Oh, rhubarb. You ubiquitous late spring presence, you vegetable of desserts. I can never resist you when I see you at the farmer's market, all brightly colored and stalky and tempting. I've done rhubarb pie before on this 'blog, but I was thinking it might be delicious to do something slightly different than the standard combination of strawberry and rhubarb. Don't get me wrong; I adore strawberry rhubarb pie, but decided to mix raspberries with my rhubarb instead, just to mix things up a bit. I know, it's crazy, but everything turned out all right in the end, I promise. Won't you come along for the ride?

Ride on, soldiers, at girlcate.com.

When I was about 12 years old, I had what might have been deemed an unhealthy obsession with the mini lemon-poppy seed bundt cakes at one of our local bakeries. I would eat them whenever I could, relishing especially the crispy, buttery bottom sides of the little things. They were moist and delicate and wonderful, but I think the thing I was most enamored with was the shape: the treats had the form of full-sized bundt cakes, molding and all, but were about the size of a standard muffin. I forgot about my erstwhile gustatory preoccupation at some point while I was growing up and getting old and boring and less willing to eat cake for breakfast. But thankfully, a little while ago I happened upon a recipe for lemon cake in Maida Heatter's Book of Great Desserts. For some reason, although the recipe made no mention of poppy seeds, I was reminded of my childhood obsession, and thought it would be fun to tweak Maida's probably already stellar recipe and perhaps approximate the glory of the mini bundt cakes of my youth. The 12-year-old in me squealed with joy and anticipation.

come squeal with me, beyond the horizon.

When I was a kid, I loved me some fig newtons. I remember them being moist and chewy and just the right size for sneaking out of the kitchen. Plus, they had actual fruit (or rather, "fruit") in them, so they didn't quite count as "real" cookies. Having eaten a few of these guys as an adult, however, I've been disappointed by the chalky, gristly quality of the dough and the over-sweetness of the filling. So I was really excited when I came across an organic, planet-friendly, small-bakery type of fig newton at Urban Rustic a few weekends ago. And they were really quite good; they were flavorful and chewy and not nearly as gristly as the packaged kind. But they were still a little bland, and I started thinking to myself, "you know what? I can probably make these cookies myself, and make them better." So I set out to do exactly that.

get your filling of figs, below the fold.

It's a trip to Germany this week at afternoons in tablespoons. Last weekend, Kenan and I planned to head over to Chris and Jodi's place to catch up on Lost and do some hanging out. Chris is part German, spent some time in Berlin last year and seems to have a general delight for all things Deutschland. So when I was scheming about things to make for the gathering, I immediately decided strudel would be sufficiently delicious and German-themed. I'd never tried it before, so I thought it'd be fun to give it a whirl.

Teutonic delights, below the fold.

Some weekends are perfect for french toast. I was sick all last week, and the cold was definitely presenting some major deterrents to venturing outside for more than the most important of errands, so some warm, comforting food seemed like it would do just the trick. I'd made french toast dozens of times before, but never with home-made bread, so I decided to try out the brioche recipe from my brand new baking bible and then use the bread to make french toast.

get all french like, over this way.

Oh, my goodness, it's been so long. There have been many things, some of them terrible, some of them annoying, some of them great, and all of them quite time-consuming. But there's finally been some baking going on, so let's get to it.

Let's do, over here.

Let me tell you a story: After I graduated from college, I moved to France for a little while, to teach English and find my bearings in the big, scary world outside of the college bubble. When I was getting ready to make my triumphant return to the states, I decided that I would try living in New York (I'm originally from Northern California). So I packed my bags and came straight here, after two panicked and bewildering days wandering around in Charles de Gaulle. I had lined up a place to stay in Manhattan while I looked for a job and an apartment, but for various reasons, that situation didn't work out, and I very quickly found myself homeless, jobless, and broke in a gigantic, expensive, and unfamiliar city.

Things get familiar and quite delicious, over here

Once upon a time, by which I mean about two months ago, Kenan had an idea.

Actually, I should maybe give you some background first, before I get to the idea part: You see, Kenan and I are fortunate enough to have a plethora of friends (and friends of friends) who share our proclivity for blogging and photographing and drawing and such. As it also happens, all of them like to eat good food, even if they don't themselves make a project of creating it (for more information, see my 'blog roll, ladies and gents; they're all worth a read). Kenan and I often talk about how living in a city like this is so great for community; not only are there great multitudes of talented people around doing amazing, beautiful things, but a good number of them live in our neighborhood, and having their stuff around to keep up on and learn from is both inspiring and happy-making. So, Kenan had the idea to get a group of said bloggers and photographers and generally epicurean folks together for one big, extravagant, entirely blogger-created meal.

mealing and dealing when the dinner bell rings.

What not to not eat, after the sauté.

It's always good to get out of the city. Kenan and I took the opportunity presented by the long weekend to hop a bus down to the outskirts of Baltimore to visit Kenan's uncle Ephraim, for the Fourth of July weekend (once again, this post is a couple weeks late coming out, but bear with me - it's gonna be fun). Ephraim and his wife, Sarah, live in a big old plantation house so beautiful and full of awesome things that it makes me want to rethink my existence as a city dweller. When the weather's nice, they eat all their meals on their patio, surrounded by Sarah's gorgeous garden. And not only are the house and grounds stunning, but there's a trampoline, a ping pong table, a swimming pool next door, and a goofy, friendly German Shepherd who always seemed to be wandering around looking for someone to throw a ball for her. Needless to say, all of this made our stay both full of fun and relaxing, certainly worth making our asses numb from sitting so long on the bus to get down there. In order to repay our gracious hosts for the use of their house and grounds, we proposed that we prepare dinner and dessert on Saturday.

preparations proceed around the bend.