One thing that has always fascinated/terrified me is fondant. On the one hand, it tastes gross. On the other hand, it looks amazing. Since it looks amazing, I always assumed that I, She Who Was Cursed With Inability to Make Frosting, would never be able to do it. Well, turning 40 has emboldened me and now that I have also successfully made frosting, I decided to give it a whirl. Note: if you do not want to spend a couple of hours scrubbing fondant scraps off the floor after you make it, I recommend that you don’t do this with your kids the first time. Nobody told me that. If I wrote a cookbook I would tell you these things.

First, the fondant-decorated cookies!

I started by baking up a batch of shortbread cookies. I felt a little guilty about all the butter that goes into shortbread, so I modified the recipe a tiny bit by subbing the last tablespoon of butter with a tablespoon of NUTIVA Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil, which is the coconut oil that I think tastes the best.  I’ll paste in the cookie recipe below too. So you end up with a cookie that looks like this:

Now, the fondant prep was so messy and I did it with my kids that I would have required 8 more hands in order to have photographed it. But I will refer you to a great video tutorial (made by someone who apparently does have 8 more hands) on how to make marshmallow fondant. In my research the marshmallow fondant was easier and tastier than traditional fondant. And I have to say, it was pretty tasty for fondant.

Once the fondant is ready, you just roll it out — I used parchment paper sprinkled with cornstarch, both under and over the fondant (so I used my rolling pin over the top piece of parchment) and rolled out til it was about 1/8 inch. After this it’s pretty much like working with Play-Doh. You can color the fondant with a gel paste food coloring — you’ll need to knead it for a while to distribute the color (I recommend wearing plastic gloves for this if you’re not dressing up as Lady Macbeth in the near future). You can cut out shapes with cookie cutters or a knife and then make it stick to the cookie by wetting the back of the fondant like we used to do with postage stamps before sticking it onto the cookie.

Excuse her dirty fingernails.

Fondant cookies my kids made

I also did a few with royal icing that looked so bad that I’m telling people that my kids made them.

And just when you thought you’d be safe from sports on this decidedly unathletic blog, I just have share my favorite internet activity around Jeremy Lin and the ensuing Linsanity. I love Cinderella and underdog stories about Chinese /Taiwanese-American third-string NBA players from Harvard (so apparently do Rainn Wilson and Spike Lee), and this is one of the best. His quiet demeanor and humility just add to the charm:

• From Phil Taylor @SI_PhilTaylor (Sports illustrated columnist): I know there are other things going on in the sports world besides Jeremy Lin. But I don’t care about any of them. #nyk #linsanity
• Nerd Handshake
• Even Kobe Impressed by Lin-Sational Knicks
• Lin’s High School Coach Bought Linsanity.com Two Years Ago

Ok, back to the baking. I don’t recall the source of this recipe, which I’ve modified, except that it came from a Christmas cookie exchange years ago and I’ve used it ever since.

SHORTBREAD COOKIES

Ingredients

1 1/3 cups (2 sticks + 5 tbsp) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 tbsp coconut oil (Nutiva preferred)

2/3 cup sugar

3/4 tsp salt

3/4 tsp vanilla extract

3 cups all-purpose flour

Preparation

Preheat oven to 275 degrees.

Use an electric mixer with paddle attachment, and cream butter and sugar on medium speed til light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.  Add salt and vanilla and beat to combine. Add flour one cup at a time, beating on low speed until just combined.

Roll out dough between two sheets of floured wax or parchment paper using a rolling pin. Bake until pale golden, but not browned, about 13-15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. Cool completely before decorating.

MARSHMALLOW FONDANT

I got this recipe off of About.com and it’s pretty much perfect.

Ingredients

• 8 ounces miniature marshmallows (4 cups not packed, or half of a 16-ounce bag)
• 1 pound powdered sugar (4 cups), plus extra for dusting
• 2 tbsp water
• Food coloring or flavored extracts, optional

Preparation

For this I deserve to eat.

