Happy new year!

Hope your holidays were great--mine was, but no time to do real post! But just want to say, it's been a great year, and I've really enjoyed getting to know some of you fellow bloggers! Mr. Snowman and I want to wish you a happy new year--see you in 2011!!!

LES Girls Club Cookie Swap-The Results!

So, the cookie sale was yesterday and it was a great success!! Over $9,000 raised for the Lower Eastside Girls Club's culinary training program! And we seemed to have lots of satisfied customers (I had one adorable young boy who was a repeat customer), so hurrah! And to my great surprise, I won second place! But I'm kind of getting ahead of myself, so read on!


These are just some of the cookies I brought (I was up preeeeetty late the night before) These are a variation on the Rolo cookies, except they're stuffed with caramel, coconut, and pecans instead of Rolos. Anyway, I got to Le Vie with no mishaps, found my table, and said hi to my neighbors (Michele and Susan, both of who were great company!), and then immediately left to get (my second) coffee. Le Vie is a nice space, but it's a lounge and it was pretty dark in there! So, I did not get any great photos, and only got a couple of "okay" photos. But this year I had the foresight to go around and buy cookies before the doors opened...because once they did, we were all super busy selling! Okay, I'm going to stop talking so much and post some more photos:


Polka Dots, dairy free sesame cookies from Susan.


Chocolate Toffee Cranberry Deliciousness, from my other neighbor, Michele. Love the name of this cookie!


Gorgeous chocolate and candy cane cookies. Yeah, that's pretty much it for the photos that were actually taken AT the sale, but fortunately I did buy cookies and was able to take some better photos this morning:


Okay, now, I just have to say, this tin was for my brother, so I didn't get to taste everything. Well, hopefully he will report back!


Just some of the selection available. The brownie in the center of the top row was the 3rd place winner (I did not manage to get a cookie from the winner! Boo!)


A more detailed view. Aren't they all gorgeous? The judges walked around and sampled cookies and chatted with the bakers, which was great! I met Myriam Eberhardt (pastry chef at DBGB*, Sue Torres (chef/owner of Sueno), Nichelle Stephens of Cupcakes Take the Cake, Julie Christopher (from King Arthur Flour! Yay!), Jen Shelbo (pastry chef of Maialino), and Josh Ozersky, food writer/blogger/critic. At first I was deeply envious of their mission, but then I realized that they were going to be eating 25 cookies at one shot, and even if you only ate half of each cookie....that's still a WHOLE LOT OF SUGAR. Which might have done Josh in, because he mysteriously disappeared--I blame sugar crash.

Anyway, here's where I get self-indulgent--I don't think I've ever posted a photo of myself on this blog, but hey! I have to commemorate this somehow! So here's me with my gift basket prize!


There is so much stuff in it, but I am most excited about the King Arthur Flour cookie book (and the prosecco, heh!)--can't wait to start trying out recipes from it!!! So, thank you to the Lower Eastside Girls Club for putting on an awesome event, thank you to the sponsors (Fiji Water, King Arthur Flour, Mionetto Prosecco and Green & Black Chocolate), and thanks to the judges, and thanks to my friends who came out!! I am not responsible for any weight gain :) Can't wait for next year!!

*Afterwards, we went to DBGB to get some sausages and beer and Myriam came out to say hi! And then she sent us a whole bunch of desserts! Totally unexpected, but so nice. Here is a really terrible photo of us. Also, here is a better photo of me and Julie Christopher--okay, time to go start reading my new cookie books!

Cookie Test Run

I made a mini batch of the cookies I'm planning to bring to the LES Girls Club Cookie Bakeoff as a test run--what do you think? I'm pretty pleased with them! This is a variation on the ever-popular Rolo stuffed cookie, except instead of Rolos, it's stuffed with:


Toasted coconut and pecans! And a whole lotta caramel mixed in there too. Now I just have to make 6 dozen of these...:)

Don't forget to buy your tickets here!

Second Annual Lower Eastside Girls Club Holiday Cookie Bakeoff & Benefit!

