Welcome to my blog. It's a new adventure for me (and you!), and like all good adventures, this one starts with dessert.
Dessert is one of my favorite things to do. Eating it, talking about it, baking it, thinking about it. So with it being New Year's Eve and all, I figured it was a good excuse to reminisce about the desserts I ate in 2012. Ok, not
all the desserts, just the highlights of the ones I remember. Between kids and work, I usually don't even know what day it is, so it's entirely possible that I'm leaving out something fabulous. Sorry about that.
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| It seemed fitting to start with a photo from Las Vegas. Vegas is my happy place. If I thought I could get there more than once or twice a year, this blog would basically just be called "Another Thing I Love About Las Vegas." This photo is of a Chocolate Bouchon from the amazing Bouchon Bakery. It was tiny and perfect. And I ate it while listening to the sweet sound of slot machines. Good times. |
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| The best dessert in Minneapolis is the salted butter and caramel crespelle at Bar La Grassa. You're welcome to challenge me and I will gladly eat whatever you claim is better, but I doubt that anything else will elicit the euphoria I get with the first bite of this amazingly simple butter sauce. I'm on a mission to make sure everyone I know goes there and eats it. It's life changing. (Full disclosure: I swiped this photo from Pinterest. I don't think I've ever taken a picture of my own crespelle. I was probably too busy licking my plate.) |
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| I had to throw this one in quick, as I didn't want you to think I was a dessert snob or anything. This is a peppermint shake from none other than Arby's. Not only was it the perfect Christmastime treat, but it reminded me of the peppermint sundaes that McDonald's used to sell back when I was in elementary school. I wish I could get them to bring them back, but I'm scared that if I dig too deeply, I'll find out they disappeared due to some scary health condition associated with the thick red peppermint goo. Delicious goo. |
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Just in case that last one didn't convince you that I'm not fastidious when it comes to dessert, please meet the Pookie. It's a pie inside a cookie! This was taken in my kitchen, where we made an apple pie/butterscotch chip Pookie for SuperBowl Sunday. I know it looks scary, but it was really delicious. The recipe came from the Cakespy cookbook, which I recommend you buy at once because dessert lovers need to support each other.
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| Pretty, yes? It's really just fondue at The Melting Pot, but it was a special day because my mom and my boys came to have lunch with me at work. I recently returned to work at the corporation I quit 7 yeas ago, and one of the perks is that I work downtown again. The lunch selection downtown is far superior to the suburbs or my house, both of which I'd been working in for several years. Oh, and "lunch" in this case was chocolate fondue. |
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| This is the butterscotch budino at 112 Eatery. It was my BFF Rachel's birthday. This dessert is definitely giving the crespelle mentioned earlier a run for the money, but whereas this one is so rich I could probably only eat it once a month, I think I could have a crespelle every day (if calories did not exist). |
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| These weren't really in any order, but I put this one at the end because it is such a thing of beauty. My 35th birthday party was a "cupluck," where guests all brought cupcakes from a local bakery and everyone then tried everything and voted on a winning bakery...purely or informational purposes. I think there was a winning tie this year between Sweets Bakeshop and Cupcake, but I don't think anyone was a loser. |
I traveled to Puerto Vallarta, Boston, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, New York and Philly this year, so I can assure you that this list leaves several things out, but I think it's a good place to start. I'll explain that 40 by 40 list over to the right in my next post.
Thanks for reading. Happy New Year!