Linguine with garlic, olive oil and langoustine sauce

This is super easy and great for entertaining. (I just wanted to write that because Barefoot Contessa does — I have no idea if this is great for entertaining but it is easy.)

I buy the langoustines from Costco, and they’re already cooked and frozen so I just thaw them in a mesh strainer. I’m sure I’m supposed to say that you should do this in the refrigerator but that’s not what I did. Oh, and langoustines are basically really small lobsters. I was going to link to a picture but I think it’s best not to see what they look like before you’re going to eat them.

Once your langoustines are defrosted, chop up some garlic and tomatoes and heat up your olive oil, on medium to low. You’ll want to put the garlic in there to cook for about a minute, so that they just start to look slightly golden but don’t burn.  Try not to salivate into the pan.  Turn off the heat and add in the tomatoes and langoustine, stirring. Add salt and pepper.

If you want it to taste even better, add in a half of a dried red chili pepper while the garlic is cooking. The pepper seeps into the oil slowly and gives it a nice, warm, rich flavor.

Cover and let it sit for a bit for the flavors to meld. While you’re waiting, boil the linguine. Drain, toss the sauce with the linguine, garnish with parsley, and eat those carbs. You deserve it!

LINGUINE WITH GARLIC LANGOUSTINE SAUCE

Ingredients

9 cloves garlic, chopped fine

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 pound langoustine tails (pre-cooked, drained and thawed)

1 ripe tomato

1/4 cup parsley, minced

8 oz (1/2 pound) linguine

(optional) 1/2 of a dried red chili pepper or 1/2 tsp paprika

salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

Heat oil in a saute pan over medium to low heat. Add in garlic  (and optionally, the chili pepper) and cook for about a minute, til it begins to be a very light golden hue. (For a milder spice, substitute paprika for the chili pepper.) Off the heat, and stir in tomatoes, langoustine, salt and pepper. Cover to allow flavors to meld.

Boil the linguine and drain. Combine with prepared sauce above, stir in parsley and serve.

Serves 2-4.

A date has been set for the EPIC BAKING DAY and I must continue to prepare. First, by purchasing more / larger pants with elastic waistbands and then determining the number of 30-pound bags of sugar I need to buy from Costco.  And I know this doesn’t make sense here but I just have to say that I LOVE HUMMUS. People sometimes ask me* what my favorite hummus is, and I have to say that it’s the Trader Joe’s Smooth and Creamy Classic Hummus. Man, I love that hummus! I’ve been eating it by the tubful in my pantry (and then telling people that my jeans are tight because I put on 10 pounds of muscle over the holidays).  It’s really good with tuna, and shepherd’s pie, and on whatever other leftovers I don’t want to taste in particular.  Sometimes I wake up at night in a sweat thinking about it. It’s that good.

I’ve been feeling bad that this blog on the whole presents more problems than solutions. So I thought I’d start sharing some things that people might find kind of useful, like…how to make brussels sprouts!

I belong to a CSA and this means that sometimes making dinner is kind of like being on Iron Chef, without all the fancy cooking stuff and the chefs. I’ve always liked brussels sprouts but they never really blew me away, and I never looked forward to them the way I look forward to hummus. Until The Day My Friend Carol Made These Brussels Sprouts.  Here’s how you do it:

First, you cut the sprouts in half.

and then chop up some garlic. My mom peels garlic by using a meat hammer and squishing the cloves, so that’s what I’ve done here. It works well and it’s quick, if you don’t need the whole clove to stay intact. After you’ve squished them out of their skins, chop them up. I forgot to take a picture of that part.

Then toss the sprouts together with the garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper in a baking tray, and broil for about 10 minutes. You’ll know it’s done when the sprouts turn a bright green and some of the edges start to carmelize.

and that’s it! This is the ONLY brussels sprouts recipe that my family will eat. Enjoy!

*Ok, in this case, people = me.

CARMELIZED BRUSSELS SPROUTS WITH GARLIC AND OLIVE OIL

Ingredients

1/2 pound brussels sprouts, halved

3 large or 5 small cloves garlic, chopped

1/8 cup olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

Prepare broiler.

