Support Bookstores!

I found this sad picture online of a closed Borders store. I work as a Head Cashier at Barnes & Noble and the news I heard last night saddened me. Borders stores are going out of business. Most would think it's a good thing, because my store will get more business, but that's not where my head is. I am truly feeling for the fellow 11,000 booksellers who are out of jobs! It scares me, because I could lose mine as well. You just never know.

Retail workers know that their jobs depend on sales and customers. As much as we complain about customers, we really thrive on their business. We should really strive to help them and as part of the B&N handbook, put the book in the customer's hand. But now the problem is getting the customers in the stores. With the invention of e-readers like Nook, Kindle, Sony E-reader, and a few others, many customers thought fewer people were going to buying books. Though companies like Barnes & Noble and Amazon make money on the ebooks sales. We've been pretty busy recently because parents are buying their children their summer reading books!

The week the first edition Nook was released in October of 2009, I had a customer come up and tell me that we were going to go out of business, because of the Nook. He said that no one would buy books anymore. I still sell books today, I still thankfully have a full time job, and we still sell Nooks! Oh and since then 2 more editions of the Nook have been invented. Anyone ever hear of the Nook Color or the All-New touch screen Nook?

I posted a comment on Facebook this morning about the poor booksellers who are out of work at Borders, and a friend of mine commented "People love bookstores. Where else can you read books for free AND drink lots of coffee." It's very true, Books and Starbucks, how much better can it get? I recently found out that Borders serves Seattle's Best Coffee in their cafe, which is owned by Starbucks.

If you have a local bookstore, whether it be Barnes & Noble, Books A Million, Borders, or a Used bookstore, please support it. Buy an e-reader, buy books, and buy a latte or a frappuccino. Smile at the booksellers, ask for our help, and we'll gladly help you! And we'll smile back too. That way we are all happy, customers get their books and we keep our jobs!

All in All Support Bookstores!!!

Love,
Erin

Fresh Pesto!

Here's a picture of one of my (our) basil plants in my (our) garden. I've been meaning to take a few leaves off to make pesto. The other day I was inspired by weeding and I wanted to treat John to a home cooked meal. So here's my makeshift recipe FOR PESTO with pictures. I didn't measure anything I just put in what I wanted of each ingredient.

I took about 20 leaves off the plant and took them home and rinsed them. I don't have a food processor, but I have a food chopper. I bought fresh garlic and chopped a few cloves really finely and chopped a few tomatoes.

I added the basil to the chopper with the garlic and then my apartment smelled like an italian restaurant. The garlic was pretty intense. I added a little bit of shredded parmesan cheese and the tomatoes masked the intense taste of the garlic.
I boiled pasta and grilled a hand full of asparagus, enough for John and I to have a serving. Oh, and to scare even more vampires away I made garlic bread! And Voila!!

Pesto pasta with asparagus and Garlic bread!

So much for my Jillian Michael's and Diet!
Stay tuned to a birthday cake fiasco that turned pretty good! :)

Erin

Trials and Tribulations of Baking my first Cake!

Happy Belated Birthday Kate!! I know it may sound stupid, but I truly haven't baked a cake on my own. My mom baked cakes, and if you know my sister Kate she is a Pastry Chef and she bakes cakes every few days. So, when my mom asked about Kate's birthday cake, I offered to make it. I took a bookmarked recipe from Kate's computer, thinking that it was her chocolate cake recipe with coffee in it. It's amazing!

I closed a lot last week, but I knew I had to buy ingredients and I would stay up to bake. Poor John had to sleep through the mixer, banging pans, and me cleaning up until 5AM!! John and I made a late night run to Wal-Mart to get all of the ingredients. Butter, chocolate chips, milk, creamer, sugar and the list seemed endless...

There are a few things I would like to point out if you are baking a cake that I found out!

1. ALWAYS FLOUR YOUR PAN!!!! I used the Pam cooking grease for the pan and EVERY SINGLE CAKE STUCK!!! I had cake crumbs all over the table and kitchen! Thank goodness two cakes were decent enough to make a cake with.

2. Don't bake at 5am!! Your family members probably don't appreciate you making noise and I was so exhausted and gave up at 4. Bake earlier and sooner!

3. When in doubt... make homemade... CHOCOLATE GANACHE ICING!! You will want to lick the bowl clean! Just ask Kate! When she is baking I try to stay away from it, but I always stick my finger in the icing.

4. Make sure you know how much batter you are making! Kate reread the recipe I made... and I made enough batter to make an ENTIRE wedding cake!!! Oops! Well I had extra for all the cakes that fell apart!!

All and all the cake turned out great and Even though it didn't look amazing! I tried my best. And I'll leave the baking to Kate next time!