There’s a Snake in My Boot!
Okay, it’s technically a hole, not a snake, but I think a hole in your rain boot is just as problematic as a snake when it’s raining cats and dogs- like it’s been all day here. It’s basically been the type of day you want to curl up and read with a big mug of hot chocolate with lots of mini marshmallows on top. Or homemade croissants, which I made this weekend with Dima! Which totally made up for Swingfest not happening after all… I don’t know where the confusion came from, but I was really sad they weren’t having it. Oh well, at least I got croissants instead. Just look at how pretty they are! Too bad we ate/gave them all away last night, because they would have been perfect for a rainy, mediocre kind of day.
We used the recipe from the Tartine pastry cookbook, which is 5+ pages long and took us 3 days to make; mostly because they have to rise for such ridiculously long periods of time. They were so worth the time and the “Are we doing this right? Is it supposed to look like that?” speculation though; they were like bread combined with those really buttery dinner rolls that have 300 calories apiece… but better. And the chocolate filled ones were even more delicious!
We made the chocolate ones square instead of the regular curlycue shape because that’s what the recipe called for, but next time I think we’re just going to use the regular shape. It didn’t matter if they looked a little funny though because they were so freaking good! Especially with powdered sugar and cocoa powder on top. I’m really proud of how they turned out, but even happier that Dima and I finally made them after planning for months and months and months. We’re going to be on an Iron Chef team with our friend John that Chartwells is setting up Wednesday, which should be pretty fun, and Karen’s going to help us pick out our next baking experiment! I can’t wait!
The past two weeks have had a lot of first food experiences for me- my first cup of espresso (Leah, one of the freshmen, made it for me, and it was good… especially after I put ice cream in the little bit I hadn’t finished when we went to the Fantastic Mr. Fox hall event later), my first whole cup of tea (I wasn’t a big coffee or tea drinker before, which made me weird both as a southerner and as a member of my coffee-obsessed family), and the first time I had tiramisu (my friend David’s sister Emmy Kate made it for his birthday and I got to have some. It was delicious!)
For the record though, I haven’t just been eating pastries and drinking tea and coffee this week: I’ve been experimenting with the salad bar options too and I actually discovered that I love chickpeas! I don’t know why I didn’t try them before, but they’re awesome and I’ve been putting them on my salads pretty much every day this week. Yum!
Edit: I just noticed that this is my 50th post and Sight to Behold’s 3-month anniversary guys! Woohoo! I just want to say thanks to everyone who’s read, commented, and/or liked my posts- I really appreciate it and I couldn’t do it without your input and interest. Thanks so much, and I hope you enjoy reading STB as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it!