Clinton St. Baking Company Pancake Month 2011 Is Almost Here!

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Pancake Month is a time-honoured tradition in my heart. I like to associate Clinton St. Baking Company‘s February Pancake Month with Shrove Tuesday, the day before Mardi Gras.

Many people call Shrove Tuesday, “Pancake Day,” and eat pancakes to celebrate. Others call it “Pączki Day” (pronounced poonch-key in the Midwest) and eat pączkis, which are like deep fried dough – similar to donuts – with fillings such as fruit filling, custard and creams.

I’m from the Metro-Detroit area and we celebrate Pączki Day – due to the large local Polish population – but because pączkis are hard to find in New York (unless you go out of your way), I’ve switched over to the much easier to celebrate Pancake Day. I’m very excited about this menu and I’m looking forward to going many times to celebrate my pancake obsession!

I’m finally unboxing my Nespresso Le Cube!

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In May 2010, I went to a fundraiser for the earthquake victims in Haiti. My friend’s boyfriend was one of the organizers and as a friend, I bought $20 worth of raffle tickets. Well, 3 of those raffle tickets went on to win 2 bags of photography books and then the grand prize, this Nespresso Le Cube, milk frother, and an assortment of Nespresso coffee capsules and hot chocolate mixes.

I decided as a reward for when I had a new job, I would open it. Finally I got an offer and I opened the box!

Christmas in South Carolina

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Location | Bluffton, South Carolina

This year I decided to spend my mom’s birthday, December 23rd, until January 2nd in South Carolina. My parents live in Bluffton, right outside of Hilton Head Island, so besides being in a resort area, it’s warm during the winters… well, except for this year. Not only was it cold, but it also SNOWED. Ok, I went down south to escape the cold weather, but unfortunately, it followed me.

Cousins digging into the food

First we had a really great Christmas dinner. My cousins had all come down from Michigan, Taiwan and California. They had gone to Disneyworld the week before, and then drove up to my parent’s house. We had a traditional Thanksgiving!? meal. Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, candied yams and various other dishes. I love Thanksgiving food!

Cooking crab. He look so sad.

The last day of 2010, my parents and I went to a seafood purveyor and got a dozen blue crabs and a lot of shrimp. We brought them home and steamed the crap out of everything. Above is the sad crab.

My dad pulling stubborn crabs out of the bag.

The crab’s claws weren’t tied together, so they were really stubborn when we tried to pull them out of the bag. We required my dad’s assistance in getting them into the pot.

Steamed Shrimp.

The final dish was the steamed shrimp. Doesn’t it all look good?

[Flickr Set]

Belgian Milk Chocolate Gelato is good for the soul. Just tried a pint of Talenti Gelato and it’s a winner!

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I’m eating this as I write and it’s tough to stop a second to type versus stuff gelato into my mouth. In my article about Rome a few weeks back, I wrote about how much I love gelato, and well, I have found a product that’s going to be my downfall.

Talenti Gelato e Sorbetto is based in Dallas, Texas and probably one of the best gelatos I’ve tasted out of a container (sorry, but you can’t just beat real fresh gelato in Italy!). My mom and I bought 4 pints today – I’m seen eating the Belgian MIlk Chocolate (which I had to put away just now before I ate the whole container). We also got the Black Cherry, Sonoma Strawberry and Caribbean Coconut. Other flavors I want to try include Toasted Almond, Malaysian Mango and White Chocolate Raspberry.

The containers are very attractive, and I might actually end up keeping the container to store other things (so cute!).