Toss the brussels sprouts with the garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. Place on a baking tray and broil. Check after 4 minutes and toss the sprouts to ensure even exposure to heat. Pull the sprouts out after they’ve turned a brilliant green, and some of the outer leave have begun to carmelize, between 6-10 minutes. Season as needed with additional salt / pepper.

Serves 2-4.

Anyway, last week I went to the optometrist and for my annual eye exam. I really like my optometrist because he has a special glaucoma machine that doesn’t do the air puff, a machine that takes photos of the inside of your eye without having to do dilation, and a special wrist motion he uses when he covers your eye with a black plastic spoon (kind of like jazz hands, but optometry-style). Amidst the non-air-puffing and the special wrist flips, he found what he suspected was a hole in my eye. Holes in your eye are bad, because they can lead to retinal detachment. Retinal detachment is bad because it causes blindness. I always knew that because I have such poor vision I had a higher risk of this, and I’m the kind of person where if something bad could happen, it usually does, so this wasn’t totally unexpected, but I was mostly grossed out by the idea of having my eye propped open. Years ago I took a friend to her LASIK surgery and, not being squeamish, asked if I could watch. The doctors happily allowed me to and broadcast a ginormous close-up of her eye while it was being operated upon. Let me just say that it was MUCH grosser than I ever thought. I learned that watching an eye being taped and propped open makes me kind of sick. And her eye also bled.

So today I went to see a retinal specialist. He also had a special machine that takes pictures of the inside of your eye, and the technician was especially excited about this machines. The technician, who without my contacts I can only describe as being flesh-colored with what appeared to be a beard, an uneven bob and a headband, started excitedly pointing at diagrams of what this picture could look like and what conditions those could indicate (this is a surprising departure from most technicians I’ve experienced, who refuse to share their interpretations of results with you probably because of some legal reason, even if you say oh, come on, please, I won’t tell anyone.) Anyway, I pretended for a while to follow and then finally said, “I’m sorry. I’m blind as a bat without my contacts so I’m just using my imagination right now.”

Fast forward: I meet the doctor. It’s his first day on the job. I’m a little worried. I hear him in the hallway being introduced to people and am glad to know that it’s not his first day as a doctor, and that he went to and worked at Stanford before coming here. He puts lots of eye drops in my eyes. He shines lots of bright lights at me while I look in a bunch of different directions. He finds the hole and commends my optometrist, who I want to tell him has this special wrist motion. He says that there is a hole. It is small, but if something happened then I could get a retinal detachment. Again, retinal detachment: bad. He says that I could take the risk that nothing would happen, or, get the surgery and decrease that risk to 0.5%. He says there will be 5-10 minutes of pain, and then I can go on with my day. And maybe I’d want to take a Tylenol.

ME: How bad is the pain?

DOCTOR: Not too bad. I just did it on a 12 year old and he put up with it.

ME: So you can do this, like, now?

DOCTOR: Yes.

ME: And then I just go home and go on living?

DOCTOR: Yes.

ME: [thinking through pain management exercises, and that if I go blind I will be dependent on my husband to do my hair and makeup] OK.

Fast forward again. Cold eye laser beam room. He pushes lot of buttons. I can tell by the way he’s pushing that what he wants to happen isn’t happening. He pushes more buttons. He tries to figure out how to adjust my chair. He says, “I’ll be right back, I’m just going to get some help with this.” I am again thinking through the scenario where my husband will need to do my makeup and hair. He comes back with another doctor. They push a bunch of buttons and check the plugs. I am hoping they have a backup generator and that there isn’t an earthquake in the 10 minutes it will take to do my surgery.

DOCTOR: OK, we’re ready!

ME: Uh, you feel confident with this procedure, right?

DOCTOR: Oh yeah, I’ve done it a million times, it’s just my first day here.

ME: [hoping this machine works the same way as the one at Stanford] OK.

