On the cooling rack: Baby Shower Menu #1

We spent the summer in Utah for Ted's internship, then returned to NC where I instantly became deeply entrenched in food planning/buying/prepping.

This first shower was put on by a committee of five friends because when we heard our friend was pregnant, we all insisted to help. I was first to offer, however, so I was in charge of whatever I wanted, which of course was food. But to just divvy out the house, decorations, drinks, and photographer to other people and get their help with the food anyway? Couldn't have been better. Here's the outcome.

The lemonade stand and handmade wreath:

The table:

The food:
Caprese Paninis on Sourdough or Nine Grain

Taste test:

Bell Pepper Slaw:

Mushroom Risotto in the cutest little individual cups ever:

Fruit skewers:

Various finger foods included the Most Incredible Lemon Bars Ever (not the real name, but should be), Oreo balls (Marianne's specialty), finger sandwiches, and sliced s'mores (the pregnant lady had been craving them).

Basically we had dessert first, in the middle, and at the end, a Mille Crepe Cake:

This thing was fabulous. Twenty crepes, each layered with a thin spread of raspberry pastry cream lightened with whipped cream, bruleed on top, and served with fresh berries and lemon curd. For a first time and for something off the beaten path (you know I'm a chocolate girl), this cake was to die for. I saw it on an episode of "The Best Thing I Ever Ate" on the food network and knew I could come pretty close to replicating it. Crispy sugary top, creamy and crepe-y layers, hints of raspberry and lemon, oh heaven.

Action shot:

I've gotta get a brulee torch that means business. I made two of these cakes for the number of guests we had, and by the time I was done burning all the sugar, my hands HURT. That button you have to press the whole time is a doozy. And it was a good thing I brought extra butane.

You can't see it in this shot, but my first two fingers on my right hand are bandaged up from slicing them open on my fancy mandoline for the bell pepper slaw. Word to the wise - when the instructions say to use the safety thinger dinger, use it. I bled all over Annee's kitchen.

Guest of honor:

Ha! Nice placement of the crib mattress, Syphus. Gee whiz. Anyway, Melissa looked radiant her whole pregnancy and since I take forever to get blog posts up these days, her baby is now two months old. I know, I'm so embarrassed.

Big Girl/Little Girl Birthday Tea Party

I've been building up for this one. Years ago I started a teacup and saucer collection. Thanks to ebay and Anthropologie, it got big enough to host a full party.

Well, it wasn't a full party, as in "number of guests". A full party for me constitutes attendance in the dozens. :) This wasn't that kind of party. We could only fit so many people at the big girl table, and only 4 at the little girl table, so what we lacked in numbers, we made up for in decorations and food.

Tessa turned 2 last week, and I turned....into an old hag. Time to celebrate!

My friend Melissa was at our house (as she often is, bless her soul) when I pulled the teacup boxes out of storage to show off and clean up for the day. She helped me unwrap them and I think I heard her exclaim more than once how it felt like Christmas morning. I told her my plan and she immediately asked if she could decorate. Since I have absolutely no talent in that arena, I gave her full discretion. So she turned our living room into a dainty little wonderland.

We were particularly fond of the party favors for the little girls. M&Ms and felt cupcake stickers with monogrammed notepads? Come on.... The big girl favors were even tastier though - homemade toffee (recipe and photos coming!) bagged and sealed with a shabby chic fridge magnet.

The food:

• Chocolate cinnamon tea cakes
• To-die-for (seriously) lemon bars (or triangles, in this case)

• Chocolate-dipped animal crackers with peppermint
• Chocolate almond mousse balls
• Masala naan with garlic hummus
• Cucumber lemon water (it's so refreshing! try it!) for those who didn't prefer tea

• Fruit and cream puff kebabs with caramel sauce
• Blueberry bran muffins with lemon curd (I had to try to be healthy somewhere)

• Curry and garlic chicken salad in mini croissants
• Wheat rounds with pesto, tomato and parmesan
• Individual baked pepper jack and cheddar macaroni and cheese
• Bittersweet chocolate torte with chocolate ganache and raspberry sauce

Yes, there was a lot of chocolate, but I didn't hear anyone complaining.

I see the notepads were a big hit.

And the birthday girl looked smashing in her ruffles and pearls.

