I swore I wasn't going to cook anything complicated for Christmas dinner this year. Bruce and I decided we would go easy on ourselves and just grill filets, his mom would do twice-baked potatoes, and I would make favorite Warm Goat Cheese salad from "
Barefoot in Paris" from the Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten.
While going through the cookbook, which has become one of my favorites, I ran across the dessert "Ile Flotino" or "Floating Island." I read the description, which had phrases such as "your guests will be groaning with pleasure, " and "they will want to lick their plates clean." Sounded like the perfect dessert for my family!
The "island" of this dessert is a fluffy cloud of baked meringue. Now, I
know better than to make meringue in Hawaii. As a dedicated and fearless baker, there are some things that you know just don't work here, and meringue is one of them. It is far too humid and they will never become crisp and melt-in-your-mouth light like they are supposed to. However, against my better judgment, because I was so enchanted by the description, I thought I could pull it off.
I baked the meringues in the oven and then turned it off and left them inside, thinking the warm dry air was the safest place. When I took them out, they were a very light brown and dry to the touch, just as they were supposed to be. So, despite the fact that the creme anglaise was not as thick as it was supposed to be (but that's another story!), I assembled the dessert: a pool of creme anglaise, an "island," a generous sprinkle of almond praline and a generous drizzle of homemade caramel and VOILA it went to the table and everyone was impressed...until they tried to eat it!
The meringues, while dry on the surface, were extremely sticky blobs of goo, which was exacerbated by the sticky caramel. I am thankful I have a good sense of humor, because it was quite funny for me to watch my sweet family trying to delicately eat this mess (trying not to insult the cook!) and as soon as I started laughing, so did everyone else.
But the nicest thing of all was Bruce's comment that even though it didn't turn out quite the way I had planned, everyone ate their entire dessert and he even wanted to lick his plate (just like the cookbook said!). At least it tasted good!
New Year's Resolution #1: Don't be swayed by fabulous descriptions in cookbooks when you KNOW the recipe won't work, and if you do it anyway, be prepared for comical outcomes!
This is a Christmas Day photo but entirely appropriate for New Year's!
How's this?
While unpacking the Christmas decorations, look what we found! This is the very first quilt I made.
We picked bananas this weekend (we meaning Bruce - at least he's the one who cut them down). We have about 30 banana trees in our yard, mostly "apple" bananas. They are small, firm and very sweet if you let them get really ripe. After eating these you'll never eat another store-bought banana again, unless you are desperate!
This is Bruce cutting down a second smaller stock. I didn't think to get the camera until he was done with the big one. He chops the stock off with a machete, then cuts the tree down. Once the trees produce a stock of bananas they are "pau" (Hawaiian for finished) and need to be cut down because they die anyway.
Of course, it seems like we always get several stocks at once instead of nicely spaced throughout the year, but there are plenty of friends and neighbors to give the overflow to. Kind of like our avocado tree, which still has about 100 avocados on it. But that's a story for another day!
This is the sample for my full-sized "Lily" quilt. I finished it just in time to give to my Secret Pal, Bev Lundquist, at the guild meeting last week. 
Thank heaven for leather! Cody decided he really likes the couch...can you tell? He seeks out any place that's cool. We'll probably have to get him one of those cooling kennel pads for the summer months - we'll see. He's already the most spoiled dog I know.
We've started walking around the block twice a day and he's very well behaved on the leash. Our former trainer (the one who we worked with with Maile) sent us the Level 1 homework paperwork from the class...10 years later! Ramsay and Victoria Anakalea are super folks. Ramsay is a minister now and no longer does dog training (he is the former Maui Police Dept. K-9 instructor), so I really appreciated him sending me the schedule. I still have Level 2 and 3 on file, so we're set. We start "formal" training this week!
