The original: "Obama Girl"


The "reply": "Obama Girl vs. Giulliani Girl" and really - a much more danceable tune....


We're finally gettin' somewhere here! : )

Congrats to RockStar Mommy, winner of the 2007 Flag Cake Smackdown People's Choice Award!!

Thanks to everyone who voted!

Now that the official judges have declared their favorite Flag Cake, kind of like the Academy Awards of Flag Cake, we thought it would only be fair to let everyone vote for their favorite - welcome to the 2007 People's Choice Flag Cake Smackdown Award!!

Voting is an American tradition, right?? And what's more patriotic than voting for your favorite flag cake?

Voting is anonymous - you can only vote once/computer - please review the entries below - you will be voting for a NAME from the ballot, not a picture!

Click Here to take survey (and by survey, we just mean VOTE!)

The People's Choice Award voting will not be up for long - so get goin'!

***UPDATE: You have til Monday 2pm EST to vote!***

The 2nd Annual ChickChat Radio 2007 Flag Cake Smackdown WINNER:




And its a MAN. a DUDE. a GUY! It's tesco!

Here "he" is!



Does that look like a baking contest winner? I think he's breaking a few stereotypes!!

tesco will be joining us tomorrow at 3pm for his "Acceptance Speech

Thanks to ALL the AMAZING entries. You didn't even hear every one of the nice things the judges said about all the entries. We were ALL SO IMPRESSED.

Thanks to Judges Rori Trovato, and Celia Barbour.

And will RockStarMommy be the Susan Lucci of ChickChat Radio's Flag Cake Contest???

Here are the TOP FLAG CAKE ENTRIES:

tesco:

Two layers of Velvet Red cake, one Classic White with blueberry filling and buttercream icing between, all rolled fondant icing pieced together -one by one and an edible print of the Declaration. I made a pattern for the stars out of sheet metal and cut them out of fondant as well.


snickrsnack:



Amber:

What? The American flag isn't pink-ish, white and bright blue?!
That's Ghirardelli white chocolate chips, ladies. Nothing but the best. And the cupcakes next to it are courtesy of my hubby. He says they are fireworks.


Carrisa:

Do you all need to know what ingredients I used? If so I'll say it's a red velvet cake with a frosting I made myself out of Cool Whip, Cream Cheese, Vanilla, and Powdered Sugar.
I used cherries from a can of cherry pie filling and washed them off so they wouldn't be messy. And then mini marshmallows. I used fondant to make the blue patch and the stars.
My coworkers absolutely loved it.



RockStarMommy:



Marisue:

As I hate Jello, my second thought was to "decorate" the inside of the cake as well.
I dyed white cake mix red or blue and only used five tubs of white frosting.
It tasted fairly normal and each piece had about a gazillion grams of sugar.
Although it looks like I had a 7 years old helping me, I did it all :>


The winner? Listen today to ChickChat Radio to find out!! : )

Now that you've perfected the art of baking, how are your mad toilet paper skillz??

The 2007 Annual Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest is officially underway. I love this contest! The ladies at cheap-chic-weddings.com rock for coming up with the idea. Here are some past winners:

2005: Rebekah even had working buttons up the back:



2006: Stephanie:



2006: Hannah was runner up but HELLO? See that detail? I had to show you!



For more info on the 2007 Contest (which ends July 31, get your entry in!) - click here!

The entries have been submitted to our esteemed judges: iVillages Food Expert Rori Trovato and Oprah Magazine Food Editor, Celia Barbour.

Wednesday is JUDGEMENT DAY. We will chat with both Rori and Celia on Wednesday to see what they thought!

In the meantime - we are not in the contest -- but we "felt your pain" (well, some of it anyway - NONE of it fondant induced...)

LARA'S WORK!!

FlagFireworks was a meringue torte with whipped cream frosting. The shards of the crust combined with red and blue berries to represent the explosion of fireworks on the Fourth of July. It’s the first time I got to use my brand new mixmaster. And, my fiancé did something to the colors to make them look so dramatic!



