Adventures in Food Land

I used to be the sort of person who would walk past the kitchen aisle of a store and have no interest in it. My tastes have always been a bit like my personality: plain and unassuming. I grew up a very picky eater of the "less is more" mentality when it came to flavor.

Turns out, though, that there was hope even for me of developing a passion for food. Some food, at least. Well, two types of food: Italian and desserts. And where there's passion, there's suddenly an interest in related gadgetry. (Doesn't hurt that kitchen toys are now so cute and colorful.) Which in turn means that the percentage of food prep items on my wish list has steadily increased over the past few years.

Luckily for me, my family has been known to indulge me from time to time. For my birthday a few months ago I got a bunch of nifty kitchen toys, and I've slowly been putting them to good use.

Experiment #1: Pasta

My father-in-law's family gave me a wonderful book recently that has been the source of much culinary delight in my household. It is Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan. Her basil and garlic tomato sauce is so easy and soooooo delicious. I tried it out with store-bought pasta at first, and I thought the result was the most amazing thing I'd ever tasted.

But then! Oh, but then. My dad's family gave me a pasta maker for my birthday, and I used it (on my birthday, in fact) to make a batch of spaghetti. (I had a bit of help from visiting friends.) Paired with the sauce, the pasta was beyond incredible. It was a revelation! I was completely enraptured.

Me, super excited about using my shiny new toy.

Experiment #2: Truffles

Chocolate-making has been an interest of mine for even longer. I started off with marshmallow fudge bonbons, as described here. Slowly I've progressed through peppermint fondant candies, along with orange and almond flavored. (I collected a double boiler and candy thermometer along the way, gifts from my mother-in-law.) So I was pretty psyched when my dad and step-mother also gave me The Art of the Chocolatier by Ewald Notter.

I picked up a few molding trays and set to work on one of the simpler recipes in the book: chocolate truffles. Here's a shot of the assortment I made for my church's annual tailgate:

Personally, I liked the extra dark chocolate the best.

Bonus: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

For my son's birthday I made a lion cake with cupcakes for the mane.

In hindsight, buying a whole bag of Twizzlers

just for the mouth and whiskers was a bit much.

When I was finished I had a bunch of frosting left over since I had used two different types of frosting. Seeing as I tend to let things go to waste in my fridge more often than I would like, I decided maybe this time I would find a use for that frosting.

What goes with brown and orange frosting? Why, pumpkin and chocolate chips, of course! So I searched online for a good pumpkin cupcakes recipe. I found this one (and added the chocolate chips at the end). The resulting cupcakes were suuuuuuper fluffy. In fact, they were a bit difficult to frost since they came apart so easily! But I finished off the frosting at least...

Not the prettiest frosting job ever, but they tasted just fine!

How about you folks? Any recent culinary adventures?

Fall Traditions

Running outside regularly in the mornings for the first time in my life has given me a new perspective on seasons. Over the past few weeks I've watched the trees evolve from lush green to foggy, muted mystery to thin sticks surrounded by brown and orange detritus. Running has given me much more time to dwell on the changes than hurried driving, and I feel more in touch with fall this year.

It's a good season for me, and aside from the winter holiday season is the time of year with the most ritual and celebration.

This past weekend held two of my favorite fall traditions: the Maryland Renaissance Festival and my church's tailgating night. I wrote about both of them last year, and I don't have anything new to say about either of them, but I do have some new pictures.

First, from one of the best demonstrations at the festival, the glassblower. New this year—seasonal glass pumpkins.

Second, part of my contribution to tailgating. In addition to ice cream I made bonbons this year, and here are a few I photographed beforehand.

I hope all of you are well and enjoying your own fall traditions.

Where I've Been

So it's been a while. Over two months in fact. My blogging hiatus was partly intentional—to give me more time to edit my book—but only partly, and I never meant the cutoff to be so sudden.

But sometimes a lot of “life” happens, and this fall has been one of those seasons.

I won't go into all the details (unless you're a vet and you happen to be interested in the specifics of cat UTIs, or you're an oral surgeon who wants to know all about my reaction to epinephrin in Novocaine). Soon enough the past few months will be little more than a blurry memory.

That being the case, I do want to hold on to a few good things that have happened this fall:

1. I've gotten to know some pretty incredible teens. Underneath all the “totes magotes” and finger hearts and “cool story, bro,” they have a lot of energy and character. I'm even more sure now than I've ever been that this is the age group I want to write for.

2. I've been editing Olympus Gate, which has gone more slowly than I hoped for the same reasons that the blog has been out of use lately, but I'm pleased with the results so far. My new critique partner is making me work hard! You think you know your character pretty well the first dozen times you get the comment “and what is she feeling in this moment?” Then you get to the thirteenth and all you can think is, “She's... um... sad? ...again? I DON'T KNOW!” So thank you, Jamie, for making me struggle through all the hard parts too.

3. I've made some more delectable edibles. Last night I had the pleasure of seeing several people's eyes bug out (in a good way) at the taste of my peppermint bonbons. And my husband got me a book of dessert recipes I've been wanting to try. (I'd have made the Boston Cream cupcakes already if last week hadn't turned out to be an insane mess of hectic days.)

So I'll leave you with a picture of the latest bonbons, a wish for the happiest of holidays to all of you, and my sincerest hopes to post more regularly in the coming months.

Bonbons

Well, folks... I'm in trouble.

I've discovered a new hobby, and lately it's about all I want to do. Unfortunately it's expensive (well, not too expensive, but it does require money), time-consuming and fattening. What is it? It's creating these:

These are bonbons that I made a couple weeks ago. They are amazing. Inside is marshmallow fudge (that tastes like it has a hint of caramel). To borrow a quote from a friend, “It's like heaven inside my mouth.”

Of course they're also so full of calories that if I keep making and eating them I'll balloon up 50 pounds in no time. But maybe I'll make some at Christmas and give them all away.

So now that the great bonbon experiment was so successful, I want to try some other things too. In particular I want to see if I can make nougat, caramel and peppermint patties. I might be worried about finding people to give the finished products away to, but I know a whole bunch of teens who would be happy to take them.

Really, the biggest problem is that making candy and chocolates takes all day to accomplish. If I keep heading down that path I'll be in danger of never getting any writing done.

But hey, if the writing thing doesn't work out, at least I know I have a back-up plan now. Couldn't you see me as a chocolatier?