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2008-11-25: sugarcoat me (and you, too!)
Give me a kitchen accessory, dish, platter, glassware, utensil, and I glow. Deposit me in a Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, Target, Sears or Macy's and I light up like a school-girl after her first chaste kiss. Allow me to wander through dusty stores, settled in one next to the other on a busy street in Chinatown, full to the brim with fantastic and strange gadgets, some of which I have never seen and will never understand how to use...and I...well...you get the picture.
My kitchen is already chock-full of things like cake platters, trays and dishes. The drawers explode with mezzalunas and graters. There are large ceramic jars on the counter holding cake decorating tools, spatulas and ladles. Cookbooks are commanding shelf space as are binders that are overflowing with recipes and lists of ingredients I will buy when I have the time. My kitchen is my sanctuary; it is where I go when I want coffee, when I want comfort, when I need to cook or bake.
I added a new gadget to my kitchen recently - an industrial-sized blow torch for creme brulee. My father ended up using it yesterday to repair our leaky water main valve but it is now back in its rightful spot in my cupboard, just waiting for some sweet custard, topped with sugar, just begging to be torched. I've been flipping through a great new book that I can't seem to take my eyes - or my taste buds - off of: Dominique and Cindy Duby's Creme Brulee: More than 50 Decadent Recipes. Yum.
My only problem is that I can't seem to pick just one recipe. Do I go for the White Chocolate and Green Tea or the Mint Pistachio or the very festive Cranberry Clove? Or do I go savoury and make the Mushroom, Bacon and Gruyere or the Pecorino, Onion and Chorizo...? It's too difficult to decide! I need your help: please email me your favourite creme brulee recipes - and the three best and most original ones will receive a copy of this great new book.
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