Ah, so it turns out that I took an unplanned hiatus from blogging. Sorry about that. Dave and I just moved to a much nicer apartment, and we are finally wedding planning in earnest, so things have been pretty overwhelming around here.

As part of my return to food blogging, I have presents for you! (It’s sort of like how hobbits give presents to everyone else on their birthdays.) I have three copies each of two new books from the Culinary Institute of America to give away: Baking & Pastry: Mastering the Art and Craft 2nd Edition and Remarkable Service: A Guide to Winning and Keeping Customers for Servers, Managers, and Restaurant Owners 2nd Edition.

More on the book giveaway later, or feel free to skip to the bottom of this post for instructions on how to win one of these books.

Wedding planning, did I say? It’s coming up fast, and we are caught up in the panic of it all. We finally sent out save-the-date cards, at least! Not all family friends are thrilled by them, but they tell the true story – we are utterly silly geeks in love.

I’ve also been making a lot of art, mostly handspun yarn.

I’m in love with texture, as usual. It’s much like my cooking, really.

And vivid colors.

Now when I wear out old suits (which happens frequently, what with all the lawyering), I can just cut the fabric into strips and spin it into more yarn.

I even crocheted a yarmulke for my cat brother.

Not everything is fiber art and law, though. I also finally started building blinds for our new apartment out of card catalog cards from one of Columbia University’s old defunct card catalogs.

Okay, let’s get back to what you really care about – the CIA book giveaway!

The Rules: To win one of the books, leave a comment on this post telling me which Jack: an occasional restaurant dish you’d most like to see me post the recipe for (or, y’know, just say hi!). In about two weeks, I’ll pick 6 comments randomly, and have the publisher send a copy of one of the books to each of the 6 winners. (Unfortunately, the publisher can only ship to people located in the USA or Canada.)

Again, the books are Baking & Pastry: Mastering the Art and Craft 2nd Edition and Remarkable Service: A Guide to Winning and Keeping Customers for Servers, Managers, and Restaurant Owners 2nd Edition. The publisher’s blurbs are as follows:

Baking & Pastry: Mastering the Art and Craft 2nd Edition: The first edition of Baking & Pastry has taken its place alongside The Professional Chef as a must-have guide for all culinary students and professionals, and has been praised by top chefs as “the ultimate baking and pastry reference” from “the best culinary school in the world.” This edition will improve upon the first with new recipes, photos, instructional illustrations, and information on the ingredients and techniques needed to create spectacular breads and desserts.

Considered to be the most comprehensive reference on the market, Baking & Pastry contains foundational chapters covering ingredient and equipment identification, baking science and food safety, and baking formulas and percentages, as well as information on career opportunities for baking and pastry professionals. The book includes a total of 625 recipes ranging from basic to advanced in difficulty, and features appendices with useful conversion and equivalency charts, reading and resource information, and a glossary of terms. Accompanied by 389 four-color photographs and 72 illustrations, this completely revised and expanded text contains new sections on everything from baking entrepreneurship and principles of design to breakfast pastries and vegan baking.

Remarkable Service: A Guide to Winning and Keeping Customers for Servers, Managers, and Restaurant Owners 2nd Edition: The first edition of Remarkable Service and its follow-up, At Your Service, have been trusted resources in the food service industry since 2001. This new edition will be fully updated with new content and photography throughout, making it the must-have guide to service and hospitality.

Remarkable Service addresses the needs of a wide range of dining establishments, from casual and outdoor dining to upscale restaurants and catering operations. Chapters cover everything from training and hiring staff, preparation for service, and front-door hospitality to money handling, styles of modern table service, and the relationship between the front and back of the house. This new edition includes the most up-to-date information currently available on serving customers in the contemporary restaurant world.

It’s time for Menu of Hope again! What is Menu of Hope, you ask? Well, here’s a FAQ. In sum, Menu for Hope is an annual fundraising event hosted by Chez Pim. Last year, Menu for Hope raised nearly $100,000 to help the UN World Food Programme feed the hungry.

From December 15-24, food bloggers from all over the world will be offering food-related prizes for the Menu for Hope raffle. You can buy raffle tickets to bid on these prizes. Tickets cost $10 each, and you may buy as many tickets as you’d like for any one prize or for multiple prizes. At the end of the nine-day-long campaign, the raffle tickets are drawn and the results announced on Chez Pim.

