Dunk & Crumble

mollygilbert520

Cookies & Cream Cake

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Sunday was a day for tears, for long goodbye hugs, runny mascara and tear-stained t-shirts on the east coast.  Monday was a day for travel, filled with taxi cabs and airplane food, cramped-up legs and some minor jet lag on the west coast.  And today, well, today is a day for celebrating.

Not only is today, March 6th, my first official day as a person who lives in San Francisco, but it’s also the birthday of two of my very favorite things: Katie Gro and Oreo cookies.  KGro is my curliest-haired (some say identical) cousin, a lover of high heels, yoga and scotch, and the best, truest, most selfless friend you could have.  Happy birthday, KGro!

And then there’s milk’s favorite cookie, the classic and unmatched Oreo.  Today, the Oreo turns one hundred years old.  One hundred!  I’ve been eating Oreos since birth, I’m pretty sure, and they are by far my favorite packaged cookie.  Do I consider the Oreo a sweet and special friend, on par with my KGro?  No.  Do I consider the Oreo a sweet a special friend, always there for me in times of happiness, sadness and excess milk?  Absolutely.  Happy birthday, Oreos!

California.  KGro.  Oreos.  So many things to celebrate!  To help, I thought a cake might be in order, a chocolate one with Oreo-flecked buttercream.  Happy happy, everybody.

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Creamy Chocolate Date Bars

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It’s getting closer.  The big date, I mean.  You know, the date!  The one on which I board a flight from New York City, wing my way out to California, and then stay there.  Like, for good.

March 5th is that date, and there are signs everywhere telling me that it’s just around the corner.  Signs like a wine- and pasta- and wine-filled going away party.  Extra tight hugs.  Empty shelves.  The stack of brown cardboard boxes cluttering my apartment, and the men here to load them into a truck and move them across the country.  Just a few signs.

As the date approaches, I’m getting antsy.  Excited.  Nostalgic.  Hungry.

On the subject of dates and excitement and hunger, I’d like to tell you about these date bars.  I’ve been on a date kick lately; it seems I buy a new carton every time I’m at the grocery store.  I enjoy them, roughly chopped atop my cereal or oatmeal, or else straight from the carton; I rip each soft, sticky date open, wrest out the almond-shaped pit, and pop them, one after another, onto my happy tongue.

When the urge to bake something with my weekly carton of dates hit, I was initially reluctant to go with date bars.  Date bars sound more like health food than dessert.  But, after some thought, I reconsidered.  I decided that, if I add some thick, rich and chocolatey ganache to my date bars, already filled with crunchy, oat-y cookie and creamy, naturally sticky-sweet dates, they might be okay.

They are.

So here’s to move dates and fruit dates, some of which are bittersweet and full of excitement, others of which are covered with chocolate ganache.

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Moroccan Spiced Tomato Soup with Cous Cous

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Happy weekend, friends!  Today I leave for Florida, to visit Gramma Lynn.  It will be my last visit before the big move, and we have big plans, Gramma and me.  Plans which involve crossword puzzles, Mallomars, movie dates and, hopefully, a bit of sun.

Gramma Lynn is, very decidedly, the bee’s knees.  There’s just no other way to put it.  She grows her own tomatoes.  She lets me sit at her very well organized vanity and play with her tubes of pink lipstick.  She always has a cookie in the cabinet.  She drives a convertible, yet has unshakeably flawless hair.  She enjoys Steve Carell.  You see?  Bee’s knees.

One day, I’m going to grow my own tomatoes.  I don’t think flawless hair is in the cards for me.  But tomatoes?  Could be.

Until then, I’ll make tomato soup from cans (cans?  …CANS?  Did she say cans?) (Yes, cans.  It’s okay, really.  It’s winter time, there are no good, fresh tomatoes in sight.  Canned whole, peeled tomatoes are cheap, flavorful, and great for soup in a pinch.  Try it.  Try it so I can close the parenthesis.  Okay?  Okay).  Thank you.

Tomato soup, from canned tomatoes.  Or, as Gramma would say, “tuh-may-duhs.”  Give it a try.  Wear pink lipstick.  You might be surprised.

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Black and White (and Pink) Cookies

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The black and white cookie.  The official unofficial cookie of New York City.  Or is it the unofficial official cookie?  Hm.

I made mine black and white and pink, for Valentine’s Day.  Would Jerry Seinfeld approve?  Probably not.  But if you look to the cookie, you will see that these are really kind of perfect — they are a sweet sort of tribute, my personal homage to this city so nice, they named it twice; they are my little love letter to New York City, a city I’ve called home for three years, but which, quite soon, I will leave behind.  For now.

