Culinary Adventures with Camilla

Years ago I spent days and days baking gingerbread house pieces. Friends came over and covered every inch with icing and candy. Every inch. No one ate it...it was just for decoration. We had fun...but I've decided that, this year, I'm buying the house kits for construction and only baking for consumption. Makes sense, right? Jake put two tables together and covered them with plastic. The boys gathered round and started dividing out the frosting and swapping candies. Our littlest gingerbread construction worker got a helping hand from mom. The rest of the crew just went to town on their own. These were some of their creations. And this was our resident aspiring engineer. Despite the pre-fab kit, he had to modify it! "Mom, where's the saw?" he asked. I don't have a saw , I retorted. Daddy has a saw. "No, you do," he insisted. "The cookie saw." Oh, you mean a knife. Yes, I do ha...

Sometimes, the culinary adventure is not in the ingredients...or even in the finished product. I doubt I'll even nibble on this. But the adventure is the process and the company. Last night I went to MY Museum 's inaugural Gingerbread House Making for the 21 and over Crowd; they have an event for the littles this weekend to round out their Gingerbread Extravaganza Weekend. Pia and I were joking that we made dinner for our boys and completely neglected to feed ourselves. Thankfully, in addition to the gingerbread houses, we had grown-up libations, and delicious nibbles from some of our favorite local food artisans. Chef Ron Mendoza of Revival Ice + Cream  was first to the rescue. Yes, we did eat dessert first! We devoured the chocolate popsicles dipped in milk chocolate and covered in whiskey meringues. And, yes, it was as decadent as it sounds. There were also peppermint chocolate whoopie pies from Chef Michelle Lee at the InterContinental - The Clement   ...