I’m trying to make money by not making money. Genius.

It’s only day 2 of Easter break and everyone’s already bored out of their skulls. Yesterday, Corrupted Brother was walking in circles in the kitchen, licking a Triscuit, and humming Fur Elise for a good five minutes. Yeah, it’s that bad.

I’m not taking a break this week because I’m a bit behind in school and I just need to finish. I’m so unmotivated to do school, so I’ve decided to plan things to look forward to this summer. Brilliant plan, no? I work well for incentives. Mainly Rolos. My siblings got a bunch of those for Easter and I’ve been living off of them. I’m pretending that they’re fruits and vegetables so I actually have a balanced diet. And starches. And meats. Hey, I have a weakness for candy. Don’t be a hater.

This summer is going to be insane, though. All I want to do is make money so I actually have money to spend on food in college. So far, I’m only volunteering. Logic at its finest. Earlier today, I filled out an application so I can volunteer at a local children’s hospital. I’m hoping to volunteer a few days a week this summer so that I can get a feel for the pediatric hospital environment, since that’s where I’m thinking of working after I graduate from nursing school. Anyway, it’s volunteer, so no payment there. I’m also hoping to volunteer in a lab where a friend of my grandpa’s works. I guess I’ll continue teaching piano, but that only pays so much. Basically I’m just going to have a humungous graduation party where you’ll all shower me with gifts and money because I’m broke.

I had a productive day applying for stuff that will make me absolutely no money. Know what else I did today? I looked at the return policy for a pair of running shoes I bought last week. They’re the barefoot trail shoes, which I was hoping would help me not be so incredibly sore when I run. But guess what? I opened the box yesterday to try on the shoes, AND MY DANG FEET ARE TOO WIDE. I think God sort of fell asleep at the wheel when he was designing me. He accidentally gave me bricks for feet. So I’m returning them. Speaking of running, I’m running a 5K on Saturday! And guess what! I totally hurt my knee yesterday! I’m pretty much an invalid right now. I feel like Crutchy from Newsies, minus the fact that I’m not a dude with a bad fake Brooklyn accent. That movie is so horrible, it’s good. I’m hoping whatever I did to my knee heals up before Saturday. I AM running/walking/limping the race. I dropped 40 bucks on this race, and last time I checked, I was still a poor, struggling student.

But you know what fixes all of life’s ills? Sour cream coffee cake. This stuff is the bomb… and I didn’t even get to eat it. We gave it to my mom’s friend who just had a baby. I absolutely hate giving away food I made. Not only do I not get to eat it, but I’m never sure if it’s cooked all the way through or it tastes good. First world chef problems for real, but I hate it. Anyway, here’s the coffee cake that I didn’t actually get to enjoy. It’s one of my favorite foods, so I’d strongly recommend making it. Or you can just go lick a Triscuit. That’s what all the cool kids do.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

Cake:

1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt

1 cup sour cream

Topping:

2/3 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. Beat the butter and granulated sugar together. Beat in two eggs, mixing thoroughly after each one. Add vanilla.

3. In a separate bowl (you gotta keep it separated…), combine the flour, baking powder and soda, and salt. Slowly add the flour mixture to the butter/sugar mixture, stirring until combined. Wallop in the sour cream. Is wallop a word? I know dollop is. I’m too lazy to look it up and there isn’t a red squiggly line under it, so it must be a word. Duh.

4. In yet another separate bowl, mix together the brown sugar and cinnamon. Um, that’s it.

5. Grease a bundt ban (well, it’s actually more of a pan used for angel food cake, but I’m not sure what to call it), and layer 1/2 of the batter in it. Sprinkle 2/3 of the topping (didn’t think you’d have a math lesson, huh?), then the rest of the batter, and the rest of the topping. Let’s review: batter, topping, batter, topping. Right then.

6. Bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes.

7. Yum.

I went to a bacon festival today. Need I say more?

I know what you’re thinking (especially you Katy). THERE’S A BACON FESTIVAL? Absolutely. Only in America do we have an entire shebang dedicated to that wonderful heart disease-inducing deliciousness. ‘Murica.

