As someone who manages to drop an average of 1 to 2 egg shell pieces in each baked good batter, I’ve discovered a trick: The easiest way to fish them out is not with a cooking utensil or, heaven forbid, your finger but with another egg shell. I don’t know how or why it works better, so I just chalk it up to magic.
Since I mentioned breadcrumbs in the current recipe, may I implore you, nay, beg you to make your own? It is too simple not to. Take any bread at all—I mean your favorite kind, rolls the pizza place sent you with your salad, the crusts off your kid’s sandwich—leave it out overnight and pulse it in the food processor the next morning: instant breadcrumbs with that put that sawdust in a can to shame! In a rush? Fresh bread grinds up well, too, whether or not you toast it first.
You know those stories about when you were a kid that your parents can’t get enough of? That they’d go on. And on. And on about to their friends, your friends, prom date and future in-laws? Because apparently, when you were little you were cute. I mean, really cute. And you did cute things. And those cute things were hilarious. And still are, nearly 30 years later.
Well, apparently long before I had achieved actual literacy, I went for the next closest thing: memorizing books. But I used to call it–start cooing now, please–”rememorizing” because doesn’t that make more sense, as you must “remember” it? Honestly, it still does. So, as the story goes, I came into my parents bedroom one morning and told them I had learned to read and I would demonstrate with my Favorite Book In the Whole World, Snow, a Dr. Seuss book. “Snow, snow, come out in the snow. Snow, snow, just look at the snow….” It didn’t take them long to figure out I was neither looking at the book, or likely, holding it right side up but, oh, were they charmed.
Of course, this isn’t a story about how cute I was when I was four (though the correct answer is “very”), it’s about that favorite book: Snow and the fact that even today I still adore snow, but this winter, with just an hour of snow here or there has been an utter disappointment. Seeing as it is now late in February, I was getting convinced that it simply wouldn’t snow this winter until this morning at about 6:30 when I woke up, saw all of the rooftops outside our window draped in white and was so excited I could not get back to sleep. Even better, I had plans to bring my camera to work today so I had a chance to take a few quick pictures in Madison Square Park with our new lens. I could have stayed there all day, you know, if the Shake Shack was open. But even the view from work isn’t half bad. It’s a snow globe out there and I can’t wait to get back in it.
Getting almonds ground finely enough to make smooth a macaron, marizpan or frangipane filling can be difficult in a food processor, which goes from coarse cornmeal to an almond butter rather quickly. Short of purchasing almond flour/meal, pulsing the almonds with whatever sugar or salt you are using in 10 second intervals helps put a finer grind on the nuts. Anyone else have a trick that works?
A lot more than anyone should, I fixate on Paris. It’s not just that we got engaged there, returned a little over a year later just because we missed it and scheme to find a way to expat ourselves there one day or at least for a couple years; no, that would be too obvious. My obsession lies with the fact that, as with all things we pine for, the grass just seems so much greener over there, from the Velib bikes to the old buildings which are never crushed to make room for fugly glass and concrete monoliths, and do I even need to get started about the respect given to artisan crafts from pastry to bread baking?
Thus, it was with great interest that I came across an article written by Dorie Greenspan for Bon Appetit a couple years ago about yet another thing that makes French women so fabulous–aside from the fact that they’re always perfectly dressed without looking like they’re trying too hard and can tie a scarf with their eyes closed while I do mine in front of a mirror and it still looks awkward. It’s because they say things like “Why’d do you do it?”—”it” being baking a rich chocolate cake topped with raspberries and chocolate ganache—”I mean, it’s great, but cakes like this are the reason pastry shops were invented.”
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