Influencing the Influencers

1. Yesterday I attended a virtual "lunch & learn." Writers/reporters/bloggers went to a 30-min presentation (1 to 1:30 p.m.) from Shaker Rawan, inventor of the Woddle, a futuristic AI diaper changing dock with built-in scale, warmer, night light, noise machine and touchscreen tracker to log diapers, feedings and sleep. Also, app syncing, so parents and caregivers can share the info. Cost, about $299. It's marketed as an AI parent coach: "Get instant answers and milestone reminders when you need them most." 

           

Naturally, Shaker is a father himself, with a son and a daughter. I've been invited to sessions where             organizers dangle a Starbucks card code so you can enjoy a coffee while you listen. And to info panels where the beauty products are sent to us ahead of time, the better to experience them. This is the first virtual lunch I attended with an Uber Eats code. That was smart, and a worthy investment when you consider the social media coverage an event like that can generate. Invite below. I think it's okay to share it here. 

2. Also yesterday: Three boxes of Bubbies mochi, the treats with a Hawaiian history, arrived at my door in a snug chest with dry ice. It worked: The individual ice cream portions were frozen solid. You have to let them soften a bit for pure enjoyment. The roster includes new flavors like Milk Tea, Churro, Matcha Green Tea and Raspberry Cheesecake. I requested samples of Cookies and Cream, Alphonso Mango (a creamy mango native to India) and Ube Purple Yam for mochi lover Punch. (I see they also make plant-based mochi, with oat milk, which I will find for Figgy.) 

I noticed this brand for decades in the Kings and Whole Foods freezers but now their profile is busting out of the boxes. They are even at Costco. The crayon-colored purple ube ones are inviting; 90 cals each, good portion control if you defrost one at a time. Fun to look at and eat. Celebratory.

Punch, 18, was most excited about that ube flavor, which vanished first. But mango is her favorite fruit. "They taste like real mango," she said. And we know real mango. We remember the one she had that Labor Day when we walked over the Brooklyn Bridge with me and Dan. A lady was selling cut mangos right before the bridge incline. For Easter, I asked Dan to get mango. I usually slice it myself but we got precut. "It's not ripe," was the first thing Punch and I said upon tasting. I wanted to bring it back to ShopRite and get a refund with the receipt, but it was Easter, and I didn't follow through.

"Bubbies was named after our founder Keith Robbins’s grandmother," says Eleni Fritz at Rachel Kay Finn Partners in NYC. "Keith started it as a scoop shop in 1985 on the island of Oahu, where he perfected ice cream and mochi recipes." In 2018, Bubbies moved from Hawaii to mainland USA.

Sign up for the newsletter at https://bubbiesicecream.com/ to get a BOGO store coupon. 

According to dictionary.com

mochi

[ moh-chee] noun

1. Cooked and pounded glutinous rice formed into various shapes and used to make traditional Japanese sweets and other dishes (often used attributively) mochi balls; mochi ice cream

2. Also called but·ter mo·chi. a sticky, spongy Hawaiian dessert whose principal ingredients are butter, sugar, eggs, rice flour, and coconut milk.

Jewels in My Pocket

Tender, paper-thin frozen crepes flown in from Brittany. 

The source: White Toque.

Pretty things that put sparkle and joy in my Thursday:

1. This former fruit avoider ate organic ruby-red raspberries tonight, wrapped up in a real French crepe flown to the U.S. from Brittany. Kings in Upper Montclair and in Verona both stock them in the freezer case, about $11.99 per pack. This getting of high-end brands is a big reason why I like Kings. Each crepe is 150 calories with a modest 6 grams added sugar. I rolled mine around freshly whipped organic cream and a sprinkle of pure, dark Valrhona cocoa for good measure. Antioxidants twice, between the berries and the deeply colored cocoa. Spice likes hers with Nutella, berries and bananas but I usually avoid Nutella because I might spoon through the whole jar. I brought this dessert up to the country once as a house guest (Dan F. and Suzy's house in Hudson, NY) and everyone loved it.
2. Went to America's Best Contacts & Eyeglasses for an eye exam and new glasses. Scored really nice Ralph by Ralph Lauren black sunglass frames on sale, to be fitted with updated prescription reading lenses. Same for another hip pair of reading frames. I got blue light protection for the first time (not sure I need it? Do you?). This America's Best is in a strip mall in Clifton but is clean, well-stocked and professional. And the cost of a thorough two-part eye exam by Lucy (sp) and then by a doctor, plus the two pairs of glasses, came to $192.95. I don't have vision coverage on my health insurance.
3. Wriggled into my cozy sweater and walked along Valley Road, down Macopin and up Nassau at about 6:15 p.m. Saw lots of perky yellow daffodils and ran into my neighbor and friend Beth walking back up the hill. We met when our girls were in kindergarten at the neighborhood school. We talked for a good while, pausing our walks.
4. Watching "Riding in Cars with Boys," the 2001 movie directed by Penny Marshall and starring Drew Barrymore as Bev, a Connecticut girl who gets pregnant at 15 in the 1960s. Lorraine Bracco plays her mother, Brittany Murphy plays her best friend, and they're great. So are the sixties hairstyles, clothing, furnishings and cars. The movie is based on an autobiography by Beverly Donofrio. Dan has been very busy this week working in Palm Springs, California and now the Boston area tonight, so I have the living room cinema to myself.