He put this thing on my eye (remember, no contacts, so I couldn’t tell you more about it) and then I saw lots of really bright flashes of light. I didn’t actually think it hurt at all; it was most bothersome to the eye that wasn’t being lasered. But I do think I have a fairly high pain tolerance because I was once in labor and didn’t know it. Though another time I was in labor and it hurt a lot.

Then, he was done and I was free to go. I still couldn’t see anything, being dilated and having just been temporarily blinded by laser, but he said that I could drive. I don’t get that — eye doctors are always telling me I can drive after dilation but to me the world looks like I’m playing an ’80s video game with someone else’s glasses that my kids have licked. Anyway, I used The Force and my imagination and got home, and a few hours later, have mostly recovered my vision.

But the best part is that when I got home I got a surprise that was even better than surprise eye surgery:

Sprinkles cupcakes! I can't help but see some of these as corneas and irises.

This was totally unrelated to the surprise surgery, but thanks Jenny!

Now that Danielle and I are all Hollywood and are basically just waiting for an invitation to bake with her, I decided to take a baby step toward cake pops and to bake some cupcakes on my own. If you’re training for a marathon, you build up to it.  Are you in fifth grade and would you like to read about baking? If so, this is the site for you!

The challenge: Double-Maple Cupcakes from Cooking Light. Except that I made them single-maple because I wanted to use buttercream frosting. I was first introduced to these cupcakes by my friend Christine, who is appropriately Canadian, and who baked them and brought them to work. They were the most fabulous cupcakes I had ever tasted, and I wanted to eat all 18 of them but had to just smile politely as co-workers passed them around and helped themselves to what could have been added to my portion.

Here is what I learned from this baking experience:

1. If you put a several cups of flour in the bowl of your KitchenAid mixer that you have used twice since you purchased it, and then turn the dial to High, you will distribute flour all over yourself and the kitchen. I also used a dough paddle which may have been wrong.

This would be an inappropriate picture for a food blog.

2. After you have done 1, you may no longer have the correct proportions of ingredients in your batter, and sometimes when this happens, your cupcake may actually throw up.

Cupcake barf. Unretouched photo.

Overall, though, most of the cupcakes that were not unwell turned out pretty normal looking.

The ones that didn't throw up.

And they frosted up nicely.

I know there are gaps in the frosting. Don't judge me.

So if you want to try this at home, here are the recipes (with instructions on how to make barfing cupcakes above):

DOUBLE-MAPLE CUPCAKES from Cooking Light:
Ingredients

• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 5 tablespoons butter or stick margarine, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon imitation maple flavoring
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup 1% low-fat milk
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• Frosting:
• 3 tablespoons maple syrup
• 2 tablespoons butter or stick margarine, softened
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon imitation maple flavoring
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 3/4 cups powdered sugar

Preparation

Image courtesy of Bakerella

I know, I know, I’m a little slow on the uptake. It’s just like years after Brad Pitt was named one of People Magazine’s Sexiest People and I finally saw A River Runs Through It and started telling people, Hey, that Brad Pitt, he’s kind of cute!

This all started a few weeks ago when I was at a baby shower. Melissa V decorated the shower with Very Hungry Caterpillarstuff like little trees with caterpillars in them made of pom poms and other stuff I would never think to do (she also makes full-size nativity sets for plays and has a lot of children, which I would never do either), including:

Some cake pops I did not make.

Yes, cake pops. The picture is blurry because I was high on sugar and shaking from all the cake pops I had. I would never have given them a second thought except that they were DELICIOUS. I kept eating them. I couldn’t stop thinking about them.