You can learn about all the other East Coast prizes at Jaden’s East Coast USA regional listing, and I encourage you to bid on not only dinner for two at Jack: an occasional restaurant (Prize # UE03), but many of the other prizes as well! They’re not only for a good cause; they’re just plain tasty, too.

As Pim explains:

Once again we’ve chosen to work with the UN World Food Programme. WFP is the world’s largest food aid agency, working with over 1,000 other organizations in over 75 countries. In addition to providing food, the World Food Program helps hungry people to become self-reliant so that they escape hunger for good.

With the success of last year’s campaign to support the school lunch program in Lesotho, we are going to continue our support to the same program. During the duration of Menu for Hope V, we will be posting updates from the kids and the farmers we supported this past year.

If you weren’t around last year for Menu for Hope 4, let me explain a bit about why we are supporting this particular program. We chose to support the school lunch program because providing food for the children not only keeps them alive, but keeps them in school so that they learn the skills to feed themselves in the future. We chose to support the program in Lesotho because it is a model program in local procurement – buying food locally to support local farmers and the local economy. Instead of shipping surplus corn across the ocean, the WFP is buying directly from local subsistent farmers who practice conservation farming methods in Lesotho to feed the children there.

Now, let’s get to the point; you want to know what I’m ready to put on the table. Well, here it is: Dave and I are offering dinner for two at Jack: an occasional restaurant (Prize # UE03). We serve elaborate, multi-course meals at our exclusive restaurant once a month at the Brooklyn Lyceum in Park Slope (Brooklyn, NY, USA).

Dinner for two would normally cost $150, but we are offering it as a prize for the low low cost of $10 raffle tickets through Menu for Hope this year. Not only that, but we’ll add seats for you to any Jack dinner you like, even if it is listed as sold out on the website. Given that we’re already sold out for January 24, 2009 and almost sold out for February 21, 2009 already, and March is a special book release dinner, winning this prize may be the only way for you to get into Jack for dinner before April of next year!

So, go bid! You’ve got until Dec 24 to buy your tickets. Just go to the FirstGiving Menu For Hope site and follow the instructions (as described below). To be in the running to win dinner for two at Jack: an occasional restaurant, you’ll need to enter the code ‘UE03′ in the ‘Personal Message’/'Your Comment’ section.

To Enter

If you’re interested in buying into the raffle, here’s what you need to do:

1. Choose a prize or prizes of your choice from our Menu for Hope at http://www.chezpim.com/blogs/2008/12/menu-for-hope-2.html

2. Go to the donation site at http://www.firstgiving.com/menuforhope5 and make a donation.

3. Please specify which prize you’d like in the ‘Personal Message’/'Your Comment’ section in the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write-in how many tickets per prize, and please use the prize code. Of course, you all want dinner for two at Jack: an occasional restaurant (Prize # UE03), but don’t forget – you can buy as many raffle tickets as you want, for as many prizes as you want!

Each $10 you donate will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. For example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for UE01 and 3 tickets for UE03. You’d write that as: 2xUE01, 3xUE03.

4. If your company matches your charity donation, please check the box and fill in the information so we can claim the corporate match.

5. Please do NOT check the box that hides your email address from us. We need to be able to see your email address so that we can contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

Check back on Chez Pim after December 24th for the results of the raffle.

Thanks for your participation, and good luck in the raffle!

I was completely overwhelmed by all the gorgeous entries to DMBLGIT this month. Choosing the winners was a difficult task! I must congratulate and thank our kind judges, who went through all the wonderful photos we received and somehow managed to score them: Baconbit from Greenmarket Report, Aran from Cannelle et Vanille, Bron Marshall, and Brilynn from Jumbo Empanadas.

Each picture was scored in three categories: edibility, originality, and aesthetics. The photo receiving the highest total score in each of those categories, excluding the three overall winners, is the specific category winner.

This month, I’m thrilled to be hosting the peer-judged food photography contest Does My Blog Look Good in This? – May 2008 edition. You can find the results from April’s edition on Ms. Adventures in Italy.

The rules are explained in further detail below, but the gist of it is – submit a food photo that you posted to your blog in April 2008 for a chance of winning fame, fortune, acclaim from all, and one of those nifty colorful banners up above!

