Culinary Adventures with Camilla

After watching an inspiring fifteen minute video by cookie artiste Susan Spungen, last week, I found the article: 12 Stunning Cookies that will Impress Everyone You Know that featured Spungen's recipes and more gorgeous photos of her creations. I had a few kids over here on Friday evening, made them watch the video, and asked them to pick three of their favorites. The honeycomb recipe received a whopping four votes and was at the top of three lists. So, I started with that. Let me say that I substituted almonds for peanuts and my Magic Unicorn salt blend for the flake salt. This was a stunning hit all around! I have tried honeycomb candy before that was not a favorite. This version, they said, didn't have the strange aftertaste that they despised in my other attempts. Ingredients makes a 9" x 13" pan Shortbread 1 C (2 sticks) butter ½ C organic light brown sugar ½ C organic granulated sugar 1 t pure vanilla paste 2½ C flour 1 C ground almo...

One evening last week, Jake and I sat down to watch something on Netflix after the boys went to bed. Falling Inn Love  popped up as a suggestion and I was in the mood for a silly romantic comedy. He obliged. On the Screen It definitely fell into the silly little rom-com category. Meet Gabriela, an upwardly mobile young urban professional, who lives in San Francisco and has a penchant for environmentally friendly buildings and renovations. On a lark - after far too many glasses of white wine - she enters a "Win an Inn in New Zealand" contest by writing a 400 word essay about why she wants to win an inn. And, the following morning, she discovers that she's won. So, off she heads to New Zealand where she meets local hottie Jake when her luggage rolls down the hill and collides with his truck. You guessed it, right? The inn isn't all is was chalked up to be. Read: disaster of a building. And hot guy Jake is - you see where this is going, right? - the best contract...

The second Saturday of the month is one of my favorite days. Do you know why? Because it's our #winePW - Wine Pairing Weekend - reveal. I absolutely adore it. How can you not love bloggers who love food  and  love wine. It's a fantastic event from which I always make a wine shopping list. And this month Jeff of  foodwineclick  is hosting this month. Here's  his invitation . “Sparkling Wines and Hors D’oeuvres." December is rife with holiday parties! So, our job this month was to create some great sparkling wine and appetizer pairings. What a perfect theme as we head into the season! If you see this early enough, please join us December 13th at 10 a.m. Central Time. We’ll be chatting on twitter at  #WinePW  about our creative holiday sparkling wine pairings. We’d love to have you join us! In My Glass For these events, I try to pick a somewhat local-to-me vintner...and something I haven't highlighted before. This month, I opted for ...

When I helped a friend at her organization's auction gala a few weeks ago, she took me by the hand, walked me over to a table, pointed, and said, "Cam, this has your name written all over it. You should bid on it." She was right and I bid, bid, and bid again in order to win a honeycomb from Acosta Farms in Salinas. My thought: Riley will love this. I'll use this, instead of cupcakes, for his birthday treat to school. Well, he did love it, but intuitive foodie that he is, he also recognized that kids in his class might not think it was as cool as he did. So, he, kindly, requested zucchini cupcakes - without frosting - for his classmates, and said the he'd like to serve the honeycomb cake at his birthday camping trip. Done. So, we toted the thing on our camping trip with five other families, gathered round and sang to the birthday boy, then cut slices out of the comb and served it up as his birthday cake. We all squished the wax around in our mouths ...