Tea and Travels

I have been blogging now for seven years, and the title of my monthly blog is “Tea and Travels.” The corona virus brought my travel adventures to a complete stop during two of those years, but I am always happy to write about Afternoon Tea and to celebrate the seasons as they come and go, guiding the little details of our daily lives.
 

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This year, after a four-year delay, our dream of returning to Japan came true at last. My husband Wayne grew up in Japan, and I first visited Japan many years ago when I took our son David and Wayne’s sister Joyce to Japan when they were teenagers on a summer tour that included climbing Mt. Fuji.
 

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We did not climb Mt. Fuji this spring, but we climbed a lot of stairs and winding paths on this most recent trip to Japan, visiting temples, shrines, castles, and navigating our way through countless train stations and hilly gardens. Though we traveled on planes, boats and trains, Japan is still best experienced by simply walking.
 

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In every corner of Japan, the seasons of the year are evident at every glance, even in huge cities filled with gray skyscrapers, like Tokyo, where I wrote this haiku in a lovely old garden, right in the middle of the city. Our trip was planned for late spring moving into summer, and of course we were hoping to see Japan’s famous cherry blossoms. But as it turned out, climate change affects cherry blossoms along with everything else, and Japan’s cherry trees bloomed a week early and had completely disappeared by the time we arrived.
 

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The joy of travel is in embracing the unexpected and celebrating every beautiful moment we meet. Let’s start in Tokyo, Japan’s most famous and largest city. We were fortunate to stay in the Shangri-La Hotel, one of the most beautiful hotels in the world. Like many of Japan’s treasures, it is unobtrusively hidden away with no fancy exterior giving the slightest hint of the elegance within. The Shangri-La Hotel sits on the twenty-fourth floor of a tall, sleek and modern business tower adjacent to the massive Tokyo Train Station.
 

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The ginkgo tree, one of the longest-living tree species on earth, is the symbol for the city of Tokyo. It is viewed throughout Asia as a sacred tree whose presence will bring positive energy of all kinds, including peace, hope, love, resilience, good health and long life. Historically, the ginkgo tree has been used for medicinal purposes and has appeared in art and literature as an icon for these many positive aspects. Ginkgo trees grow to enormous sizes, and their lovely green fan-shaped leaves turn a glorious golden color in the autumn. They can live for three thousand years. The streets of Tokyo are lined with ginkgo trees, and it is not surprising that the Shangri-La Hotel, famous for its sparkling chandeliers, had some of them designed as luminous ginkgo leaves.
 

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Tokyo is an enormous city of more than thirteen million people, and its wider metropolitan area, the largest in the world, includes thirty-seven million people. Tokyo has evolved from an obscure fishing village called Edo, to the headquarters of the Tokugawa Shogunate, from which the Samurai clans controlled the entire country for seven hundred years, to the modern metropolis it is today, the location of Japan’s, central government, its economic powerhouse, and the home of the Emperor of Japan. The current Emperor Naruhito and his family reside in the Imperial Palace, formerly the location of Edo Castle, in the center of Tokyo, surrounded by a moat and a huge protective stone wall. The Japanese Monarchy is among the oldest in the world, dating back to around the Third Century of the Current Era.
 

​One of Tokyo’s most enigmatic charms is the fact that is an ultra-modern city on the cutting edge of science and technology and simultaneously a traditional culture, respecting Japan’s ancient Shinto values, art and aesthetics. The most famous places in Tokyo reflect this dichotomy. Three of Japan’s most iconic destinations, all places that first-time visitors to Tokyo would want to explore are:
 
                        The Imperial Palace East Gardens
                        The Meiji Shrine
                        Ueno Park
 
These three vibrant pillars of history and beauty are not tourist traps. They are part of Tokyo’s daily life, reflecting Japan’s reverence for the past and its continuing commitment to decorum, elegance and artistic excellence. And all are free to the public.
 

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The Imperial Palace is not open to the public. As I mentioned, it is the home of the current Emperor of Japan and his family, and it is protected by ancient stone walls and a moat surrounded by graceful and elegant ginkgo trees. However, the Imperial Palace East Garden is open to anyone who wants to visit. Guests are welcome to walk in or out with or without a guide to show them the glories of this exquisite example of Japanese garden design. Depending on the season of the year, guests will be enchanted by cherry blossoms, plum blossoms, purple iris, blue hydrangeas, bamboo, roses and many other plants, including trees and orchards.
 
The Imperial Palace East Garden is also an historical gem. It is built around the ruins of old Edo Castle, established by the Tokugawa Shoguns in the 1600s. While only the stones from the castle’s foundation remain, guests can view original moats, entrance gates and guard towers, now surrounded by glorious trees and flowers.
 

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The Meiji Shrine, also in central Tokyo, appears to be an ancient old-growth forest with its expansive self-sustaining canopy of broad-leafed evergreens including camphor, oak, pines and other conifers surrounding this enormous complex of gardens and pathways, impressive wooden torii gates and its majestic central shrine. In fact, the Meiji Shrine is only a little more than one hundred years old. It was created in 1920 to honor Emperor Meiji and his wife, Empress Shoken, who died in 1912 and 1914. The Meiji Restoration took place in 1868 and brought about a transforming change in Japanese life and culture. Emperor Meiji was the central figure in this historic revival, ending feudalism and centuries of Samurai rule along with Japan’s policy of isolationism. When Emperor Meiji returned to Tokyo, and built the new Imperial Palace, he also opened the country up to trade, travel, education, economic expansion and industrialization. The people of Tokyo wanted to honor him by creating a sacred forest in the ancient Shinto tradition as Japan made its transition into the modern world.
 
Today, this Shinto Shrine is a vibrant place of beauty and serenity where visitors and the general public are welcome to offer daily prayers. Weddings often take place at the Meiji Shrine, and parents brings their babies there for blessings for a long and happy life. The Imperial Palace East Garden and the Meiji Shrine are both conveniently located near train stations, making them easily available to all of Tokyo’s citizens and visitors.
 

 
Ueno Park is another of Tokyo’s treasures. Like the Imperial Palace Gardens and the Meiji Shrine, Ueno Park is a deep, green and fragrant magic forest in the midst of one of the most densely populated cities on Earth. Ueno Park has its own train station, as it is even more diverse in the delights it offers. There is something for everyone at Ueno Park. Established in 1873, shortly after the Meiji Restoration, it is one of the oldest parks in Japan. The park’s central showcase, the Tokyo National Museum, was built in 1872 at a time when the Japanese were discovering the glories of European and American museums, libraries, public squares and concert halls. Ueno Park has all of these, elegantly constructed and arranged among 8,800 trees, including 800 cherry trees, which fill the park with delicate blossoms every spring. The park is also a sanctuary for wildlife, as ducks, egrets and cormorants flock to Shinobazu Pond, graced with lotus beds and marshlands, and other birds nest in the tree canopy. For children and families, Ueno Park Zoo is a journey of discovery repeated many times through a life span and from generation to generation.
 

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Tokyo is filled with hidden gems in addition to the three famous destinations I have described. Visitors who want to embark on self-directed treasure hunts might want to seek out the Rikugien Gardens, built for a Samurai lord in 1702, with its tea house, constructed of acacia wood, still standing, or the famous old Koganji Temple (also called Togenuki-Jizo,) an active Buddhist temple, where Kannon, the Goddess of Mercy, is still revered for her healing powers. The Namiyoke Inari Shinto shrine near the old Tsukiji Fish Market is a charming little spot dedicated to protecting this waterfront neighborhood from high waves and tsunamis. The community surrounding this shrine hosts a colorful street festival each year in June, and this little shrine continues to be a quiet place where locals can stop by and offer their daily prayers.
 

​All of these places, famous or secluded, share the same Japanese vision of reality, the same aesthetic values, and the same reverence for nature as a sacred and eternal element in which human beings are humble participants, not rulers. All of these are quiet places, not places of loud, commercial entertainment, dominance and competition, but refuges of beauty, silence, learning and serenity. Wayne and I are grateful for the time we spent in this great city, and as a parting gift to my readers who share my love for Afternoon Tea, I am happy to share Wayne’s photos of the tea experience we enjoyed on our first day in Tokyo. It took place at the elegant, serene and quiet Shangri-La Hotel, and it happened that they were serving a matcha (powdered green tea)-themed tea, presented on elegant, western-style porcelain, like an English Afternoon Tea. This memorable blending of east and west featured the three traditional courses of savories, scones and sweets, but most of the delicate food items being served were Japanese, and in each course at least one item included matcha as a central ingredient. We enjoyed Matcha Scones, tea sandwiches on Matcha Bread, and an imaginative dessert called “Matcha Cappuccino,” actually a matcha flavored mousse with foam on top.

 
Finally, since we are still reflecting on our magical respite in Tokyo, and I am hoping next month to introduce you to Osaka and the ancient cities of Nara and Kyoto, it is my pleasure to share with you another east-west treat from the Japanese New Year’s Afternoon Tea from the calendar section of the Tea Book on this website.
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Green Tea (Matcha) Madeleines
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​​Like the Black Sesame Seed Shortbread Cookies, these Green Tea Madeleines are not Japanese. However, they do reflect the Japanese passion for all things French, from the Impressionist Painters to fine French pastries. And matcha (powdered green tea) has been used in the Japanese Tea Ceremony for centuries. We think these green madeleines will make a visually attractive and very tasty addition to the Japanese New Year’s Buffet.
 