Recently I reunited with an old friend from high school. She moved right into our ward, we saw each other on their first Sunday here, and we promptly freaked out. We've been in every made-up club together ever since. She and her twin girls came, and gave this sweet little dress to Tessa:

I don't have a decent picture of the adorable zippered (with an inside pocket!) clutch she made for me (which happily contained....more chocolate), but I've already used it. And I have two kids in diapers, so small bags aren't my thing currently. But it's awesome.

Happy Birthday to us! And thanks so much to Melissa for making two girls' dreams come true!

On the cooling rack: Birthday "Pizookie"

I say "Pizookie" in quotes not because my version was a cheap, sub-par imitation, but because if it didn't come from BJ's Brewhouse, it's not technically one of their someone-needs-a-medal creation. But heaven help me, I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference in a blind taste test.

The actual word "pizookie" is so catchy that it took me until only recently to realize that it's a combination of "pizza" and "cookie'. Duh. But it's not just a pizza cookie because it's bigger and more perfectly round than a normal cookie.... No, no, no. Some genius up there in the BJ's R&D department came up with a beauty. They cook a phenomenal tasting cookie dough at a high temperature in a 6-inch diameter deep dish pizza pan with a little butter on the bottom that makes the bottom and sides ever so delicately crispy while the inner 4-inch diameter stays gooey, but nice and hot, which instantly starts melting the LARGE scoop of vanilla ice cream they plop on top. It's a simple dessert done to perfection, and anyone who's had one will swear by it.

Ted does.

Let me start by saying that this success story didn't come easily. As an amateur baker, I like to try new treats and experiments, and of course if you live under my same roof, you're subject to the tasting and forming of opinions about them. Ted and I have now been married three years, so that's three birthdays, three V-days, three sets of the Fat Holidays, and 156 weekends, most of which have sponsored some sort of concoction-making. Gee, and I wonder why my rump is lumpy.

When I do make something, especially if it's something new, I guess my need for accolades hinders honest opinions from the man. He's not one to emote effusive compliments if they're undeserved, and even if they are deserved, they're nearly impossible to eke out of him. He just doesn't moan in epicurean bliss, whereas I do it on a pretty regular basis. So I've had to learn to take anything above "It was good" as something that really blew his socks off (I have a translator in my brain, thankfully). For instance, when I made a turkey and rice soup from scratch the other day and he said, "This tastes just like my mom's", I about fell over and thanked my lucky stars (she's a great cook and I've witnessed him get wistful every now and then about certain meals and treats of hers).

There's the background to the next chain of events. We were on a walk a few weeks ago, and Ted was pushing the stroller. We had somehow gotten onto the topic of BJ's in general or Pizookies specifically, and either topic induces a wave of nostalgia for a chocoholic version of their Pizookie that I had about a year ago when a gaggle of girls from our freshman year at college got together for a weekend. I shared a Chocolate Chocolate Chunk Pizookie made with Ghirardelli chocolate and double chocolate ice cream with a square of dark Ghirardelli chocolate on the side with a friend at that meal. Neither of us can figure out why we shared. One bite and we almost ordered another one. So when Ted mentioned the word "Pizookie", he was speaking of the original and my brain had skipped right to the too-chocolate-for-words version. I replied with something like "Well, the original is good but that choc-" when I was EMPHATICALLY interrupted by my dearly beloved. He stopped the stroller mid-push, stuck his hand out in front of me and yelled, "Stop! You can't just stand there and say, 'the original is good.' You know it's way better than 'good'. It's freaking incredible, and I will not let you take another step until you acknowledge that."

I was blown away. In our three years of marriage, 5 months of engagement, 1 month of second-time dating, 6 months of friendship, 1 year of not talking at all, and 2 months of first-time dating, I have NEVER heard him speak so highly of a single dessert in such a tone. Yes, I wish it had been about one of my desserts, but I loved the effusive outburst so much that I really didn't care.

So for his birthday last Thursday (tax day), it didn't take too much to come up with what I would make this time.

I was given the recipe for some of the BEST chocolate chip cookies I've had in my life, so instead of using store-bought tubes of pre-fabricated cookie dough, which I've known some people to do... (you know who you are), I took great care in making the best version I could. I have a 6-inch deep dish pan (what self-respecting amateur baker doesn't?), but I opted for the heart instead because despite his lack of food-induced moans, I love my birthday boy very much.

