'merica!

Alright! It's a little late (11:30 PST), oops, but I hope you had an amazing time celebrating the birthday of the great ol' US of Yay!

We celebrated with:

bacon, 

carbs, 

and more carbs. 

The three most 'merican things I could think of: bacon, carbs, and more carbs. Can I just proclaim to the world that I think it is awesome that you can put macaroni, four pounds of mayo, 1 tablespoon of vegetables into a bowl and still call it a salad. [Holiday calories don't count.]

Today was the first day I cooked a full meal in the new kitchen, and it was AWESOME. 

Look how happy I am:

Open counter space. What?

I also want to plug the best cookbook in the world:

Here on Amazon.
There are several different versions (baking, healthy, etc.)
 but this is a good standard.

This is the perfect cookbook to get someone that is getting married, starting to learn how to cook, or the experienced chef. 'merica's Test Kitchen tests thousands of recipes and publishes the best recipe in the book. It's also full of tips for how to cook something correctly, the 'best' cookware/tools they tested [surprisingly, some of the best are the cheapest] as well as the best tasting products to use in each recipe. It's absolutely incredible.

The cookbook also leaves a little room for creativity. Hence, today I was feeling extra 'merican and put bacon in the potato salad. Lots of bacon. 

It was 'mazing.