Archive for the 'sweets' Category
Some traditions really are just for grown-ups
January 6th, 2009by Lisa
A few weeks before Christmas, I found a recipe for caffe con correto con panna in La Cucina Italiana, one of my favorite food magazines. Basically, this translates to liquor-spiked coffee with chocolate and sweetened cream. I bought a bottle of Frangelico, which I had hitherto assumed was for people who liked drinks involving [...]
A Christmas Treat: Sugar on Snow
December 24th, 2008by Caroline
Usually by Christmas Eve, I’ve baked at least half a dozen batches of cookies, but this year for a change, the kids and I made candy for their teachers: salted chocolate pecan toffee, spiced chocolate bark with dried cherries and pumpkin seeds, and, now that we’re in snowy Connecticut, a kind of maple candy [...]
Wonderballs (because it’s a bit too early for holiday baking)
December 8th, 2008by Caroline
It’s an in-between time right now. We have some Christmas decorations up (paper-glitter snowflakes, a wreath on the door) but not all (no tree, no stockings). The boys are opening up windows on the Advent calendar and counting down the days till Christmas, while I am counting down the (fewer) days till I can [...]
Dessert, (urban) homestead style
November 18th, 2008by Lisa
Unlike Caroline, I don’t bake a lot. We were joking the other day about our families and how although we have many things in common, there are some major differences. The fact that we eat meat for one. The fact–as she joked–that I’m going “going urban homestead.” I demurred, but she’s not entirely wrong.
This [...]
Dessert
November 15th, 2008by Caroline
I’m surprised to find I haven’t written about dessert yet in this forum, since I have a lot to say about the subject. And despite how healthy I try to keep my family, we certainly don’t avoid dessert. We’re just as likely to make an afternoon project of making cookies as making paintings, and [...]
One Way to Cook a Pig
August 30th, 2008posted by Lisa
There’s no way to soft peddle this one: We like the luaus.
Last year, we attended a really terrific one at the Grand Hyatt Kauai: great food, fun entertainment, and an unparalleled site in the garden at the edge of the beach. The appeal was doubled by the fact we could walk there, so [...]
Yes, We have no banana blooms…
August 19th, 2008posted by Lisa
…a story in pictures about desire lost and found.
Week 2 at the Koloa Sunshine Market, we came for the regular things: greens, radishes, mountain spinach, tomatoes, fiddlehead ferns, mountain apples, and a back breaking assortment of mangoes, papayas, pineapples, passion fruit, apple bananas. Everything was rough and beautiful as always, and Ella and [...]
What (not) to do in restaurants
August 10th, 2008posted by Lisa
We love Plantation Gardens, where we stayed last year for a week. The condo was extremely pleasant, but the real revelation were the grounds and the restaurant, which is one of the best places we’ve found to eat out on the south shore of Kauai.
The Moir gardens, which border the restaurant are [...]
Why We Love France
August 5th, 2008posted by Caroline
Sure, we love the museums, the sense of history, the people (yes, I really do). The boys love the trains. But we also just really love all the chocolate. It’s available at every meal, whether melted into milk for chocolat chaud, baked into pastry for pain au chocolat, or tossed by the handful [...]
Star Light, Star Bright…
August 4th, 2008posted by Lisa
Kauai is supremely different from Northern California: climate, pace, vegetation, wildlife (yes, there was dinner among the geckos, and the frogs).
And I realized this year, that one of the most valuable things about our time here is the cultural difference. It’s not simply that we all slow down and spend lots of time [...]