Rosemary, #Hiddles & Honey Chocolate-Dipped Cookies

March 31, 2014

rosemary, Hiddles & honey dark chocolate-dipped cookies | une gamine dans la cuisine

April, please be candid. March has left me contrary and unreasonable. If you summon my phlegmatic, winter-weary ship to shelter under promises of cherry blossoms and endless sun, I'll turn at the last moment and head out to sea. Again. Hope is held, safely, just beyond reach. I would rather have milky, glaucous blue afternoons that yawn their way into apathetic evenings. I want to keep casting wistful sighs into the stratosphere, waiting for one or five to capture...something. Sweet April, come softly. Stretch yourself out with the measured laziness of an overfed cat and stay as long as you wish.

My untouched second cup of coffee has aged three hours but I'm still feeling the velvet *hum* and purring warmth of its predecessor. I'm also mindlessly enjoying a few enchanted cookie crumbs. Polishing off the final morsel from a batch of cookies is a heady mix of guilt and accomplishment.  

Chocolate Mocha Cake

March 23, 2014

chocolate mocha cake | une gamine dans la cuisine

"There is no exquisite beauty...without some strangeness in the proportion."
~ Edgar Allan Poe 

I'm completely aware that my blog is prone to impromptu meanderings (its arbitrary author often finds herself reaching for wild strawberries only to draw back handfuls of lemongrass). Yes, I know I once stood firm in my aversion to chocolate on chocolate, but maybe I spoke too harshly and too soon. As it stands, I stand corrected. Sorely. This provocative deity is mind blowing.  It's the elusive chocolate cake one dreams about - the seemingly intangible memory, a slice of sheer, unadulterated bliss that spreads blossoming tendrils through the body like a drop of red hot ink on clear, still water.

Peut-être que je t'aime?

Pineapple Carrot Cake with Honey-Cinnamon Swiss Meringue Buttercream

March 17, 2014

Pineapple Carrot Cake with Honey-Cinnamon Swiss Meringue Buttercream | une gamine dans la cuisine

"We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix in the present. We are made of layers, cells, constellations." 

~ Anaïs Nin 

I sometimes wish my far-fetched aspirations spoke softly, with the measured voice of sweet honey, and I wish reality drew upon me with the slow, smouldering warmth of languid cinnamon. More often than not I'm effectively thrust into a state of disorientation; holding an idiosyncratic compass that points its quivering arrow somewhere between hope and reluctance.

My heart, despite a boreal hibernation, is awake and irrevocably enthralled, beguiled...mesmerized. There are no blueprints for this *occurance.* But (isn't 'but' a precarious word!) there is a rivulet of prudent excitement that trickles through my veins. I find myself slowly opening the heavy doors of "what if..." again. The anxious gust of pent up air is quite exhilarating.

Hence the arbitrary desire to bake a persnickety layer cake. 

Spiced Cocoa Ginger Brownies

March 10, 2014

Spiced Cocoa Ginger Brownies | une gamine dans la cuisine


"I want something else. I'm not even sure what to call it anymore
except I know it feels roomy and it's drenched in sunlight and it's
weightless..." 

~ Mark Z. Danielewki, from House of Leaves

March, despite your dramatic mud-stained footprints and temperamental atmosphere, I'm elated that you've we've made it this far (I dreamed of you for months!). Send your most melancholy, weeping icicles to drip down my now woolen scarf-free neck and toss out all the esoteric, deceptively deep puddles you can summon; I will still find you super-adorbs.
 

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