FlagCake2007 was a traditional flag cake, from Betty Crocker pound cake, strawberry jell-o, and cool whip topping. It was made and decorated entirely by my 10-year-old soon-to-be stepdaughter.



HEIDI'S WORK:

Just carbon copy of last year.....old skooooool




Thanks to all the 'entrants' -- we'll be displaying their work all in one place here - VERY soon

Something like 70,000 couples are getting married tomorrow. Why? It's a lucky day, it's the only chance they have at remembering their anniversary, they love Tony Parker and Eva Longoria...I could go on. My wedding is less than three months away, and I'm constantly looking for ideas to make it a fun day for my guests. Couples are taking their first dance pretty seriously these days, and my fiance and I are no exception! I do think that some people take things a bit too far - like that couple that did the "Thriller" dance for their guests. That's just weird.

Would you do this at your wedding???

If you are bringing your best game to enter the RUDE, the CRUDE, the WILD and the UNBRIDLED 2nd Annual Flag Cake SMACKDOWN -
Boy have we got a TREAT for you.

Introducing your 2007 Flag Cake SMACKDOWN Judges:

Last year's fabulous iVillage Food Expert RORI TROVATO

And new this year OPRAH Magazine's Contributing Food Editor: CELIA BARBOUR


Last year's fabulous iVillage Food Expert RORI TROVATO:

Rori was kind enough to jump on in and judge the FIRST ever Flag Cake Smackdown. And we learned so much from her. We met Rori through our fabulous friends at iVillage. She's the Food Expert for iVillage.
Food stylist and cooking teacher Rori Trovato and her husband, acclaimed photographer Luca Trovato, make delicious food look beautiful. Their work can be seen in Rori's new cookbook, Dishing with Style, as well as in O Magazine, Food & Wine and Bon Appetit. Currently, the couple resides in Santa Barbara, California.

Wow- just wow!!

And new this year OPRAH MAGAZINE'S CONTRIBUTING FOOD EDITOR: CELIA BARBOUR:
As we understand it, prior to The Oprah Magazine, Celia previously worked with Hallmark Magazine, Martha Stewart Weddings, Martha Stewart Kids, AND Martha Stewart Living. She's also written about food a lot for a small paper you might have heard of, The New York Times!!!


We'll be speaking with each of them on the show after we announce the results next week.

Good Luck ladies AND gentlemen!!

We are READY to RUUUUUUMBLE!

That's the winner of the first-ever 4th of JULY FLAG CAKE SMACKDOWN - my cake! I know, I know - Stone Cold Rock Star Mommy was robbed. Well don't worry, I'm not eligible to win this year. I'd be worried about Stone Cold Rock Star Mommy if I were you, she is bringing the HEAT this year!

We've been getting tons of questions lately about the RULES for the Flag Cake Smackdown.

Here they are:

The rules are ... There ain't no rules!

It needs to be a Flag Cake. So, all you creative types with your fancy cameras and your mad baking skillz - don't forget the basics: Flag + Cake.

Other recommendations:
- Your cake should look delicious! If you have to hold yourself back from eating it, that's a good sign.
- You should probably hull your strawberries.

That's really it - everything else you need to know is written in Heidi's entry!

GOOD LUCK!!

GAME ON SISTERS (and brothers)

WE CHALLENGE YOU

Bring your best game and enter to win the rude, crude, wild and unbridled Second Annual 4th of JULY FLAG CAKE SMACKDOWN



Calling all Cake Hos. It's Mean. It's EXTREME


REMATCH – STONE COLD ROCKSTARMOMMY

We challenge you…specifically....(please, add challenges as you wish girls/boys)

Snickrsnack!!
Mad Mom!!
Tesco!! (hehehe)
Carissa
Steen – newlyweds can make cakes too ya know…




We challenge you to see how you stack up.
Bake and set jello with a VENGENCE. Join the MANIA.
Its grueling, its ruling, and you’ve got a long weekend (maybe) to work on it.

Submit your photo of anything from White Trash to Martha Stewart PIECE DE RESISTANCE by midnight Sunday July 8th to The Chicks. JUDGEMENT DAY will be the following week.