Also did my work on a magazine assignment and arranged a blowout for an upcoming job interview.

Good night.

The Best of Everything

Such a spring day. Promise in the air. Bulbs sprouting, pushing greens up through the ground. I bought a pot of pink tulips for the living room. I walked to and from my morning support group [I treasure connecting with many friends there, especially one I catch up with after the meeting] and to and from the grocery store, since Dan had the car w Punch. I also filled a leaf bag in the backyard and hauled it to the curb. Lots more to do there.

I'm going to a women's group tomorrow afternoon and the hostess, my friend, remembered a savory quichelike tart I made years back and when I offered to bring something, she asked gently about that. Tonight I'm going to make the dough, and I got enough ingredients to make two Tomato & Goat Cheese Quiches with fresh basil from The Joy of Cooking, so I can leave one for my family.

I also made Yolos [#youonlyliveonce, or Rolos knock-offs] from the The Oh She Glows Cookbook. 

Here is the link to the recipe, but I didn't put chia seeds on top. These treats are excellent. My food processor broke, so I used the blender to puree the sticky dates and added a little pure maple syrup so the blades could do their job.

Yolos photo from ohsheglows.com.

Punch loves Yolos, so does Figgy and everyone else, including Punchy's two pals today. They are pretty simple, though Medjool dates are pricey and I also splurged on high-quality bittersweet chocolate for dunking the little spheres. You add a bit of flaky sea salt to the filling, and it really does something.

But having to walk to the closest store means I go to Kings. I gain the exercise and lose on some prices but I think it balances out.

Good night to you.

$ MONEY SPENT OUT OF POCKET

• Kings, but for some things that will last a while, such as the large clay pot of tulips [can replant bulbs outside], $9.99; 3 lbs. organic Granny Smith apples, Figgy's favorite, $7.99, sale; Falksalt natural sea salt flakes [crumble a pinch for the Yolos], $6.69; lb. of butter and 3-stick pack of Crisco, some of both ingredients needed for the quiche dough. Plus expensive ingredients to make Yolos and quiches, including Medjool dates, 10 oz. for $8.99; excellent Guittard bittersweet chocolate, $6.99; 2 half-pints Organic Valley heavy cream, $5.98; 10 oz. log goat cheese, $8.99; basil, $3.99; 2 lb. plum tomatoes, $6.01--and 2 rolls Bounty paper towels, $5.99. $99.90. 

RUNNING TOTAL FOR MONTH AS OF MARCH  30: $4,128.41.
SO FAR, THAT'S AN AVERAGE DAILY SPEND OF: $137.61.

IN FEBRUARY, AVERAGE DAILY SPEND WAS $112.83, BUT MONTH OF MARCH SPEND INCLUDED HAIRCUT, HAIR COLOR, PUNCH BDAY BIKE, PUNCH BDAY PARTY AND 

5-CLASS YOGA PACK.

MONEY THOUGHT: I love to cook. I love food magazines, cookbooks and food websites. I like making the best of everything. I could have purchased cheaper chocolate, for sure [though some of those brands contain milk fat, so Fig won't eat them] and I could have skipped the sea salt flakes but I’m an epicure at heart. I couldn’t find less expensive Medjool dates at Kings. I am pleased that everyone liked the Yolos and hope the quiches are good. 