For the Madeleines:
¼ cup (1/2 stick) butter, melted and cooled, plus more to butter the pans
2/3 cup flour, plus more for dusting the pans
2 teaspoons matcha (Japanese powdered green tea)
2 eggs, at room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
pinch of salt
½ teaspoon vanilla
grated zest of 1 lemon
 
For the topping:
½ cup  powdered sugar
½ teaspoon matcha
 
Preheat oven to 400° F (after Step 4)
 
Special equipment: sieve, medium sized bowl, hand held electric mixer, large mixing bowl, rubber spatula, plastic wrap, 2 madeleine pans, wire racks, parchment, decorative serving tray 
 
Makes: 2 dozen madeleines

1. Grease 2 madeleine pans with melted butter and dust them with flour, tapping out any excess. Chill the pans in the freezer until ready to bake.

 Using a sieve, sift the flour and matcha together into a medium sized bowl and set aside. Beat the eggs with the sugar, salt and vanilla in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer on high speed for about 5 minutes. 

1. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold the flour mixture into the egg mixture until combined and no flour is visible. Drizzle the melted butter over the batter, sprinkle the lemon zest over, and carefully fold them into the batter.

 

1. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill for at least 1 hour and up to 24 hours. 

 

1. Preheat the oven to 400° F and position two oven racks in the top quarter and middle of the oven. Remove the madeleine pans from the freezer and the batter from the refrigerator. 

 

1. Spoon the batter into the prepared pans, filling each mold about three-quarters full. Bake for about 9 minutes, rotating the pans from upper to lower and front to back about halfway through the baking time. Immediately turn the madeleines out onto a wire rack to cool.

 

1. For the topping, sift ½ cup of powdered sugar and ½ teaspoon matcha together into a medium sized bowl. While the madeleines are still warm, place them on a sheet of parchment on a flat surface. Return the powdered sugar and matcha mixture to the sieve and sift it over the warm madeleines. Serve immediately, or place on a decorative serving tray and keep, uncovered, at room temperature, until ready to serve. Cover loosely with plastic wrap if the madeleines need to sit more than 1 hour before serving.

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May is a busy and joyful month with lovely weather and flowers everywhere. In America and Canada, Mother’s Day will be celebrated on Sunday, May 14, and in Mexico on Wednesday, May 10. This year the historic Coronation of King Charles III will take place in Westminster Abbey on Saturday, May 6. These happy events provide us with opportunities for festive brunches, lunches, afternoon tea parties and family reunions. 
 

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My co-author and niece, Kathleen and I recently participated in a spontaneously organized family reunion inspired by a somber event, the death of my husband’s last aunt whose name I have shared for the past sixty years—Rose Higashi. You can read about Auntie Rose in my June, 2022 blog, as we visited her last year on our way to London when she was one-hundred years old. 
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When a person who is more than one-hundred years old dies, the memorial service is likely to be a celebration of that person’s long and meaningful life rather than a cause for weeping and grief. This was the case with Auntie Rose, a joyful extrovert who lived a dignified and enthusiastic life of devotion to her family and her community. She lived most of her adult life in Gardena, an old Japanese American community surrounded by Los Angeles. To attend her funeral, Wayne and I would need to fly from Honolulu to Los Angeles. However, it occurred to us that we could fly to San Jose instead, visit our relatives there, then take a good old fashioned road trip to Southern California for the memorial service.
 

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Both sides of the family pitched in to make these happy events possible. Wayne’s sister Joyce offered to host this fifteen-person gathering in the patio of her lovely home in San Jose, and Kathleen rounded up my late sister Margaret’s family, who live in Watsonville, less than fifty miles to the south on the gorgeous California coast. It was wonderful to see my brother-in-law Rudy again along with my nieces and nephews! Kathleen also brought the desserts, including a stunning fresh Raspberry Flan Bundt Cake with berries from the family farm of Tiffany, her brother Peter’s wife. You can read all about this beautiful spring pastry in Kathleen’s blog this month, as she has shared the recipe along with a gorgeous photograph. My brother and his family also joined us along with our son David, all of whom live nearby. What a joy!
 

​After the rainiest winter in California history with snow covering even the foothills of normally temperate Santa Clara County, the spring weather was glorious, and Joyce’s garden was filled with new leaves and flowers, adding to our joy in seeing one another again. Since our time in San Jose was limited, we decided not to prepare the food ourselves, other than the desserts. (I baked a batch of Mexican Wedding Cookies the day before our flight and packed them in my suitcase.) San Jose is famous for authentic and outstanding Mexican food, and we chose a local restaurant, Adelita’s Taqueria, that specializes in family meals and is located near Joyce’s home.

​Corn Chips with Guacamole and Salsa Fresca
Spicy Pickled Carrots and Jalapenos
Make Your Own Tacos Al Pastor with Grated Cheese and Special Sour Cream
Mexican Rice and Black Beans
Chicken Enchiladas with Red Sauce
Fresh Mushroom Enchiladas with Green Sauce
 
Desserts
 
Kathleen’s Raspberry Flan Bundt Cake 
Kathleen’s Improvised Chocolate Trifle
Rose’s Mexican Wedding Cookies
 
Beverages
 
Mexican Beer: Modelo Dark and Light, Tecate
Mexican Sodas: Pineapple, Lemon, Coca-Cola Made in Mexico
Bottled Water
Coffee

Kathleen’s Improvised Chocolate Trifle was fabulous, even though she claimed that she just threw it together with ingredients from the family kitchen in Watsonville. She was kind enough to share her creative process with me, and I am happy to share it with you at the end of this blog.
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The next morning our road trip began. We rented a large six-person van to transport us comfortably through glowing green and golden California. Our group included Wayne and I and our son David, Joyce and Wayne’s brother Steven and his wife Patrice, who also live in San Jose.
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The lakes, reservoirs and riverbeds throughout the state were filled with an abundance of water, and all the winter rain created a flourishing crop of California poppies, the State Flower. We saw poppies everywhere along Highway 101.

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A charming respite along our journey was lunch at the Downtown City Park in Paso Robles, the Central Valley’s new wine and restaurant destination, rivaling the more famous Napa Valley to the north. But we weren’t looking for a restaurant. We found a picnic table in the bandstand gazebo and devoured the leftovers from the previous day’s Mexican buffet. The guacamole was still fresh and delicious, and the mushroom and green chili enchiladas were still divine. We even enjoyed the raspberry cake, the last of the Mexican wedding cookies and the chocolate trifle, kept chilled in Joyce’s cooler.
 
Our road trip concluded in the charming town of Ojai, near Santa Barbara, where Wayne’s other sister, Kathy Manion and her family have lived for decades. Kathy and her husband Keith graduated from UC Santa Barbara and settled in this lovely place, graced with orange groves, olive trees and even more golden poppies.
 

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The Manions, along with their daughter Shana and her family, greeted us with a classic California post-Easter dinner of local cheeses and fruit, ham, deviled eggs and a luscious sweet potato and black bean enchilada casserole. Dessert was home-made apple pie and a hearty vegan apple cake made with eight local apples by Shana’s in-laws, Michael and Mary Lou Sharp, whom we were delighted to meet for the first time. It was magical to relax with family in the back yard under a one-hundred-year-old California live oak, watching the squirrels and celebrating the end of California’s long drought. Kathy and Keith hosted me and Wayne for the night, and our four remaining travel companions headed out for the two-hour drive to their Air B and B in Gardena in anticipation of tomorrow’s memorial service.
 

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We said goodbye to dear Auntie Rose in a dignified memorial service organized by her son Don, who was also her care giver. Don wrote her Personal History and a heartfelt elegiac Personal Reflection about his mother, Wayne’s Auntie Rose, but did not feel able to read them at the service. He asked me and Joyce to read these tributes to the assembled family members and friends who were present to honor Rose, and we felt privileged to do so.
 

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In the Japanese tradition, everyone present was invited to join the family for a full meal in a restaurant, in this case, Cherrystones in Gardena, a Pacific Rim restaurant where we enjoyed a pan-Asian feast of teriyaki beef and chicken, Chinese chicken salad, Hawaiian macaroni salad, kimchee, stir-fried soba noodles and fresh broccoli Japanese style. At the end of the meal, Don and his brother Doug quietly invited just the cousins over to the family home for an informal visit with chocolate cake and tea. When we arrived at the modest house where Auntie Rose spent the last seventy years of her life, an aura of gratitude and peace permeated the air. This group of siblings and cousins, who had known each other all their lives and played together as children, found their happy place in this tidy home which had not changed in decades. There was instant relaxation and comfort after the formality of the funeral, as we chatted together about memories of happy times in the Higashi family and hopes for the days ahead. Wayne and I were thankful to spend such precious time with both of our families.
 

​If your family is planning a reunion this spring, this website is here to help. In the calendar section of The Tea Book, we offer four different detailed menus in our August Family Reunion Tea—A North American Family Tea, which includes one of my favorite cakes, Triple Espresso Cake, An Eastern Mediterranean Family Tea, featuring one of the world’s best pastries, Baklava, A Kosher Family Tea with Kathleen’s fabulous Cheesecake, and a Scandinavian Family menu loaded with Butter Cookies. And if you enjoyed our California road trip, our California Tea menu in the World of Tea Parties section of the Tea Book is filled with authentic California cuisine, including Queen of California Cake, highlighting two of the golden state’s favorite agricultural products—apricots and almonds. And if you think your family would enjoy the Mexican Wedding Cookies that traveled with me to our family reunion, you will find them in our October Mexican Tea menu celebrating our ancestors. Finally, I hope your family will enjoy Kathleen’s Improvised Chocolate Trifle as much as we did.
 

Kathleen’s Improvised Chocolate Trifle
 

​A Trifle is a decorative layered dessert served in a glass bowl to reveal the various ingredients that have been assembled for the diners’ delight. Our website contains several different Trifle recipes for various seasons and events. Kathleen’s decision to create a Chocolate Trifle for our recent California family reunion Mexican lunch was a nod to the birthplace of chocolate—Mexico, and a complement to the menu of savory Mexican dishes we enjoyed before dessert.
 
