When life gives you mangoes, make mango sorbet.

That’s what I did a few weeks ago when the hype-person for Mangoes (these jobs!) sent me a box of them in the mail. In terms of things you can find waiting near your front door after work, it was pretty good. I haven’t worked much with mangoes. I eat them, occasionally. The “tropical” fruits remain a little bit of a mystery to me. They are never local, here in Chicago, and every time I buy one I feel slight guilt and confusion. Do they have a season? Are there better times to eat them? I only buy them in winter, when there is no local fruit of any kind.

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I spend a lot of time waiting for spring, and feeling excited about the food that will be available in our markets. But when warm weather finally gets here I find myself wanting to sit in a park or  hang out with friends and my kitchen becomes a bit of a ghost town, at least for the first few weeks of spring. The food I do make is simple and not worth sharing here—a basket of strawberries, a salad. It takes a while to find balance in this new season and to resume taking the outdoors for granted.

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These beauties were paired with the rhubarb fool and make a most excellent spoon for scooping up the cream and jam. Brandy snaps are another popular British sweet that doesn’t appear very often on American menus. They’re lovely and often filled with a cream, like tiny delicate cannoli.

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This is probably an odd pick of recipe from April Bloomfield’s beautiful cookbook, A Girl and Her Pig. The young British chef has made a name for herself cooking with animals and all forms of fat. Those recipes looked great, but I got stuck on this one for a fool (like a fool?). For anyone who doesn’t know what a fool is, (insert joke about you being a fool—somebody stop me!) it is a decidedly British treat of fruit and cream. It is about as simple and satisfying as a dessert gets and good for everyone to have in their bag of tricks. There are so many awesome flavor possibilities, but here we are at the start of the growing season and the first “fruit” out of the gate is rhubarb.

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Yesterday was quite a day. Highs and lows. It seems appropriate to now turn to a recipe that is sour and requires patience, but in the end transforms into something beautiful.

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It seems like a good time to share this photo again. It is a picture from my wedding. This is what people in North Carolina and everywhere else in our country are so disgusted by that they want to make laws to prevent.

Patience is not a fucking virtue, we need to fix this now.

UPDATE 5/9/12 2pm: I guess Obama reads my blog?

Olive oil cakes make me feel like a real health-nut. It is a small part of what draws me to them, mostly I like how they taste. This Gina DePalma recipe may be the best I have come across. The cake itself is made with a healthy dose of olive oil, almond meal, and some citrus. It is bright and beautiful on its own, but the glaze that DePalma suggests makes this one of my new favorite cakes. The brown butter glaze adds a richness that is the perfect compliment to the bright cake. Also, it is pretty.

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“I made you a white pizza” was said by Jennifer Aniston on an episode of 30 Rock a while back. For some reason it struck me as funny and has stuck with me. Maybe because white pizzas seem a little sillyfoodie, and also Jennifer Aniston. But white pizzas are also delicious. At the time, I thought it would be an amazing blog post title. I guess I still do.

I did make you a white pizza but I was so excited about it that I forgot to take photos. So I made you a red pizza and managed to take some pictures—not because it was any less delicious or exciting—but because I had gotten over the initial shock of having made a good pizza at home. read more+++

Thank you!

I can’t say it enough. You wonderful people are responsible for my little site being named the Best Cooking Blog of 2012 by Saveur magazine. I am happy, and still a little shocked. I was already honored by my inclusion in the same category as Tara, Kate, Kimberley, Alaina and Cara— a group of bloggers that keep me inspired and energized to do what we do. Winning the prize was the cherry on top.

I will wear the crown well and make the next year even better than the last. Hopefully there are no sex scandals that force Helen Rosner to revoke my title.

And I promise I will post a recipe soon! Like, tomorrow.

xoxo

ps. special high-fives to my friends Amelia and David for their wins! And if you haven’t already, take a look through all of the nominated blogs to find some new favorites.

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My friend Karin likes to pronounce financiers like the occupation, which I highly recommend.

I had a financier from The Little Door Next Door in Los Angeles a few years back that set my standard for these tiny cakes pretty high. It was crisp and caramelized on the edges and tender in the middle. It had an intense almond flavor and was completely delicious. Every other financier has paled in comparison, they can be sort of  insipidly sweet. Long story short, I had written off financiers.

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