Meeting the Queen of Tarts—and Cookies and Cakes

There she is, my all-time baking and cookbook idol--
Rose Levy Beranbaum, second from left. With Woody Wolston, her collaborator, me and
Alice Lee, a nice woman I met from Toronto.

I went to a party at Food52 in Chelsea to celebrate the launch of The Fearless Baker, a cookbook by Kansas-bred Erin Jeanne McDowell. The ticket was $45 plus handling but included a book personalized on the spot by the author; her live piecrust rolling and crimping demo; a goodie bag; and nips and nibbles, such as cold, crisp Riesling; artfully folded salami on a big wood board; and platters of chocolate palmiers, rose petit fours and other sweets baked from the book. All that in a roomful of stylish foodies, held at home base of a popular cooking and kitchen website—what could be more fun? /Meeting Rose Levy Beranbaum, that’s what! Rose wrote the forward to Erin’s book, so she was there! And I got both ladies to sign my copy./My dear friend Meg bought me Rose’s The Cake Bible one Christmas many moons ago—several pages are splattered with batter, especially the one for blueberry pancakes, which involve melted butter and snowy beaten egg whites. Dan and I made them often for guests./When the beautiful Rose’s Christmas Cookies followed, I bought 3 copies—one for me, one for Sis and one for my friend Jean Rose. Sis made me the fragile Melting Moments. I made many kinds./So sweet to meet an idol! And baker Erin! Good night; soft, pillowy, sugar-dusted dreams.

This book caused a clamor in kitchens across the land; copyright 1988.

I used this so much, sometimes just reading it for the
lovely stories about oookies, that the pages are falling out. Copyright 1998; image from HERE.

Under the Pie Top: A Peek at the Big Berry Bake-Off

Experts from 5 beloved Montclair bakeries volunteered to judge. Left to right: Alisha from Cupcakes by Carousel and Colleen and Therese from Le Baker's Dozen* evaluating the Pies, Tarts, Crisps & Crumbles category on appearance [before tasting].

The entries were impressive, from Triple-Berry Pie to Raspberry Tart with Nut Crust, shown second from right--it was the big winner, made by Ronnie. She won a $75 Williams-Sonoma gift card and a dessert cookbook.

The judges at work. Note their cute babies.

The kids category winner, Julia, and her dad Charlie. Julia made Strawberry Cupcakes with Raspberry Icing. She and her dad volunteer at the soup kitchen, helping serve dinner on Sunday nights.

Every entrant paid a fee to enter, and we also had a bake sale and a raffle [$1 per chance] to win a blueberry cheesecake, peach/raspberry pie or blueberry almond tart. The raffle alone brought in almost $200. We raised good dough and sweet awareness, we hope, for Toni's Kitchen, the soup kitchen on South Fullerton Avenue in Montclair. It operates out of St. Luke's Church.

So many great entries: blueberry tarts, raspberry-filled macarons, a berry flag cake, blueberry cupcakes.......and many more....and it was an honor to work with Karen Kadus, who was amazingly organized and a visionary; my friend, Anne, who is Toni's Outreach Director; Diane, who oversaw the judges; and volunteers Anne Q., Melanie, Shannon, Jen, MJ, Liliana and Tonya.

Sweet dreams, indeed.

*Not pictured in this photo: judges from Gina's Bakery; Montclair Bread Company; and the Little Daisy Bake Shop.

TCOY

1. Last night I got a pound of good roasted veggies at Whole Foods. Had those for late dinner tonight with leftover roast chicken and whole-wheat bread. Felt good to eat something healthy after tasting so many treats today. [We sold them for $1 per slice after judging.]
2. Nap.

Pi(e) Day, March 14

First King Arthur Flour sent an email yesterday:

03/14: enjoy pi(e) day with
$3.14 shipping on your $31.41 order

Then my friend Anne texted me about pie day today...

Then, I know Figgy loves pie....so I made five individual vanilla cream pies with sugar cookie crumb crusts. At first taste, they hadn't cooled enough, and the filling was bland--really lacking. But with hours to chill, it all came together. H., Fig and I loved them. [I also sent one home with our dinner guest.]

Happy Pi(e) Day. Good night. Let's lay our heads on pillows as light and fluffy as whipped cream.

TCOY 

1. Private Benjamin with H. Tough stuff, but glad we tackled it.
2. I walked home from the appt. It was energizing.
3. Made healthy dinner, with brown rice, chicken, vegs.