Trifle originated in England as a dessert composed of leftovers and items from the pantry such as yesterday’s cake, cookies, nuts, fruits and jam layered with custard or whipped cream. In the spirit of improvisation, we will not use a recipe, but you will need to make some Chocolate Custard to glue your Trifle together. You can find the recipe for Vanilla Custard in my May 2020 Blog, and to make the chocolate version, you can simply add half a cup of Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa to the flour required to thicken the pudding. When the custard is completely cooked and thickened, just add half a cup of semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate chips along with the butter and stir until the butter and chips have melted into the pudding. Chill the custard covered with plastic wrap until you are ready to assemble your Chocolate Trifle.
 
Kathleen’s Chocolate Trifle was an innovative combination of a British style trifle and the Italian version, Tiramisu, which includes coffee and sweetened mascarpone or cream cheese. To put your trifle together, you will need to round up some chocolate cake, either baked from a cake mix or bought in a grocery store or bakery. You will also need at least one cup of very strong coffee or espresso, sweetened with powdered sugar, about eight ounces of cream cheese or mascarpone, some Kalua, if you want your trifle to have a little kick, and some chocolate cookies. Pepperidge Farms has some nice crispy chocolate cookies, but you can use Oreos or other chocolate wafers if you can find them.
 
To assemble your luscious Chocolate Trifle, brew and sweeten the coffee, and also sweeten the cream cheese. Use about half a cup of powdered sugar and beat the cream cheese with a whisk or an electric mixer. Start by cutting the cake into pieces and fitting them into the bottom of a large decorative glass bowl. Then dampen the cake with the coffee and Kalua. Add a layer of chocolate custard and break up several of the cookies and scatter them over the custard. Create a second layer in the same way. Then carefully spread the sweetened cream cheese over the second layer of cake, coffee, custard and cookies. Finish with a third layer in the same order as the first two, allowing some of the cookie pieces to decorate the top. Refrigerate your masterpiece until you are ready to serve it.
 

 
Orange trees produce not just delicate white blossoms, but also a complex, heady fragrance that is both sweetly floral and refreshingly herbal. The place to enjoy orange blossoms is Spain, where many believe the best oranges in the world are grown. The cities of Seville and Valencia are destinations for viewing aromatic orange blossoms. Spain is a wonderful country to visit in spring, and orange blossoms are only one of the many reasons. For our purposes, one of the best reasons to visit Spain is the food. Wayne and I have visited Spain on three separate occasions, and every time we ate fabulous food, enjoyed Spain’s rich culture, appreciated the elegant grace and dignity of the Spanish people and left feeling that there was so much more to learn and eat.
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It was in Madrid that we discovered Spanish Almond Cake, Pastel de Almendras, which is featured in my February, 2022 blog. This simple, light and deeply flavorful cake has become Wayne’s favorite, and I bake it now every year for his birthday. Spanish Almond Cake would also be an excellent choice for your family for Easter. It contains ground toasted almonds, almond extract and lightly whipped egg whites in the batter. Almonds are a key ingredient in many Spanish dishes, both sweet and savory, as almond orchards are plentiful in Spain, and almond blossoms add beauty to the Spanish countryside in spring. If you have an opportunity to visit Madrid, as we did, be sure to tour the Prado Museum, a world class art collection, featuring Spanish artists such as Velazquez, Goya, El Greco, Murillo, Picasso and many other distinguished European artists, including Hieronymus Bosch, Rembrandt and Raphael. The dark, moody and soulful style of the Spanish painters will give you a glimpse into the ancient and complex culture of Spain.
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My favorite of all the many Spanish cathedrals is Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, also a World Heritage Site. Completed in 1211 in both the Romanesque and Gothic styles, this beautiful cathedral, dedicated to St. James the Apostle, and considered to be his burial place, was one of the major places of pilgrimage throughout the Middle Ages. Chaucer mentions this famous church in The Canterbury Tales, written in the late 1300s.One of the characters in Chaucer’s lively narrative about a group of pilgrims, the Wife of Bath,
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​When we visited Santiago de Compostela Cathedral, we were amazed by the worlds’ largest thurible, (incense burner,) which hangs from the ceiling by a rope. During services, it is filled with incense, lighted and the rope is then pulled by four adult acolytes, lifting the thurible up and swinging it on a wide arc from side to side, filling the enormous interior of the church with smoke and the sweet scent of incense. Called the Botafumeiro, which means “smoke expeller” in Galician, this magnificent piece of metal work, crafted in the Baroque style of silverplated brass and bronze, was installed in 1604 and is still used on special occasions such as Good Friday.
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In contrast to Spain’s many Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque churches, the much newer Basilica de la Sagrada Familia (Holy Family,) in Barcelona was consecrated only in 2010, well over a hundred years after construction began in 1882. Still incomplete, this unique example of Catalan Modernism, Art Nouveau and Late Spanish Gothic architecture is well worth a visit. Antoni Gaudi was the original architect, and his vision is like no other. The soaring spires of this church include bright colors and organic, plant-like shapes and symbolic elements seen nowhere else on Earth. Barcelona is the city of Gaudi, and several other buildings in Gaudi’s iconic style can be viewed in this exciting city. Several factors have slowed the completion of Sagrada Familia, including the death of Gaudi in 1926, currently the only person buried in the crypt of the Basilica, the Spanish Civil War of 1936, and the recent Covid Outbreak. We have visited Sagrada Familia twice over the years, and it was heartwarming to see that progress is still taking place.
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Short and sweet February is gone, and long, energetic March is here! March is the month when the Earth turns green again, with the first crocuses pushing through the snow, new leaves emerging on the trees and deep green grass returning to the once frozen ground. Our favorite green herbs and vegetables arrive in March also, and many of them remain throughout the summer. And as Hopkins points out in the first eight lines of his exuberant sonnet, birds return and sing again!
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The second and final document attributed to Patrick is Letter to Coroticus, a statement of moral outrage accusing Coroticus, probably a British Roman living in Ireland or Britain, of capturing some of Patrick’s Irish converts into slavery. This theme was no doubt close to Patrick’s heart, having been the victim of slave raiding himself. Patrick’s primary achievements as a missionary to Ireland included baptizing thousands of converts to Christianity and establishing churches, monasteries and schools. Historians also believe that Patrick brought Christianity to the Picts and Anglo Saxons of Britain and Scotland. Patrick did in fact, use the shamrock, the national flower of Ireland, as a teaching tool to help explain the theological concept of the Trinity to the Irish. However, scientists have confirmed that the legend giving Patrick credit for chasing the snakes out of Ireland has no basis in fact. Geologists have proven that Ireland’s environment has never been hospitable to snakes and no snakes have ever lived in post glacial Ireland.
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When Patrick arrived in Ireland as a teenaged slave, he entered an ancient culture filled with powerful spiritual energy and a deep reverence for the numinous natural world and all the plants and animals that inhabit it. To this day, the Irish imagination is alive and well, and Ireland remains a country that appreciates and encourages creative expression in poetry, music, dance and many other art forms and crafts. Today, the Guinness Storehouse is the number one tourist destination in Ireland, and Waterford Crystal and Belleek Pottery are famous throughout the world. In Patrick’s day, Irish poetry was exclusively oral, but his missionary efforts helped to bring new life to Irish literature as a written art form. As the late Irish poet, Thomas Kinsella, editor of The New Oxford Book of Irish Verse pointed out in the introduction, “Christianity, from its beginnings in Ireland, worked intimately with poetry, and it was due largely to Christian literacy that so much of early Ireland’s non-Christian literature survived.” Kinsella himself, a major figure in contemporary Irish poetry, died in Dublin in 2021 at the age of 93. I love his little poem, “Wyncote, Pennsylvania: A Gloss,” as it gives us a glimpse into the Irish imagination and its enduring reverence for the natural world:
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St. Patrick’s legacy lives on in the United States and Canada, and indeed the whole world. Patrick died on March 17, probably in 461, though some scholars argue that he lived until 492, to the age of 120! What we do know is that Patrick is one of the Patron Saints of Ireland and his Feast Day is celebrated in all kinds of unexpected places with raucous Irish dancing, singing, fiddle playing, bagpiping, poetry, parades with marching bands, feasting and copious mounts of drinking, mostly Irish whiskey and Guinness Extra Stout. There are even polite St. Patrick’s Day celebrations involving Afternoon Tea!
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Irish immigrants to the United States began celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in Boston in 1737, and the first St. Patrick’s Day parade in the U.S. took place in New York City in 1766. Approximately 25 percent of Americans have some Irish ancestry, including more than fifteen of our Presidents. Of course, we know that Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy came from Irish American families, but Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter, both George HW and George W Bush, Barak Obama and Joe Biden also have some Irish ancestry. At 34.5 million, the Irish American population is seven times larger than the population of Ireland, which is only 4.68 million people. Here in America, many families of Irish ancestry are keeping not only Irish art and culture alive, but also Irish food.

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Irish food is delightfully healthy as well as tasty and memorable. Irish cuisine includes a wide variety of vegetables, herbs and fruits, including the first green vegetables that arrive in March. A study conducted in the European Union found that the Irish eat a wider variety of vegetables and fruits in their daily meals than any other country in the EU. The Irish are famous for potatoes and cabbage and for special preparations such as Colcannon, a mix of mashed potatoes and cabbage, and Champ, which is mashed potatoes mixed with whole milk, butter and green onions. But it might be surprising to learn that Ireland’s number one vegetable is the humble carrot! And Ireland’s favorite fruit is raspberries! Almost every imaginable vegetable finds its way into Irish food, including fresh green peas, onions, leeks, chives, wild garlic, watercress, parsley, tarragon, celery, turnips, parsnips, kale, dill, chervil, cucumbers, cauliflower and all kinds of greens. While raspberries are hugely popular with the Irish, so are strawberries and apples. I was amazed by the number of times I was served Apple Pie as a visitor in Ireland.


