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Easy Nutella Star Bread

I have seen this bread through Facebook. It looked so easy to make so I tried it. All you need are puff pastry sheets, nutella, and a egg white.

This is my bread before I popped it in the oven.

After.

It looks so beautiful. I hated tearing off the petals but DAMN WAS IT GOOD!

I did not do a tutorial because this is the video that I watched. It is so easy. It took me like 10 minutes to assemble the whole thing. You will have to roll out your puff pastry sheets though in order for a standard sized dinner plate to fit over them to cut. I also left my bread baking for 5-8 minutes longer.

Ghoulish Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins.

I had a craving for lemon poppy seed muffins. I have a huge container of poppy seeds so I wanted to use them. I was able to find my neon food coloring in my garage a couple weeks back. I was so excited. I swear by this stuff. I wanted to create a fun ghoulish looking muffin. I was not sure my idea would turn out how I wanted but it did!!! My muffins kick ass!!! I love how the outline on the green is hot pink from bleeding into it.

#muffinsarenotugly

How I did it. Simple. The poppy seeds add a nice touch to this ghoulish treat, no?

Ingredients

1/2 cup sweet creamy butter, softened

2/3 cup sugar

2 large eggs, separated

1 1/3 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

2 tablespoons poppy seeds (I put in more)

2 lemons, zest of, grated

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup buttermilk or 1/2 cup plain yogurt (I used vanilla yogurt)

2 tablespoons lemon juice (I put in a one TBS lemon juice and 1 TSP lemon extract)

1 teaspoon vanilla (Since I used vanilla yogurt I did not add vanilla)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°F Coat muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until fluffy.

Add the egg yolks, one at a time.

Beat well after each.

In a separate bowl, stir together the dry ingredients, poppy seeds, and lemon zest.

With the mixer on low speed, add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture, alternating two times with the buttermilk, then lemon juice, and then vanilla.

Beat just until smooth.

In another bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.

Gently fold them into the muffin batter until blended.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan, 3/4-full.

Bake at 350°F for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Before I put my batter in the pan I separated it in two bowls. I colored the majority purple and maybe 1/3 cup of it green. I used neon dye for the vibrant color. I put the purple batter in the cupcake liners. I barely filled them to the top. I put the green batter in a sandwich bag since I was out of piping bags. I cut the tip off so I could squeeze a swirl on top of each muffin. Since these were made in a cupcake pan and not a large muffin pan I only baked them 20 mins. They were so moist. Yum.

ALSO! I only beat my egg whites until they were all foamy and still liquidy. I did not want them to be thick like whip cream folding them into the batter. The batter is really thick. I wanted my batter to be moist enough to be workable while piping. Before the egg white the batter was too thick to pipe as thin as I needed to pipe though the tiny hole I cut on the bag. Don't worry it does not effect the taste or fluffiness of this muffin. They turned out delicious! Just make sure not to over bake! 20 minutes exactly and mine came out oh so good!

Joan Crawford. Biggest Bitch In Hollywood.

First off I LOVE Joan. As a actress! Recently I just bought a DVD collection of hers. It has several movies including a documentary. She has been in over 80 movies. I haven't seen nearly half of them. Finding many are super hard too. Her first film was Lady of the Night back in 1925.

Possessed remains my favorite because it was the first movie I saw from her back when I was like 12. It was a great film and me so young at the time appreciated it for what it was. It was great. I loved black and white movies and I loved all those old classic shows too like I Love Lucy, The Munsters, The Addams Family, Bewitched, Lassie, Flipper, The Twilight Zone, Boris Karloffs Thriller, Alfred Hitchcock, etc.

Anyway. Possessed is a psychological film noir movie about a dazed woman who walks the streets of Los Angeles looking for a man named David. After collapsing in a diner, she's taken to the psychiatric ward of a nearby hospital. Flashbacks reveal her obsession for David as a result of borderline personality disorder which ultimately leads to murder..

Here is a picture of my two favorite actresses Lucille Ball and Joan Crawford. It's a rare photograph and the only photographic evidence I have seen of them together when Joan was on her show.

This was the episode called, Lucy and the Lost Star (1968) from The Lucy Show.

Lucy and Vivian's (who's visiting Lucy) car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. They walk to a house down the road to see if they can call an auto club and the house is owned by none other than Joan Crawford, the movie star. All her furniture has been sent out for cleaning, so Lucy and Viv think she's broke and try to raise money for the star.

