Vanessa's Visit

It's been a productive week with Tiffanie around, and a great weekend with Vanessa around.

The bakery's website designer, Tiffanie, is currently in Vegas. The last time she was here was when Joni and Curt got married -- about 5 years ago. It's amazing how much more professional websites look now than even just 5 years ago. Max, Daniela and I all agreed that the website had to change and Tiffanie's visit is allowing that to happen. Tiffanie came to the Richmar location on Friday and we were able to work together and agree on a new design for the site. A lot of the content has to change as well, but that will be an ongoing process. Tiffanie leaves on Tuesday so the new site will go live at some point before then. If you want to take a look at what we're throwing away, go to the site before tomorrow evening.

Daniela and I are currently writing the press releases/RSS feeds. You might wonder what a bakery in Las Vegas could possibly put into a press release, but you'd be surprised. We're working on short write-ups about 7.7.07, Ludacris' 30th birthday party (for which the bakery made cakes), Nelly's Apple Bottoms clothing company (for which the bakery made cakes), and a slew of other cakes for celebrities. We made a cake for Chuck Norris but it was probably ordered and provided through his hotel. I doubt Chuck Norris was even aware we made it. Too bad though. He seems to be trendy right now and that would probably get people to visit the site. Oh yeah, and Joni once got trapped in Mike Tyson's refrigerator but we're not turning that into anything right now.

Vanessa is also out here visiting for the weekend. She had business in Phoenix and decided to visit us before heading back to Boston. Yesterday Daniela and V went to the bakery and picked up like 15 different desserts so we could all do a taste testing together. 24 hours later all the cake is gone. Vanessa and I ranked all 10 slices of cake and came up with identical lists. We agreed that the Napoleon and the white cake with Bavarian filling were the best of the bunch. Daniela's list was the complete opposite of our lists with the two slices of chocolate cake at the top. We didn't rank the eclair, Tiramisu, or Snickers Cheesecake very highly, but the Cheesecake grew on me at the end. The Cheesecake was really good and fluffy but not very Snickers-ish. Max said that all the fillings sink to the bottom during cooking and he's not that happy with it either. Oh well. On the whole, everything from Freed's is great and Vanessa agreed. Completely unbiased.

We were going to go to the buffet at the Bellagio or Wynn, but postponed it until V visits again in about 2 weeks. Instead V and Daniela headed out to Red Rock to go hiking (I stayed behind to read about the IMF and finish my essays for the Foreign Service exam registration). We'll cook together tonight (V likes to cook and her blog, here, is dedicated to her culinary adventures) and play Cranium again. We played two games last night but I think I ruined it for everyone with my crappy attitude. Daniela's brother Max and I lost the first game and there are certain things that I just don't handle well. Losing at board games is one of them. I promised V and D that I would do my best to play with a better attitude tonight. We'll see.