These lemons emerged from the tree in my backyard.

They are the only living thing left that I have connected to  my grandmother.

After she lost her battle with Alzheimer’s, my parents plucked the lemon tree she had nurtured for years and planted it in our yard, hoping that it would blossom under our care as well as it did under hers.

It did.

She had something to do with it, I’m sure.

I went to pluck a few lemons some weeks ago and as I piled them up into a bowl and set them on the table which was drowning in the afternoon sun, I suddenly smelled the most heavenly aroma – one which I have never smelled before. It was the smell of lemons. Grocery store lemons had never smelled that way.

They smelled like the sun, and the Earth and like love.

They smelled like love.

I scraped off their rinds, and the intoxicating smell arose some more.

Then I cut up some strawberries, hoping my grandmother could join me for one last snack.

She didn’t.

But I’ll always have the lemons.

Paul and Julia Child, circa 1952

It’s 12:05 a.m.  on a very dark and rainy Monday in Los Angeles, and for the first time in so many months, I’m actually not forcing myself to fill this little white box with words that form coherent sentences, but rather they seem to be coming on their own.

Don’t ask me why.

I watched “Julie & Julia” for the third time a few hours ago, but I still haven’t managed to get through the book, even though I bought it probably a full year before the movie came out.  Doesn’t seem like I’ll ever finish it, but I’ve made peace with it.

I often wonder about starting a blog exclusively about food or some niche subject or another, but the problem is that I’m just interested in too many damn things, that I couldn’t just concentrate on one and give up the rest.

If I started a food blog, where would I write about media and journalism? If I started a Los Angeles blog, how could I discuss my penchant for embarrassingly cheesy films or write about my travel adventures? It just doesn’t seem like it would work for me, at least not while I want to have my hands in every pie.

And that’s part of my problem in life, isn’t it? That I want to do everything and anything all at once, which leads me to self diagnosis this problem as ADHD.

One minute I want to be an investigative reporter covering the latest environmental problem, another minute I want to write interesting, insightful human interest stories and then I want to be a novelist, a blogger, a photographer, a gardener, a film maker, a baker and God only knows what else. And I would gladly love to be ALL of those things, but this silly, stupid world just won’t let me.

I want to travel, yet have a lovely space of my own to live in. I want work to be my life’s passion, not somewhere I feel relieved to leave every day. I want to be a whole hearted journalist and writer.  I want to live my life according to “joie de vivre.” The more I think about it, the more I realize that my being born in this era was such a mistake. I wish I could rewind my birthday several upon several decades back – back to typewriters, hat boxes, to fresh open air markets and to more opportunities to experience the joy of life.

Bonne nuit, réves doux.

Until we meet again.

I was feeling especially festive this Easter and kind of sort of fell into taking over egg dying duties at my house. After a few hours of trying different color baths (and my hands looking like something from Return of the Living Dead) I ended up, quite accidentally in fact, with an egg tribute to Alice in Wonderland. Enjoy a few photos below.

It’s been slightly over a month since I have been home from my European adventure and still the feelings, the memories, the experience lives with me as if I was still there. I miss it every single day, which is probably why I have been holding off on sharing photos of my trip here – as soon as I post them I’ll know for sure that it’s over, that I’m back in Los Angeles, that cobble stone streets, lazy weekdays in quaint cafés and taking the metro have been replaced with traffic jams, absolutely no inspiration to write and a daily routine that is slowly going to amount in me having a nervous breakdown.

So I decided to make macarons.

Little did I know the amount of work I was getting myself into.

It’s funny how these little almond flour cookie contraptions took over my life. When we were in Paris, we stopped outside Ladurée, the famous French pastry shop known for inventing the macaron, but after looking at the slightly ridiculously expensive menu, we decided on another nearby café. At the time, we didn’t realize what we had missed, and I suppose the macaron challenge I presented myself with was an effort to make up for it.

It was an ambitious project, one that I didn’t over think too much, which was a good thing. After sifting and whipping and sifting and folding, my first batch, although a great effort, cracked.

That’s when I realized how incredibly important the consistency of the batter was. I had folded the batter exactly 50 times, but realized that it needed a few more turns.

Why must the French make everything so damn hard?

The second batch came out much better – any French chef would have been proud. I happened to use a Martha Stewart recipe, which in my experience, have delivered. However, if you are going to be making these, I recommend this recipe from Fabrice Bendano, pastry chef at Adour Restaurant in Washington D.C.

My idea of a perfect afternoon is a day spent at a swap meet. Since the really good ones only happen on specific days of the month – all of which I always happen to miss, my consolation prize always comes in the form of having tea, but not just the kind where you drop a sad, withered tea bag that has the remnants of what used to be called ‘tea,’ just like the crud you get when you poor the last of your cereal in a bowl, into your mug – the kind that comes with beautifully crafted China, high quality flavorful tea, melt-in-your-mouth tiny pastries and an aura of peace, calm and quiet.

I’d rather let the photos do the talking for themselves, but these were taken by me at “The T Room,” one of the most charming places I’ve ever been in Montrose. The occasion? Two cunning locas by the names of Alina and Nathalie kidnapped me for a birthday surprise last month. I could have spent forever there.

By the International Vegetarian Union

I didn’t realize how much I loved eggplants until I made Imam Bayildi for my news magazine. The above are from the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market.They are so versatile and easy to cook with, not to mention delectable. Cooking was a departure for me, as you can usually find me with more familiar ingredients like sugar, butter and eggs, although I am trying to cut down on the latter two, in an effort to see if I can transform my regular baking to vegan baking.  In addition to the Imam Bayildi, I also couldn’t resist making my annual orange cardamom muffins, but this time instead of using eggs, I used apple sauce and also substituted some whole wheat flour for white and added flaxseed. The results were spectacular, you wouldn’t even know that eggs weren’t in the recipe. In fact, the apple sauce (organic, from Trader Joe’s) made the muffins extra fluffy, just the way I like them.

