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Desserts

Pecan Shortbread

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The march of progress often seems inexorable, with each passing step of time yielding new ground in our scientific and technical fields.

The digital age is the embodiment of this phenomenon.  With the advent of computers, we’ve watched our lives become longer, our automobiles become safer, and our world become closer.

In the world of photography, the digital age has made film obsolete and our cameras smaller and faster.  We’ve gone from the Polaroid to the point and shoot, and from carrying buckets of film to squeezing thousands of images onto a single photo card, no larger than the size of a half-dollar.  We’ve traded film development for image software; our darkroom for a computer.

All of which makes the technical and artistic expertise of an Ansel Adams that much more compelling….

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Pumpkin Crepe Cake

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Caitlin arrived in Cincinnati last Saturday, partly for work, and partly to celebrate her 27th birthday (that Monday).

After picking her up at the airport, we headed to dinner.  After dinner, we returned to my apartment, where – as is her custom – Caitlin examined the contents of my refrigerator.  After sampling the almond butter and my homemade tzatziki sauce, she concentrated her sights on the large, domed item, carefully wrapped in foil.

It was, obviously, her cake.  But what kind of cake, she wondered.  Alas, I could not answer the question; it was not yet her birthday.

After a small amount of pleading (it was, after all, her birthday weekend), I agreed to give her a series of hints.

It had pumpkin, I told her, knowing …

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Salty Oat Cookies

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When I find a cooking blog that I like, I enjoy taking a moment to read the author’s “About Me” page.  Some of the pages include vast descriptions of the blogger’s life.   Others include only a few passing phrases, sometimes leaving the reader with more questions than answered.  Some pages have yet to even change the default setting from wordpress.

One of the things that I’ve noticed, in looking over the “About Me” pages, is that there seems to be a much larger number of lawyers with cooking blogs than say doctors or businessmen.  It amazes me how often I find a lawyer behind a food blog or a cooking show or a burgeoning cupcake business.  The Zagats, the couple behind the restaurant surveys, started their professional careers in large law firms.  And most recently, one of my good friends quit his law firm job of a few years to start his own restaurant business.

Which begs the question: is there any particular reason lawyers seem more attracted to cooking than their confreres in medicine and business?

Being a lawyer…

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Easy Lemon Squares

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Optimism can be over-rated.  Optimism is hard-work, often requiring an ability to overlook the obvious or turn a blind-eye to the reality staring you straight on.  Optimism demands unnecessary devotion and adherence, a sunny disposition in the face of an oncoming hail storm.

Pessimism, as George Will has triumphed, is the ultimate solution.  You are either constantly being vindicated or, on the other hand, pleasantly surprised.

For those sour moments, those hail storms of bad news and despair, I…

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