First, for anyone new to my blog, let me introduce myself. I’m an attorney with a solo practice in Brooklyn, New York. I live in a little hobbit hole of an apartment in Park Slope with my partner, Dave, and our cat, Katya. Dave and I run and cook at Jack: an occasional restaurant every two weeks or so. I love to cook, and I love my Canon 30D! Dave does at least half the cooking for the blog and the restaurant, but he backs off and leaves all the photography to me.

I’ll put up a post introducing the judges in more detail later on, but for now I am simply pleased to announce that aside from myself, your judges this round will be Baconbit from Greenmarket Report, Aran from Cannelle et Vanille, Bron Marshall, and Brilynn from Jumbo Empanadas.

Like Sara, I’ve been lucky enough to be recognized by DMBLGIT in past editions, and it’s one of my favorite food blog events out there. I love discovering new bloggers and amazing food stylists and photographers by skimming through the galleries every time, and I can’t wait to see who I find as I go through the entries while hosting this month.

Rules

Each food blogger can submit one photograph that was posted to their blog during the contest month (April). Photographs are reviewed by a panel of judges, who score them in three categories: edibility, aesthetics, and originality. The host then compiles the scores to determine the winners. The specific things the judges will be looking for are as follows:

* Aesthetics: composition, food styling, lighting, focus, etc.
* Edibility: “does the photo make us want to dive in and eat the food?”
* Originality: the photograph that catches our attention and makes us want to say “wow!”, displaying something we might not have seen before.
* Overall Winner: top overall scores in all three categories combined

There are three overall winners for photographs with the highest point totals in all three categories combined, and one winner in each of the three individual categories.

How to enter your photograph:

* Only one entry per person (a single photograph, no diptychs)
* The photograph must have been taken by you.
* The photograph must have appeared on your blog during the month of April.
* Entries must be received by May 23, 2008

Send your entry to habeasbrulee@gmail.com, with DMBLGIT as the subject. Please include the following:

* your name
* your blog’s name and URL
* your photograph’s title
* the URL of the post containing the photograph
* type of camera used
* Please send photos of no more than 500 pixels in width

All submissions will be posted to the May 2008 DMBLGIT gallery, which will be updated as I receive entries. Please give me a few days to update the gallery with your submission!

Good luck!

The theme for this month’s Sugar High Friday was Sugar High Friday #41: Sweet Gifts, where I asked you to tell me about a dessert you made (or want to make) for somebody else.

What an amazing group of people you are, to have created such a huge collection of sweet gifts for your friends, family, and loved ones all over the world! I’ve enjoyed reading all of your stories and imagining the tastiness of your desserts. Thank you so much for participating and sharing your stories with me here.

Next month’s Sugar High Friday will be hosted by La Petite Boulangette, and the theme is Asian Sweet Invasion.

Big Blondes
Elle from Feeding My Enthusiasms
Elle made these cookies from a recipe from Jill O’Connor’s Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey as a gift to her mother, to thank her for the gift of the cookbook. Way to go positive reinforcement!
 
 

Honey Bears for my Honey Bear
Kiriel from The Papillon Pantry
These bears were sent as a care package to a far-off friend, to help him eat properly even without Kiriel there to cook for him each day.
 
 

Rum Baba
Cakelaw from Laws of the Kitchen
Cakelaw made her very first Rum Baba to thank her friend for her generosity in inviting her to stay at her house in a beachside suburb for the Labour Day long weekend. I’m sure her friend loved receiving her favorite dessert as a thank you gift.
 
 

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies
Mrs. W from Mrs. W’s Kitchen
Mrs. W’s dear friend is going through a hard time with her granddaughter, and Mrs. W is trying her best to help by being there to listen, to share driving and lunches, and to bake cookies to help her friend through this difficult time.
 
 
Nega Maluca
Sarah from What Smells So Good?
Sarah made this cake for her mother’s surprise birthday party. What a treat!
 
 

Whole Grain Biscotti
Smita from Smita Serves You Right
Smita gives these biscotti out for all sorts of occasions – Bon Voyage! Good luck before an exam! Welcome back (to work!)! Happy Friday! And they’ve always gone over well.
 
 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffle Cupcakes
Holly from PheMOMenon
Holly made these cupcakes for her four-year-old, Aidan, as a special treat that won’t trigger his allergic reaction to too much dairy. What a lucky kid, to have such a sweet Mom!
 
 

Chilled Pandan Soufflé
Rachel from R khooks
A sweet gift for Mr Soul & City and Mr Bump.
 
