High-Rise cocktail

Hello, everyone! So, it's been about six months since I've ruffled the waters of this reticent food blog. I'd like to imagine that it's been absently humming to itself, completely relaxed in a warm, summery field, somewhere along the coast of the internet. I won't offer meandering excuses as to where I've been or fluffy reasons for a long absence, but they involve an archaic, finicky oven and the need to replenish a disappearing blogging mojo. I'm still trying to deal with the latter, but I *think* I have managed to grab onto its tail (my mojo's spirit animal is an elusive, prickly arctic fox).

Instead of confections, I've resurfaced with a libation (my very first!). You will be smitten with this coy, little intoxicant, I promise.

sir thomas sharpe's dark chocolate + garden mint cookies

Rain

a symphony orchestra.
there is a thunderstorm
they are playing a Wagner overture
and the people leave their seats under the trees
and run inside the pavilion
the women giggling, the men pretending calm,
wet cigarettes being thrown away,
Wagner plays on, and then they are all under the
pavilion. the birds even come in from the trees
and enter the pavilion and then it is the Hungarian
Rhapsody #2 by Lizst, and it still rains, but look,
one man sits alone in the rain
listening, the audience notices him. they turn
and look. the orchestra goes about its
business. the man sits in the night in the rain,
listening. there is something wrong with him,
isn't there?
he came to hear the
music.

~ by Charles Bukowski, from Selected Poems

September feels both aloof and intimate this year. The days are hot, damp...marvelously slow & yet bittersweet in their attempt to casually hold onto mid-July's warm embrace. A small fistful of russet-tinted leaves have fallen onto the still verdant earth. They remind me of overexuberant guests who always arrive too early for the party; yet you can't help but get swept up in their contagious, breathless excitement. September is my birthday month, but I can always sense autumn's approaching grey skies & deceptively soft chill. I have no quarrel with autumn, don't get me wrong, I'm only all too aware of what follows, and I will never be ready for it.

Happy Birthday, Mom (& Tom Hiddleston)! a mid-winter dark chocolate + blood orange cake

"Decadence: where the tasty and the unsavoury, the harmful and the delightful are no longer discernible from one another." 

                                            ~ Wieki Somers

Oh hello again, everyone. The holiday season left in flurry of wind & salt. It slammed the door (with its typical jubilant-yet-oblivious manner) and left a mess of strewn confetti & unfulfilled expectations in its wake. I'm never prepared for Christmas, but I find I'm even less equipped for its abrupt departure. The breathless excitement felt at the top of a December's Ferris wheel makes January's plunge all the more grey & vacant. In an effort to soften last month's harsh edges, I decided to take a break from blogging. I simply wanted to bake for the sake of baking. My camera took refuge on a cosy pile of photo prop linens and we both enjoyed an unspoken truce. I'm sorry that I didn't announce my absence...it was a flight of fancy and I did not want to tarnish a rare act of spontaneity by over-explaining the motive behind it. An elephantine Thank You to everyone who inquired about my lack of posts (it's lovely & humbling to know they were missed!). xoxo 

This cake made me blissfully silly, again, & it reawakened my blogging nerdiness. It's embarrassing how many photos were taken (all while listening to an idiosyncratic mix of Tom Waits & the Amélie soundtrack). At first glance the recipe appears dramatic & lengthy but, if you take on each component individually, it's completely approachable. The cake is an experience. It's devastatingly rich...beyond anything I've ever made. I will have euphoric dreams about this cake for a very long, long time.

Hiddles Darling holiday cookies

I inherited my mother's delicate hummingbird bones and gregarious knees {as a teenager, my knees were more talkative than I was in the early mornings}. Even though I prefer the calm serenity of yoga,  every other year or so I take up running for a handful of months.

When the mercury plummets, I resort to using as archaic treadmill that dwells in my damp, stone-walled basement/dungeon. For some idiosyncratic reason I don't like the jarring feel of running shoes on vinyl, instead I wear yoga socks with sticky, grippy dots (aka, Spiderman socks!). The socks, apparently, are not as Spidey as I had hopped...at least not when they're up against rogue cats. Last week, Niles, in the midst of a phantom mouse chase, decided to take a short cut across a moving treadmill. In an effort to avoid a collision, I performed an inventive, square dance-esqe sidestep; my loquacious left knee was not amused. What began as a tickle, has morphed into a throbbing pain that radiates down my entire outer leg. I *loathe* being inactive. If I'm careful, I can eke out an errant yoga or pilates session, but even gentle movements sometimes ignite my knee's understandable ire.

What does this have to do with cookies (or Tom)? Not much, really. As I was soothing my knee in a hot bubble bath, I focused on a bottle of St. Ives oatmeal shower gel that was sitting on the ledge. The word 'Ives' is comforting; almost like ivy, which, for someone who loves all things verdant & green, is delectable. Ivy eventually led to eyes and eyes led, naturally, to Tom Hiddleston. Kind eyes and chewy cookies are capable of alleviating woes, ouches and fluttering knees.

Tom Hiddleston's cinnamon-pecan sticky buns + a giveaway!

When I fall in love (with an ingredient), I tend to use it with reckless abandon. Lately cinnamon has made its sprucey way onto my yoghurt, oatmeal, ice cream, countertop (and yes, even rice). I cannot get enough of this nimble spice. It was only a matter of time & space before I introduced my beloved butter to fickle cinnamon.

Why Tom Hiddleston? I chose the title because of the way it flows off the tongue. It's not exactly seamless but it purrs and crunches and has a lush texture. Also, well...you know; maybe, perhaps, serendipitous-stratosphere permitting...

Midnight in Paris Blueberry + Mint Pie

"A light white, a disgras, an inkspot, a rosy charm." 
     ~ Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons: Objects, Food, Rooms

August is a matchstick. It burns too fast and too hot and I'm never ready for pensive September. The lion of August has not been its usual fiery, passionate self - which only makes me more anxious. After finally falling in step with the bass rhythm of summer, I'm utterly ill-prepared for autumn. The errant back to school ads that popped up in mid-July were noxious. We're constantly thrust forward at a stomach-lurching pace while trying to heed the contrary advice of enjoying the moment we're "in." It's manic and disquieting and I wish I could wish back the month of May and to spend my re-summer in Paris. Since I'm surrendering completely to fiction, preferably 1920's Paris; surrounded by Hemingway (I know he would find my writing too floral), Eliot, Stein, and, of course, Fitzgerald (oh, if he happened to be Tom Hiddleston fulfilling a similar wish...).

Alas, it's mid August and I'm not sipping wine at a café in Montparnasse. Luckily I am surrounded by local farmer's markets, and as I nurse a too-sugary, not at all French, caramel macchiato, if I let my imagination take the reins, I can *almost* imagine I'm strolling through a cobblestone Parisian side street; surrounded by the aroma of artisan bread, fresh peaches, plums, and melons. The only missing petal is a cheesemonger.

Rosemary, #Hiddles & Honey Chocolate-Dipped Cookies

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.