Cupcakes + Mix Tapes

I'm about to embark on my first, solo extended road trip. I completed a very short trip a year and a half ago from Buffalo to Rochester, which totalled to be about 140 miles. Not a long journey. This weekend I'll be driving for a THOUSAND miles from Houston to Sarasota, Florida. For still being a newbie to highway driving, or driving in general, I'm slightly nervous. 

Alas, I live the life of the Nomad Musician. In the past 2 years, I've had to move about every three months. Being in Houston for the past 4.5 months has been the longest I've been in one place in this journey-filled 2 years. Life has taken me from Miami Beach-Chicago-Buffalo, NY-Miami Beach-Chicago-Houston and now Sarasota. Granted I don't pick up and move my entire life's belongings each time, it's still a hassle to pick up and leave so often. 

(I've already yelped cupcake for Sarasota and a cupcake hunt is looking very promising in my new city for the next nine weeks). 

As a farewell to Houston, I stopped by a cupcake bakery on my way home from permifying my hair (I know...bring it on 80s). I visited nmmm...Cupcakes and Bakery (not to be mistaken with the Houston-based Mmm Cupcake Truck. There was some confusion when I described them last night to friends. There were lots of nmmm and mmm sounds being repeated).

located at: 5209 Bellaire Blvd, Houston

The bakery is tucked inside a pretty ghetto looking strip mall. I felt a lil scared to enter it and almost got back into my car for fear that the cupcakes would be ghetto too. To my surprise, the inside of the bakery was how a cupcake bakery should look: cute and friendly and welcoming. I was prepared to see a large assortment of flavors available but only a few were offered. (The website has a HUGE listing of flavors but I'm guessing mostly for special orders). The only fun flavors that day were espresso and mocha. I thought espresso would keep me up all night so I decided to try the Mocha Cupcake. 

The cupcake didn't pass the wrapper-squish-test. The test tells me that if the cake bounces back as I squish the wrapper, then the cake will be moist. Well, the test is faulty and I was proven wrong. The cupcake wasn't dry as I assumed it was going to be but wasn't also super moist. I'm a lil puzzled by the cake texture. Moist but not moist? 

The frosting was the perfect complement to the cake. I loved that it had both chocolate and vanilla frosting, both crucial to the cupcake because when I tried bites with only one, it just wasn't the same. The cupcake was a lil small so I devoured it almost immediately (and I was kind of starving). It's $3.25 for each cupcake at nmmm...Cupcakes and Bakery. 

As for my road trip, how am I going to keep myself company for all that time? Well, I've made a mix tape playlist for my journey as I so often did for any big vacation/trip in my youth. 

When I received my first walkman tape player back in 1996, I became slightly obsessed with making mix tapes. I would wait all day in front of my boombox listening to the radio for the perfect song to record. I made a mix tape for every year I went to summer music camp from 1996-2001. (I still have a few sitting in my room back at my parents' house). 

To celebrate my old mix tapes and my first solo car trip, I decided to make a SUPER MIX TAPE of songs from 1996-2001. (ie. the Cranberries, Third Eye Blind, and 98 Degrees-from my teeny bopper phase).  

I've been working on this for the past week or so and have thoroughly been enjoying this blast from the past. It's way better than the 90s XM radio station. I also have like 20 hours of podcasts and a new bluetooth headset. I'm all set!

See you all on the other side of my trip.