 

Espresso Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Amy from Eggs on Sunday
Amy made these cookies for her family, who all love chocolate and coffee combined as much as she does.
 
 

Nutella Crêpes w/Strawberry & Banana
Mike from Mike’s Table
When Mike was younger, he and his brother tried to make crepes for their mother on Mother’s Day, and, well, I’m sure she appreciated the gesture, at least. But now that he is older and more skilled in the kitchen, he was able to get over the anxiety of that memory to make these beautiful crepes for his wife.
 
 

Marzipan Mushrooms
Zlamushka from Zlamushka’s Spicy Kitchen
Every year, Zlamushka’s mother grumbles, revolts, and eventually whips up a beautiful batch of these candies for her devoted husband.
 
 

White Chocolate Irish Cream Marbled Loaf
Ngoc from Professional Bakist
This was a belated birthday cake for Ngoc’s father, who usually gets his own birthday cake but somehow failed to do so this year.
 
 

Vanilla Panna Cotta
My kitchen treats
This was made from V, who got a sore mouth from spicy food and deserved something sweet afterwards.
 
 

Bring Back the McDonald’s Shamrock Shake
Susan from Food Blogga
When Susan had her wisdom teeth removed and couldn’t eat solid food, her father waited on line to bring her a McDonald’s Shamrock Shake after work every day for a week. 15 years later, she recreated the shake as a thank you for her father.
 
 

Mint Oreo Truffles
Steph from Cooking In An Apron
Steph made these truffles as a St. Patrick’s Day present for her Irish boss and the rest of the work clan.
 
 

Time for Key Lime
Saralynn from Happy Baker
Key lime pie is Saralynn’s husband’s favorite, and his eyes light up when she makes it for him. It’s her way of thanking him for being a wonderful helpmeet to her.
 
 

Orange Date Cake
Miri from Peppermill
Miri used orange extract she received as a gift from another food blogger to create this cake for her orange blossom, her almost-three-year-old daughter.
 
 

Milk Chocolate Cookies and Cream Bark and a White Chocolate Fruit and Nut Bark
Nicole from Sweet Tooth
I’m not sure who Nicole gave these candies to, but whoever the lucky recipient was, I’m sure they enjoyed them very much.
 
 

Chocolate Pound Cake
Sihan from Walking in the Rain
Sihan’s babe never had much of a sweet tooth, but he sure loved this cake!
 
 

Matcha White Chocolate Pralines with Pistachios
Meeta from What’s For Lunch, Honey?
Meeta made these treats for her lucky local friends right before she left to visit her family for Easter, so they wouldn’t forget her while she was gone. I wish I lived in her neighborhood!
 
 

Pralines
Ann from Redacted Recipes
Ann’s grandmother used to make pralines each Christmas for her father, who liked to greedily hoard them for himself. The last time Ann made some for him, she had to make an extra batch for her children, because he still wouldn’t share. The man likes his pralines. And I’m sure he loves his daughter, who just made yet another batch to put in the mail for him.
 
 

Carrot Cake Cupcakes
Alanna from A Veggie Venture
While working on this post, Alanna discovered the unthinkable – she’s lost her carrot cake recipe. The one her grandmother made for her 17th birthday, which she made for her grandmother’s 80th birthday, and which she made year after year to celebrate her grandmother’s birthday after her death. She’s searched and searched, but she just can’t find. And while I’m sure the carrot cake recipe she’s shared with us is wonderful too, I’m so sorry to hear that her grandmother’s recipe is lost, and so grateful to hear the tale of the love and cake they shared together.
 
 

Lemon Sandwich Cookies
Katie from Salt and Chocolate
Katie made these cookies for her father’s birthday.
 
 

Chai Latte Cupcakes
Joanna Mong from Salute to Sanity
These cupcakes were a gift for a worthy cause, baked for a bake sale that was being held to raise money for the university’s library.
 
 

Swirly Macarons With Bittersweet Chocolate Ganache
Helen from Tartelette
This is my favorite entry, because not only did Helen make these gorgeous macarons for her friend’s wedding, she even agreed to mail me some to eat! Thank you, Helen!
 
 

Eggless Cranberry-Walnut Scones
Mansi Desai from Fun and Food
Mansi makes these for her husband’s breakfast, and she likes knowing that she’s serving him something that is not only delicious, but also healthy and nutritious.
 