Kathleen and I have provided you with an introduction to Irish food on our website and in our blogs. We encourage you to review our St. Patrick’s Day Irish Tea in the March calendar section of the Tea Book. Several of the items in the menu of our St. Patrick’s Day Tea have characteristically Irish names, which, like Colcannon and Champ give a non-Irish reader no clue as to what this food item might be. Barm Brack, for example, is a tea bread intended to be served with Irish butter. It contains raisins and fruits soaked in strong Irish Breakfast Tea. Parkins are little gingerbread oat cakes. This menu also features the recipe for my sister Margaret Murdock’s Irish Soda Bread, a staple of Irish cuisine.


For an example of a simple but fresh and elegant daily Irish lunch, you will find the recipes for Irish Brown Bread and Irish Vegetable Soup, containing both potatoes and carrots, in my March 2021 Blog. Two Irish desserts from previous March blogs would be perfect for your St. Patrick’s Day party this year—Brown Sugar Oatmeal Cake in my March 2022 blog and Buttermilk Irish Whiskey Apple Pie in Kathleen’s March 2021 blog. For the adventurous among you, I am happy to share the recipe for Irish American St. Patrick’s Day Cake, an over-the-top chocolate layer cake that contains both Guinness Irish Stout and Bailey’s Irish Cream. I doubt that St. Patrick ever tasted chocolate, but I think he would love this cake!

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This rich, double chocolate cake has little to do with Irish cooking other than the inclusion of three ingredients produced in Ireland, Guinness Irish Stout Beer, Bailey’s Irish Cream Liqueur and Kerrygold Butter. However, Americans have embraced St. Patrick’s Day and are ready to party every March 17. I think your guests will appreciate this luscious chocolate cake, iced with buttery Bailey’s butter cream and topped with bittersweet chocolate ganache. Although this suggestion may sound odd, for those of you who prefer to stay away from alcohol in your cooking, you could try substituting Dr. Pepper for both the Guinness and the Bailey’s. Just make sure to use Irish butter in the cake batter, the icing and the ganache topping. I recommend Kerrygold. You will need to buy a pound of butter.
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For the Cake Layers:

• 1 cup Guinness Irish Stout Beer (from an 11.4-ounce bottle)
• 1 cup unsalted Kerrygold Irish butter (2 sticks) cut into pieces
• ¾ cup unsweetened Hershey’s Special Dark chocolate cocoa powder
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 2/3 cup sour cream, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
• ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
• Baking spray with flour for the pans

For the Irish Cream Icing
 

• 3 cups powdered sugar
• ½ cup (1 stick) Kerrygold butter, at room temperature
• 3 tablespoons Bailey’s Irish Cream Liqueur 
• Green food coloring gel (optional)

For the Ganache Topping
 

• 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, such as Ghirardelli’s, chopped into small pieces
• 2/3 cup heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons Kerrygold butter at room temperature.

Special Equipment:

2 (9-inch) cake pans, parchment paper, medium saucepan, whisk, 2 large mixing bowls, hand-held electric mixer, flour sifter or sieve, rubber spatula, 2 wire cooling racks, medium sized mixing bowl, quart sized glass measuring cup, bamboo skewers, 10-11-inch rimmed decorative platter, cake pedestal
 
Serves:
12-16
 
Preheat the Oven to 350 degrees F
 

1. Spray 2 (9-inch) cake pans with cooking spray with flour. Cut 2 rounds of parchment to fit the bottoms of the pans. Add a parchment round to each pan and spray again. Set aside. Pour the beer into a saucepan and add the butter. Bring the mixture to a simmer over medium-low heat. Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the dark cocoa powder until the mixture is smooth and no lumps appear. Set aside to cool.
2. In a large mixing bowl, using a hand-held electric mixer, beat the eggs, sour cream and vanilla extract until smooth. Stir in the cooled beer mixture and beat briefly at low speed to form a smooth, thick liquid. In another large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt. Pour the beer mixture into the flour mixture and gently combine with a rubber spatula until no flour is visible.
3. Pour the batter into the prepared pans. Bake in the pre-heated 350-degree oven until a bamboo skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Cool on wire racks for 10-15 minutes. Invert the cakes onto the wire racks, removing the parchment paper, and finish cooling.
4. To prepare the icing, combine the powdered sugar, butter and Irish Cream in a medium sized mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer until a smooth and spreadable icing forms. Add a few drops of green food coloring if desired and beat until the icing is a uniform green color. Spread half of the icing evenly over the top of each cake. Place one cake layer, icing facing upward, on a decorative platter. Stack the other cake, also icing side up, on top of the first cake to form a round layer cake, adjusting to make sure that the sides are evenly aligned. Refrigerate the cake while you prepare the Ganache Topping. If you are the least bit nervous about the icing slipping and the cakes becoming misaligned, just insert a bamboo skewer into the middle of the cake and cut it off with scissors so it is not visible.
5. Place the chopped bittersweet chocolate, heavy cream and butter in a quart sized glass measuring cup and microwave at 30 second intervals, stirring with a rubber spatula between intervals until all the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth. This process will take about 1 ½ minutes. Allow the ganache to cool for about 15 minutes until the ganache is pourable but not too thin or runny.
6. Remove the layer cake from the refrigerator and pour the Ganache Topping slowly and carefully over the top of the cake, covering the entire top and allowing it to drip attractively over the sides of the cake. Some of the ganache may drip onto the platter. Refrigerate the cake before serving to firm up the icing and ganache topping but allow the cake to stand for about 15 minutes to come to room temperature before slicing. To create a more dramatic effect, place the platter on a cake pedestal before serving. Refrigerate any leftovers.

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My husband Wayne gave me an unusual gift for Christmas just before the end of 2022—a traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony at the Urasenke Foundation of Hawaii, a venerable non-profit organization dedicated to “promote peace and international goodwill through the propagation of the best of Japanese philosophy, tradition and teachings as found in the Way of Tea.” This auspicious event took place early in the New Year, as the world was celebrating the arrival of 2023, the Year of the Rabbit.
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Those of you who have read our website carefully are already familiar with the Japanese Tea Ceremony, known as Chanoyu. If you need a refresher, you can review the sections in The Tea Book entitled “The Road Back to Civilization,” “A Brief History of Tea,” and “The Philosophy of Tea,” especially the section entitled “Humility.” These overviews will provide some context
for the historic significance of the Japanese Tea Ceremony and the Zen Buddhist philosophy on which it is based. Our January “Japanese New Year’s Tea” in the “World of Tea Parties” section of the Tea Book provides a contemporary view of the role of tea in Japanese New Year celebrations.
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The role of the Urasenke Foundation, which has branches throughout the world, is to continue, through education and the practice of Chanoyu, the traditions established by their founder, Sen Rikyu, a major figure in Japanese cultural history. While the practice of gathering with friends to drink tea originated in China, Rikyu refined the Japanese style of sharing tea and raised it to the level of an art form. Rikyu was born in Sakai in 1522 and died in Kyoto in 1591 at the age of seventy. Influenced by Zen Buddhism, he developed a simple, rustic style of tea known as wabi-cha, or plain tea. Although the aesthetic elements of wabi-cha appear simple and ordinary, they embody a dignity and elegance that incorporate the principles of harmony, tranquility, cleanliness, and respect. This idea is similar to the Danish concept of Hygge, which I discussed in last month’s blog.
 
Working at the court of the powerful Shogun, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Rikyu established the guidelines for all aspects of the tea ceremony, including the design of the tea house, and the types of natural materials, such as bamboo, from which it is constructed, the landscaping of the tea garden in which the tea house is located, the decorations recommended for individual tea ceremonies, depending on the occasion and the season of the year, the utensils to be used for making tea, the types of tea bowls, their colors, shapes and the materials used to make them, and even appropriate clothing for guests and the movements of the Tea Master as he prepares the tea.
 
The Encyclopedia Britannica is not far off in describing Chanoyu as “An aesthetic way of welcoming guests, in which everything is done according to an established order.” Some tea lovers discern a certain irony in the fact that an art form intended to be simple, plain and even spontaneous, can embrace such rigidity. My experience at the Urusenke Foundation’s tea ceremony, at which Wayne and I were the only guests, was exactly the opposite. Though we were familiar from previous travel and study with the guidelines of Chanoyu, we are by no means Japanese tea masters, but we found our experience pleasant, welcoming relaxing and memorable. And we were impressed by the staff at the Honolulu Urusenke foundation, including our Sensei (respected teacher,) from Kyoto, who was also our Tea Master. He provided us with a thoughtful overview of the experience (through an interpreter who was also from Japan,) before we shared tea together. 
 
