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Recipe: chocolate matcha earl grey cake

The date sort of snuck up on us. We are both bad about remembering dates, but my MIL called on Friday to say there was something special to look for in the post – something for our anniversary. Our what?! Oh that’s right… We celebrated 11 years of marital dorkiness on Saturday. Marriage was never something either of us really wanted. It was what our mothers kept asking about since we were living in sin for many years. We finally caved in since we realized our car insurance would go down – way down. Bargain! I think we would feel better about marriage if some of our dear friends could marry and enjoy the same rights we do.

We didn’t do anything special, just ran a ton of errands. We discovered that Chinese food on the flats is neither Chinese nor food really… The day was incredibly warm – 70 Effingham degrees? It was a cruel joke as far as I was concerned. March is when the weather flirts with spring then winter then spring then winter. You get those hoochie mama crop top days when you have to shield your eyes from the exposed white limbs of undergraduates on campus, chased down by those gorgeous spring upslope events that dump a ton of powder and send the ski whores rejoicing back on the mountains. Anyway, I promised Jeremy I would make a nice something or other in celebration of our day since this is my good week before the next treatment. He likes chocolate and I had matcha on the brain.

Recipe: doughnuts

How many of you woke up one recent morning and said, “Time to make the doughnuts”? Because if you haven’t yet, it is most certainly time to make the bleeping doughnuts! Peabody and Tartelette are hosting the Time to Make the Doughnuts event due to them by tomorrow (Feb 12). Well, to be honest, I didn’t actually sit bolt upright in bed Saturday morning and declare I was going to make doughnuts. First I looked at the ski conditions and when I realized the mountain was a ground blizzard I opted for doughnut baking :)

I’ve never made doughnuts before. Sure, I’ve fried dough, but I’m talking about making doughnuts as in going after it with the intention of producing something on par with my white trash youth memories of Dunkin Donuts runs with my best buds. Never eat doughnuts alone. Here was my dilemma: I wanted to make chocolate cake doughnut holes – essentially the munchkins from DD. My dear man is never so rude as to demand anything of me, but I know that his all time favorite doughnut is the yeast-variety, filled with chocolate creme. It is not cream or anything so sophisticated as crème, the creme is the kind of frosting that makes you blind because it’s so bloody sweet. Rather than choose between my curiosity and his favorite doughnut, I endeavored to do both. Someone please smack me if I ever try to do that again.

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Recipe: dark chocolate tartelettes

Happy Chinese New Year to everyone! Gong Xi Fa Tsai! Jing Nian Quai Le!

It is the year of the Rat and in case you didn’t know, it’s Peabody’s year. Last year was the year of the Pig, which was my year. Since I made it through more or less in one piece, I’m going to assume that I was working the good juju. Peabody tells me she’s sharing the good juju with me into this year. I love that girl. In turn, let’s just say good juju all around for everyone! I sincerely wish each of you everything your heart desires in the new year – health, happiness, luck, fortune – all of it and more. xxoo

I began my morning quite early because I was behind schedule on making dumplings. Well, let me explain why. I spent yesterday telemark skiing with a bunch of awesome tele babes on the mountain. I felt well enough to tele all day with my D70 in tow too.

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