 

Almond Butter Cake with Lemon Thyme Cream
Brittany from The Pie Lady
Brittany made this cake for her sister, who sounds like an awesome person and a life-long friend (and who declared this cake a mouth-gasm).
 
 

Vermicelli Kesari ~ Semiya Kesari!
Srivalli from Cooking 4 all Seasons
Srivalli made this thinking of Amma, who used to make it specially for her.
 
 

Orange Truffles
Linda from make life sweeter!
Linda made these truffles for two lucky girlfriends of hers.
 
 

Colomba Pasquale with Candied Peel
Louise from Knit1Bake2
Louise shares this recipe with a wonderful story about a girl who saved herself from the king by baking this cake for him.
 
 

Dark Chocolate Toffee Cookies
Mary Lynn Allen from Sweet Mary
Mary Lynn made these cookies for another worthy cause, a bake sale to raise money for the March of Dimes (a/k/a the March for Babies).
 
 

Coconut Toffee Almond Crunch Cookies and Cinnamon Raisin Bread
Brilynn from Jumbo Empanadas
Bri, this is only the easiest thing ever because you’re all such loving, giving people to begin with! And I love the cookie system idea: “Everything seems so much better when you’re handing someone an amazing cookie. Arrive late to work? One cookie. Need to take the weekend off? Two cookies. Want your co-workers to be nice to your? Three cookies. Handing in a resignation letter when three other people have just quit and the store is uber-busy? Tin of cookies. See, if everyone worked on the cookie system, life would be so much easier.”
 
 

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
Zarah Maria Food & Thoughts
Zarah made these cookies for the amazing woman and new mother who has been her best friend since they were 12 years old.
 
 

White Russian Cake
Chriesi from Almond Corner
When Chriesi surprised her mother with this cake, her mother said it was even better than her own. Now, that’s a compliment!
 
 

Milk Chocolate and Passion Fruit Truffles
Aran from Cannelle Et Vanille
Aran made these beautiful truffles to welcome her friend Deena’s new baby into the world. Congratulations, Deena! And with such a sweet welcome, I’m sure that child will have the sweetest of lives. Welcome to the world, welcome to chocolate, welcome to life!
 
 

Vegan Caramel Candy
Maggie from Dog Hill Kitchen
These vegan caramel’s were Maggie’s son’s first taste of caramel candy!
 
 

Chocolate & Cornflakes nests with Mini Eggs, Chocolate Eggs, Milky Truffles, and Easter Egg Cookies
Isabel Cholaky from Isa’s Cooking
Isa made overflowing easter baskets for her cousins this year.
 
 

Lavender Shortbread and Nutella Cupcakes
Yoko from Virtual Frolic
Yoko made these when she visited her friend Sarah, and lucky her, Sarah made her dinner that evening as well.
 
 

Quadruple Chocolate Cookies
ashleystravel from Introducing Ashley
This was a gift for her husband right before he left for a month-long work trip to the Netherlands.
 
 

Chocolate Walnut Brownies
Deeba from Passionate About Baking…& beyond
Deeba made these for a dear old lady who lives near her, who is 78 years old and still makes sure to greet her at the children’s bus stop each morning.
 
 

Carrot Muffins
Nora from Pipe Dream Pastries
Nora’s family is obsessed with carrot cake, so she made these somewhat healthier than usual carrot muffins for them.
 
 

Peach Kuchen
Kate from A Way To Eat
Kate delivers extra kuchens to her lucky friends around Easter.
 
 

Peanut Manjar Balls
Gretchen Noelle Jones from Canela & Comino
Gretchen loves hospitality, and she brought these treats to the new wife a pastor she’s worked with for several months when she was invited over for lunch.
 
 

Irish Cream Truffles and Grand Marnier Truffles
Mandy from Fresh From The Oven
Monica made these for OTC’s colleagues, in thanks for the wonderful farewell party they threw for them.
 
 

Coconut Cupcakes
Mimi from Mimi on the Move
Mimi made these cupcakes for her friend SV, who declared that they were as good as the cupcakes from Magnolia bakery! (What, not better?)
 
 

Vegan Animal Crackers
Maybelle’s Mom from Feeding Maybelle
Maybelle’s Mom made these cookies for her as a low-sugar Easter treat.
 
 

Caramel Cake with Caramel Cream Cheese Frosting
Ashley from eat me, delicious
Ashley made this cake for her sister-in-law’s birthday.
 