So you can use any good recipe of cookie dough you want (or cheat - it's not like I'm going to know), but preheat the oven to 425. It's not your typical 350, but this ain't your typical batch of cookies. The higher heat cooks the whole bottom, edges, and top of your pizza cookie and keeps the very middle in its highly desirable salmonella stage. Cooking times will vary with the size pan you use (I really don't recommend you go bigger than a 9-inch cake pan, but even that's pushing it. The heart pan is 7" at its widest point), so watch it. Mine cooked about 13-15 min if I remember correctly. Should look like this:

Notice it looks completely cooked (I just typed "cookied" and I'm drooling). You don't want to take it out before the top looks done like that lest you have just a raw liquid-type thing you have to drink with a straw. Wait. Hmm.. next experiment?

WHILE STILL HOT OUT OF THE OVEN, plop a hefty amount of quality vanilla ice cream on top (pictured is Haagen-Dazs Vanilla Bean) so the contact heat starts melting it into pure sweet cream that creates rivers of pleasure all through your little hills and valleys of dough and chocolate. Eat immediately. DO NOT let this thing cool down, DO NOT be scared to blow on your first few bites of it, and DO NOT ever reveal to your cardiologist the real reason for your skyrocketing cholesterol. Blame it on genetics.

The aftermath:

I'm embarrassed to admit that I almost needed an oven mitt to remove the pan off the table. That's how warm it still was...

Oh, what bliss. Happy Pizookie Birthday, sweetie. I hold your food orgasms in my heart.

On the cooling rack: 3.14159265...

Yes, friends, today we have pie in the kitchen. Well, not today. I made them Sunday and they were gone by Monday, but I'm blogging about them today.

We REALLY wanted to celebrate Pi Day (3/14) ON pi day, but with meetings from morning until late afternoon that Sunday, and friends having the nerve to leave town, we couldn't make it work. So we postponed it until the following Sunday and gorged ourselves on, first, a Chocolate Pear Tart (maybe not technically a pie, but it had my homemade pie crust, so I say it counted. This tart has a great flavor, aided by a little almond extract and 5 oz of grated Belgian chocolate on the bottom. I didn't have pears that were as firm as I wanted, since the tart has to bake for about half an hour, so I made do with my riper ones, but it was still good.

Then we moved on to the Chocolate-Dipped Strawberry Pie. Man, oh man. This one was the star of the night. I've tweaked it several times over the years, and I must say, I think I reached near perfection with it this time around. It. was. marvelous. The berries were juicy and red and flavorful, the sugar/cornstarch/corn syrup/whipping cream/chocolate ratios were spot on, the pie crust was flaky with a little bit of crisp, and the painted chocolate on the crust had just enough thickness to perfectly complement the glaze on the berries without the chocolate itself turning soggy. Oh heavens. I'm not usually one to totally fawn over my own concoctions (I will most often say "thank you", "glad you liked it", or even downplay its taste by revealing a mistake or two), but I save the following praise for especially incredible things, and you have to imagine it with a lot of attitude:

"I just got two words to say: DAY-AM!!"

Once the farmer's markets here kick in for the late spring/early summer, this pie will be revisited and regorged upon.

On the cooling rack: Mexican sweet corn cake

You know when you go to a chain-y sit-down Mexican restaurant (think El Torito or Chevy's) and they bring you your entree with your sizzling fajitas or steaming tamales or chimichangas (my fave) and all the fixin's are on the side, like the guacamole, pico de gallo, sour cream, and shredded lettuce? I love that. But more than that, we love that itty bitty scoop of sweet yellow corn goodness that's tucked in alongside the beans and rice that's good enough to eat for dessert. Ted and I, after several conversations, have agreed that that little scoop is hands down the best part of the meal, and the only thing wrong with it is that it's too small a scoop.

We had an activity with all the youth in three wards to expand their cultural appreciation, and 60 people were asked to bring a dish from either a country they were from or somewhere they visited or served as a missionary, or just plain ol' had a fascination with. For weeks I hemmed and hawed over which country to do since I've only been to three and they were popular and I figured they'd be taken. Come to find out, Mexico wasn't taken. So I made it my duty to find and, if necessary, tweak a recipe for that sweet corn blessing for everyone to try.

Mexican Sweet Corn Cake

1/3 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup masa harina (Mexican corn flour found in baking aisle or Mexican aisle. My California friends should have NO problem finding this stuff - also sold under brand name "Maseca")
1/4 cup water
1 1/2 cups frozen whole-kernel corn, thawed
1/4 cup cornmeal
1/3 cup white sugar
2 tablespoons whipping cream
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat oven to 350. In a medium bowl beat butter until it is creamy. Add the masa harina and water and beat until well mixed.

