Novel Eats

As an average baker, it was a little overwhelming to see The Daring Bakers‘ latest challenge. As a vegan, it was absolutely frightening. Two words: Opera Cake. Don’t know what an Opera Cake is? Well, essentially it is a lot of layers of cake and cream and sugar topped off with a glaze. If you’re lucky it will take approximately four hours to construct, and if you’re good it will look perfect when cut.

And why was this frightening for me as a vegan? Well, aside from the necessary endurance factor, it had around 14 eggs in the original recipe (six of those are egg whites, so if you want to get really technical…). It was pretty clear that this cake depends heavily upon our fine feathered friends. But what is a challenge if it is not challenging?!

Our wedding was unconventional. We didn’t want to have the cookie cutter wedding that so many people seem to have these days. Instead, my husband suggested, why don’t we do a picnic? That seemed like an interesting idea, and one that eventually caught on.

Our wedding was in Central Park near the Bow Bridge. We had everyone sit in a circle on blankets, and after we got settled we had everyone share advice and stories for us. Eventually we expressed how we felt about each other (a.k.a. vows), and then had everyone eat snacks and desserts out of our picnic baskets (really galvanized buckets, but they still looked really nice). Aside from occasional bits of rain, it was nice and it was nice to do something that was more simple and less stressful than a full blown wedding.

If I were to list my favorite foods, Mexican would likely not make it. This is an unfortunate dilemma for my marriage, however, as it tops my husband’s list of favorite foods. If it were up to him we would eat burritos every day or at least every week. When he says, “What do you feel like having? We could have Mexican,” I usually respond with “I don’t really feel like Mexican.”

“But you never want Mexican.”

“Because it’s not one of my favorite cuisines.”

“You suck.”

“You suck.”

“That’s it. I want a divorce.”

“Whatever you want, dear. I’m here to make you happy.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

Okay, well, maybe not exactly like that, but it does come close sometimes.

All you need for a tropical fruit salad is a little mango, papaya, young coconut and a few other fruits you might be craving.

Curl up with this warm and hearty soup on a cool day.