Lucy was wary of having Joan Crawford as a guest. She had heard rumors about Crawford's toughness and ego and hard drinking. Probably the same things Crawford had heard about Lucy. Joan Crawford even admitted she was nowhere near the bitch Lucille Ball was. And yet, she's a very likeable character. Incredibly talented, but insecure. Driven, strong, unbelievably successful, but could cry at the drop of a hat. It's called "Ball of Fire".

During rehearsals of The Lucy Show, Lucy caught Joan drinking vodka out of her purse. Crawford started showing up late and/or totally missing rehearsals. When she did show up, she became panic stricken and had to be coaxed into going on. The worst moment was when Lucy found a woman scrubbing the floor of Joan's dressing room and at first didn't even realize it was nutty Joan herself! Joan was mad at the dirt and Lucy was mad at her. she fired her after the first rehearsal. This is what Lucy said...

"She was drunk. She showed up at ten o'clock in the morning for the first read-through, and she was bombed. She was drinking straight vodka from this silver flask, and she was drinking it in front of the kids.

She was saying all the words, but it was like she was a robot. About lunchtime, Joan passed out cold, and that did it. As soon as she woke up, I fired her."

Herb Kenwith, the shows director and an old friend of Crawford's, begged Lucy to give her another chance. Crawford, after her revival, said the heat had gotten to her. Lucy gave her another chance and Crawford did finish the show. Lucy admitted it was one of the worst.

Watching that episode made me a little uncomfortable. And when they made her character not a drinker, It made me laugh when she said she only drank milk. Then when Lucy and Viv told her that Gin meant Ginger ale she ordered 2 shots and downed those babies. Joan was probably one of Hollywoods BIGGEST lushes. This bish drank a quart of vodka every day. Always showing up to gigs drunk. No wonder she was psycho in real life.

If you have seen the movie Mommie Dearest or read the book then you know. It was about Joan and her relationship with one of her adopted daughters, Christina. Christina depicted her mother as a sadistic control freak who inflicted the harshest punishments for the slightest infringement of rules by her two oldest children. Joan is best known for the, "No Wire Hangers" scene where she beats her daughter with the wire hanger.

There was debate weather or not she beat her daughter with the hanger. I read Christina Crawfords book. A lot of stuff wasn't in the movie. It was hard to believe what was in that book. Joan never wanted to read it and claimed she did not. She said Christina used her name to make money off of. Money she did make because it made the best seller list and stayed there for three months.

Her daughter later came out and said that the wire hanger beating never happened. People assume she lied about her mother being that much of a monster and the real purpose of the book was because Joan left her out of the will. Not sure what else was false. I know a lot of it was true. Joan was a horrible person in real life. She showed it to the public on a daily. I love her as a actress. LOVE her as a actress. As a person I do not care for her one bit. She was horrible. Which made her psycho overly dramatic rolls she played come natural. So I guess there was a plus in that. Well except if you were one of her kids or worked with her.

She plays crazy like no other. Since she was a bitch she was cast for certain rolls. Anyone that crossed paths with her admitted that she wasn't a very pleasant person. She thought she was better than everyone else. She took stardom to her head WAY too much. It's like she was living in a movie every single day. She never was herself. She was always Joan Crawford instead of Lucille Fay LeSueur. Which is her real name.

Below I put together a bunch of the BITCHIEST quotes from her. I am sure it was the alcohol talking. I wonder if she gave up the booze if she would have been more delightful. I have seen her in some interviews when she got older and she seemed so sweet. A sweet little old lady. She talked so soft. Again though she was probably drunk too but calmed down a lot when she got older. Her voice when she's yelling makes my hair stand on end. Bish is scary. Alcohol ruined her. She died from a heart attack. Probably from the bitterness that consumed her. She died alone too. Which is incredibly sad but she had it coming I have to admit.

This is what she said about her movie, Queen Bee. HOW IRONIC!!!!

