Yes, I did fall off the earth. Fell right off and landed in Glendale, AZ where I will spend the next year in hot pursuit of an MBA in Global Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. Picking up student life where I left off almost 20 years ago is strange and new enough, but just to liven things up a bit more, I’m living in the dorms. While that does mean invitations to parties where people play things like “tip cup,” it also means that I have no consistent access to a kitchen. My new friend Leona has offered to lend me hers every once in a while and, if I find the time in the madness that is the accelerated MBA program here, I will mosey over there and try to get in a Daring Challenge or two over the year. But the blog is officially on hiatus until I return again to my home and kitchen, where the husband diligently holds down the fort.
The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.
Ah, the deep fry. Producing deliciously tasty treats and requiring all the oil in your house, all the patience you can muster, all the 409 under the sink (for clean up) and all the calories left in your day (for eating)…
The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.
The official posting date is past for October’s Daring Bakers challenge, but the new challenge wasn’t up yet and we had eggs that needed using and I figured “why not?” So I made the October challenge – French Macarons. And these cookies…were bad.
I could have sworn HP has been around forever, but apparently it’s “contemporary sauce.” I’ll try to get a photo of the “local special meat sausage” tomorrow.
Hey there! I’m in Abu Dhabi, UAE until October 28, working at the 3rd annual Middle East International Film Festival. While I’m away, I don’t plan on doing much cooking (there’s a hot plate in the hotel room with me, but not much aside from that), but I do plan on documenting some of the foods I find here. So far I’ve found this wonderful milk substitute pictured above to go with my instant Nescafe, something called “special local meat sausage” and “veal bacon,” along with a slew of absolutely delicious foods that our crew was treated to a couple of nights ago by ADACH, the festival’s parent organization. The UAE celebrates Ramadan, which is in full swing, and the daily fast is broken every night with a meal called Iftar, right after sun down prayer. The Iftar we attended was at the Emirates Palace Hotel (which will also be a film festival venue) and featured an overwhelming number of beautiful dishes – unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera! But I have no doubt that much more is coming our way in the next 7 weeks, so I’ll put as much up here as I can.
~This is the fifth post in a series running through the month of June 2009 in which I attempt to post once a day for the month.~
I love this Improv Everywhere project. It follows all the key baking-ninja guidelines – make people happy, do it for cheap and have a good time while you’re doing it.
The Invitational lands in downtown Los Angeles, CA on April 25, 2009!
Los Angeles State Historic Park
1245 N. Spring Street Los Angeles, CA 90012
12:00pm – 6:00pm
Competition starts at 1:00pm
Admission Fee: $5. Competition Fee: $10
See you there?
Cheers.
*Thanks to the 99 Cent Chef for posting this piece of awesomenicity!
Why? Because the idea that events are not predictable is both fascinating and liberating. Taleb suggests that information can be misleading and that we can't know what we often assume we do know when we make decisions - a big leap forward for perfectionists who think they need to "collect all the data" before making a decision. The book is also very entertaining to read. Kitchen ninjas are loving this one!
Why? Even though I've always considered myself a pacifist, Haney's book about the elite, counter-terrorist Delta Force is compelling and insightful, shows extreme compassion for others and intimately illustrates what it's like to challenge yourself to do what you're not entirely sure you're capable of doing. I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. Highly recommended and ninja-worthy.
