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Recipe: chocolate hazelnut torte

Oh my! I had no idea that my knife skills instructor could evoke such… interest from my readers! Honestly, weren’t you all impressed with the chiffonade? Well, here is one last shot from class – something I finally learned to do correctly:

knife honing

Speaking of knives, Adrienne, the winner of the Kyocera ceramic knife giveaway, finally received hers and sent me a picture of her happy new knife. I thought the dreamy look on her face was too adorable not to post. She looks like a pro! (courtesy Adrienne):

blissful

How often do you start out in the kitchen with the intention of making one thing, only to wind up with an end-product that is not what you had in mind? It tends to happen more often with pastries and desserts for me. Is that because I occasionally screw things up when making pastries, but rarely have moments like that when cooking anything savory? I think I am a more confident savory cook. Even so, I really enjoy futzing about with the sweets.

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If things are looking a bit different, I’m in the process of some tidying up around here, which I hope is more or less transparent to everyone, but you never know… Besides, it’s the only tidying up I can do right now. As the Chinese New Year was nearing, Jeremy and I scrambled to clean the house because you aren’t supposed to clean once the new year arrives for fear of sweeping out the good luck. I’ve always read that you don’t clean for 2 weeks until the Lantern Festival (15 days later). Unlike my mom, cleaning isn’t one of my hobbies. Whenever she comes to visit us, within an hour of arriving, she will don a pair of rubber gloves and begin scrubbing my kitchen. I always tell her that I just cleaned the house and she always smiles and says, “Oh, I like to clean the house!” The first time this happened, Jeremy walked into our old apartment kitchen with eyes wide and blinking, “If your mom cleans our place before we vacate, we’d get every cent of our deposit back.” So when I mentioned to Mom over the phone that we just finished vacuuming and scrubbing since we aren’t supposed to clean for two weeks, she insisted, “No, just one day.” I told her everyone else says two weeks and she emphatically said, “It’s just the one day.” Okay, well I’m going to take that 2 weeks as a directive…

radda for lunch

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Recipe: chocolate macarons

My overhauled website is up! The gallery is not up. That will probably have to wait until after Chinese New Year because I am a paranoid Good Chinese Daughter. If you happen to find errors or broken links, please let me know via email. I got tired of proof-reading it after several hours. Sometimes I think I should just shut up.

I looked across to the Continental Divide this morning when I let Kaweah out into the yard. Cooler weather is coming back. There is a formidable bank of dark, angry clouds sitting over the mountains, screaming past overhead. The winds are up. They sound and feel violent. I love weather.

Just yesterday I was skiing in a short-sleeve shirt and a thin, hard-shell jacket, gliding down the mountain with my ladies in the sunshine. It was 50°F. Too hot for goggles, I pulled out my sunnies. Felt like spring. But anytime is a good time to offer your friends a box of chocolate macarons. Nothing works up your appetite like a morning of tele, and these betties earned it.

i am in love with dutch-process cocoa

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