A late night Google search on cake pops invariably led to a visit to Bakerella, and hours ogling her photos (she takes gorgeous photos, which means she is doing with one hand what I cannot do with two. I am a bad baker. I’m an excellent eater, and I like my own cooking, but there is something about baking that compromises my ability to function. A few weeks ago I made some dipped truffles I was going to gift, and my husband said, “Uh, you can’t give those to your boss.” I would have been mad except that they did look like sad, decapitated snowmen after a nuclear war.). I had a full-on night of dreams about cake pops (mostly about how I made them for one of my kids’ birthdays, and when they were unveiled there would be gasps and some people would actually pass out from the awesomeness and a spotlight would shine on me, suddenly cueing R Kelly’s I Believe I Can Fly). Then I had to post about her on Facebook.  And that’s when I found out that my friend Danielle is obsessed with her too. Danielle can actually bake and has even made cake pops. And ebliskiver, but that’s a topic for another time. Anyway, this is what went down:

ME: So I was reading her FAQs and she’d like you to ask for permission to use her pictures SO I EMAILED HER!  What if she writes back!!!  Do you want me to ask her what her favorite color is???

DANIELLE: WHAT IF SHE DOES WRITE BACK!?!?!?  PLEASE forward it to me so I can be starstruck!!!!  It’ll be like you are famous along with her.  Ask her what her favorite NON-baked good food is.  Like does she eat steak?  Or stuffed mushrooms?  Or….Nachos?

ME: SHE WROTE BACK!!!!!  She actually typed letters back to me that were addressed to my email address!!!!  Here it is. Don’t faint.

On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 5:55 PM, Bakerella wrote:
Sure. Thanks for asking.

Then it basically degenerated into a conversation about feelings regarding Justin Bieber (who I happen to love).  But THEN Danielle went to the store and BOUGHT US CAKE POP DECORATING STUFF! YES, we are going to make cake pops!!! This is important because I cannot do this alone.  This is not going to happen for a couple of weeks, but be prepared. It is going to be EPIC.  Like we are optioning movie rights now.

Maybe Bakerella could link to me when she needs to show what could go wrong if you screwed up her recipes. In case you thought I was joking about being a bad baker, let me share this photo with you. I even took it with a fancy camera and a pensive angle, but these are carrot muffins and, like snowflakes, no two look exactly alike. In fact, they’re not even near the same size or shape.

Nothing says "professional" like muffins that are baked from containers of the same size but come out totally different

So Bakerella, thanks for letting me use your pictures. They will make this site a happier place. Oh, and she has a bookout too — we’re going to be using it as the basis for our epic baking endeavor.

I could do a list of New Year’s resolutions but they’re not ready yet so I’m just going to show some pictures. Below, the view from our rental house in Big Bear Lake, CA. It was so hot up there that I skied in short sleeves and was still too hot. It was actually not that much fun, skiing in the heat, but then again, I also find walking slightly more pleasurable than skiing.

This is what the same scene looks like at sunset:

Like Mindy Kaling says in her book, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns), “There is no sunrise so beuatiful that it is worth waking me up to see it.” I know this because this past year I’ve had a job where I get up before the sunrise, so I see a lot of sunrises, and the sunset is just as good if not better, and you’ll feel a lot more normal all day if you see a sunset. Also, you’re probably going to hear me talk about Mindy a lot like she’s a friend of mine because I just read her book and I kind of want to be her.

I would share other pictures too but despite being on a ski trip, all my photos are of kids in the hot tub or people eating fatty foods.

Happy 2012! It’s also my dad’s birthday, so happy birthday Dad! Now to get dressed.

Food is the best.  I went to a farmer’s market today and the food was so good that I just had to give the picture more space than usual.  One of the happiest days of my life was when a friend made roasted figs filled with goat cheese.  I think figs should grow on trees.  Wait, maybe they do.

Last week there was a blackout all over San Diego.  At first, I was annoyed because I couldn’t work.  But then, gradually, I became glad, because I couldn’t work.  I took the kids to the pool and the pool manager told me he heard the power wasn’t going to come back on until sometime the next day.  I felt a little giddy.  This was as close to camping as I would ever want to get.  I’m the type of person who, born in a different era, would be dead by now.  I would have been naturally selected out and consumed by tigers because of my poor eyesight.  If required to hunt rabbits for survival as a result of the power outage, I wouldn’t make it (should I hunt with a spatula or a collander?).