In my blogging absence, I have found myself another human being who is willing to room with me for at least my first year of college. This is Emily and she’s pretty cool. We met on the Facebook page for my college, and within less than a day of talking, we decided to room together. I was beyond happy at how easy everything worked out. As much as I would have liked to have just gotten a random roommate, knowing me, I would have gotten a total psycho and then had to find a way to ask her to leave. It wouldn’t be pretty. Luckily, she’s exactly like me and just as awkward. She kind of runs like a penguin.

We went to the bacon festival today and it was quite wonderful. Incredibly packed, but wonderful. There was a 100 pound log of bacon that was being cooked all day. I guess it was going to be served tonight and we weren’t willing to wait around for it because we had places to go and people to see. Also known as she had to go to her horrible minimum-wage job at the McDonald’s drive thru from 7 to midnight and I had to go dye Easter eggs with my family. The bacon log was 50 feet long and it was made up of various pork products wrapped in bacon. How does that not sound delicious?

(Side note: What you’re looking at above is downtown made out of bacon with a dead pig in front of it and a guy in the background with a classy mohawk and pony tail. Just wanted to clarify) On the way from the parking lot to the event, we were at a stop light waiting to cross when a woman comes up to me, gets in my face and exclaims “OH MY GOODNESS, I LOVE YOUR SHOES.” I was wearing a pair of Beatles Converses that my aunt got me. In her defense, they are one of my favorite pairs of shoes, but even I wasn’t as excited as she was when I first got them. I then had to explain to the woman that I got the shoes off of Etsy… and then I had to explain what Etsy was while we were crossing the street. Luckily I was able to shake her off, because she was seriously creeping me out and wouldn’t stop talking. While we were waiting in line for something bacon-related (the lines were so long we couldn’t see the booths and had no clue what we were in line to eat), I heard this older couple behind us. The woman said “Hey, she has the Beatles on her shoes. But I can only see two of the guys.” and then man went “I see that. I’m going to go around to see if the other two are on her other shoe.” Then he nonchalantly walked around, looked at my shoe, and nodded to her. Moral of the story is always wear Converses. No one checked out the Livestrong Nike shoes Emily’s friend Wyatt was wearing. After waiting in line for about 20 minutes, we finally were able to see the sign that said we were going to either buy bacon covered shrimp on a stick for $2 or deep fried crab and bacon with green chilies and grits for $5. Of course we opted for the crab. It was quite possibly the most delicious thing I’ve had in a while, and I eat my cooking all the time. I didn’t even know it was possible to top the biscuits I totally burned the other day.

Comic Con is also downtown this weekend so we got to see a few Comic Con people. Oh my word. Where do these people come from. I didn’t know the Joker enjoyed bacon. Stan Lee was there and apparently it cost $400 just to meet him. I – being the incredibly naive non-dork that I am – had no idea who this guy was. I asked my dad if he had ever heard of him and he basically grounded me for life for not knowing about the creator of the most amazing comics ever. Okay, he didn’t. But I know he was thinking it. Emily wanted to go to Comic Con with me, but tickets were $50 just to get in and we actually only wanted to go to meet Tom Felton. I have no idea how the bad guy from Harry Potter is in any way affiliated with comic books. I’m guessing he’s out of work. But when you really weigh it, five bucks spent on delicious bacon and crab definitely trumps at least fifty bucks just to gawk at a 20-something British guy who’s already balding. We chose the bacon, because it’s okay to gnaw on it, but we might get arrested for gnawing on Mr. Felton.

Emily is going to try to be a vegetarian in college and I offered to attempt to try with her, but after today, there’s absolutely no way I’ll make it. Speaking of college, we met up with a group of girls yesterday who are also going to the college we are. It was so awkward. We knew it would be, but we were just so different from every other girl there. When we were going around saying our favorite movies, almost everyone said super girly movies, and Emily goes “Pulp Fiction.” It got rrreeeaaallllyyy quiet and some girls were doing their best to be like heehee that’s… cool… She was really going for shock value with everything she said, and it definitely worked. As nice as the girls were, I doubt we’d actually be friends with any of them. They are cheerleaders, Emily plays the ukulele and, well, runs like a penguin. Sort of different.