 

Banana Jam
Joy from Joy Of Desserts
Joy has wonderful childhood memories of receiving homemade jams from her aunt, and now she shares with us one of the jams she makes herself.
 
 

A Rainbow of Fortune Cookies
Michelle Safirstein from Big Black Dogs
Michelle even typed up her own personalized messages to put into these fortune cookies for her nieces. Too cute!
 
 

Move Over Bugs Bunny, This Carrot Is For Cake!
Danielle Deskins from Colin’s Mom
Danielle made this cake for two co-workers of hers who share the same birthday, but have very different tastes in sweets.
 
 

Grandpa BB’s Red Hot Baked Apples
Lisa from Confessions of an Apron Queen
Lisa’s theory is that her Grandpa baked these red hot apples for her Grandma, and that’s why she fell in love with him and they had 50 wonderful years together.
 
 

First things first: Up there, that’s a photo of my entirely-too-cute goddaughter eating freshly made marshmallow straight from the spatula. We’re pretty brave (some might say stupid), sugaring up a 4-year-old like that. But how can you deny a child such a sweet, sweet gift?

I’m thrilled that I get to host Sugar High Friday again this month. Sugar High Friday is a traveling event that was originally created by Jennifer of The Domestic Goddess. Last month, Rachel of Vampituity hosted Sugar High Friday #40: Pies That Evoke Your Dreams (follow the link for the round-up). It’s a hard act to follow, but I’ll try.

The theme for March is: Sugar High Friday #41: Sweet Gifts.

In order to participate, please post the recipe for a dessert you made (or want to make) for someone else. Any sweet will do, as long as you also share the story of why you made (or want to make) that particular dessert for that particular person! The emphasis here is on the story more than the dessert, but I’m sure you make your best desserts when they’re meant to be gifts (unless you intentionally made a gross dessert as a prank gift, which would also count for this theme).

Now, the rules:

You must post your entry and email me to notify me of it by Monday, March 24, 2008 . I don’t really have the time to scour the internet searching for your entries, so if you don’t send me an email with the info listed below, it may not be included in the round-up. It’s just a matter of practicality, really.

Don’t forget to mention and link to this announcement in your post and if you can, also include a link to the round-up once it is up.

Send an email with the following information to habeasbrulee-AT-gmail-DOT-com:
Your name
Your blog’s name
Your blog’s URL (homepage)
The title of your entry
Your entry’s permalink (individual URL)
A 200×200 image (please give the file the same name as your blog)

If you don’t have a blog, you can post your write-up and picture (if any) on any website, or in the comments to this post, and I will still include it in the round-up.

The round-up will be posted on Friday, March 28, 2008.

The Menu for Hope winners have been announced! Go over to Chez Pim to see if your name is on that long, long list.

This year, Menu for Hope raised $91,118, which is a big chunk of change over last year’s total. Thank you to everyone who participated, by offering prizes or by bidding, in pulling this together. Feels like a pretty good way to start the year to me.

Congratulations to April Ho, who won the Habeas Brulee prize, A Private Cooking Class for 2! We’re really looking forward to cooking with you and whomever you choose to bring along. I’ve sent you an email already, but if you didn’t get it, just email me at habeasbrulee@gmail.com or leave a comment here and we’ll figure it out.

Here are the wonderful recipes that you sent in for my food blogging event, A Recipe From the Crease of my Right Eye, inspired by Catherynne M. Valente’s two-book series, The Orphan’s Tales.
 
 

Ramona from The Houndstooth Gourmet
Golabki – Polish Stuffed Cabbage
Ramona’s stuffed cabbage reflect the nature of the books, where stories are stuffed within stories like tasty meats within sumptuous cabbage leaves. (Okay, I’m being a bit silly, but it’s close enough for me.)
 
 

Mrs. W from Mrs. W’s Kitchen
Cardamom-Kissed Dates Stuffed with Hazelnuts, Fruit-Nut Squares, and Frozen Treat in the Sultan’s Garden
Mrs. W was inspired by the excerpts and reviews of the books she read online, and by the cultures she thinks of when reminded of the Arabian Nights, to create three incredible sounding desserts.
 
 

Torrey Stenmark from Tereshkova2001
The Cookies of the Mice
These mice cookies look dangerously cute, but if you’ve read the books you know that dangerous is the operative term here. I love that Torrey even included Baldtail, dipped in yellow!
 