This foundation, which hosted our lovely tea ceremony in the Honolulu branch, certainly has authenticity, as it represents the sixteenth generation of Tea Masters in a direct line from Sen Rikyu himself. The current Chairman of the Urusenke Foundation, Zabasai Genmoku Soshitsu, who was born in 1956, was ordained as a Buddhist priest in 2002 at the Daitokuji Temple in Kyoto, where Sen Rikyu’s remains are memorialized. President Zabasai also holds a professional post at the Kyoto University of Art and Design in the Department of Historical Heritage.
 ​

Like British Afternoon Tea, Chanoyu is really an artistic and sensitive way of sharing tea and light snacks with our friends as a means of expressing our affection and respect for them. The guidelines, in which “everything is done in an established order,” simply provide a framework in which everyone can feel comfortable and safe. If you can remember all the way back to your first day in kindergarten or the day your family moved to a new and unfamiliar city, you probably felt anxiety and worry beforehand. I am hoping that a caring adult, probably your mother, explained exactly what to expect and helped you to view this new experience as a positive step forward. Many of us enjoy surprises, but no one likes a surprise that makes us feel foolish, unwelcome, judged or humiliated. The parameters of Afternoon Tea and Chanoyu make sure that none of that will ever happen.
 ​

Our experience of Chanoyu at the Urasenke Foundation in Honolulu followed the parameters set down by Sen Rikyu in the 1500s perfectly, yet it felt like nothing more than a lovely morning visit to welcome the New Year with friends. The Foundation is located in a crowded section of Downtown Honolulu near the busy beaches of Waikiki and the Halekulani Hotel. There were even jackhammers pounding away making street repairs nearby as we serenely sipped our tea. But Rikyu’s vision of surrounding every teahouse with a garden helped us to tune out the world around us and focus only on the joy of sharing tea, the founding principle of Chanoyu. The clean and uncluttered quiet of the waiting room, with minimal furniture and decorated only by a single piece of calligraphy, set the tone. Upon our arrival, and punctuality, as a sign of respect, is expected at Chanoyu, Our Tea Master and our translator escorted us through the tea garden, on our slow and attentive journey to the small tea house. We noted that the stone steps of the garden path had been sprinkled with water, though it was not raining. Just before we arrived, the Tea Master had personally swept all debris from the garden and cleaned the pathway with water as a sign of respect and welcome. This element of Chanoyu is embedded in the ancient Shinto tradition of ritual purity that helps prevent the spread of disease and honors guests, as cleanliness requires personal effort on the part of the Host.
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Japanese gardens, known as roji, are planted primarily with greenery with a minimum of profusely flowering plants. As the guests pass through the roji, they leave the loud and cluttered world behind and acclimate themselves to focusing on the subtle contrasts among various shades of green, the textures, shapes and absence of symmetry in the serene setting. At the end of the path, our Sensei stopped at the stone water bowl and bamboo dipper located just before the entrance to the tea house. Here both the Tea Master and the guests pour fresh water from the dipper over their hands and use some of the water to cleanse their mouths. Like blessing oneself with holy water before entering a church, this gesture symbolically prepares all the participants to enter the Tea Ceremony with minds, hearts, hands and even words that leave unclean thoughts behind.
 
Humility is a key element of Chanoyu as taught by Rikyu, and most tea houses have low doors that require all who enter to bend over in order to enter. This gesture is a sign not only of humility but also of equality, as within the tea house all are equal, the Tea Master and the guests, and if any of the participants are wealthier or of a higher social status than the others, these perceived disparities will be completely ignored during the Tea Ceremony. I thought it was interesting that the tea house entrance at the Urasenke Foundation in Honolulu achieved the principle of humility by requiring the guests to step up rather than bending down. The entrance was high enough for us to sit down on, facing the garden as we removed our shoes. But to enter, we needed to make a rather awkward leap, in my case requiring a little assistance. Depending on others for help is a universal sign of humility which is evident everywhere in the world of nature.
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The tearoom was small, the floor covered by only about eight tatami mats, with no furniture. As in all Japanese style tearooms, there was a recessed charcoal brazier in the floor on which a large metal kettle rested. When we entered, our Sensei had already prepared the hot coals, filled the kettle with water, and steam was gently floating from the spout. On a small stand nearby there was a little sunrise colored cannister containing powdered green matcha. Three utensils, all handcrafted from bamboo, were unobtrusively placed near the kettle, a scoop for the tea, a whisk, and a water dipper. A ceramic container of fresh water, and another vessel for water that has been used to cleanse the tea bowls, were also arranged on the tatami mat. The Tea Master remained close to the kettle throughout most of  the ceremony, and his movements resembled a choreographed dance, as he scooped the powdered green tea into the tea bowls, added steaming hot water from the kettle with the dipper, and whisked the mixture deftly until it became a fragrant, frothy elixir.
 
Throughout this elegant service we carried on quiet and polite conversation guided by the Tea Master. To help the guests focus only on topics that pertain to nature, the season of the year or the tea itself, every tearoom has a tokonoma, a small alcove in which the Tea Master has placed a small flower arrangement, a painting or piece of calligraphy, and perhaps some incense, all chosen to harmonize with the moment. For our tea ceremony, Sensei had selected a winter flower, a camellia bud, just starting to open, surrounded by it dark, glossy leaves. We were aware that the tea plant, whose botanical name is Camellia sinensis, is related to the flowering plant, Camellia japonica, which flourishes at this time of year in Japan. The unopened bud suggested new opportunities and growth in the New Year.
 ​

 
A small ceramic rabbit also sat on the tatami mat in the tokonoma. After we had finished drinking our first cup of tea, Sensei went to the tokonoma, and brought the little rabbit to us to observe. It turned out to be a two-piece incense container with the rabbit’s head as the lid. Inside was a small piece of incense with a clean, refreshing herbal scent.
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A traditional Chanoyu ceremony includes two movements with an intermission, though ours was shortened to last only two hours rather than the usual four. However, both parts were included in our experience. In the first half of the tea ceremony, the Tea Master prepares “thin” tea called usucha from the powdered green tea, and the guests drink out of their own bowls while enjoying special little Japanese pastries called wagashi. Many of these elegant treats are made from glutinous rice called mochi and filled with sweetened bean paste. For our usucha, or thin tea, Sensei selected a pair of bowls from which Wayne and I drank our tea. In Japanese ceramics, a pair does not mean that the two cups match. Matching sets of China are not part of the Japanese aesthetic. The Zen-influenced artistic values emphasize asymmetrical design and even items that are old and perhaps chipped, reminders that nothing needs to be perfect, and old and well used objects have their own dignity.
 
Our tea bowls were both made of a glazed terra-cotta material, but my bowl had a golden glaze in the inside and was larger and shaped differently than Wayne’s. Wayne’s bowl had a silvery interior glaze. As we enjoyed our usucha, Sensei disappeared briefly to the preparation room, which is not visible to the guests, and returned with two freshly made wagashi-style Japanese pastries, tinted green like the newly emerging buds.
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While we drank our refreshing green tea and enjoyed our sweets, we commented about the design and colors of our tea bowls. The custom of observing and admiring the utensils, bowls and other works of art in the tearoom is called haiken. Sensei encouraged us to hold the bowls, turn them over and appreciate their subtle beauty. We also practiced haiken in the second half of the tea ceremony when we drank “thick” tea, known as koicha, made from the same powdered matcha but with less hot water, and kneaded with the whisk to a thicker consistency. Koicha is traditionally served from a single bowl, but the Urasenka Foundation is willing to make adaptations to avoid the spread of covid. Wayne and I were happy to drink from the same bowl.
 ​

Here in Hawaii, the winter temperatures plummet to around 70 degrees, or even 69 at night, but in the rest of the country, this winter has brought unusually cold, snowy and freezing weather. During this season of historic cold, many families are struggling to stay warm and well fed as they deal with power outages, blizzard conditions, slow ploughs and shortages of food staples due to shipping challenges. In long dark winters like this one, nothing is more comforting than hot, hearty soup. Some of my previous blogs could help out. My March 2018 blog contains the recipe for Cuban Black Beans and Rice, a healthy meal that can be made in volume to last your family for several days in case you get snowed in. Borscht is another great cold weather soup that contains all the winter vegetables that will warm your heart and satisfy your tummy—cabbage, onions, beets, potatoes and carrots. You can find the recipe for this nutrient-packed and filling soup in my February 2017 blog.

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For those of you who find yourselves surrounded by snow and ice-covered roads and darkness that arrives in the afternoon, now would be a good time to re-read Kathleen’s comforting January 2019 blog, “Hygge in America.” Elle Magazine described the concept of Hygge as “… a wholesome Danish concept of coziness.” One way to begin creating Hygge in your own home this winter is to eliminate anything in your environment that creates a feeling of clutter or stress. Now is the time to take New Year’s house cleaning to a new aesthetic level. We all want our homes to feel beautiful and serene, so let’s throw out all those old pairs of shoes that we know we will never wear again. Let’s get rid of any old newspapers or magazines that are piling up. And if your children or your pets have gotten into the habit of leaving their grungy old toys lying around the living room, spring for a couple of attractive storage baskets and whisk anything unsightly out of your happy space. 

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Think about the beauty of winter’s hushed color palette—shades of gray with touches of stark black and white, accented with momentary flashes of deep cardinal red and fresh pine green.

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​You can activate the Hygge in your own home by getting out your red plaid flannel pajamas and Grandma’s hand-made quilts. A pine-scented candle would also be nice, along with some healthy fresh green houseplants. And if you have a fireplace, use it every evening as you sip warm cider in the flickering light. Afternoon Tea is also a guaranteed generator of Hygge, and we heartily recommend the Winter Afternoon Tea on our website. This menu features warm winter flavors, including chestnuts, potatoes and chocolate. There is nothing like chocolate, especially warm, comforting hot chocolate, to help us embrace the serenity of a cold winter night.

​As I mentioned earlier, food is our friend more than ever in the wintertime, especially healthy hot soup. As my New Year’s gift to you in 2023, the Year of the Rabbit, I offer the recipe for a wonderful traditional soup (no, not rabbit stew!) but Portuguese Bean Soup. This delicious meal includes the best ingredients from the two previous winter soups I recommended—beans and cabbage. What a great combination on a cold winter night! The beans will fill you up in a satisfying way and the cabbage will provide vitamins, fiber and good old comforting Hygge. Portuguese Bean Soup also has a gourmet quality, even though it is an everyday staple in Portuguese cuisine, due to the inclusion of fresh herbs.

