NYC evening with a friend

On Memorial Day weekend, my husband and I drove to NYC for a three-day mini-vacation getaway.  It was the first time Emilu was away from us. My parents had flew in to stay with her and our dog.  We arrived on Sat. around 4 p.m. and I immediately met with my friend, a fashion blogger, for lunch in the East Village.  We walked around and caught up with our lives.  We stopped for espresso, then hopped over to Greenwich to grab a cupcake from Magnolia.  I had always wanted to try one but the lines are always too long. 

This time there wasn't a line.  I got a key lime pie mini cake, and it was delicious.  No kidding around, it tasted like the ones back in Florida (the key is key limes and sweetened milk). We sat in an adjacent park enjoying our treat. Later, we encountered the wall of Tiles for America on the corner of 7th Street, the first memorial to the victims of the September 11th attacks.  This city for all its rudeness, is quiet emotional and full of gratitude for the men and women who perished helping in the aftermath of the attacks. New Yorkers will never forget.

Later in the evening we sat down in a corner bar, enjoyed a couple of glasses of wine and realized we were both lucky beyond measure.  We had our health, our faculties, and our families' love and support.  We live in cities we both love. The rest is icing on the cake.  We ended in Starbucks and around 10:30 p.m I grabbed a cab to our hotel in the Financial District, right in front of ground zero.

Summer: Cold treats

I have been experimenting with all sorts of cold beverages, frozen pops and other cold treats this Summer.  One of the easiest thing to do is to fill your popsicle molds with your favorite beverages (juices, smoothies, iced coffee, yogurt, anything) and it's so much fun. Or you can create your own flavors from scratch using ripened fruit.  I used mangoes, cherries and raspberries, which I pureed with some sugar water and then placed into ice molds.  You can try a variety of treats.  Next week, I will make frozen yogurt pops. 

Banana cupcakes

I loved cooking in my mother's DR apt. kitchen.  I posted the pictures here.  While staying with them I baked a few chocolate cakes, including cupcakes from Martha Stewart's recipe collection.  And people were so impressed with how they came out.  The secret? Gas stove.  The baking is more even and much faster, which allows for more moist cakes.

These banana cupcakes were simply delicious.  My plan was to frost them but opted to leave them plain because the flavor was perfect.  I'll do it next time.  Speaking of next time, my husband gave me for Christmas a cupcake recipe book with more than 100 recipes.  I can't wait to try them all!

How about you?  Any favorite cupcakes come to mind?  Have you tried Martha Stewart's recipes?  I just love them because I know they will taste great but also because she's so peculiar and exact with everything she puts her name on, I rest assured that the recipes will always come out strong and delicious!

Passion fruit

Have you eaten passion fruit before?  It's one of my favorite fruits and the juice is absolutely heaven.  I had many glasses these last weeks, the fruit is abundant in my grandfather's farm. 

Did you also know it's packed with antioxidants and it's also a natural remedy for high blood pressure? The leaves of the passion fruit infuse an aroma that taken as tea can help lower blood pressure and acts as a relaxant. 

Pumpkin Hazelnut Pie

Care for some pie? I just watched Food Network's Sunny Anderson prepare the easiest and yummiest Thanksgiving pie ever: Pumpkin Hazelnut Pie. I can't wait to prepare this for our Thanksgiving dinner, and staying up late the day before so that I can bake it to perfection.

Source: google.com via Patricia on Pinterest

Sweet Finds: Big Cookies in a Small World

Have you been looking for a fun and sweet holiday gift? How about baking these cookies. Aren't they fabulous? They're not your average cookies. They are BIG Cookies in a small world, and they are available, plus tons of other unique sweet ideas, in the Winter 2011 edition of Sweet Paul Magazine.

Don't they look yummy?Find the recipe here:{Big Cookies in a small world } Enjoy!

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Images via Sweet Paul Magazine, Winter 2011

Take the coffee, leave the sweet

I have always been adamant about not buying coffee in Starbucks.  Years ago when SB locations started to spread like urban viruses across the US, I was among the few that resisted the homogenized appeal of this coffee chain.  But since moving to DC a few years ago, I found myself, unwillingly at first, buying and enjoying coffee products from SB.  It started as a convenience when my husband and I took monthly trips to NYC to visit my newly uprooted brother.  We would start off at SB early in the morning and stock up on coffee and enjoy the 4-hour drive with our engines filled with the caffeinated goodie.  However, the downside of SB has always been their sweets. They have never been able to pull it off.   No matter which way the trend in sweets may sway, be it cupcakes, sweet pops or french pastry darlings, they will never achieve the right combination of taste and pop that sets shops unique.  It's a case of the look-pretty but taste-awful symptom that has always been the norm.  Their beautifully arranged front store fridges assorted with eye-catching sweets are nothing but, well, pretty.

But I caved in and yesterday afternoon, Emilu and I took a stroll with Piki to the SB near our house.  I bought an espresso, my usual drink and couldn't resist the beautiful cake pops displayed in the fridge.  So I bought one.  Huge mistake.  It was uneatable.  Next time I know better.  Take the coffee, leave the sweet. Much like leave the gun take the cannoli.

The offending sweet