Longing for Spring

My bench and garden chair

This is my backyard right now.

Of course things could be worse! (knock on wood) My friend Debbie Nobles Gilbert lives in God's Country, aka Enterprise Oregon, and their winter has been much worse than ours here in central Washington. But, nothing gets Debbie down! Today she posted an adorable video of some of her baby goats that got loose in the barn. That will make you smile no matter what your day's  been like.  You should check it out with the link below:

I can't wait for spring.

Basque Cake, Take 1

My first attempt

A cousin of mine posted a recipe for Basque Cake on Facebook so of course I had to try it. A Basque Cake is a traditional Basque recipe for a cake with a custard filling and a shortbread cookie-like outer shell. It is baked in a springform pan and decorated on the top.  I followed the recipe to the letter. It actually turned out better than I expected. I told my mom about it and she dug up a couple of different Basque Cake recipes that she had, one she actually had to translate from French, and I copied them and brought them home. After comparing the recipes, I decided that my recipe was missing a couple of key ingredients. First, grated lemon peel. Now I immediately knew that that ingredient alone was going to elevate my cake from good to great. Second, Pernod. Now I have never tried Pernod but my mom said it had a licorice taste. I asked her how that worked with the lemon peel and she said it was delicious. So she gave me some Pernod and I am going to try it with those additional ingredients. I will post an update as soon as I try the new recipe.