Something old, something new

In a way it feels silly to post this. But when I've made the same thing maybe 5 times over the past 2 months, to not talk about it feels like not telling a close friend my innermost thoughts. The classic NY Times recipe from 1983, the Purple Plum Torte, something old, is still being made and that's for a reason, clearly. A magical thing happens in the oven...the baking powder and egg puff up the thick-battered torte into cakey lightness, the plums sink through to develop into jammy pockets and the cinnamon speckles bake into the top crust to give it the slightest crackle. One of the farm market vendors I frequent has still had a heap of these little Italian plums on a weekly basis and I can never not pick them up. It being 2015, not 1983, I decided to give it a new twist: I make a half-recipe, swap in a smidge of whole wheat flour, and bake it in shallow tart pans instead of a tall springform one.

I don't intend to stop

The night we returned from our honeymoon, I pulled a mini loaf of zucchini bread I'd stashed in the freezer before we'd left for the wedding festivities. To be honest, I was already thinking about it on the plane ride back when I realized we would not be having Adriatic seafood the next day or for that matter until we planned another trip. The next best option seemed to be to brainstorm uses for the rest of summer's bounty and strategically deal with the available seafood here. But back to the zucchini bread. My freezer is so small I do not have the ability to forget what's in there. And a loaf of this, which defrosts beautifully overnight on the counter, was there, ready to be sliced, toasted and schmeared the next morning.

I've made this bread several times over the summer... (why did I wait to share it ?!) and it's a keeper. I first saw it on Food52 made with orange and rosemary, flavors I would never pass up. And while that was a wonderful rendition, it's the vanilla, cinnamon and chocolate combination that I always seem to have more at my fingertips. To make matters even more attractive, this leoparded zucchini loaf's olive oil base is cut with a bit of plain yogurt. I keep seeing zucchini at the market even now, and somehow we have not stopped roasting it, shredding it into meatballs, and baking it up into this bread. And as far as this Indian Summer is going, I don't intend to stop until I no longer see the zucchini. 

Venice + Croatia

We're back in the states after visiting Venice, Italy and Croatia for our Honeymoon journey and I have to say, really missing the view. Both lands of photo-paradise and adventure. The first stop was Venice, arrival around 11 am, and this here below the first photo I took after exiting the Alilaguna.