The Pig and I

I really wanted some Madeleines. For a while, I've been wanting some. But since I have these bergamots, I thought I should use some of them for it. Unfortunately I didn't have a pan, and I didn't really want to buy one. Aside from a clutter issue, there's also the unitasker issue as well as the "how often will I really make these? Enough to warrant the cabinet space?" question. So, instead of going out and finding a pan, I asked my Facebook friends if anyone had a pan I could borrow (and return with a batch of fresh pastries). Not surprisingly, no one actually had this specialty pan (or if they did, I guess they just didn't want to share it?). So I went out to find one, ultimately deciding that I will simply make sure I use it often enough to warrant the space it'll take up. I remembered seeing some old tin ones in thrift shops lately. I mostly remember it because I saw a bunch, and I thought it was odd, and I also had to talk myself out of getting o

I think that Lisa might actually be the Citrus Goddess of my dreams. Just when I think she's shocked and awed me with not only her fruit selections, but her incredible generosity in sharing these fruits with me, she pulls another trick out of her sleeve. This time, with the box of bergamots that came yesterday, were five Ichangensis lemons. I kind of didn't believe it at first, while I was staring at them in my lap. I was thinking, "there's no way these are what they say they are. How is this even possible?" I was so shocked that I actually set the bergamots (you won't believe this) to the side so I could just stare at this rare and impossible to find fruit for a few minutes. See, you guys may not know this about me, but bergamot, although my favorite citrus in the world, is not the only citrus I am interested in. I kind of love them all. Everyone of them has its own kind of personality, allure, mystery and thing about it that makes it beautiful and perfec

Lisa very, very kindly has sent me a new batch of bergamots! I have a lot of plans for these guys. Perhaps too many plans, since I might actually need a tree of my very own to have enough fruit to make as much stuff as I'm interested in. But I'm going to roll through as much of my list (which I'm keeping a surprise!) as I can, so we all have new ways to play with bergamot. So, feel no surprise if you see nothing BUT bergamot from me for a little bit. This only happens once a year, so I figure y'all can be entertained by it instead of annoyed. Also, feel free to make any of these recipes with another citrus fruit than bergamot. Y'all should also expect to see a lot of adapted pastry recipes, because pastry is what I'm particularly interested in right now. Which is kind of weird, considering I don't have much of a sweet tooth. The original scone recipe I adapted this from can be found here, at Rock Recipes . The original recipe has raisins in it, and stuff l

I guess I've been on an Italian kick lately. I'm not really sure why, but I'm going to blame it on the fetus. Every time I eat Italian food or drink coffee, it's like a Solid Gold dance-a-thon is going on in my uterus. Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about this particular dish for a while now. I've been hesitant to make it, because Ross is really not huge on black pepper. He'll eat it (but admittedly, there's only been one time since I've known him that he's refused to eat something. Generally he'll eat things he doesn't even like, unlike me), but he's not into it. And generally, he'd prefer to just dispense with the pepper entirely if possible. So that can make serving this kind of a mean thing - I mean, imagine: you're sitting there, happy as a clam with your massive bowl of yums, while your companion is sitting there picking at their massive bowl of yucks. I really feel like if eating isn't making you supremely happy