Your stomach growls.
You head to the fridge.
Your eyes start at the top shelf and work down.
And there, THERE, sitting on the bottom shelf, is a Red Velvet Cake.
(Apparently delivered by your Daughter overnight.)
What is Bliss?
Cake.
Cake for Breakfast.
Breakfast is served!
Notes:
It’s 3:12 pm. I’m in the middle of a meeting. I sneak a peak at my emails…it’s Christie: “looks like this would be a hit…” (She’s thinking Pavlov’s Dog)
She attaches a link for Peach Cobbler Cheesecake.
I tuck my phone out of sight under the conference table and click the link. It springs open on the photo.
And for the next 3 hours:
Thought Spiral! Peaches, Cream Cheese, Golden Graham Crust, Butter, and more.
Rating: Can’t stop at 2 servings!
Notes: (1) Inspiration: Thank you Christie. (2) Photo: Susan; Baker: Susan. Thank you! (3) “NADT”: Not a Damn Thing!
It is the season of the meruňka—apricot time. It’s unclear when, exactly, she had time to make the dough for the little pillows of these dumplings, when she managed to buy the apricots… She pours melted butter over the ivory lumps in our shallow soup plates, then a brief snowstorm of sugar and crumbled white cheese, dry and salty. We pierce the puffery of the dough with big dessert spoons. Out comes the yellow-orange fruit, melting from the dumpling’s creamy white, like a perfectly coddled egg. Oh my, I say. They both beam at me. You see, you see, Anna says, as if I have finally seen the light she keeps trying to show me. My pleasure is proof that, in spite of everything I get wrong, maybe I’m learning after all what matters in life.
~ Patricia Hampl, The Art of the Wasted Day (Published April 17, 2018)
Notes:
It doesn’t matter what time of day. My digestif after scrambled eggs at breakfast. A satisfying and necessary fulfiller after lunch. A smooth finisher after dinner. A soothing pre-bed, night time snack. And of course, that something-something between meals.
There it is.
Mint-Chocolate Chip Gelato.
I’m in line at the check-out counter at Palmer’s Market, gripping four (4) cylindrical containers of Talenti Gelato, two pints in each hand. The ice crystals cool the palm of my hand, and I wonder how long it took to ship this gelato from some quaint dairy farm in Southern Italy. A farm that’s been in the same family for hundreds of years. Farm-fresh from cow to these hard plastic cylinders to the freezer at Palmer’s Market, with all of the hand made manufacturing processes in-between. (Gelato, gelato, I find myself repeating gelato and liking it, especially the finish. My lips form an “o” like “o” isn’t this “o” so wonderful).
I move up in line, gently setting the gelatos down on the conveyor. They slide forward.
Toward the end of the evening, Dominick ceremoniously brought out his glorious special dessert, which he makes every year for the party, a mound of croquembouche: pastry cream–stuffed profiteroles piled high into a cone-like mound and linked with crunchy strands of caramel. My mother was the only other person I knew who ever made them (every Halloween, while most kids got Snickers and jelly beans from the neighbors, my mom made croquembouche, and that’s what she passed out to the small ghosts and princesses and aliens who knocked on her apartment door). As Dominick approached with the tray, my mom took one of the doughy balls very carefully with her left hand—her right hand and most of her right side were basically still useless at this point—and bit into it. I remember the look on her face as the taste resonated, and I watched her lick a dab of the custard that had settled on her upper lip. Our eyes met and, although she didn’t utter a word, I knew what she was saying to me: This is why I refused to die.
~ Peter Gethers, My Mother’s Kitchen: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and the Meaning of Life
Photo: Mary Mary Culinary with Croquembouche (Caramel glazed pate a choux filled with passion fruit curd and vanilla pastry cream)
When does food cross the line and become art?
Probably when it looks as amazing as these glass-finish cakes created by Russian bakery artist, Olga Noskovaru.
Don’t miss her dessert wonders at Contemporist or at her Instagram site here: olganoskovaa.
Source: Contemporist
~ Simon Amstell interviews Björk. Full interview here: Popworld interviews Björk
Notes:
A couple of years ago my sister Judy and I were each given a box of truffles. The tiny print said two pieces contained 310 calories and there were six pieces in each box. We were seating in the bus heading downtown, quietly downing our calculations. Judy was dividing by two and I was multiplying by three. When she realized what I was doing, a look came over her face that was hard to describe. “I lost all hope for you,” she says now. The difference between us could not have been more clearly defined at that moment. There are people who can eat one piece of chocolate, one piece of cake, drink one glass of wine. There are even people who smoke one or two cigarettes a week. And then there are people for whom one of anything is not even an option.
~ Abigail Thomas, Thinking About Memoir
Photo: jaimejustelaphoto
Thank you Eclecticity Light. Don’t miss other wonders at Eclecticity Light including The Best Thing For Being Sad.
Sugar Season. It’s Everywhere, and Addictive by James DiNicolantonio & Sean Lucan:
Read full op-ed NY Times article here: Sugar Season. It’s Everywhere, and Addictive
Notes: The recipe for the caramel stuffed soft gingerbread cookies in the photograph can be found here: Fabtasticeats.com.
Did you know that the United States has more than 175 days to celebrate the awareness of food or drink? And, per Wiki’s List of Food Days, 14 of them, including today, are dedicated to the awareness of CHOCOLATE? Here’s the line-up for Chocolate Days:
So, go ahead and celebrate today. Change it up this morning. Think Chocolate. Instead of your cup-a-joe, grab 1 or 3 or 5 pieces of my favorite chocolate combos: Coffee & Roasted Almonds Chocolate Bark (above) made by Foodhearts.com.
Thank you Lorne
Lori shared this link with me yesterday from Kitchentreaty.com.
Next to more pasta, that’s all I’ve been able to think about for the last 24 hours.
It’s Sea Salt & Honey Ice Cream.
Wait. There’s more.
THERE’S NO ICE CREAM MACHINE NEEDED.
A hearty thank you to my blogger friends for baiting the circus monkey.
For recipe and more amazing pictures, hit this link at Kitchentreaty.com.
Imagine a Key Lime Pie light as a cloud, tart one moment, sweet the next. Imagine it has done away with the distraction of a crust. What you have is this Key lime mousse. Now, I love a pie, crust and all, but when a mousse is this good, it refuses to serve as mere filling. “Filling” implies that it is not complete in itself, and this dessert certainly is. Unmoored from the classic Graham cracker crust, it is something altogether more delicate—a soft, chilled summer sweet that is richer than sorbet, breezier than ice cream.
~ Aleksandra Crapanzano, Key Lime Pie Without the Crust (Recipe below)
Live & Learn 