​I have shared other Portuguese recipes with you in previous blogs, and if you find yourself falling in love with Portuguese Bean Soup, you might want to try making Hawaiian Vinha d’Alous, which is vinegar-marinated Portuguese style pork that is very popular here in Hawaii, where many of our residents are the descendants of the thousands of Portuguese immigrants who came to Hawaii in the two previous centuries to work in the pineapple and sugar cane fields. Vinha d’Alous appears on the menus of lots of locally owned cafes and restaurants as a breakfast favorite, served with fried rice and fried eggs. You can find the recipe in my April 2017 blog. My April 2021 blog includes the recipes for two little dessert snacks popular in Portugal, Bolinhos de Laranja (Little orange Cakes) and Salame de Chocolate, Chocolate Salami. Either or both of those would be fun to include in your Winter Afternoon Tea.
 
Meanwhile, enjoy your cozy winter afternoons and hearty candle-lighted dinners, and may 2023 bring joy, Hygge, and plenty of good hot soup into your life.

I found the recipe for this flavorful soup for sale on a postcard in a family-owned café on the island of Kauai years ago. Portuguese Bean Soup happened to be on the menu at this friendly little place, and we ordered it many times and always loved it. I continue to make Portuguese Bean Soup at home in every season of the year, as it is easy to make and always delicious. The post card version of the recipe is brief and includes only the most minimal instructions, such as, “Boil all ingredients except cabbage. Put cabbage in about 15 min. before soup is done.” Apparently, it is up to you to figure out when the soup is done. I have made only a few small revisions to this excellent recipe, suggesting a base of chicken or vegetable broth rather than water, and offering a few options. For example, the post card recipe calls for “1/2 lb. Kidney Beans and ½ lb. Pinto Beans,” but does not specify if the beans should be dried or canned beans. To make this recipe easy and fast to make, I am recommending canned beans. Feel free to use dried beans, which you will want to soak overnight and boil in the broth with the meats for about 1-2 hours before adding the other ingredients. You are also free to choose whether to use dried or fresh herbs. Other than the fresh parsley, the measurements I have listed are for dried herbs. To turn this wonderful soup into a hearty meal, serve it with good quality French or Sourdough bread, butter, and cheese, perhaps a Spanish Manchego and a soft ripened French Brie or Camembert. More importantly, choose the cheese your family likes best. 

Special Equipment:
Large stockpot with lid, paring knife, cutting board, sieve, rubber gloves

Makes: about 8 servings

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At Christmas time, as the weather grows cold, and in many places, snow falls, we seek warm, cozy and well-lighted indoor spaces to enjoy winter’s mysterious beauty. The winter holidays are associated with flickering hearths and outdoor bonfires, candles and shimmering decorations to bring light into our homes as the world outside grows darker and colder.
 

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This is my favorite time of the year for holiday baking, for bringing light and warmth into my home, and filling every space with the comforting scents of winter spices—ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves.

Christmas is an ancient winter holiday, and many of the familiar holiday cakes, cookies and treats we bake every year originated before electricity and refrigeration became part of human life. Also, winter desserts seldom include fresh fruits or berries, as the growing season for fresh produce is over, though dried fruits, such as raisins, prunes, currants, figs, cherries and apricots are featured in many of our favorite winter foods. Last December, my blog included the recipe for Panforte, an historic dessert which originated in the Eastern Mediterranean region. The ingredients for Panforte, dried fruits, nuts, honey, cinnamon and other spices, do not require refrigeration, and all of them can be stored safely through the long winter months. 

In the winter, we also crave spicy foods to warm up the chilly nights. And as a practicality, spices can preserve and lengthen the shelf lives of meats, cakes, cookies and winter fruits and vegetables such as apples, pears, cabbage, beets, carrots and other root vegetables. Spices also add complexity and variety to the taste of winter foods. The ancient Romans discovered spices when they began trading with India in the First Century of the current era. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Marco Polo’s travels along the Spice Road in the 1200s, brought spices from India and China back to Europe. Among the first of these Asian spices to find its way into European cuisine was ginger, my personal favorite.
 
Ginger is derived from the rhizome, or bulbous root, of a flowering perennial plant, zingiber officinale. Endemic to India and China, this flavorful root has been included in the Southeast Asian diet since the beginning of human history. Ginger grows widely in warm, humid environments, including Hawaii, where fresh ginger root is easy to find in the produce section of every grocery store, but it cannot thrive in the cold winters of Northern Europe. The ginger plant is related to several other tropical spices that have become popular in western cooking, including turmeric, cardamom and galangal. Ginger is now widely exported throughout the world, and India, where ginger is still produced primarily on homestead farms, remains the number one producer of ginger. Nigeria, China, Nepal, Indonesia and Thailand are the other top exporters of ginger.
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In Asian cuisine, ginger is used primarily in savory dishes, and the root itself, either peeled and sliced, grated or cut into small matchstick pieces, is used rather than the ground ginger more familiar to Americans. Well known Asian dishes that include ginger root are Chinese vegetable stir fry, Indian Curries, Thai noodle dishes, and Japanese favorites such as sushi and teriyaki. In many Asian food preparations, ginger is combined with garlic and soy sauce. Peeled and uncooked ginger root can also be pickled or candied, but the ground ginger, sold in small, pricey spice jars, is definitely the favorite in European and American Christmas baking.
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Like tea and many other Asian herbs, ginger was originally used for medicinal purposes. Even today, ginger is recommended in herbal medicine as a remedy to help relieve the symptoms of nausea, indigestion, morning sickness and even osteoarthritis and heart disease. And for those who would like to enjoy a soothing beverage to ward off the winter cold, it’s easy to make your own ginger tea by pouring hot water over a few slices of peeled ginger root and adding a little honey. It’s a lovely, soothing beverage.
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My co-author, Kathleen and I are both devotees of ginger, and our website and blogs are filled with recipes that include ginger in both savory and sweet preparations, as well as spicy winter beverages. In fact, only last month, in her November, 2022 blog, Kathleen shared the procedure for making home-made Pumpkin Pie Spice. The first ingredient in this simple “recipe” is ground ginger, the holiday baker’s best friend. Kathleen has also provided you with the recipe for Gingerbread Cake Mix, also with generous amounts of ginger, so you can make your own luscious Gingerbread Cake for Christmas or any time during the winter season. You can find the recipe in Kathleen’s December, 2020 blog. 
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In fact, Gingerbread and Fruitcake have been the traditional favorite Christmas Cakes throughout England, Germany and other Northern European countries for centuries. Our website features a variety of recipes for both of these holiday favorites, with some recipes that include ground ginger and others that use chopped candied ginger. Our “California Tea” menu includes Gosby House Gingerbread, served in the lovely Victorian Bed and Breakfast of the same name In Pacific Grove, overlooking the Northern California Coast. This very traditional version includes a tablespoon of ground ginger and dark molasses as well as cinnamon, allspice, cloves and nutmeg for a very dark, sticky and comforting Gingerbread. 
 

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Our “Christmas Tea” menu offers Aged Raisin Gingerbread, a blend of old-fashioned Gingerbread and Fruitcake, filled with currents and candied ginger as well as raisins. And at the end of the “Christmas Tea” section of our website, an additional chapter entitled “In Defense of Fruitcake: Fruitcakes and Candied Fruit” provides several different Fruitcake recipes, some containing only dried fruit as well as the procedures for making your own candied fruit, including candied ginger. Our “Christmas Tea” menu also features another holiday favorite of mine that contains candied ginger—Orange Ginger Cookies. I bake these crunchy and chewy delights every year. They age and ship well, filled with chopped almonds, candied orange peel and candied ginger. And finally, for your Christmas feast, my November, 2016 blog shows you how to make your own Cranberry Ginger Sauce, a festive combination of fresh cranberries, chopped candied ginger, orange zest and freshly squeezed orange juice. You will never open a can of cranberry sauce again!
 

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For the crowning glory of your Christmas dinner, I am sharing the recipe for Cranberry Ginger Pound Cake with Candied Cranberries, a favorite with my family which I have baked for Christmas or Thanksgiving many times over the years. This beautiful cake, surrounded by a ring of sparkling candied cranberries, deserves to be presented on your best cake pedestal and served with warm spiced cider on Christmas night.

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I discovered this charming winter holiday Bundt cake recipe thirty-three years ago in the November, 1989 issue of Gourmet magazine. It is everything a Christmas cake should be—colorful, festive, spicy, memorable and warm. The original recipe calls for a glittering cranberry glaze covering the fragrant cake and a whopping two tablespoons of powdered ginger in the batter. I have never quite had the nerve to add both tablespoons of ginger to the batter, and I have adapted the presentation of this cake to include a ring of candied cranberries around the bottom of the cake and a simple caramel icing dripped over the top. The candied cranberries can be made a few days in advance and kept in a covered container. The cake can also be made the day before you plan to serve it, covered, and stored at room temperature. Add the caramel icing and surround the cake with candied cranberries shortly before you serve it. I hope your family will love it.
 