We’ll choose an outside 3rd party unbiased OFFICIAL from the culinary world to judge the outcome.

[Official ChickChat Tip: you can’t see flavor! But your “loved ones” might turn you in!!]

Need a little help? Here's the gold standard
It's FlagCake MANIA!!
Are you ready to RUUUUMMMMMBBBBLLLLE???

PASS IT ON!!! (the more the merrier...)

Do you love TV? I've always loved TV. When I was a kid, my babysitters used to let me stay up to watch Fantasy Island on Saturday nights from 10-11 pm. It rocked!

If you loved those 70s-80s shows, then you're probably old enough to not have the time to watch entire seasons on DVD or camp out in front of TV Land or Nick at Nite to get a 30- or 60-minute fix.

Maybe you can find five minutes to watch "minisodes" of your old favorites. Shows like Fantasy Island, Charlie's Angels, Starsky and Hutch, Diff'rent Strokes, or Facts of Life.

Some poor team of editors have reduced 15 old TV shows down to a couple of minutes, and posted them on MySpace. I just watched the pilot of Silver Spoons in about 4 minutes - all the 1-liners, all the doe-eyed looks of little Ricky Schroder, all the plot points are still there. I'm totally satisfied and I only wasted 4 minutes instead of 22!

Silver Spoons - Pilot

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Check it out - there are 15 TV series represented here.

I would LOVE to see The Love Boat or Good Times posted some day - what other shows are missing??

I used to have a stock wedding gift, one I would give my closest friends and family when they got married:



I thought it was cute gift! A card says, "Congratulations. May the vibrations from these bells reflect your own happiness and love."

I couldn't have said it better myself. And I hated the idea of buying one place setting, or three wine glasses, or clearing out the OXO kitchen utensil collections. I wanted to give a personal gift, one that meant something!

Then I got engaged.

We're getting married in September -- we just booked the hall today! But now we have to do...everything else. Except register. We did that months ago.



For some reason registering was easy, even though I felt really uncomfortable, if not greedy, doing it. The whole concept of telling your friends & family what to buy you? And I'm not a young girl, moving from her mother's house to her newlywed house, starting from scratch!

On the one hand, it makes life easier for your guests, so they don't have to guess what you want/need.

On the other hand, I feel like a cross between a spoiled princess and a jerk. Especially since if I hated buying stuff off the registry for my own peeps!!

My current attitude is that it's the thought that counts. Any gift is...a gift!! I don't care if we don't get ANY wedding presents!

Every wedding season brings such debate on this topic, it's like the sweetness of giving someone / getting a gift gets lost in the hubub!

What's your take - did you register? do you buy stuff off other peoples' registries?

Heidi and I were in NYC for the American Women of Radio and Television's Gracie Awards this week:



That's the sign that was along the red carpet, where all the celebrities arrived. As far as the rest of the pictures? Well, I forgot to ask someone to take my picture with Heidi. And none of my photos of Chris Rock, Wanda Sykes, Joy Behar, Tina Fey, Ann Curry, or Robert Verdi came out. Sorry!!

But I did notice something new and different....Have you been in one of these new-fangled elevators yet? Both the hotel we stayed at and the hotel where the Gracies were held had them. Instead of pushing an up or down button to call the elevator, you push the floor you want on a keypad like this:



The panel tells you which elevator to get on. Once inside, it looks like this:



It felt a little claustrophobic to me - no way out! And if you picked the wrong floor by accident, you couldn't course-correct. I hear it's more efficient, I say it'll take some getting used to!

Also in the weird news, here's a new Broadway show that's knows you're going to think it's a joke, so they put the word 'seriously' on the poster:



Heidi and I closed a bar, too - here's a shot that I love because of the poster and what show is on the tv!



Overall - a great 20 hours in NYC!!

New way to be a 'Peeping Tom' -- Google Street View.

I had been well aware of "Google Earth" - but now things are even closer.

Don't think license plate close....think THONG close...



Check YoSelves Ladies -- you never know who might be watching!!