“I had a chance to play the total bitch, a worse bitch than I had played in “The Women” and for a solid ninety minutes, too. I ended up hating myself, honestly feeling that in my death scene I was getting precisely what I deserved.” -Joan

“I hate being asked to discuss those dreadful horror pictures I made the mistake of starring in. They were all just so disappointing to me, I really had high expectations for some of them. I thought that William Castle and I did our best on Strait-Jacket but the script was ludicrous and unbelievable and that destroyed that picture. I even thought that Berserk would be good but that was one of the worst of the lot. The other one William Castle and I did [I Saw What You Did] was the most wretched of them all and I just wasn’t good at playing an over-the-hill nymphomaniac. Ha! Then came Trog. Now you can understand why I retired from making motion pictures.” -Joan

“Send me flowers while I’m alive. They won’t do me a damn bit of good after I’m dead.” -Joan

This quote was when she was labeled box office poison by the Independent Theatre Owners Association of America...

“Box-office poison? Mr. Louis B. Mayer always asserted that the studio had built Stage 22, Stage 24, and the Irving Thalberg Building, brick by brick, from the income on my pictures.” -Joan

This is what she said about Marilyn Monroe...

“It was the most shocking display of bad taste I have ever seen. Look, there’s nothing wrong with my tits, but I don’t go around throwing them in people’s faces.” -Joan

This is my FAVORITE line of hers ever...

This is what she said about her adopted son Christopher...

"I remember most clearly when a teenage Christopher spat in my face. He said, “I hate you”. It’s pretty hard to overlook that. I couldn’t." -Joan

“I absolutely will not allow anyone to call me grandmother. They can call me Auntie Joan, Dee-Dee, Cho-Cho, anything but grandmother. It pushes a woman almost to the grave.” -Joan

LOL look who's talking.

This is what she said about the attention Norma Shearer got on the red carpet at MGM. Shearers husband was production head of MGM...

"What do you expect? She sleeps with the boss." -Joan

This is what she said about her rival Bette Davis...

“She has a cult, and what the hell is a cult except a gang of rebels without a cause. I have fans. There’s a big difference.”

“I’d like to think every director I’ve worked with has fallen in love with me, I know Dorothy Arzner did.” -Joan

“I love playing bitches. There’s a lot of bitch in every woman. A lot in every man.” -Joan

Below is Faye Dunaway playing the role of Joan Crawford in, Mommie Dearest.

“Don't fuck with me, fellas. This cowgirl has been to the rodeo before.” is a quote by Joan Crawford.

She sure made a damn good Joan and also had that angry voice of Joans that gave you the chills.

This is what she said about Bette Davis in the movie, The Star...

“Of course I had heard she was supposed to be playing me, but I didn’t believe it. Did you see the picture? It couldn’t possibly be me. Bette looked so old, and so dreadfully overweight.” -Joan

Ding dong the witch is dead!

Seriously. This is how Joan looks on the inside....

This is what she said about Greta Garbo...

"She’s let herself go all to hell. She walks along the sidewalk and runs across the street through the cars when somebody notices her, like an animal, a furtive rodent. It’s a wonder anybody notices her she looks like a bag lady. I heard that she’s simply stopped bathing." -Joan

"I'm just too much." -Joan

“I never go outside unless I look like Joan Crawford the movie star. If you want to see the girl next door, go next door.” -Joan

This is what she said about Liz Taylor...

“She is a spoiled, indulgent girl, a blemish on public decency.” -Joan

“Nobody can imitate me. You can always see impersonations of Katharine Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe. But not me. Because I’ve always drawn on myself only.” -Joan

This is what she said to her housekeeper when she prayed out loud for her while on her deathbed...

“Damn it. Don’t you dare ask God to help me.” -Joan

You said it Joan <3

“Women’s lib? Poor little things. They always look so unhappy. Have you noticed how bitter their faces are?” -Joan

“Over the years I’ve heard and read so many stories about the way Judy Garland was so badly treated at Metro she ended up a mess. I did not know her well, but after watching her in action a few times I didn’t want to know her well. I think her problems were caused by the fact that she was a spoiled, indulgent, selfish brat plus a stage mother who had to be something of a monster, and a few husbands whose egos absolutely dominated hers. There were times when I felt sorry for Judy, but there were more times when I thought, ‘For Christ’s sake, get off your ass!’ …but when she put her mind to it, she was good. And I mean damned good. Even in her silly pictures she came off.” -Joan

Joan. You are a arrogant, egotistical, judgemental, bitch.

In closing. Don't ever make me go Joan on that ass. It isn't pretty.