For the Candied Cranberries:

 

• 1 (12 ounce) package of fresh cranberries (2½-3 cups,) rinsed and dried
• 1 cup sugar (you can add ½ cup more sugar if you want sweeter candied cranberries)
• Grated zest of 1 lemon
• 2 Tablespoons soft butter

 

​For the Cake:
 

• 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
• 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon ground ginger
• 1/3 cup buttermilk
• 2 ½ cups fresh cranberries, rinsed and dried
• Baking spray with flour for the pan

For the Caramel Icing:
 

• ½ cup brown sugar
• ¼ cup heavy cream
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 7 tablespoons powdered sugar

 
Special Equipment: 
 
13x9 inch glass baking pan, citrus zester, aluminum foil, wire cooling rack, covered glass container, 12-cup Bundt pan, hand-held electric mixer, large mixing bowl, medium sized mixing bowl, flour sifter or sieve, rubber spatula, bamboo skewer, small saucepan, cake pedestal or decorative platter
 
Makes: 12 servings
 
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F for both the cranberries and the cake
 
Make the Candied Cranberries:

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1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Generously butter a 13x9 inch glass baking pan. Add the rinsed and dried cranberries and arrange them evenly in the pan. Sprinkle 1 cup of sugar and the lemon zest evenly over the cranberries.
2. Cover the pan tightly with foil and bake for about 30 minutes. Remove the foil and stir the cranberries. Taste the mixture to test for sweetness. Add ½ cup more sugar if you want sweeter cranberries. 
3. Replace the foil and bake for an additional 10-20 minutes until the cranberries have released their juices and are surrounded by a thick syrup.
4. Remove the pan to a wire cooling rack until the cranberries are completely cooled. Transfer the cranberries and the syrup to a covered glass container and store at room temperature until ready to serve the cake.

 

 
Make the Cake:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray the Bundt pan generously with cooking spray with flour and set aside.
2. In a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
3. Using a flour sifter or sieve, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and ginger into a medium sized mixing bowl. Add the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk to the butter mixture, beginning and ending with the flour mixture, and beating after each addition just until combined.
4. Fold the cranberries into the batter with a rubber spatula and spoon the batter into the prepared Bundt pan, smoothing the top evenly. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 50 minutes to 1 hour until a bamboo skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. (Baking times may vary. If using a black-lined Bundt pan, the cake may be done in 45 minutes. Other pans may require more than an hour.)
5. Remove the cake from the oven and cool it on a wire rack for 10-15 minutes. With a table knife, gently press the sides of the cake away from the pan and place a decorative platter over the top of the pan. Using potholders, invert the pan over the platter to release the cake. Return the cake to the wire rack to cool completely.
6. When ready to serve, transfer the cake to a cake pedestal or leave it on the decorative platter. Surround the bottom of the cake with candied cranberries, sprinkled with additional sugar. Prepare the caramel icing and quickly pour it over the top of the cake, letting it drip over the sides. Serve immediately.
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Make the Caramel Icing:

1. Combine the brown sugar, cream and butter in a small saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil and cook over moderate heat, stirring, for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and let the caramel mixture come to room temperature.
2. Using a hand-held electric mixer, beat the powdered sugar quickly into the cooled caramel sauce. Quickly pour the icing directly from the pan over the top of the cooled cake, using a spatula to guide the icing so it covers the top of the cake and drips over the sides. (This icing sets up and becomes firm very quickly, so you will need to work fast while the icing is still pourable.)

​In November, autumn has truly arrived, even with whispers of winter. And in this glorious month, we celebrate two significant holidays, Thanksgiving and Veterans Day. Our Canadian neighbors celebrate these two auspicious events also, although Thanksgiving in Canada already took place this year on October 10. The Canadian Thanksgiving is closely related to the Harvest Festival celebrated throughout the United Kingdom, whereas the American Thanksgiving commemorates a shared autumn harvest feast which took place in 1621 between the newly arrived colonists in Plymouth, Massachusetts and members of the Wampanoag Tribe who had lived in the area for generations. 
 
Veterans Day is remembered in the United States, Canada, England, Australia, and other areas of the United Kingdom on November 11, although this war memorial is called Remembrance Day outside America. As a point for reflection, in the United States, Veterans Day cannot be moved to a Friday or Monday to provide a four-day weekend, as it originally commemorated the end of World War I, when the Armistice was signed on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. On Veterans Day in America, we remember not just the end of World War I, but also the heroic events that led to the conclusion of the Second World War, especially D Day. This historic military maneuver took place at dawn on June 6, 1944, when 160,000 American, Canadian and British troops executed the largest land, sea and air invasion in human history by landing on the beaches of Normandy in southwest France. Eventually this invasion pushed the Germans out of France, liberating Paris and ending World War II. Ten thousand allies died on the beaches of Normandy, where our travel adventure that began in London, took us through the Chunnel to Paris and on to a cruise down the Seine, concluded.
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Before this poignant ending to our time in the lovely French countryside, we visited charming, historic chateaux and the memorable town of Bayeux, with its medieval streets, glorious cathedral and the miraculously preserved “Bayeux Tapestry,” one of the finest examples of textile art on earth. We also visited the ancient castle fortress of Richard the Lionhearted and a contemporary French family farm on ancestral land where local agricultural specialties, including apples, apple brandy, and Normandy’s famous Sable Cookies are available in the quaint gift shop.
 

​One of our first stops after visiting magnificent Rouen, was Chateau Du Taillis, one of many feudal castles, fortresses and manor houses dotting the French countryside. These elegant country homes, once occupied by the nobility, are almost all constructed of local stone and surrounded by parklands for hunting and fishing, orchards and grapevines and farmlands to produce food for the families that lived in these glorious rural residences. Normandy’s chateaux are famous for producing apple brandy, apple jelly, cheese and other dairy products, wine and the world-famous Normandy Apple Tart, incorporating all these Norman products and perfect for your Thanksgiving table. I am happy to share the recipe for this luscious apple custard pie at the end of this blog
 

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The beautiful Chateau Du Taillis has a long history. An ancient home once rested on the Eleventh Century foundation, but the current chateau was constructed in 1530 of beautiful light tan local sandstone in the Italian Renaissance style. It is now owned by a young Frenchman whose parents purchased the property in the 1990s. This “new” owner is trying to keep the chateau afloat by turning it into a bed and breakfast, restaurant and venue for weddings and other gatherings in the beautiful park-like setting. After viewing the lush gardens, we had dinner there, serenaded by a classical string quartet. Our meal perfectly reflected the best of Norman cuisine, including an intermezzo of Apple Sorbet spiked with apple brandy and a flaming Crème Carmel for dessert. We can thank those lovely cream-colored cows, relaxing throughout the Norman countryside, for the abundance of dairy products we enjoyed everywhere in Normandy. We were also pleasantly surprised to see a Giant Sequoia, indigenous to Northern California, and clearly planted decades ago, thriving in the chateau’s forest.
 

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Our riverboat docked in Le Havre to accommodate our bus ride through the Norman countryside to visit the lovely little town of Bayeux.
 

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Bayeux remains a Gothic village, with cobble-stoned streets leading to the magnificent Notre Dame de Bayeux Cathedral in the center of the town’s square. Since we had been unable to visit the interior of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, or parts of the high altar and ambulatory of Rouen Cathedral, due to reconstruction and repairs, I was pleased to see that Bayeux Cathedral was open, clean, and in excellent condition. This beautiful Gothic masterpiece was completed in 1077 to celebrate the Norman victory over the English in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings, an event that changed European history for centuries. The Cathedral is much larger than I expected, well-maintained and easily accessible. We walked all around the interior, viewing the glorious red, yellow and blue stained-glass windows and the lovely side chapels. 
 

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Very near the Cathedral, the “Bayeux Tapestry,” is on display in a special museum of its own. It is an embroidered, not woven, tapestry, stitched onto a 231-foot length of linen, nineteen and a half inches in height. It was completed in 1078 and was initially intended to be displayed in the newly constructed Cathedral. The mastermind behind this project was Bishop Odo, the self-promoting half-brother of William the Conqueror, who defeated King Harold of England in the aforementioned conflict.
 
The Tapestry depicts, in intricate and fascinating detail, every aspect of the Battle of Hastings, including the political events leading up to this decisive victory. The Tapestry is displayed in a well-lighted glass case that runs down one long wall, turns a corner and proceeds down another long wall. Numbers, up to about sixty, are placed above each scene, and visitors are provided with an audio device explaining each scene, identifying all the main characters and interpreting the symbolic elements. An interesting aspect of the Tapestry’s composition is the fact that the entire length is divided into two sections, by a long continuous line of stitching, creating a smaller parallel set of images below the larger narrative section above. The audio explains both sections, which complement each other as the chronology evolves.
 
The Bayeux Tapestry is essentially a masterful piece of pro-Norman political propaganda, showing King Harold of England visiting Willian of Normandy and signing an oath confirming that when King Edward of England dies, William (not Harold, Edward’s son,) will become the King of England. This is the Normans’ excuse for invading England, killing King Harold, who did not cede the crown, and annexing England, turning it into a Norman French colony. From the perspective of the imagery on the Bayeux Tapestry, it was Harold’s fault for breaking his word, sadly reminding us of certain acts of unjustifiable aggression taking place in our world today. Odo, of course, directed the embroidery artists to include himself, right in the middle of the glorious victory beside William. Odo is killing Saxon warriors with a mace while William wields a sword. As a holy Bishop, Odo was not allowed to draw blood with a blade, but he could crack heads with his mace. Oh, the irony!
 

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Back on the Seine, near the charming medieval town of Les Andelys, we visited Chateau Gaillard, the fortified castle of one of the most famous of the Plantagenet Kings, Richard I, known as Richard the Lion-Hearted, Duke of Normandy and King of England. This massive castle complex was completed in only two years, from 1196-1198, and served to protect Rouen and the entire duchy of Normandy from invaders. Built of local limestone on a high hill with a panoramic view of the Seine to the east and west, Chateau Gaillard is designed as three separate walled castles, each with a rock-lined moat and drawbridge and modeled after the fortifications Richard saw in the Middle East during his crusades to Jerusalem. It is an imposing and heroic structure, the prototype for many other fortified castles throughout Europe, but it is now in ruins. We viewed the old castle from an even higher point on the hillside, and enjoyed a splendid vista of the entire fortification, the Seine and the glorious green countryside of Normandy.
 

