percent thicker than women’s
• It’s richer in collagen and elastin, which means that it’s firmer and has fewer deep-set wrinkles and folds
• Men have more active sebaceous glands (meaning that they produce more sebum, oil and sweat), have larger pores and and a richer blood supply that translates to a ruddier complexion
• Shaving removes the top layer of skin, which means that facial products designed for use after shaving need to be very calming and soothing

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