strawberry souffle
dried madeleine biscuit, genoise, souffle cheesecake, fresh cream, strawberries
pineapple tarts
Pineapple tarts are probably the quintessential Chinese New Year snack. Pastry shops line their shelves with jars of these treats and each has their own take on the traditional cookie - open-faced ones, log-shaped ones, balls studded with little cloves and some come in esoteric flavours like charcoal powder, cheddar cheese etc.
flourless chocolate souffle cake
why yes, yet another chocolate souffle cake (this time, it’s the flourless souffle cake from tartine).
fallen chocolate soufflé cake
Fallen chocolate soufflé cake (from alice medrich’s bittersweet)
pan-fried garlic sprouts with poached egg
nibby walnut cookies
Call me crazy or mildly obsessive, but I think there’s a difference between being crispy and crunchy. Crispy is a light crackle and crunchy is a substantial thud; the former quickly disintegrates leaving little but a faint aroma or flavour while the latter has a pleasing heft that changes in both texture and taste with every bite.
The nibby walnut cookies (from alice medrich’s bittersweet) is closer to crispy than crunchy. Coupled with the earthy, bordering on tannic flavour of cocoa nibs and flavorful fattiness of walnuts, these buttery cookies are, to me, seriously addictive.
“Each man kills the thing he loves”
(from CL)
because once in a while, we all need a little reminder.
"
In every interview I’m asked what’s the most important quality a novelist has to have. It’s pretty obvious: talent. Now matter how much enthusiasm and effort you put into writing, if you totally lack literary talent you can forget about being a novelist. This is more of a prerequisite than a necessary quality. If you don’t have any fuel, even the best car won’t run.
The problem with talent, though, is that in most cases the person involved can’t control its amount or quality. You might find the amount isn’t enough and you want to increase it, or you might try to be frugal and make it last longer, but in neither case do things work out that easily. Talent has a mind of its own and wells up when it wants to, and once it dries up, that’s it. Of course, certain poets and rock singers whose genius went out in a blaze of glory—people like Schubert and Mozart, whose dramatic early deaths turned them into legends—have a certain appeal, but for the vast majority of us this isn’t the model we follow.
If I’m asked what the next most important quality is for a novelist, that’s easy too: focus—the ability to concentrate all your limited talents on whatever’s critical at the moment. Without that you can’t accomplish anything of value, while, if you can focus effectively, you’ll be able to compensate for an erratic talent or even a shortage of it. I generally concentrate on work for three or four hours every morning. I sit at my desk and focus totally on what I’m writing. I don’t see anything else, I don’t think about anything else.
…
After focus, the next most important thing for a novelist is, hands down, endurance. If you concentrate on writing three or four hours a day and feel tired after a week of this, you’re not going to be able to write a long work. What’s needed of the writer of fiction—at least one who hopes to write a novel—is the energy to focus every day for half a year, or a year, or two years.
Haruki Murakami in What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
“these are UFO peaches”, my mum claimed. i thought it was her feeble attempt at humor since they were elliptic in shape with a noticeably dented middle. after i had one, my opinion changed - it was obviously a reference to the out-of-the-world taste of the peaches.
you know how most peaches generally occupy the extreme ends of the crunchy-mushy spectrum? well, these had the perfect bite - firm but yielding to the slightest pressure of a bite. it is so juicy that i have to slurp while biting to prevent the juices from flowing down my fingers (which is not necessarily a bad thing since sweet, sticky fingers has its own charms). and the taste, oh my, the taste; simply put, if summer has a taste, it would taste like this peach.
adaptation of pierre herme’s bayadère
sable breton base, white chocolate mousse with lime zest, citrus biscuit soaked in passion fruit puree, poached peach puree, raspberry sauce
