Station Break

Hey there.


 Slight delay, as I am experiencing a bit of a culinary catastrophe ("It's from the Greek. It means a misfortune, a cataclysm or a serious calamity.") - our refrigerator is on its deathbed.


Which mean much purging, organizing and cleaning as we await tomorrow's emergency delivery.



Once the kitchen is back to 'normal', Blog Party will be up and running!



Thank you for your patience. 

IT’S BAAAAAACK! (for now)

BLOG PARTY!

I miss you guys. I miss Blog Party.

So I’m bringing it back...as a sort of test run.  We’ll see how it goes.

(We kind of skipped #43 because of reasons, but I’m still counting it.)

BLOG PARTY #44: Tea Party!

I love tea. I love everything about it. The scones and crumpets and finger sandwiches and cakes and cookies and soups and SO MANY TINY FOODS!

And yes, the tea.  And other fun drinks associated with it.

So I’m opening up the house and inviting you all to a tea party. A BLOG PARTY TEA PARTY!

Since it’s been a while, I’ll sum up BP for you (of course, there’s a handy guide right here, too).

Blog Party is the original virtual cocktail party.  It’s friends - old and new! - coming together to share drinks and small and bite-sized treats.  

I ‘decorate’ with themed party accessories, get the tunes playing and introduce everyone as they arrive (translation: I find cool stuff and music that ties in with the party, and do a short recap of every entry).  We hang out, we chat, we eat! It’s fun.

And this time? It’s all about tea!  

Want to join in? Send me a link to your post (and for those who don’t use Blogger, etc but still want to come, Tumblr, Instagram...whatever. Take pics, write about what you’re ‘bringing’ and send that! I’ll make it work.) any time between now and Friday evening, 21 April. I’ll post the round-up on the 22nd.  (My email address is located below ‘Links’ and above ‘100 Things About Me’.)

I know Blog Party has been quiet for a very long time, but I hope you’ll remember the way!

Roll With It

Yeah, I've been doing stuff. Chocolate-y stuff.

Finally got around to really playing with flavors and textures. The hard part was waiting for the weather to cooperate!

Matt gave me a tempering machine a few years back, and once I started using it, the ideas! Boom. They were everywhere.

So, a few weeks ago, we bought all the chocolate. And cream. And I made all the ganache. And there were spices. And herbs. And fruits. And nuts. And...you get the idea. And there were TRUFFLES.

Just a quick photo, and only half of what I ended up with. But, Strawberry-Basil Shortcake (basil and freeze-dried strawberries in milk chocolate ganache, rolled in pulverized freeze-dried strawberries and Nilla wafers), Mint (mint in milk chocolate ganache, dipped in more milk chocolate and topped with candied mint leaves), Mexican hot cocoa (cinnamon and cayenne in dark chocolate, rolled in cocoa powder), Ginger-Thyme (fresh ginger and thyme in dark chocolate, topped with crystallized ginger) and Guajillo (Gujillo peppers in dark chocolate, rolled in Turbinado sugar).

There's four more (including fun with white chocolate), but that's a (maybe?) post for another day.