When I was about 12 years old, my aunt made what I recall to be the best cake I ever had. It was a chocolate cake with cherries and about 1/4-inch thick chocolate icing which was so rich, it was like biting into a chocolate bar. In my adulthood, it was explained to me thatRead more
This week, Driscoll’s is sponsoring a contest with the Culinary Content Network called “Raspberries for Dessert.” In case you live under a rock or simply somewhere that doesn’t get Driscoll’s berries, they supply markets with the most plump and sweet berries. But for the sake of the contest, let’s just focus on raspberries.
The year was 1979 and my mother and I were sitting in the kitchen. I was having a snack and drinking diet chocolate soda (Do they even still make chocolate soda?) and my mother was at the sink washing dishes.
I was reading the soda bottle and alarmingly exclaimed, “Mommy, this says it causes cancer in laboratory animals!”
I’ve never been a huge lemon bar fan. I know sacrilege. I mean, they seem to be at every party or bake sale. But no matter how many I tasted, I was always left cold. Give me a brownie instead thank you. Until I sank my teeth into these! It must be the pistachio (which, as a side note, I think is the most underused flavor in American desserts). The nuts break up the intensity of straight lemon curd, still leaving you with a pungent lemon flavor but one that doesn’t cause your lips to pucker. It also tempers that day glow yellow which is so pretty but not something I am 100% comfortable eating.
I remember, like most Americans, the sound of the ice cream truck as it appeared from around the corner. You heard it before you saw it and that bell signaled summer. Was it the ice cream or the excitement of the chase that got our hearts pounding? Whichever it was, the ringing of the Good Humor truck instantly caused every young child to start yelling at Mom or Dad, “Hurry, hurry, we are going to miss it!”