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Sweet & Salty Snack Mix

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Last night was the Superbowl.  While the Giants were busy beating the Patriots, game day food threw down.  Chicken wings and blue cheese battled nachos and guacamole, and beer and burgers shoved their way around the table, barely leaving room for ganache-covered football-shaped cakes.  Simpler snacks like pretzels and goldfish may have been left uneaten in the scuffle.

I know.  Very sad.

Luckily, I’ve got you covered: sweet and salty snack mix.  It’s a non-recipe sort of recipe, easily bagged and tied up with red ribbon, and it will make your Valentine smile.  Probably.  Unless your Valentine doesn’t like Goldfish and M&Ms, and really, if that’s the case, I’m pretty sure you’ve got bigger problems to deal with.  Best of luck.

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Bourbon Whiskey Pomegranate Sparkler

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Thought you might like a cocktail.  A sparkler.  Don’t you like that word?  Sparkler.

It’s bubbly and pinkish and Valentiney!  Cute.  But don’t be fooled — it’s also full of bourbon.  It will punch you in the face if you’re not careful.

I don’t mix up cocktails on the regs (hi, wine), so this took some experimenting, but the combination of smokey bourbon, sweet, tart pomegranate and bright lime is a good one.  Give it a try!  Make it for your Valentine!  Punch someone in the face with it!  The possibilities are endless.

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Turkey Meatballs

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What’s this I hear about some fantastic bowl thing happening this weekend?  I don’t know much about it, but I guess it’s supposed to be super?  Some sort of super cup, or maybe it’s a bowl, during which people yell loudly and drink beer and dunk chips and chomp various meat products?  Or something?

Well.  I think it sounds fun.  I mean I’m not really one to watch gigantic humans battling U.S patriots for the skin of pigs, but if this whole thing is really supposed to be so super and inclusive of bowls of meat, then I think I’d like to participate.  I will make meatballs.

No, I kid.  I like, totally know everything about football.  Zone defense.  Extra points.  First and ten.  See?  Totally.  And as it turns out, I’m not really a fan of either Tom Brady (cleft-chinned cad) or Eli Manning (sad-faced man-boy).  Still, I think I’ll take Peyton’s man-boy brother to beat the spread over weirdly cartoonish Brady.  Does anyone else think he looks like Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, just with tighter pants and less cool shoes?

I mean, I’ll leave that stuff to the experts.  The point spread and the tight pants.  I’ll stick with the meatballs.

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Chocolate French Macarons

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Look at this fanciness! Sometimes it’s fun to be French and fancy.  And then add sprinkles.

I first made macarons in pastry school, and I remember being surprised and actually a little bit disappointed at just how simple they are to make.  I mean, these are macarons.  French ones! These dainty little pretties line the windows of the best French bakeries, taunting us Americans, we with our thick crusted pies and face-sized cookies, looking all sloppy and oafish in comparison.  Stupide, they say, look at how delicate we are!  Look how elegant, how sophisticated!  Out of your league, girl.

Well, nope.

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Pink Grapefruit with Honey & Salt

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Eating grapefruit reminds me of my sister, Emily.  Hi, Em.

Emily likes to eat grapefruit with sugar.  Or rather, she likes to eat sugar with a bit of grapefruit underneath.  At least, she did as a six-year-old.  When Casey and I sprinkled sugar on top of our grapefruit halves, Emily unabashedly dumped spoonful upon spoonful on top of hers.  But Emily’s always been bold like that.

Ever the middle child, Emily’s always been the bravest and brashest of us three Gilbert girls.  Definitely the loudest.  The most generous.  A little bit of a spark plug.  A tough cookie.  When we were little, Casey and I, like most other kids in the neighborhood, mostly chose to wear a standard uniform of shorts, t-shirts and sneakers, but Emily insisted on wearing patterned tights, layers of jewelry, and dresses with skirts on top.  Skirts over dresses.  (She now works for the apparel company Anthropologie, so there you go).

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Yellow Split Pea Soup

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It’s Sunday and the weather channel tells us that, here in New York City, it feels like eleven degrees outside.  Eleven degrees.  Farenheit.

Soup?  Soup.

Days like today make your eyes water, your breath puff, your curled fingers brittle and numb.  Outside, I mean.  It seems eleven degrees is not very many degrees.  Hoods blow backwards, heads dip, eyes squint, and coats are hugged in tightly against the searing wind.  It’s jarring and painful and, frankly, entirely antisocial.  You just cannot look up from the dull pavement at the city’s marvelous bustle when you’re using every ounce of concentration you have trying to wedge your exposed chin into the too-short collar of your all-the-way-zipped-up coat.  You know?

This weather.  It’s unideal for anything, other than soup.  Warm soup, toasted bread, red wine.  Repeat.  January’s not so bad, I guess.

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