 

Alanna from A Veggie Venture
Broccoli & Tomato Holiday Wreath
Alanna’s recipe is sneaking in because the broccoli and tomatoes are stuffed and pressed into a ring mold. Sneaky, sneaky! But the more the merrier, and it’s an interesting and festive recipe, so why not?
 
 

Sophie from Scarlet and Friends
Stuffed Kourambiedes
Not only are these cookies are stuffed with almonds and layered with a coating of powdered sugar, but Sophie also added extra spices to fit the scents of the books. It’s based on a Greek housewives’ recipe, and I must say that the cookies look a little cutely mouse-like, too.
 
 

Laura
Rose and Leek Fried Sandwiches
Now, this is creative cooking! Laura based her dish on this quote from Cat Valente’s The Orphan’s Tales: In the Cities of Coin and Spice: “Oh! Roses are very interesting, are they not? Did you know that if you feed one nothing but sugar water and a mash of honeybees, it becomes sweet and thick enough to be fried for sandwiches, like boar meat or fish? We have lunched on rose and leek sandwiches for most of this season!”

 
 

Kelly from Is there no way out of the mind?
Spiced Pear & Caramel Trifle
For her first entry into a bloggers’ cooking challenge, Kelly creating a lusciously spicy dessert, perfect for the first brush of winter, inspired by the spice-smog of Ajanabh.
 
 

Me
Apples Doused in Cardamom Wine
This dish was based on this quote from Cat Valente’s The Orphan’s Tales: In the Cities of Coin and Spice:“I think I might have stayed there, I might have walked through the Carnival with a child’s hand in mine, eaten apples doused in cardamom wine and told her how once, when I was very young, I had seen the old Queen dancing in her lonely hall, her embers red as bleeding, and I thought she was so beautiful, then. I thought she must be so happy. I might have done those things.”
 
 

Me
Forbidden Rice with Persimmon and Coconut
This was inspired by the Basilisk’s “little courtyard full of persimmons and coconuts”.

Mrs. W was so inspired by the reviews and excerpts of the books that she found online that she went ahead and made three gorgeous desserts, all of which look delicious and really capture the sense and scents of the books, without directly coming from any particular language in them.

Thank you for playing, everyone, and for your inspiration! Congratulations, Mrs. W!

Around this time last year, we were making: Banana Chocolate Chunk Muffins

It’s time for Menu of Hope again! What is Menu of Hope, you ask? Well, here’s a FAQ. In sum, Menu for Hope is an annual fundraising hosted by Chez Pim. Last year, Menu for Hope raised an incredible $62,925.12 to help the UN World Food Programme feed the hungry.

From December 10-21, food bloggers from all over the world will be offering food-related prizes for the Menu for Hope raffle. You can buy raffle tickets to bid on these prizes. Tickets cost $10 each, and you may buy as many tickets as you’d like for any one prize or for multiple prizes. At the end of the two-week campaign, the raffle tickets are drawn and the results announced on Chez Pim.

You can learn about all the other East Coast prizes at Adam Kuban’s East Coast USA regional listing, and I encourage you to bid on not only my cooking class (Prize # UE31), but many of the other prizes as well! They’re not only for a good cause; they’re just plain tasty, too.

As Pim explains:

The UN World Food Programme is the world’s largest food aid agency, working with over 1,000 other organizations in over 75 countries. In addition to providing food, the World Food Program helps hungry people to become self-reliant so that they escape hunger for good.

With a special permission from the WFP, the funds raised by Menu for Hope 4 will be earmarked for the school lunch program in Lesotho, Africa. We chose to support the school lunch program because providing food for the children not only keeps them alive, but keeps them in school so that they learn the skills to feed themselves in the future. We chose to support the program in Lesotho because it is a model program in local procurement – buying food locally to support local farmers and the local economy. Instead of shipping surplus corn across the ocean, the WFP is buying directly from local subsistent farmers who practice conservation farming methods in Lesotho to feed the children there.

Now, let’s get to the point; you want to know what I’m ready to put on the table. Well, here it is: Dave and I are offering to teach a cooking class for two! (Prize # UE31) Yes, that’s right, all the fun of cooking with us in our huge (for NYC) Park Slope kitchen, with us sharing all of our tips and tricks along the way.