It was nice to have time to do what I wanted to do this weekend, not what I had to do, not what I’m trying to do and not what I had to do for others. It was nice just thinking about myself and my inner Max, especially since I was in my long johns. Once you get in those things, it’s hard to get out, let me tell you.

I felt like the cluster of thoughts floating in my head had ironed out, even if it was just for one day. Cooking and baking help me think and take my mind off everything. I think it’s the methodical nature of it all. If you follow the recipe, you (hopefully) get the same result, the exact opposite from the reality that life has to offer. That’s comforting and scary all at the same time. I still haven’t reconciled the ease I feel in my baking life with my real life. That’s nearly impossible when you’re doing everything you can to aid progress to your journalism/writing career.

Tomorrow, however, is another day.

This past Sunday, I had the chance of attending, photographing and  writing about a fruit picked put on by Food Forward, an all volunteer grass roots organization that gleans fruit off of the trees of Los Angeles residents and donates 100 percent of the proceeds to food pantries. Although it required waking up pretty early, it was a thrilling experience for me, especially since I pitched the idea myself, and because I am such an advocate for sustainable food. I’ve included some photos here, but you can read the article through this link.

Today was meant to be a relaxing, check-things-off-my-to-do-list type of day, but just like everything else in life, things don’t always go as you planned. Instead, I had a really shitty day, the kind of day that’s born out of the depths of hell, the kind that can alter your life and you just don’t know it yet.

In an effort to stay sane and not have an uncontrollable crying session, I’ve decided writing in here is the next best thing. Writing always saves me. Always. And because I had this draft sitting around for a while, I thought I’d get a move on it.

A few months ago I was enamored by the fabulous food porn I had found on TasteSpotting and FoodGawker. I must have clicked through dozens and dozens of pages before I looked up to breathe again. In the midst of amazing pasta dishes, fruit pies and concoctions that made me want to jump through my computer screen and start munching away, I found an interesting recipe I had never heard of before: Katharine Hepburn Brownies.

Apparently, gossip columnist Liz Smith got the recipe from Ms. Hepburn to publish in her column some 25 odd years ago, and thank God she did because it is a damn good recipe and probably the most moist and chewy brownies I’ve made – not that I’ve made many – this is probably about my third attempt that spans the whole of my baking, so I’m no brownie expert, but it doesn’t take one to see why this recipe is reveled around the foodosphere.

Even though I don’t have brownies at the moment or any plans to make them soon, just posting about their goodness is making me feel better already. This is one of the instances where I feel I need to turn to a private, hand-written space to discuss all that has upset me and essentially sort of damaged what was meant to be a fabulous 3-day weekend. Maybe I’ll have the guts to write it here one day, as soon as I organize my thoughts.

The recipe can be found on the blog that I drew inspiration from, Surviving Oz.  The recipe there is probably better than the others you will find. But just for fun, here are Ms. Hepburns original instructions:

Preheat the oven to 325 F.
Butter an 8-inch square baking pan.
In a heavy saucepan, melt the chocolate with the butter over low heat, stirring until completely melted.
Remove from the heat and stir in the sugar.
Add the eggs and vanilla and “beat it all like mad”.
Stir in the flour, salt and walnuts and mix well.
Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 40 minutes.
“Take it out; let it cool; cut into squares and go crazy.”

I never imagined I would ever make a 3D cake. It just didn’t cross my mind, until it was requested for a co-worker’s birthday celebration. My task? Bake a cake in the shape of a bowling ball.  At first, I panicked. How in the world was I ever going to make this, with the limited time I had? After researching for quite a while, I discovered that Wilton made a sports ball pan set which ultimately made my life so much easier. Securing the mold was the easy part, now I had to think about the flavor and the part that made me want to cringe: the design.  I scoured the web looking for a good chocolate cake recipe (with the added request of no nuts) and somehow through my food voyeurism, came across a unique recipe for a Root Beer Float Cake from Honey & Jam. I was ecstatic. I gathered all my ingredients, went home and began the task, which couldn’t have been completed without help from my sister.

The ball pan set turned out great and the added work of assembling both halves with frosting made it that much better. My word of advice for using such a set would be to make sure that you grease both halves thoroughly either with vegetable shortening, or my favorite PAM with real flour.

Although I like to make everything when I bake from scratch, right down to the pie crust and custard, it was a work night and I was at the point where I was beginning to feel my eye balls in their sockets – never a good sign, so I settled with store bought vanilla buttercream frosting, but not before I added semi-sweet chocolate chips and root beer. That, I have to say, without being too cheeky, was the icing on the cake.

Next came the decoration. The pan set advised using a #3 Wilton tip, but I figured I’d just up the ante and use a #16 to cover more ground in a shorter amount of time. That turned out to be a slight mistake, as my bowling ball cake kinda sorta morphed into what one of my co-workers referred to as “an enemy from Super Mario Bros.”

My baking rarely requires the use of pastry bags and tips, and so, the entire process took a bit of getting used to. The actual finger holes for the bowling ball cake were the hardest part to fill in – the frosting turned out to be not very well suited to spherical shapes and kept running off. My solution? I quickly stuck in the fridge where it hardened up to the point where it was decipherable as a shape.

Despite the few mishaps I had, I knew it had turned out well when everyone loved it more than I had expected. A few requests for the recipe and a few second helpings solidified that I had gotten the job right. Needless to say, I think I’ll take quite the long breather before I attempt a bowling ball cake again. The root beer float cake recipe on the other hand, is one that can and should be used often – the root beer adds so much flavor to an ordinary chocolate cake that will have your guests wanting more.