So, I can hardly believe how fast a year has gone by! It's already time for what is one of my new favorite holiday events, the Lower Eastside Girls Club Cookie Bakeoff! Long time readers (heh, if you've stuck around for a year, I consider you a long time reader ;)) may remember my post about this fab event last year. Well, go take a look anyway, and get yourself in the mood! (And by the way, those are the monster cookies from Sarah over at Accoutrements Online--my favorite photo from last year's event. I hope this year I actually get to taste some of the cookies :))

Anyway, if you are in the NYC area, I highly recommend you come check this out. First, there are cookies (which will be priced between $0.50 and $2.00)! Lots of cookies, baked by 25 volunteers who obviously love cookies (including me!). Secondly, a $15 ticket gets you a cookie tin, a glass of prosecco, and the warm fuzzy feeling of helping out a great organization that provides important services in the community! I mean, how often can you say that about spending $15?

And if you need further motivation and are a baking nerd, you can meet some celebrities in the baking world! For more details and to purchase your ticket in advance (HIGHLY recommended, don't wait until you get to the door), click here.

Ahem, as for my cookie, I am still in the experimental phase. But rest assured, it will be over the top and be full of chocolate. Come on by, say hi :)

Details
Second Annual Lower Eastside Girls Club Holiday Cookie Bakeoff & Benefit
Saturday, December 18th
1:00pm-4:00pm
La Vie @ 64 East 1st Street (between 1/2nd aves) NYC
Tickets available here.

Another Vancouver Post

So the reason we had early Thanksgiving was because I had a little trip planned to Vancouver to see Py, and look at what greeted me--snow! (Well, okay, actually this is what I saw when I woke up--the flight I take always gets me there in the middle of the night.) It was snowing pretty hard, as you can tell from this photo, and I was excited to see it as it's still in the 50s in NYC. (Not that I'm complaining!) Unfortunately, it rained the rest of the time I was there, which is fine, but not so great for photos (or walking around outside).


Nevertheless, we ate well, with some revisits to favorite places like Honjin Sushi and Alpha (mmmm garlic pepper tuna). We also checked out Gyoza King (where the food is great and the signs are hilarious, I especially liked their options for smokers) and Campagnolo, another keeper. I had a great pizza there, and if I had had room, would have gone for the zeppoles--alas. Next time, maybe! Of course, the egg tart above has nothing to do with any of those restaurants; I picked that up at T&T, an awesome Asian grocery. Oh man, their bakery section is amazing! And the people who work there are soooooo much friendlier than at the NYC equivalent (where they are surly at best). They had like 18 types of pineapple buns! Egg tarts (Portugese and regular)! All kinds of seafood, including lots of different kinds of fishballs! The egg tart was yummy, but of course, not quite as awesome as the one we had in Macau. Anyway, I love this supermarket and could spend hours there.


I did get to drop by Kimono Koi Crepes, which I had found out about from Panda Fresh Bakery (sadly, I did not get a chance to visit them this time--sniffle, I really wanted to try their pumpkin pie croissant!!!). It was a really rainy day, so you totally can't tell, but their cart is bright pink. It's very girly AND it's got plastic food models. (It's parked on the corner of Georgia and Granville.) And of course, the proprietors are super friendly (a theme of this city, I find).


After extensive evaluation of the menu, I went with a brownie banana crepe; mounds of whipped cream, banana slices, nutella drizzle, a chunk of brownie, sprinkles, and a strawberry Pocky, all rolled into a crepe. Over the top? Definitely. Delicious? Yes! A bit rich, maybe, but this is an indulgence, not an everyday kind of thing (they do have savory options, too, which sound like they would make a good lunch). It was much prettier when I first got it, but since it was raining, I took it back to the apartment to eat in comfortable dryness, so it's a bit messy looking.


And then over the weekend we discovered an event that is pretty much designed for me: the Bakers Market! It's only on for two more weekends but if you like baked goods at all (and are in Vancouver) you must go! It's so great! If I lived in Vancouver, you can bet I would be there selling stuff. We ate a lot of samples, and, as seems to be a theme in Vancouver, all of the bakers were super friendly.


I wanted to buy pretty much everything I saw, but restricted myself to this pack of macarons from Für Elise Patisserie and a bag of parmesan rosemary shortbreads (which I forgot to take a photo of) from Bah! (what a great name, huh?) Actually the shortbreads were for Py, but we shared :) I kind of hope they make this a year round event so the next time I'm there, I can check out some more yummy stuff.


And since the Olympic Village was right next to the Bakers Market, we went to go check it out. It's a fairly uninteresting block of apartments (apparently quite controversial) but there are, inexplicably, two enormous bird statues in the courtyard. I'm pretty sure they are planning to destroy Vancouver...

Another fab trip, if way too short. I am really bummed to be back, but at least December is a really busy month, then Py will be here for a visit, woohoo!