We’re happy to tailor the class to you. Want to learn to make kimchi, preserve lemons, and pitch yeast for mead? We can have a fermentation class! If you’re interested in learning sugar art, we can teach you to build a croquemouche or blow sugar bubbles. If you choose to bring your child in as your classmate, we’ll find a set of kid-friendly recipes to work on together. We can focus on a theme ingredient, technique, cuisine, or whatever interests you most!

If you’ve ever read our recipes and thought a dish looked like something you’d like to eat, but wouldn’t have time to make yourself, come in and we’ll show you how fun and easy it can be to make it together.

Or if you’d like something even more personalized, we’ll go through the fundamentals of tasting your spices and ingredients and developing a sense of which flavors and textures will go well together. Afterwards, we’ll cook a few dishes based on the flavor combinations we’ve discovered.

Whether you’d rather learn some of our specialties, or explore a new cuisine or experimental recipes with us, we look forward to cooking with you!

So, go bid! You’ve got until Dec 21 to buy your tickets. Just go to the First Giving Menu For Hope site and follow the instructions (as described below). To be in the running to win our cooking class for two!, you’ll need to enter the code ‘UE31′ in the personal message section.

To Enter

If you’re interested in buying into the raffle, here’s what you need to do:

1. Choose a prize or prizes of your choice from our Menu for Hope at http://www.chezpim.com/blogs/2007/12/menu-for-hope-4.html

2. Go to the donation site at http://www.firstgiving.com/menuforhope4 and make a donation.

3. Please specify which prize you’d like in the ‘Personal Message’ section in the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write-in how many tickets per prize, and please use the prize code. Of course, you all want my cooking class (Prize # UE31), but here’s a simpler example:

Each $10 you donate will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. For example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for EU01 and 3 tickets for EU02. Please write 2xEU01, 3xEU02. Example:

4. If your company matches your charity donation, please check the box and fill in the information so we could claim the corporate match.

5. Please check the box to allow us to see your email address so that we can contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

Check back on Chez Pim on Wednesday, January 9 for the results of the raffle.

Thanks for your participation, and good luck in the raffle!

I am announcing a new food blogging event, A Recipe From the Crease of my Right Eye.

This event, like my Apples Doused in Cardamom Wine, is inspired by The Orphan’s Tales: In the Cities of Coin and Spice by Catherynne M. Valente. It is the second book in a now-complete series (the first was The Orphan’s Tales: In the Night Garden), and it was just published a few weeks ago.

As I explained in my last post, the stories in these books are told by a girl with ink-stained, story-stained eyes, to a young son of the Sultan who escapes the watch of his older sister to come out into the garden and hear them. The stories are nested each within each like dolls, like the tales from Arabian Nights, all twining together to make a larger epic. They are not fairy tales, exactly, because they have plots and characters with lives of their own, men and women and beasts who are real people stalking the pages of these books.

The food and spice imagery in these books is inspiring. Not only does the boy steal food from the Sultan’s palace to bring to the girl, but the imagery infuses the rest of the stories as well.

In one tale from the first book, a young female satyr takes the skin of a young male selkie and hides it so he can stay with her. The selkie tells the satyr that her lips taste of red berries, redder than he ever thought possible.

In the second book, the basilisk lives in a grove of persimmon and coconut, a girl dances in shoes made of cinnamon, and Ajanabh, the city of spice, is filled with a spice-smog, “the faintest sigh of cardamom and cumin and cinnamon breathing through the night.” It is filled with quail eggs and cinnamon candies, rose and leek sandwiches, sugar pies and lamb fat. And more, and more.

This event, A Recipe From the Crease of my Right Eye, is a celebration of Catherynne M. Valente’s The Orphan’s Tales. To participate, all you have to do is post a recipe inspired by the books. This includes any recipe involving things that are layered or things that are stuffed (which echo the structure of the stories), as well as things that are otherwise inspired by the books.

This event comes with a prize. I will give the author of the best recipe (as determined by me, perhaps with Cat’s help) a copy of both Orphan’s Tales books. If the winner already has them, I’ll give him or her a copy of two of Cat’s other books.

The deadline is December 17, 2007.

You do not have to be a food blogger to participate. You can post your recipe on a non-food blog, a non-blog website, or in the comments to this post.

When you post your recipe, include a link back to this post. Then email me at habeasbrulee@gmail.com with:

Your name
The name of your blog
The URL of your blog
The name your dish
The URL of your dish

A photo of your dish, if you have one, should be attached to the email.