A gingery beef stir-fry and the lovely Sciacca

This time a new month means also a new year. I am still on holiday mode and probably not ready yet to commit the year past to paper. Quite frequently my thoughts need a noticeable amount of time to crystallize into a concrete expression of words and metaphoric images. It will come the time when my ode to 2012 will be ready for publishing but for the moment it is Secret Recipe Club time (not without a brief account of my holidays so far)!

The past two weeks have been quite unusual for me and my family; spending the holidays far from home but still in a home with a family, a large family not yet formally ours, have made these festivities something to remember.

Goat cheese verrines with spiced apple-jelly

The beginning of each month is highlighted by the Secret Recipe Club so there is always something good to look for around the corner.
For the month of May I was assigned Megan's blog "Megan's Cookin". From her blog it is evident that she loves to cook and eat a bit of everything, so much so that she end up being a polygamous! But can you blame her to love both citrus and chocolate? Nah we can't, can we?

The Secret Recipe Club and a cloudlike fluffy cake

This is the first of hopefully a long list of posts.
Few weeks ago through the Yahoo-group foodbloggers Amanda of Amanda's Cookin made us think about how many people actually tried our recipes leaving perhaps a comment with a feedback on our posts.
Many of us felt the same in affirming that we love when this happens, we do this for you guys after all; we do enjoy our food but the ultimate word is spoken from our guests and readers. I guess this is a special application of the old saying "If a tree falls in a deserted forest would it still make a noise?".

With our posts we often don't do anything else than throwing a pebble out there in the big lake of news, ranting, opinions and recipes. Sometimes we ourselves are attraced by one of these same pebbles shining through the "increspata" surface of this lake so to pick it up and add our special touch to it before sending it back. There are way too many pebbles on this lake's bed and some gets out of sight pretty easily so it is nice when we have that special pair of goggles that allows us to isolate a group of them from the rest.
Amanda helped us in doing just this by setting a new monthly bloging event: "The Secret Recipe Club".

Light and sweet as a feather

Few weeks ago wondering around the web, I guess through StumbleUpon, I stumbled on Priya’s blog “Now Serving...". The landing page couldn’t have been more fit for the days I was going through.
Since few weeks I am trying to spend some of my working time designing cakes so to build up a portfolio for the Cake Designing part of my future consulting business. I have to say that these have been lovely hours spent with some good designing book and with the pencil back in my hand. It has been ages since I last draw something for fun. Going into the digital world has meant that all the space on the table was taken by the laptop.
I was missing those creative times when you just need an eraser to clear up a mistake; a ruler and a compass are sufficient to frame and regulate your thoughts.