Using a food processor, pulse thawed corn a few times, but leave chunky. Stir into the butter mixture.

Add cornmeal, sugar, salt, baking powder and cream last to corn flour mixture and stir to combine. Pour batter into an ungreased 8x8 inch baking pan. Smooth batter and cover with aluminum foil. Make a water bath* by placing smaller pan into a 9x13 pan. Slowly add water into 9x13 pan with small pitcher or spouted cup until water reaches about halfway up. (If you add too much, just take some out with a turkey baster)

Bake for 50 to 60 minutes. Top should barely spring back to the touch and be ever so slightly crisp around the edges. Leave foil on, and allow to cool for 10 minutes. Use an ice cream scoop to serve onto plates or a regular spoon to eat it from the pan (Ted's method).

*Don't skip the water bath! The steam ensures a very moist cake (since this is NOT a cornbread) and prevents overbrowning.

Here are a few of the other entries from the International Food Night. This English Trifle was the bomb. Whoever made it didn't bother with regular old chocolate cake. They were awesome brownies, and it was probably the first dish to be completely gone. ("What?! instead of clotted cream on under-seasoned beans?", you say. I know. I was as shocked as you are.)

France represented with a Quiche Lorraine and brie on baguette. Simple. Yummy.


And a beautiful and crispy Norwegian "wreath cake" from Norwegia. Tasted like crisp, flavorful ladyfingers.

Overall, a smashing success. Encourage your uncultured church teens to do the same.

What's in this?

Ted and I agreed that neither of us like Blueberry Jelly Bellies (do you write it "Bellies" because it's the plural of "Belly" or do you write it "Bellys" because "Jelly Belly" is trademarked? I couldn't find the answer to that in Eats, Shoots & Leaves). They kinda taste like soap and not like delicate, pop-in-your-mouth, slightly sweet but slightly tangy blueberries. Most flavors they just nail, and I loved seeing the process when I visited there some time ago, but Blueberry....sorry guys.

Then there's the color - and that's where today's story begins. They're a deep blue, not navy, but a little darker than royal. Kinda like a Duke blue. More reason to want to love them, but we just can't. So we decided to give the few that we had to our resident garbage disposal. She doesn't care about the nuances and notes of flavors so much, for she has yet to gain sophisticated palates like her parents (said tongue-in-cheek, but right now I wish I was saying it donut-in-mouth). She gobbled them up, and though she slapped Daddy's thigh for more, we were strong. She wasn't getting our root beer ones.

But these tiny beans! They must be made up completely of dye and sugar (not that I'm against those things)! I can understand these effects directly afterward:





But I was not prepared for the next day. Her diaper manifested that she had eaten very concentrated color pills. Though the output stank to high heaven (which is coincidental, since I was changing said diaper during church), I still got a few giggles out of it because I was reminded of when one of my mission companions and I bought blue dye for fish tanks and put them in some brownies and Kool-Aid for the elders. We nabbed the whole zone, and had a dozen or so of them calling the mission office with some "serious medical issues" because they were suddenly peeing green. You can understand why I number it among my greatest mission success stories.

On the cooling rack: Valentine's Day cookies

I'm not sure why it took me so long to post these. My friend Ashley invited me over to decorate cookies with royal icing as a birthday present last month, so while her husband and our home teacher played with Tessa for two hours, we whipped up icing, colored it, piped it, flooded it into the cookies, and voila:


I'd never worked with royal icing before, and I must say, though the final product is smooth and pretty, it was a royal pain to work with. It's a finicky frosting and it takes a lot of time, and quite honestly, I like the taste of a good buttercream MUCH better. True, you can't decorate all fancy with it, but taste is the #1 criterion for me with any food, especially dessert. I like my sugar cookies soft and sweet and buttery, like my boobies when I'm nursing, and like Jana's incredible recipe that she has perfected over several years. The royal icing dries quite hard, and I wasn't fond of biting into such a crispy thing. I'll save that for my chips and toffee, thank you.