Also, I really, really love bacon. Today was a good day.

Spoiler alert: I got into nursing school

Ok kids, it’s story time with Grandma Picco, which is awkward since I’m pretty sure I’m younger than a majority of you. No matter. Here’s a story of how yesterday was one of the best days of my life. I remember it like it was yesterday…

Things were going pretty dandily around here. I was home with Sister Celiac and Spiderbaby while my mom was out with the other 4 Italiana children at swimming lessons. I was taking a break from science because my cranium about exploded from writing about the Medulla oblongata. See what I did there? Anyway. I picked up my phone and started looking through my emails. My train of thought went a bit like this: “Hmmm, Pinterest, Pinterest, Pinterest, Mara… ooo… I haven’t read this post. Ugh, she has such amazing clothes. I’ll come back to that. More Pinterest. Maybe I should set it up so I don’t get emails from them every 30 seconds? Nah, it makes me feel popular. Uhhh, Pinterest. Nursing school from the college that I got accepted into. Wait. Nursing school from the college that I got accepted into? What does this say. Dear Picco… so many words… I GOT ACCEPTED.”

Yes, folks, I got accepted into nursing school. Can we please take a moment for a quick round of applause? It still hasn’t really sunk in yet. I never really doubted that I wouldn’t get in because, heh heh, I wrote killer essays for both the college and the nursing school, but I was still a bit nervous. I was so relieved yesterday, though. Remember how I reacted when I got into the college? Yeah, multiply that by about a bazillion. After I read the email about 5 times, I ran downstairs and almost totally wiped out because my happy dance was so spastic. Then, I read/shouted the email to Sister Celiac and shoved the phone in her face and made her read it. Her face was similar to that of a squirrel in the middle of the road that just sort of stands there until you get close, and then it runs back the way it came from. Squirrels are scary creatures.

Speaking of iPhones (we were talking about them, right?), I’ve been pushing for one lately since the battery of my current phone lasts barely longer than Kim Kardashian’s marriage. Basically it dies in 4 hours. I’ve also worked out a nice speech every time I bring up me wanting one. Today I presented it to my mom and said, “So, when I leave, I still want to blog and take pictures. If I get an iPhone, I can take great pictures and you won’t have to buy me a digital camera!” She was unfazed. The problem is that I also need a new laptop since the bottom of mine is currently being attached to the computer by pink Hello Kitty duct tape. Another problem is I’m a die hard Mac lover and need a MacBook. I’m such a loving, hard working daughter who would be eternally grateful if I got a new computer as a graduation present… Was that subtle enough?

And I shall end with a random story. I’m all about stories today, huh? I requested that we get sushi tonight as a celebratory yay-the-last-14-years-of-schooling-have-not-been-all-for-naught-since-you-got-into-college dinner. I was eating it and I don’t even remember what I was saying because I was focusing too much on how I haven’t had sushi in forever and really loved it, and apparently I just kept talking. At the end of my rambling, Sister Celiac turned to me and bluntly said, “Ergo, shut up.” I would have been annoyed, but how many other 13 year olds can use the word ergo correctly? I come from an awesome family.

I am absolutely exhausted right now from all the sushi and from reading my acceptance letter too many times (today I got a hard copy in the mail. YAY!). I think I’m going to go read over the list of dorms again even though I submitted the housing application less than an hour after I received it. Can you tell I’m excited? So here’s the recipe. Sorry I’m not typing it up…

Chicken Gyros from Annie’s Eats. I love that woman.

Also, these are 100% gluten free, minus the pita part obviously. Sister Celiac should stop making snarky comments if she wants me to ever make these for her again.

Pie and my brothers. Right there you can tell it’s going to be a great blog post.

