In the Cocktail Hour

It’s not often I spend an entire afternoon playing with cocktails (and still remain sober enough to write a post about it), but that’s what I’ve done.  I assure you it’s all for a worthy cause.  A good friend of mine asked if I would be interested in testing out a few products she’s been…

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Simply Irresistible Guilty Pleasures

It really doesn’t take much to set me off on a baking project–watching back-to-back episodes of The Great British Bake Off (damn, Paul and Mary are harsh!)…perusing the latest online issues of Delicious or Donna Hay (two of my favorite food magazines).  I was already primed, itching to bake something, when an online Saveur article…

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Day at the Museum…or Adventures with Vivi and Milton

With everyone’s schedules all over the place this summer, when the planets align and the opportunity to hang out arises, you just have to jump on it.  Such was the case this past weekend for me and Laura (Rina otherwise tied up).  After 15 minutes of messaging back and forth, we decided to pack up…

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Ribs, Cocktails, Pie and Fireworks–Happy 4th of July!

I’ve got nothing against hot dogs and burgers on the 4th of July, but this year I was in the mood to sink my teeth into some juicy, messy, fall-off-the-bone tender ribs.  I did not, however, feel like playing pit mistress and firing up the grill.  No problem.  I came up with an absolutely  mouthwatering,…

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It’s Summertime…and life is just peachy.

Summer for me means long days in a hot bakery (well someone’s gotta do it), but it also means (thankfully) a bounty of gorgeous, sun-drenched, field-ripened stone fruit.  At the local farmer’s market, I’m like a kid in a candy store skipping from stand to stand tasting the best of summer produce.  While I love…

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Father’s Day

It doesn’t take Father’s Day to have me thinking of my late dad.  He’s with me on a daily basis.  I get my curiosity and appreciation of food from him, as well as my creativity and work ethic–all things essential to being a pastry chef.  He passed away long before I began my career in the…

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Summer Travels…or Mainely Lobsters and Rhubarb

I fell in love with Maine on my first trip to Portland three summers ago.  A very good friend and former pastry assistant of mine, Renee, moved back home with her boyfriend Jesse (now husband) after a wild, eventful ride through the rough and tumble culinary world of San Francisco and had finally, after about seven years, lured…

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Takeout Remedy…or I’ll have the #4 please

There’s this running joke in the movie Two Weeks Notice (2002) where Sandra Bullock’s character Lucy, who is a Mylanta-guzzling, workaholic stress-eater, phones in for ridiculously large orders of Chinese takeout (mostly for herself) from her favorite neighborhood restaurant.  We don’t exactly know what she’s ordering, aside from a last minute addition of egg rolls, because Lucy…

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Yeast of Eden

Long before I became a pastry chef, I was fascinated by the mysterious properties of yeast–the way it came to life when mixed with warm water, full of foamy bubbles, how it made something so simple as flour, salt and water grow into a pillowy mass…or how, when misused, can turn into a scary attack…

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Small Dice Challenge: Brinner, Brupper, or Breakfast for Supper

Some girlfriends and I decided to get together Friday before Mother’s Day.  At first, we were going to bring appetizers, but then decided that, since we usually enjoy our brunches, we were going to have it for dinner.  Initially, I was going to take the easy route and bring turkey bacon because I wasn’t planning…

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