I think the lips were a favorite among the three women doing the project. I provided the cookie cutter with the arrow going through the heart, and after seeing the cookies it made, it looks like I'll have to go and bend it back into a decent shape. The upper left hand corner cookie had me singing the 80's band Human League song "Poison Arrow", except I forgot it was "poison", so my lyrics went something like "shoot that broken arrow through my heeaaaart", and only when I tried to picture an image of shooting something already broken, expecting it to pierce your target and how ridiculous it was did I realize I must have it wrong. Oh well - it fit my cookies.

Yum Day!

I realized I haven't had one of these "yum day" entries in a long time, and I'm fully convinced I haven't been able to make the food look as good on camera as it tastes in my mouth. So I employed my friend to come over and take pictures with her shmancy camera - and she happily complied (for the small fee of two slices of pie).

So here it is: an Italian Three Cheeseburger with Roasted Rosemary Fries.

Inspiration came from the one and only Bobby Flay, who, since we now have cable, has become as much of an idol as that there Barefoot Contessa. The man is a master, further evidenced to me when I borrowed a cookbook from the library (should have added that to my "Living on a Budget" post) entitled "Burgers, Fries, and Shakes", written by none other than Bobby Flay himself. Well, the man owns a burger joint where he does nothing but, so I thought he knew his stuff.

And boy, does he. He's quite particular how a burger should be cooked, and until I gave it a whirl, I realized I'd been doing it all wrong. Here's a sum-up:

-Patties should start out at about 6 oz - a little more than 1/3 pound
-Make a nice indentation in the center on both sides of each patty - this prevents the "puffing up" in the center
-Salt and pepper both sides of the patty. Don't bother adding egg, bread crumbs, and what not. That's a meatloaf. This is a burger.
-Use a grill pan or outside grill - a little vegetable oil should just start to smoke over med-high to high heat. My stove runs pretty hot, so I keep it at medium high and get a nice little char on both sides.
-Cook about 3 1/2 minutes on each side, adding cheese during the last minute and covering it with a metal pan or lid to steam up and melt the cheese. According to Bobby, it's not a proper burger without melted cheese. Amen, brother.
-DO NOT SQUEEZE THE PATTY WITH YOUR SPATULA WHILE COOKING. If you do, congratulations, you've just cooked one of the world's driest burgers.

Seems simple, but I was making all the mistakes I just told you not to do. I made some burgers a couple weeks ago with tomato and gorgonzola... YUM. And I decided to do it again tonight in honor of Ted finishing one more final (one more to go). So tonight, we took a tastebud trip to Italy. It's much cheaper than actually going there.

I cooked the burger as above using mozzarella, parmesan, and asiago cheeses during the last minute. I then toasted the buns in the oven while the fries were roasting, transferred each patty to its bun, and topped with a slice of cooked prosciutto (Italian bacon - can't go wrong there), caramelized onions, roma tomato slices, and spinach. We THOROUGHLY enjoyed them. And then I spanked my little guido and told him to get upstairs and keep studying so that one day, he can bring home the prosciutto.

Giving Thanks

It's wonderful to know that no matter where you are, Thanksgiving is pretty awesome. I went to a meeting tonight and we all gabbed about what we did for the holiday. One woman hosted in her home. Another hosted in her home WITH two other families, and every year they pore over past issues of the Bon Appetit magazines to try new recipes to round out their dinner. Three different baked bries, a Clementine and citrus salt rubbed turkey, and streuseled sweet potatoes with a lemon gingersnap cheesecake. Yes, of course I remember all the food. And I wasn't even there. Another woman went to her parents' house for all the usual, another goes out to eat Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant every year with her family, then drive down to visit a local dam and drive back. (And for Christmas, they go to Cabo - EVERY YEAR!! I started considering family restructuring...)

This was the second Thanksgiving I spent in the South. The first was on my mission in Georgia, and I can remember the members who invited us over (I made an apple pie) for dinner, but mostly I remember the Turkey Bowl we played with the ward members that morning. I was new to the area, so it was a little surprising when, during a game of flag football, I lunged for the flags of the 17 yr-old Bishop's son and ended up ripping his pants off. Not just the drawstring coming undone - actually ripping them off his body. It was pretty embarrassing for both of us, and I gained a reputation really fast.

This second Southern Thanksgiving wasn't as naked. Ted's parents flew out from Utah to join us for a week, and during that week, we drove up to Virginia with 3 desserts and a big batch of Apples & Yams (though a couple nights before, we learned from the Food Lover's Companion - thank you, Christy - that they're actually sweet potatoes and that most yams are improperly named). For the fourth time in two months, I made the pie pictured above - Chocolate Butterscotch Pecan. I can't get enough of it. Literally. Every time I make it, it's for some sort of function or party, so I get maybe a sliver or one bite and then pine for more until I make it again. I think I'm sated now, at least for another month.