I don’t like pie. I won’t restrain myself from eating an entire pie if it was placed in front of me, but I won’t go out of my way to make/eat one. Since we had a pie crust in the fridge that was best by Tuesday, I figured I had to make a pie. And make one I did.

I’m not sure about you, but I live in the Midwest. (Silently in your head) Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure we don’t grow any fruit here. Ok, I know we do, but we don’t have oranges like Florida or…uhhh… basically, I have no idea what I’m talking about here. The point of all of this is we had 2 bananas and 3 apples in our fruit basket and you can’t make a pie with those. Side note: I refuse to eat bananas because their edible shelf life is like 30 seconds. You get them and they’re like GREENGREENGREENGREENGREENyellowBROWNBROWNBROWN. They’re mean and therefore I boycott them. So I used canned peaches. I wrote an entire paragraph about I don’t even know what just to say that I used canned peaches to make a pie. And the best part is that I’m not going to rewrite it because I’m lazy.

This pie was hit and miss among my siblings. I ate two slices with Moose Tracks ice cream and it was quite delicious. There’s still half a pie left so I guess I’m going to have to eat that too. I know it would be much better with fresh peaches and not 3 cans of Costco peaches.

That’s really all I’ve got on the subject of pie. Because I have nothing else to say, here’s a story from the Italiana household.

My brothers were playing Monopoly earlier today and Future Chef Brother got a hotel. Evil Scientist Brother got really mad and said, “Fine. Now you have to go kiss a hobo.” Future Chef said, “But I don’t want to!” and Evil Scientist responded, “Oh, I see. You want to wait until AFTER you’re married to kiss him.”

There’s never a dull moment in this house. Also, I just hit 350 Pinterest followers. I love being loved by people I’ll never actually meet.

Peach pie

From I’mastinkingliar.com

1 8-inch pie plate

1 unbaked pie crust
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (Or not. Legumes don’t belong in pies, unless we’re talking about pecan pie, in which I approve.)
1/2 cup unbleached flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 white sugar plus 1 tsp. reserved
3 cans of sliced peaches in light syrup, drained
6 tsp. white sugar
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
2 tbsp. organic butter, chilled (I left in the organic part from the original recipe because it made me laugh. We’re a family of 9. There’s no way we’re spending the extra money to buy organic butter.)

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. Combine the chopped walnuts, brown and white sugars, and flour in a small bowl. Set aside for the topping.

3. Place the pie crust into your pie pan and crimp the edges as beautifully as I crimped mine. Oof. Sprinkle the bottom of the crust with 1 tsp. of reserved white sugar.

4. Pour the canned peaches into a colander, rinse with fresh water, drain and gently pat dry.

5. Combine the peaches, cinnamon, nutmeg and 6 tsp. of sugar in a medium-sized bowl. Mix gently with your hands or a wooden spoon to blend. I recommend a spoon because that just sounds nasty.

6. Put half of the sliced peaches into the pie crust. Sprinkle half of the walnut (I can’t be friends with you if you added walnuts), flour and sugar topping over the peaches and top with the remaining fruit.

7. Sprinkle the second half of the topping over the peaches and dot with pea-sized crumbles of the organic butter. Stir to combine because I had flour on top of mine that didn’t soak in while it was baking. Mmm, nothing like the taste of dry flour with your canned peaches.

8. Bake the pie on the middle rack of the oven for 15 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 325 Fahrenheit and bake for an additional 25 minutes.

9. Om nom nom.

Don’t grow up, kids. It’s a trap.

You know what’s horrible about growing up? It’s no longer socially acceptable to build forts or jump on the living room furniture to avoid landing on the carpet which is unfortunately made of lava. Well, I guess I still could, but people would think there’s something wrong with me. And I’d also probably break the couch and a limb.

