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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.

one caffeinated cake

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Recipe: carrot cake

The other morning as I hauled myself to the garage, I spied this lovely dawn from our driveway:

…because you have to get up early if you want to catch the powder on the big mountains. Beaver Creek is the fanciest up-scale ski resort I have ever had the privilege of sullying with my middle class presence.

w00t!

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Recipe: crème brûlée

Whew, that was a long hiatus. While the weekend was a miserable slog, I knew things were on an upswing yesterday when I began to contemplate what recipes to try next. That and the fact that I was checking the snow forecasts for the big mountains, anxiously counting down the days to when I could clean the house (14 days after the lunar new year!), and following the news again. I am hoping this is the start of a solid good 2 weeks for me. Thanks to all for your very sweet wishes.

But there is some unfinished business from dinner last week. I never got around to posting what we had for our Valentine’s Day dessert. Crème brûlée is, in my mind, one of the most elegant, simple, and delightful ways to finish a meal. And it’s really not that hard to make! As long as you are competent enough to implement a water bath and not burn your house down with a propane torch (or you could use a broiler, but where is the fun in that?) you’re good as gold.

egg yolks and sugar

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