From Louisville, Ky. CurvyMama was delighted to find that one of the Pie Shops On Our List was in this city where my newspaper was actually paying me to go for a story. So when there was a lull in the action, I made an escape to Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen.

There is so much to tell from pastry class last night that I am going to take a new blogging approach: I’m going to write about it piece by piece. Otherwise you will be reading this one long blog post until mid-summer. And you won’t make it. I want you with me at the end! And since much of the evening has already escaped me, I’m going to save our puff pastry adventure for another evening (and a much

As usual, the ride home from pastry techniques class was heavenly. These little guys were riding in the passenger seat: and…

Of all the experimental pies I’ve lugged into the newsroom at my day job, this is the one my colleagues loved the most. It’s true, journalists tend to be easy to feed. Their standards are low. They think of themselves as beleaguered, and they munch their way through just about anything for comfort. (My kids saw it clearly early on. Any foods we didn’t like at our house got this immediate chorus: 

Now that my valentine’s tart is no longer a surprise, I can post a few pictures about making it. This was the end product:

My version of a valentine:

It was another whirlwind adventure in doughs tonight at pastry class. The quickest way to sum up is to tell you that I struggled to stay in my lane on the freeway ride home because I was swooning from the smells of warm brioche, quiche and a lemon meringue tart, which were perched on my chef’s apron on the seat next to me.

I was an almond skeptic. But I have been won over. There are very few foods I won’t eat; I eat just about everything with great joy and abandon. But I confess that almond things have been on my very short won’t-eat list.

People who play around with words all day, like me, tend to think that there is something clever or worthwhile to say about nearly everything. Once in a while we need reminding that the better part of valor is to shut the hell up. And once in a while, as well, we stumble into situations where, much to our surprise, there is simply nothing to say. Nothing to say. Nothing to say. Just let that sit a beat.

If you sneaked a peek at this blog late last night, or raced to check it early this morning (ahem), you already know that session 2 of my pastry techniques class at L’Academie de Cuisine was a bit of a wild ride. We crammed so much pastry dough into a brief period that our little heads were spinning. And in all the hubbub, my fellow students and I managed to make batches of pastry cream so tough you could slam