Ted's aunt put on a huge spread, which is pretty typical of a Thanksgiving "Feast", but everything tasted so GOOD, too! Lemon & Chive Carrots, Garlic & Sour Cream Potatoes, Herbed Turkey with homemade cranberry sauce, Grandma's homemade rolls, Frosted Pecans, Zucchini Bread, Cranberry & Orange Pull-apart, Stuffing, Green Beans, and the Rasmussen special - a Shrimp Cocktail to start things off. In addition to my three desserts, she had made a divine Key Lime Cheesecake and Pumpkin Pie, so once the whipped cream was whip-it-good, we gorged all over on those, including my Apple Cream Cheese Torte and Caramelized Cranberry Tart.

Excuse my drool.

I could make an extremely long list of things I'm thankful for, and it still wouldn't be exhaustive, so I'm going to focus on the six things I've been especially grateful for (and that I've been thinking about at a near-constant rate).

1. I'm grateful for my husband of two and a half years. He cleans up after my messes, all while being as studious and patient as any man could be. Plus, he's a most sweet and wonderful father to #6.

2. I'm grateful that I lucked out in the in-law department. Not all folks can say that (but my husband sure can - and he better.)

3. I'm grateful for Chocolate-covered Peanut Brittle. Yeah, you heard me. Williamsburg hooking me UP.

4. I'm grateful that Christ allows me to screw up and start afresh way more often than I would ever let my own kids. That's why He's perfect and I'm, well, less than.

5. I'm grateful for my mom's unwavering dedication to the greater good. It's hard, it's often a huge sacrifice, but her example is something I've looked to countless times.

6. I'm grateful for this little morsel who I get to hug and slobber over every day. Tessa, you are the frosting to my cupcake, the peanut butter to my chocolate (ha! you thought I was going to say "jelly", didn't you? No comparison), the pride to my joy, and soon, the Merry in my Christmas. I love you, my little pumpkin pie.

Halloween 09 - Parties and PeaPods

Ted came up with our family costume, which I thought was pretty remarkable considering the man hates dressing up. However, since we just stuck things on his normal clothes, he was pretty okay with it. Besides, we won "Best Couple Costume" and Tessa won "Best Overall Costume" at the party we went to. There weren't any other kids participating, so it was kind of a gimme, but she really was a cute little bugger.

Fabulous dancing from the men on the runway, but when it was the women's turn, I remarked how the only way to top theirs was to "get slutty." We made efforts, but they were lackluster compared to the men.

This is our neighbor, C. When the music turns on, he apparently gets dirty. I voted for him for best dancing. You don't have to ask why.

Squeakers was fascinated with these leaves all night, and I'm so glad I got a shot of her devilish concentration.

These are our new favorite neighbors, C&A. My mom and sister used to be, but since we moved away, we've had to improvise. The game was "Donuts on a String", and the spouses played against the other spouses, trying to eat as much of the hanging donut as possible without letting it fall on the ground. These guys lost because they were too busy posing.

We tried on a few different costume ideas before settling on the pea pod idea. Couldn't resist this one.

AND, the food. There are some talented women out here with a lot of time on their hands. These were chocolate mice with caramel tails,

peanut butter pumpkins,

my contribution: almond shortbread witch finger cookies with bloody guts dipping sauce,
severed hand punch,

and the winning dish, freaky-looking white chocolate-dipped Oreo eyeballs. These looked gross and tasted awesome. Perfect combination.

We're totally demanding a repeat invitation next year. Thanks, Doreen and Matt!

You should read this post; it's regarding essential nutrition

I married a wonderful man, but I think we can both agree that we disagree on more than a few things. Vacationing is one of them.

We weren't married long before I started noticing (like, on our honeymoon) how fixated he can get on things I just considered as passing fancies. For instance, we went to one of the most beautiful places on earth (Cancun and its environs), where I wanted to sit on beaches with books and ride Vespas and drink watermelon juice (life-changing) and do "other stuff" for the majority of the time. But noooooooo.... SOMEONE grew up visiting "national parks" and appreciating things like "historic sites" and "ancient ruins." Blah. Which meant I was being dragged along.