But goddamn was she a FANTASTIC actress!!!

How Lucille Ball made Star Trek Happen

I Love Lucy is the most influential sitcom in television history. No show can come close to I Love Lucy. Lucy and Desi shaped the future of television. She had one the most legendary and popular situation comedies of all time. She will always be a television icon.

"When the creators of such hits as "Friends," "Seinfeld" and "ER" cash their checks, they should take a moment to pay homage to Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. Two of the savviest and most innovative entrepreneurs ever to grace the star studded streets. In addition to laying the groundwork for the multi billion dollar television industry, they introduced many of the production techniques that would become standard television practice and almost single handedly made Hollywood the television capital of the world."

Every fan of the original Star Trek knows that the show was made by Desilu. The big production logo is a familiar part of the end credits of the show, displayed over the head of the alien (puppet) Balok. I remember when I used to watch a bit of Star Trek with my father when I was a kid. When I saw the Desilu logo I was like, "OMGOSH I LOVE LUCY!"

What few fans know is that Lucille Ball herself, half of the Desilu team, pulled the trigger on making Star Trek happen. Desilu is a mash up of the names of Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, the husband and wife comedy team. It was only when I was older that I learned of their production company and how it came to be. It started mainly because Lucille did not want to move to New York to film the I Love Lucy show. She wanted to stay in Hollywood.

Desi, her husband came up with film tricks that would work and not cost the production team a lot. They took pay cuts and took ownership of the production company. When RKO Pictures went bankrupt in 1957, Desilu bought its studios and location facilities. They produced a number of shows, including The Andy Griffith Show, and also lent their facilities for various other projects, such as My Favorite Martian, I, Spy, My Three Sons, The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Untouchables.

They formed the production company when they were trying to sell their radio show, My Favorite Husband to TV. It eventually became I Love Lucy, one of the all-time greatest shows in the history of the medium, and the source of the money that would later allow Desilu to make Star Trek. Lucy was also behind mission impossible. "I Love Lucy" debuted in October 1951 and quickly became one of the top-rated shows on television. The show made production in Hollywood so acceptable that by 1961 virtually every major prime-time television show was filmed on the West Coast.

Arnaz and Ball were firmly enshrined in the Television Hall of Fame, not merely for their talent as comedians, but for their groundbreaking contributions to the art and business of television production.Fantastic Firsts. In 1962, Ball bought out Arnaz and became the first woman ever to run a major Hollywood studio. I Love Lucy is often regarded as one of the greatest and most influential sitcoms in history. In 2012, it was voted the 'Best TV Show of All Time' in a survey conducted by ABC News and People Magazine.

Fun Facts:

Desilu Productions purchased the equipment used to film "I Love Lucy" with money from CBS but structured the deal so Desilu owned the equipment and "rented" it back to the studio for each episode. This ingenious arrangement, first introduced by Desi Arnaz, would later become a standard practice in the television industry.

Arnaz was the first television producer to film with three cameras instead of one, so he could shoot angles and close-ups simultaneously. In front of a live audience. Sitcoms are still shot this way to this day.

The show broke social and racial barriers. Love Lucy was the first television series to show an interracial couple (Ball and husband Desi Arnaz). It also was the first to feature a pregnant woman playing a pregnant woman, but could not use the word "pregnant" on telecasts, according to the Lucy Desi Center.

The Many Faces Of My Sobriety

***Update. This post is almost 3 years old. I have been sober since! Yaaaas!!!!

It has been almost 2 months of me being sober. That is the longest I have ever gone without a drink since it became a problem. The problem was the company I was keeping. I know from here on out I will never be with a man who drinks with no self control. It is not attractive. Nobody needs alcohol to have a good time. I always drank to be social but later it was to get over stress and then boredom. Then it was to celebrate anything I could. Any excuse. It got way out of hand.

I have not been so positive and content with myself in years. No more clouded judgement. No more self destructing. No more excuses. I am back to the Nikoal I missed so much. At first when I stopped drinking I picked up smoking a hell of a lot more. Now I rarely smoke. Maybe 3 cigarettes a week if that. I am getting stronger every day. I owe most of it to working out. It gave me a healthy mind and body. Go me! I actually love myself for the first time in my life. I also have more self confidence than I ever had before. I don't need a man or alcohol to be happy. I seem to be at my happiest without either of the two.