Eat your way around the world
If there was a giant table strewn with every cake, brownie, custard, and pie, ever, I'd be the first in line. But I wouldn't be there to eat them. Not initially. I'd be there to soak in their beauty, to enjoy the geometry. Circles, rectangles, towers of truffles. Cubes, even. I'd languish to revel in the colors - chocolate browns, raspberry reds, vanilla-cream whites, mint-leaf greens, passion fruit golds. I'd eat with my eyes until ever bit of my spirit was nourished. Then I'd … [Read more...]
In French, Cinq Centimes means Five Cents. Don't be fooled by the name. This isn't the sort of recipe that must be studied like a terrible, paragraph-long math problem. This is not a prerequisite to calculus, or even rocket science. This is a snippet - a slice of a dream from Senegalese street vendors. A one-two-three treat worthy of any snack time. No more. No less. Every step is ridiculously easy. The hardest part will be keeping your sweet, adoring Mr. Picky from sniffing the … [Read more...]
Love's every whimsy can be found in the tender, fragile curve of a rose. Arab cooks must know this in their hearts, as they imbue many of their desserts with the essence of this great flower. Rose water is made from hundreds (thousands!) of rose petals and I'm convinced there is magic in every drop. Today's cake, called Basboosa, is heavy with such magic. This incredibly moist cake is conjured up with durum semolina, then soaked in a pool of syrup made with sweetened rose water and fresh … [Read more...]
When I first read that bananas are popular in West Africa's island country São Tomé and Príncipe, I envisioned them eaten raw on the surf-swept beaches... or perhaps sold battered and fried with a cloud of powdered sugar. While all this certainly does happen, I never imagined I'd see them folded inside of a fluffy mousse, decked out with indulgent curls of dark chocolate. But I'm sure glad I did. In my reading I learned that this mousse could be made any number of ways - with or … [Read more...]
Sometimes life calls for a little something extra-ordinary. A toothy smile on a cloudy day can be enough. A favorite pair of fuzzy, polka-dotted socks can even do the trick. But on other days I want something a smidge bit ... well... gourmet. I want something that says this day - this meal - this time - is more special than you know. That you're more special than you know. And so, it's not without a little irony that Bustrengo fits the bill. You see, this Fig and Honey Apple … [Read more...]
When Samoans want to bite into the holidays, their kitchens fill with the warm scent of cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg. If you try to peer under the lid to see what's cookin', you'll more than likely get a full steam facial, so watch out. Within that foggy cloud of vapors, you'll find cocoa brown puligi, a steamed bundt cake made dark with the unusual addition of "burnt" sugar. The cake is traditionally steamed in an underground oven known as an imu, although many now steam it on the stovetop, or … [Read more...]
I used to say I wasn't a chocolate girl but, as the year's go by, I'm realizing that it's really more about finding the right time to eat chocolate. After dinner? Certainly. At 3pm? I'm game. For lunch? Maybe. Midnight? Definitely. 3 am? No way. I'm sleeping for goodness sakes. But breakfast? Am I game for a chocolate breakfast? Let's just say it's an arrangement I'm willing to get out of bed for and I know of at least two other people who are as well. After all, who couldn't use … [Read more...]
Sometimes I think the holidays would go a lot smoother if everyone was handed a shot of rum and a slice of cake. How could conversation not go smoothly after that? Turns out, that's what they do in the Caribbean... with great success. Black cake is a cousin to the British Plum Pudding and is made with an expensive array of dried fruits, like cherries, raisins, and prunes and topped off with a bit of nutty crunch (almonds for me). Before baking - sometimes for months - the fruit soaks … [Read more...]
