This entry is dedicated to Karen, my brunch-loving friend who will always have a soft spot for Oreos!

Has anyone else noticed this? Cardamom is everywhere now; in blogs, recipe books and other food-driven media. For centuries, Middle Easterners used this unassuming pod to flavor teas, coffees and the occasional desserts. Now, the humble cardamom pod has been given the 90210-celebrity treatment and is making its way to pantries around the world. If you need to see it to believe it, you could check out these blogs featuring delicious cardamom Christmas cookies and cardamom roasted cauliflower for yourself.

Sweet or savory, I love the lemony fragrance that Cardamom brings to the table.  The idea of pairing cardamom with french toast came to me when my friend Desiree told me of this exquisite cardamom crème brûlée she had tasted in a restaurant.  The way she described the fragrant cardamom undertone that the dessert carried through made me eager to experiment some more with the spice. I figured both, French Toast and Creme Brûlée, are custard-based so the cardamom pairing should adapt well.

Random Fact: In France, French Toast is called Pain Perdu, which literally means Lost Bread.  This is because stale bread is traditionally used to make this dish and so it is a great way of using stale, or “lost,” bread.

This past weekend my friend Karen came to visit me in Ithaca now that it’s springtime no longer subzero. On Sunday we enjoyed the day together by climbing Cornell’s clock tower and making brunch.  It was the perfect time to try out the Cardamom French Toast that I had been meaning to experiment with. Here is how it went:

This entry is dedicated to Raquel, my future roommate and lover of cheesecakes!
Special thanks to Elle of Feeding My Enthusiasms and Deborah of Taste and Tell for hosting this month’s cheesecake challenge from Jill O’Connor’s cookbook, Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey.

For me, cheesecakes fall under the small category of mystical foods. It might just be my over-indulging tendencies, but it seems like I can never say no to a slice of heavenly cheesecake, no matter how full I am. Of course, in order to make myself feel better before taking part in one of the seven deadly sins, I always preface my request by asking for a tiny slice (adding more and more diminutive adjectives relative to how stuffed I feel at the moment).

This is my second challenge for the Daring Bakers and, at first, I was ambivalent at the idea of making cheesecake. Upon reading the challenge, two annoying voices consumed my thoughts – one asked me to double the recipe while the other insisted that I halve it. Of course, there was no getting past the evil snicker behind the little devil persuading me to double it, so I fought my temptation and decided to half the recipe.

As a college student, I cut corners wherever I can. In fact, I’m the student who will buy used text books not to get extra booze money, but rather to buy myself Crate & Barrel’s hottest serving platters. By admitting to my (sad, but true) weakness, I hope you will all understand why I had to cut out the middle stick: buy me!

When I was given the liberty to create my own flavor combination (so long as I preserved the basic recipe) I started imagining a whole range of possibilities and decided to go with the classic orange-chocolate duo. The chocolate, of course, is brought to you by yours truly, the ubiquitous Oreo cookie.

Muffin tins are one of my favorite pans because they lend themselves perfectly for a variety of hors d’oeuvres (e.g. tapas), desserts or other tiny edibles. They also drastically cut down baking time, which I’m always a fan of. 

After inverting them, I decided to garnish each cup with a basic cream cheese frosting (1 part cream cheese, 1 part powdered sugar, 1/4 part butter, dash of pure vanilla) and sugared orange zest. To make the sugared orange zest, all you have to do is rub the zest of an orange with some sugar until the sugar turns orange and the air around you begins to smell like an orange grove.

While in Italy, I noticed a great deal of attention was given to the palate and the way in which food was perfectly orchestrated from preparation to consumption. Meals had an order to them; appetizers actually opened up my appetite (shocking, right?). Chicken wings swimming in a puddle of sauce or a mountain of nachos forgotten under a cap of plastic-like cheese was simply unheard of. I loved how food made sense there.

Breakfast was usually small and quick – un caffè accompanied by a biscotti was delicious and typical. Ordering a “decaf grande, half-soy, half-low fat, double-shot, marble mocha macchiato, no foam, 2 Sweet-n’-low, extra hot” was grounds for excommunication with a side of public humiliation. Lunches were equally enjoyable, and I can continue to rant about how fabulous the al fresco dinners were, but that’s not what this entry is really about. This entry is my little tribute to the Sicilian classic, Fennel and Orange Salad.

On my trip I learned that salads are not to be eaten as entrees nor are they served as preludes to a meal. A salad should be enjoyed after the main course as a palate cleanser for the sweet finale. The moment I tasted this traditional Sicilian winter salad, I knew it was worth blogging about. The fresh anise flavor that charges through each bite literally douses your taste buds with the most memorable refreshing sensation. The anise flavor is then coupled with the sweet tartness from the juice of the blood oranges, striking that perfect note in your mouth. Add a few olives for some extra tang and your fruitiest extra virgin olive oil for some balance and you’ve got yourself a phenomenal salad!