But I survived the power outage.  I cooked — on my gas grill (no, can’t make fire with twigs either).  I quenched my thirst with beer (which was made of hops and barley that someone planted).  And the most startling thing happened that night.  I discovered…moonlight.  I’d heard that word before — and I’ve certainly seen the moon — but I didn’t get it until I saw it in the absence of other light that the moon actually provides light.  And that night, a lot of it.  So much of it that it actually kept awake up as I was lying on the floor in an attempt to keep cool (weakness #4: cannot withstand temperature fluctuations of +/- 3 degrees).  [Full disclosure:  I am the person who once walked in a field behind my childhood home and ran as if doing a jig because grasshoppers were touching me.  Observing me, a friend of my brother's asked, "Has your sister ever been outdoors?"]

But, moonlight!  I’ve seen it.  It only took me 40 years to experience it.  Now I get it.  Moonlight.

This morning, a few days before my 40th birthday, I put two contact lenses into one eye.  Who says 40 is the new 30?

Photo to the right was taken on a recent whale watching trip.  This was about 10 minutes before I got too seasick to care about whales.  And actually I think these are dolphins.

So recently, I’ve started going to an acupuncturist.  Combination of not wanting to be heavily medicated and hearing the tales of others, including some friends in the medical profession, talk about the merits of acupuncture (one friend, a 43-year-old physician, has had numerous surgeries and procedures in an effort to get pregnant; enter acupuncture — she’s 4 months along now).  Of this I am convinced:  it certainly does something.  The first time I had it done, about 10 minutes in, alone in the room, I started laughing uncontrollably.  Nothing was funny.  Although I wouldn’t rule out mental illness, it seemed to be a strange response to the acupuncture.  Apparently this isn’t uncommon.  And after my first session, I felt the best I’ve felt since I was probably two.  It’s what I imagine nirvana is meant to be like.  And best of all, I slept that night, which hasn’t happened much lately.

Last time I went, the acupuncturist checked my pulse and said that my lungs sounded weaker than normal.  I had felt that day that I was coming down with something, and had just started feeling slightly headachy, with some sinus pressure, and that overall run-down feeling.  She prescribed me some herbs to take — apparently these are very effective if you can catch something at its onset — and within a few hours, I felt a lot better.  By the next day, I felt fine.

So I’m a convert.  I was always skeptical of Chinese medicine, but I’ve realized that having a Chinese mother who randomly instructs you to ingest herbs is not the same as having someone who has actually studied Chinese medicine prescribe you herbs.  And I can’t explain the acupuncture, except to say that it works.

In case you’re wondering, and you’re probably not, if there’s an earthquake you’re allowed to pull all the needles out.  And then run outside in your glamorous paper robe.

I love breakfast.  I love eating, and breakfast is the first thing you get to eat every day.  I love bacon. Eggs.  Butter.  During the week, though, breakfast is a lot less fun.  For me, it’s a rushed time, and with my new job I am usually on a call with an international group of people at an ungodly hour.  I need to be able to prepare something that can be done in increments as I hit the mute button periodically, and it needs to be quickly consumed.  But it also needs not to be disgusting.  I’m a snob like that.

So here’s a little meal that my friend Patricia suggested.  It’s actually surprisingly good.  You’ll need (the stuff I took an ugly photo of with my cell phone):

• Almond milk (about a cup or so…though I don’t usually measure so you might have to experiment here); I’ve tried unflavored as well as vanilla and they both work fine
• 1 Banana
• 1 Avocado
• Whey (I don’t really know what this is except that Little Miss Muffet ate them with curds in a nursery rhyme) — but at Patricia’s suggestion I got MRM brand 100% all natural whey in Rich Vanilla
• (optional) Flax oil

All you do is slice up the banana and avocado, add in about a cup of the almond milk, a squirt of flax oil and a scoop of whey, and blend (I have a handy little Braun hand blender that makes this easy).  You can add in ice if you want it to be more smoothie-like, but I’m happy with it so long as everything else is cold.  The whey protein makes it filling — unlike with smoothies, this one tides me over til lunch. There you have it — healthy liquid breakfast!