Some MEAN baking

MEAN as in the Mean Eyed Cat Bar. The bartenders have t shirts that just say MEAN on the back and I saw a bumper sticker that said the same thing. Perhaps these have been around town all along and I just haven't noticed them before? The bar on 5th street near Mopac has certainly been here as long as I can remember, but last night was the first night either of us ever went in. Mike and I had had dinner at El Aroyo aka "The Ditch" with Meg and her friend Abi and the girls had time to kill before meeting up with their friends so we wandered across the street to the Mean Eyed Cat Bar. It is full of Johnny Cash memorabilia. There is a chainsaw above the bar itself and if you go out to the website and click on an icon you can hear a chainsaw buzzing. There must be a story behind this bar! But I don't have time to read up on it right now. Save it for another time.

Today, Saturday, has been a very busy day. I spent a lot of time on the phone, running to goodwill & the St Michael's Thrift Shoppe and baking. My house in disarray with Steffi trying to get her room "excavated" and packed up and all of the Christmas containers are back out in the living room so everything that was just brought out a month ago can go back in and away for the next 11 months.

Did I mention that I am one of the private label brand taste testers at work? Well I am and it is usually an easy task requiring only about 5 minutes about once a month to taste something and fill out a questionnaire. Before Christmas I volunteered to take home about a half dozen boxes of organic cookie and cake mix to bake, taste and evaluate before January 7th. Steffi and Brandy made some cornbread and brownies the other day and today I realized that I have to bake the other 4 boxes of things today and tomorrow because I leave on a trip on Monday. Hence the baking frenzy going on in the house today. Each mix requires approximately 1 organic egg and a pound of organic butter. So far the flavor has been pretty good in each one I've tasted, but with a stick of butter spread between 12 cookies, how could it not taste good!? None of the mixes make a large quantity, so that is good considering how many baked items I have on my counter at the moment.