Cafe Fernando

New Member of The Family

Please meet the new member of our family: Altın Örümcek (Golden Spider).

This may not be major news to readers outside of Turkey, but Cafe Fernando was chosen Turkey’s Best Blog and got The Golden Spider Award last week.

The Golden Spider Web Awards is an annual competition, where successful websites are honored in 53 different categories. It is sort of like the Web Oscars in Turkey (minus the good food and crazy after parties). Established six years ago, the awards are presented by Doruknet, a major ISP in Turkey. This year, the competition was sponsored by companies like Google and Getty Images (among many) as well as major IT newspapers and magazines. Over 300 blogs were first narrowed down to 5 finalists by the jury, and Cafe Fernando got the award after the final public voting round.

Just wanted to share a proud and happy moment with all of you!

Cafe Fernando Brownies in The Washington Post

When Nick Malgieri emailed me a couple of weeks ago asking if I’d be willing to submit a recipe for the piece he was working on for The Washington Post, my heart nearly stopped. The editors also liked my photo, so both the recipe and the photo are featured in Mr. Maligeri’s article.

He also compiled a small chart of baking bloggers and guess who I share the chart with? Dorie Greenspan, Michael Laiskonis, Peter Reinhart, Rose Levy Beranbaum, Nicole of Baking Bites, Anita of Dessert First and Bea of La Tartine Gourmande.

Did I just die and went to heaven?

Bea also contributed with her scrumptious Lemon Grass, Vanilla and Red Currant Cakes recipe and photo (gorgeous as always).

I cannot tell you how honored I am to be sharing the same space with these extraordinarily talented people. A huge thank you to Mr. Malgieri for considering me. Wish he lived closer so I could send a batch of Korova Cookies as a thank you…

Korova Cookies

Today, Cafe Fernando turns two years old and I would just die if I don’t mark this occasion with my most favorite cookies of all time: Korova Cookies.

These cookies made their debut in “Paris Sweets: Great Desserts from the City’s Best Pastry Shops” by Dorie Greenspan. There is another very impressive person behind the recipe – the man Vogue magazine once called “The Picasso of Pastry.” No, it’s not David Lebovitz (he is the Monet). It’s Pierre Herme.

The recipe later appeared in Dorie’s masterpiece “Baking: From My Home to Yours”, but under a different name: World Peace Cookies. Dorie’s neighbor, who is clearly one of the luckiest people on earth, gave them their new name. He once said that a daily dose of Pierre’s cookies is all that is needed to ensure planetary peace and happiness.

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