A few days ago I went to the City Museum. For those of you who don’t live in St. Louis and are looking for something to do when you visit (you know you want to), I strongly recommend going to the City Museum. If you’re over the age of 12 you can only go once. Every time after that it just gets boring and depressing. I remember being so scared of it when I was little. There is one dark part called the caves that I was so terrified of, but when I went through them the other day the only thing I was terrified of was throwing up because the whole thing smelled rank. It was really disappointing. My favorite part was the ten story slide, but I had to climb up ten flights of stairs just to get to it, and it wasn’t worth it.

Last night I went to go see Monsters, Inc. with my friend. We were going to go by ourselves until we realized that two 17 year old girls going to see a movie that came out when we were 7 really is a bit lame, so we took Sister Celiac along. Because bringing along a 13 year old definitely makes things better? There were only four other people there, and we were the only ones between the ages of 6 and 30. We all had a lot of fun and I always forget how sad I get at the end of the movie…

As if I couldn’t get any older, I opened a checking account yesterday. I had a moment of panic because I was afraid that the woman who helped me with it would have me practice writing a check. All of the sudden I couldn’t remember how to spell forty. I couldn’t remember if there was a u in it or not and I was like OH NO. I’M GOING TO LOOK LIKE A MORON IF SHE ASKS ME TO WRITE A CHECK FOR $40. Luckily she didn’t. I also ordered checks, and no one supported my decision to buy ones with Batman on them. I basically got bullied into getting my second choice which was polka dots. No one appreciates my love of Batman. But the good news is, heh heh, I underestimated the amount of moolah I had in my Ireland Fund. Unfortunately, I think the Ireland Fund is going to turn into the Ramon Noodles Fund. I’ve been thinking about whether or not I want to continue blogging in college, and at first I wasn’t going to since I wouldn’t be able to really cook. But then I looked at my follower count and I’m like hey, I have over 120 followers here that I wouldn’t want to let down. So I’m going to attempt to cook in college… I’m going to spend all of my money on stupid food just to make you guys happy. That’s how much I love you.

Also, I have two cups of caramel sauce left over. You’re welcome to come over and eat it straight out of the jar with me.

Gluten Free Flourless Chocolate Cake

From AllRecipies

1 cup butter, cubed (I accidentally only used one stick and it tastes fine)
8 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped (I just used regular chocolate chips because I’m not that fancy)
1 1/4 cups white sugar
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
6 eggs

1 1/2 cups white sugar
1/4 cup water
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Butter the bottom of a 10 inch springform pan, and line with parchment paper. I recently figured out that if you trace the bottom of the pan and then cut it out, you’ll get a nice even circle that fits in the bottom of it. Yeah.

2. Melt the butter in a large saucepan over low heat. Stir in chocolate, and continue to stir until almost melted. Remove from heat, and stir until melted and smooth. I’m not sure why you have to remove it from the heat before it’s completely melted, but whatever. In a large bowl, stir together 1 1/4 cups sugar and the cocoa powder. Whisk in the eggs until well blended, then whisk in the chocolate and butter. I love being able to whip out my whisk. It’s pretty much my favorite cooking utensil, in case you cared. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

3. Bake for about 45 minutes in the preheated oven. The cake is ready when the edges have nicely puffed and the surface is firm except for a small spot in the center that will jiggle when the pan is gently shaken. Cool cake in the pan over a wire rack. Run a knife around the sides of the pan to loosen the cake, then remove the sides of the pan, and invert onto a serving plate. Remove the parchment paper.

4. In a heavy saucepan, stir together 1 1/2 cups of sugar, water, and lemon juice. Bring to a boil over medium heat, and cook without stirring until the syrup is a deep amber color. For an accurate color check, dip a metal spoon into the syrup and lift it out of the pan to check the color. Once the syrup is amber, remove from the heat. Gradually stir in the cream. The mixture will bubble vigorously and freak you out. At least that’s what happened to me. If lumps form, stir gently over low heat to dissolve them. Stir in 2 tablespoons of butter.

5. Cut the cake into wedges while warm, and serve with caramel sauce spooned over it. You can also chill the cake and sauce, then warm again before serving.

5. Mentally thank me for giving you this wonderful recipe.