Endeavoring this recipe was the closest thing I could imagine to American Ninja Warrior in the kitchen. Not that I ever watched American Ninja Warrior. But when I am consciously aware of principles of physical science and chemistry while trying to cook something—which is to say I am NOT in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s state of Flow—cooking […]
Category: Dessert Miscellaneous
Pecan Shortbread with Chocolate Drizzle
Fall colors during an Indian Summer—the chickens are in heaven, frolicking in autumn leaves and striking distinguished profiles for the paparazzi. To a bird, the bilge under the leaves must taste as good as this: Pecan Shortbread with Chocolate Drizzle Adapted from Food and Wine 3/4 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 cup pecan flour or 1/2 […]
Chocolate Pound Cake Cassatas and Desire
I believe Desire is not only a state of being, but the state of being. Once we learn that our longing has nothing to do with the object at which it is directed, and will neither be alleviated nor mitigated by the object’s possession, but is in fact an inkling of some greater magnetism, a […]
Peanut Butter Truffle Brownies
I’ve been watching my mother embark on yet another knitting project with a surgical sort of attention to detail. She is infamously finicky about the quality of her knitted work, such that she explained to me with great vehemence how the start of a knitting project is as crucial a beginning as an embryo. “Slight […]
Salted Caramel Pecan Tart for the Craving
“Imagine a Carthage sown with salt, and all the sowers gone, and the seeds lain however long in the earth, till there rose finally in vegetable profusion leaves and trees of rime and brine. What flowering would there be in such a garden? Light would force each salt calyx to open in prisms, and to […]
Bourbon Bread Pudding
Bourbon Street in New Orleans is decidedly the worst place to be on Saturday mornings, the cobblestones soaked with centuries of vomit and Ajax. But in a bistro eating a piece of Bourbon-soaked bread pudding? Nothing better. The smell of this dish baking in my oven helps me to catch the scent of jasmine and […]
Homemade Brownies
I couldn’t find the picture that goes with these incredible brownies, so I figured a photo of Izzy looking mischievious in a surgical cap would substitute well. She is brown, in places. And homemade, technically. She looks a little here like Lucille Ball in the famous chocolate factory I Love Lucy episode, one of the […]
Peanut Butter Brown Rice Krispie Treats and Stranger #1
New Year’s Resolution Case 1 of 12. Stranger 1. He is a charming boy, my adopted Peruvian son, Juan-David. For the first eleven days of January, by fluke of fate, the young suitor of my Peruvian neighbor’s daughter needed a place to stay that was decidedly not the same residence as his love, but as […]
Dialectical Brownie Therapy
I’ll admit it. Sometimes I eat brownies for breakfast. If they happen to be out, and I’m skidding through the kitchen on the whirlwind path to get dressed and upright on the moped and into the hospital, I’ll grab a brownie and chase it with a pot of coffee. I’m getting help. Actually, I’ve invented […]
Espresso Profiteroles
To celebrate my graduation, KP and I are taking a week together to drive around Colorado, create space to enjoy the sense of achievement before it tumbles down the mountainside to collect along the roadsides like any other run of the mill boulder. What better than a larger than life Scrabble game at Zephyr Mountain? […]