Royal Wedding

Yes, ok ok, I watched the royal wedding. Not at 4 am, I'm not THAT crazy! I have off work today so I was sound asleep till 10ish :-D I watched the reruns of it this afternoon and I have to say I enjoyed it. Her dress was beautiful, but actually not that much fancier than some of my friends' dresses. The whole time I was watching I was thinking to myself, wow, what is going through her mind? She is my age [give or take some months] and she is now part of the royal family! The pomp and circumstance of this day is just the beginning of her new life!!! She looked like she was taking it all pretty well, she didn't look that overwhelmed. There were some great moments where they just looked happy and in their own special moment. Being the sappy girl I can be sometimes...it made me think of my wedding day and of course that made me happy. Did you watch the wedding?

2 posts in like 6 hours!!!!

I'm on a blogging roll!!!!!!!!!!

So...all this baking recently has made me wish it were cookie season, which I guess is Christmas season. When everyone has those cookie exchange parties. Or you can bake cookies for the church bazaar. I'm loving baking and trying new recipes right now, but who needs dozens of awesome cookies laying around? Right? Sooo....who out there wants to share with me? Or have a baking party. We can bake just one type/batch of cookies and share, or try several recipes together? Like actually bake together rather than bring the already cooked things to the party? I think it would be fun to pick some baking/cooking things to try as a team???? Who is with me!!!???

Also, baking all these things makes me think it would be fun to have a 'brunch party.' What do you think? Cookies, cakes, quiche, mimosas...all things delicious. Again, who is with me?

Ok, maybe I'm just up way too late, but I'm excited about all of this. Ladies, gents- lets plan something :-D

Cookie experiment

Have you ever tried to recreate something you ate at a restaurant? I've been dying to find a recipe for Italian almond cookies like the ones at Vaccaro's Italian Bakery in Little Italy, Baltimore. They are amazing. Chewy, super almondy, and just delicious! I've looked at all the recipes in my books at home and never found anything that sounded right. Andrew found this recipe and I've given it a try. The super almond flavor is from almond paste, which is a little pricey, but definitely has the right flavor.

I halved the recipe but actually had about 2 oz. less of the paste than I needed. I'm hoping that is not a terminal loss. The cookies are turning out ok, much flatter than the originals though. I'm not sure that is because of the missing paste though. What makes a cookie flat vs. rounder and puffy? Anyone know? Is it flour? Eggs? Type of sugar?

So, they taste perfect, but since they are flat, there's not as much chewiness available. Still happy though! Now I need some will power to keep from eating a dozen of them tonight!

The Vaccaro's cookie is in the middle, see it's shape?
Here are mine cooking on the sheet:

Awesome Happy Hour

Yesterday Beeps and her husband met my husband and me at Talara in the Harbor East neighborhood of Baltimore. We had been there before and have been itching to take Beeps and husband there because they have all kinds of great Latin American dishes and drinks, they even have caipirinhas!

Well we took full advantage of their great happy hour deals. We had mojitos, caipirinhas, and seviche! One of the dishes we had was this Salmon Asian Tartar:


It was yummy. Who knew raw fish was so tasty. I've had sushi/seviche several times now and it's always good. The whole raw fish thing is interesting in that, the texture is so very different than cooked fish. And it can take on the taste of the sauces and other ingredients. This dish was seasoned with soy sauce, scallions, sesame oil and capers, served on sushi rice and nori rolls with white truffle oil wasabi mayonnaise,Tobiko caviar and fried lotus root. I would totally recommend it.

And if you go, make sure you try the Key Lime Mojito...fabulous! [I had four :-D ]