So since then, I have tended to shy away whenever Ted has approached me with the ol' "wanna go to a museum?" line (and trust me, it has been uttered often). This last time, though, was the biggest and best exception to my usual half-hearted consent. The museum in Raleigh had an exhibit on CHOCOLATE. I practically dragged him out of the apartment.

See how excited we all are to be there? It was a win-win. Ted got to go to his little museum and I got to drool on myself.

The exhibit was put together very well, but it wasn't very hands-on for the amount of children they had going through there. I didn't care about that very much, since Tessa's main activity was drooling right next to me. And considering how much I already knew about chocolate, like the fact that it's brown and to die for, I was surprised to find out how much I didn't know. Here's a quick run-through of fun facts.

• Cacao trees thrive in tropical climates (which I knew), but have to be planted underneath a taller tree because they need the shade (which I didn't).
• West Africa, specifically the Cote d'Ivoire, is the largest grower of cacao trees. I thought that title was taken by Central and South America, but I was WRONG!
• Cocoa beans used to be the Aztecs' form of money.
• The first use of actual chocolate was as a drink, but it wasn't like our hot chocolate or chocolate milk of today. The beans are quite bitter, so they would roast them and add chilies and spices and throw it back.
• Once chocolate became a European import, people went crazy for it (obviously). However, it was so expensive that only royalty and the very rich could afford it. In fact, it was often enjoyed while lying naked in bed. Funny. That's my favorite method, too.

The above image was displayed at the museum, but there was no name or artist, so I had all these grand plans to reproduce it in our living room to give you an idea of what it looked like, complete with the overturned chair. But I'm glad I found it online instead, because my nipples don't look nearly that good.

Besides the multiple videos of huge vats of molten chocolate getting conched and tempered and mixed and formed (think the opening montage of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the original. Best opening sequence in a movie EVER), my favorite part of the display were the old advertisements from some of the first major manufacturers, namely Hershey, Ghirardelli, and Cadbury (pronounced "CAD-bree"). I've included some samples. Make sure you read all the fine print.

"You NEED a Baby Ruth! It offers dextrose, for crying out loud! You don't want to fall asleep on the road, do you???"

"More sustaining than meat", huh? What would happen if you had BOTH?

Ahhh... someone already though of it for me. Two of my favorite foods, combined. And it was pretty tasty!

Tessa was a gem the whole time because she is a fellow foodie. Toward the end of the tour, we spotted these little ottomans one could sit on while watching videos of people talking about how much they loved chocolate. They offered the perfect photo-op. Can someone please tell me where I can buy one of these? I need one. Or four.

The end of the tour spit us out into a chocolate shop (fitting!) because naturally, we're going to want to eat chocolate after looking at it for over an hour. I wonder if Jesus Himself would have been able to resist such temptation.

They had all sorts of scrumptious treats, so we selected wisely. In case you're wondering if cashews and dried cranberries enrobed in caramel and dipped in chocolate are good, um, they are. They even had kids' books on display, so I flipped through a few of them and Ted and I had a conversation that went like this:

me: We need these.

Ted: Need?

me: For Tessa.

Ted: So she can get as addicted as you?

me: Are you kidding me? I grew up never knowing the fine heritage of my favorite food group. Do you want her to grow up as ignorant and potentially hooked as I did? Maybe if she learns about it from a young age, she won't crave it. Knowledge is power, sweetie.

Ted: That was the biggest load of crap. Whatever. You can get them.

me: I was going to anyway.

See? Compromise is the name of the game in a marriage. So next time he wants to haul me off to some explore-our-wilderness-and-gain-an-appreciation-for-it-already state park, all he has to do is stuff a Reese's in his pants and I'm good to go.

AND NOW, ON TO THE GOOD STUFF.

I know how hard it must have been to read through that entire post with no food of the gods to partake of. So I'm going to have my very first giveaway.

It's been about 10 years since I've made truffles or chocolates, but I've been wanting some ever since I found out there isn't a See's candy within a 100-mile radius of me. What's a girl to do?!? Well, make her own, of course, and one of you will get to benefit as well.

I will overnight a box of homemade chocolates to a name drawn from the pool of individuals who comment on this post, telling me what chocolate does for you. You can leave comments until Friday, Oct 9 at midnight (Pacific time). I'll announce the winner on the blog, and she (or he) should have the chocolate by the following Tuesday morning.

So leave a comment, and be creative!