Cafe Fernando

Apricot Bars

If I had a dollar for every post I postponed posting… Well, that would make me a professional procrastinator and nothing else.

Here’s what usually happens: I get excited about a fruit or a vegetable, come across season’s finest at the farmers market, decide on a recipe on my way home, cook/bake it, take photos and sit down to eat. By the time I’m ready to write about it (usually weeks later), I realize the season has long passed, so I decide to wait until the next year. A year later, even if I remember that I have photos and recipe ready to go, it just doesn’t feel exciting anymore.

I came across this wonderful interview with Anne Lamott yesterday (via Orangette) and decided that I’m not going to let that happen to these Apricot Bars.

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My Chez Panisse Experience

Two years before opening Chez Panisse, Alice Waters, together with her friend from the Montessori Centre, started a journey from London and ended up in a remote village in Turkey. In the middle of nowhere, they ran out of gas and asked for help from a big-eyed boy. The boy mimed there wasn’t any gas left to pump and when they asked for food, this time he led them to his house. He built a fire out of pine cones, put on a teapot and came back with a tiny piece of cheese, which he then cut into microscopic portions before serving them.

Alice, realizing that the big-eyed boy has given them everything he has without expecting anything in return, was deeply moved. In an essay she contributed to a collection called “The Kindness of Strangers” by Don George, she recounts the incident as “A small miracle of trust, and a lesson in hospitality that changed my life forever*.”

40 years have passed and this time around, another big-eyed boy from Turkey had dinner at Alice’s restaurant.

She didn’t offer me any cheese or gave me everything she had, but what she did give was a feast to remember.

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Saveur’s Best Food Blog Awards 2011

Do you remember the brownies I baked for Dolce & Gabbana? The one layered with velvety hazelnut butter and topped with a delicate chocolate lace… Brownies with Hazelnut Butter and Chocolate Lace (aka Brownie Wears Lace) is nominated by Saveur magazine in their Best Food Blog Awards 2011 in the “Best Original Baking and Desserts Recipe” category.

Thank you Saveur! It is a great honor to be recognized, especially alongside so many inspiring blogs. The competition is fierce and I’d love to have your vote. If you’re so inclined, please visit Saveur’s website and vote (there are 17 categories). You have to be a registered user to be able to vote, but don’t worry – registration takes only 10 seconds.

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