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In contrast to the ancient buildings and artifacts we visited in Bayeux and Les Andelys, we spent a pleasant afternoon at a contemporary French organic farm called La Ferme de Ruelles, owned and operated by Michel and his wife Chantal as an organic, totally green farm. Although the land has been in Michel’s family for centuries, and he produces traditional Norman foods and beverages, he is dedicated to using innovative farming techniques to save water, avoid pesticides and reintroduce ancient and hardy strains of grain. Apples are one of Michel’s primary crops, and we enjoyed tasting his apple cider, apple brandy, known as Calvados in Normandy, and apple jelly, essentially impossible to find in my home state of Hawaii. We stocked up on local Norman treats in the gift shop to take home, including Duck Pate, farm-baked Sable Cookies (which did not make it home. See my October 2022 blog for the recipe,) and a luscious French version of chocolate dulce de leche labeled as Les Confitures de Nathalie Lait au Chocolat. I’m still saving this milk-based chocolate caramel sauce for my holiday baking projects, perhaps as a filling for a special layer cake or Christmas sandwich cookies.
 

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In preparation for our visit to the beaches of Normandy and the American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, we stopped at the Caen Memorial Museum. The city of Caen was bombed into complete ruin during the Second World War and has been rebuilt as a modern metropolis. The Memorial Museum, built in a stark, contemporary style, provides an objective and comprehensive big picture of the events leading up to and throughout World War II, supported by touching vignettes about how the war affected individual families. While we were there, we viewed a black and white film showing original footage of the D Day invasion. The museum also has a well-stocked gift shop providing souvenirs and also materials that would interest teachers, historians, military buffs and life-long learners, including a good selection of books about the Second World War.
 

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The sobering time we spent at the museum in Caen could only partially prepare us for the sorrowful journey of visiting the beaches of Normandy themselves, where so many allied soldiers died between the towns of Cherbourg and Le Havre. We visited both Utah Beach and Omaha Beach where many Americans sacrificed their lives. It was cold and windy as we walked along the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc where the US Army Rangers, the first to attempt the landing, rappelled up the cliffs before dawn after waking up at 2:00 AM and riding for hours in small boats through high and dangerous waves to reach the beach in darkness.
 

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Omaha Beach is surprisingly long and wide, much bigger than any beach I have seen in California or Hawaii, and it was low tide when we visited. Lots of Americans were there, showing their respects at the memorial on the low cliff, just above the beach. Our tour director gave each of us in our group a long-stemmed white rose to lay at the memorial
 

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In the afternoon, we arrived at the American Cemetery in nearby Colleville-sur-Mer, where thousands of young American men are buried, their white crosses lined up in neat rows, with an occasional Star of David. The average age of the men buried there is twenty-four. The American Cemetery is very large, beautifully maintained by the French Government, and tastefully decorated with an expansive view of Omaha Beach. Roses, irises and poppies grace the perfectly clipped green lawns and a dignified bronze statue, representing all the fallen soldiers, graces the area where a small chapel provides a quiet area of reflection for visitors.
 
As we stopped at the graves of twin American brothers buried side by side, we heard “The Star- Spangled Banner” being played by chimes, the sound reaching over all this large cemetery. As we stood in silence, there was a quiet pause, some rifle shots, then “Taps” played slowly on a trumpet. It was eerie and deeply sad but dignified and somehow hopeful and uplifting. During this still interval, I thought of my father, Patrick, my father-in-law, Kiyoshi and my uncles, all of whom have now passed away. They did not participate in the D Day invasion, but they did serve as American soldiers during the Second World War.
 

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The French government has done a magnificent job of maintaining, with great gravitas and respect, this cemetery and all the many memorials for Americans who died in France, coming to the aid of America’s first ally. I hope we will never forget that France came to our rescue during the American Revolutionary War. The very least we can do to express our gratitude is get over any unfounded stereotypes of the French as being snobbish and unfriendly to visitors. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, in the little towns and country roads surrounding the Normandy beaches where the Allies landed, the French government has erected poles on the roadsides with large, framed photographs of individual American soldiers who died, with their names printed below their pictures in letters large enough to read while driving in a car.
 

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As we said goodbye to France, I certainly felt grateful for all this glorious country’s gifts to the rest of the world—magnificent paintings, architecture, cathedrals and castles, charming villages and the gorgeous green countryside, some of the best food in the world, and a reserved, dignified way of life that always remembers friendship.
 

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This delicate French version of Apple Pie relies on a few of the basic staples of Normandy’s cuisine—fresh butter, eggs and cream, just-harvested autumn apples, and apple brandy, given the appellation Calvados in some specific regions of Normandy. Fortunately for Americans and Canadians, all of these ingredients are readily available now for fall baking projects, including Thanksgiving. The filling of this tart, unlike the ever-popular American Apple Pie, is not flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger, or any other spices. Only the vanilla custard, the Calvados, and the cookie-like buttery crust enhance the natural taste of the apples. If you wish to avoid alcohol in your baking, you can substitute apple juice or cider, or simply double the amount of vanilla in this recipe. And if you don’t wish to make the crust (which tastes a lot like Sable Cookies,) by hand, you can always just use a Pillsbury refrigerated pie crust.
 
The internet is filled with recipes for Normandy Apple Tart, and I chose to adapt the very simple and straightforward recipe for Tarte Normande by the American pastry chef, cookbook author and blogger, David Lebovitz. Trained in France and Belgium, Lebovitz worked for twelve years at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, and now lives in Paris. I think we can trust his advice on how to make a French Apple Tart. When selecting apples for this lovely tart, seek out local, recently harvested apples if possible, and choose apples that will not break down into mush when they are baked. Southern Living magazine’s top three recommendations for autumn holiday baking are: Honeycrisp, Gala and Granny Smith.
 

 
For the Dough:

• 6 tablespoons of unsalted butter, cut into cubes, at room temperature
• ¼ cup sugar
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• ¼ teaspoon salt

 
For the Filling:

• 4 medium sized apples, preferably Honeycrisp, Gala or Granny Smith (I cut each apple into 12 pieces)
• 2 large eggs
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons raw cane sugar or granulated sugar for topping the tart
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 2 ½ tablespoons Calvados, apple brandy, rum or apple cider (I used 2 tbsp rum and 2 tsp vanilla)

 
Special Equipment: food processor, 9-inch tart pan, paring knife, apple peeler, medium sized mixing bowl, whisk, rubber spatula, parchment or foil-lined baking sheet, wire rack
 
Makes: 8 servings
 
​Preheat the oven to 350 degrees after preparing the crust. Bake 1 hour.

 
We said a wistful farewell to beautiful Paris as our gentle journey through France continued. As we boarded the bus to transport us back to our riverboat, our Tour Director took pity on us and gave us each a macaron from Laduree, a venerable Parisian pastry shop established in 1862. Mine was raspberry with raspberry jam filling packed with fresh raspberry chunks. Though these little round puffy sandwich cookies have become popular throughout the United States, the one I enjoyed from Laduree was the best I had ever eaten. I was comforted to learn that Laduree has a pastry shop at the Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport for passengers needing to take a little taste of Paris with them on their way back home.
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Here we made our pilgrimage to the ancient and dignified town where the world-famous painter, Vincent van Gogh spent the last two or three years of his short life. Destitute but supported financially by his loving brother Theo, Vincent rented a tiny, sparse upstairs room in a small boarding house where he took his meals alone at a little table downstairs. Vincent’s final years were astonishingly prolific, as he painted his iconic “Starry Night” in this quaint town along with several self-portraits and paintings of the City Hall, buildings and fields surrounding the village and the medieval Church of Notre Dame.
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Every garden in this lovely little town was in bloom when we took a leisurely walking tour from the church to the city hall and the tasteful little Van Gogh Museum. It was springtime, and we witnessed the colors and scents of roses, irises, lavender, rosemary and cherry trees bursting with ripe cherries, the vibrant energy of nature that so inspired van Gogh.
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At the Van Gogh Museum, which ironically did not contain any of his paintings, we watched a poignant and very touching video containing large, vivid images of many of van Gogh’s paintings in the context of the deeply moving letters between Vincent and his faithful and caring brother, Theo. The little shop of the ground floor sold books, prints and other van Gogh-related items. The tone of this quiet and reverential space was understated and respectful without a hint of commercialism.
 
Unexpectedly, we also visited a small and equally understated Absinthe Museum nearby. It had a lovely walled garden courtyard, planted with the various herbs, such as anise and wormwood, necessary for brewing this green and highly alcoholic liqueur. We learned that this elixir, which could become addictive and even cause hallucinations if imbibed to excess, was part of the lifestyle and culture of many of the painters of the time. Absinthe in fact became quite the rage in the late 1800s and around the turn of the Twentieth Century, so much so that ordinary French men and women became addicted to it, ruining families. Eventually, through the influence of the wine industry, Absinthe, but no other alcoholic beverage, was prohibited for a time.
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The museum was filled with historic posters depicting the evils of drinking Absinthe, but we were nevertheless “treated” to an Absinthe tasting. As a non-drinker, I tasted only a small sip of this green herbal liquid, originally thought to cure every illness. It was very strong, highly alcoholic and tasted like licorice. I asked the guide if Absinthe was ever paired with food, and she said that it was sometimes used to poach fish and shrimp and to flavor ice cream.
 
After the walking tour, Wayne and I visited a charming little chocolate shop on the main square of Auvers-sur-Oise near the quaint old City Hall, that van Gogh had painted. The chocolate shop also sold ice cream, and sure enough, they had Absinthe-flavored sorbet, along with rhubarb, coffee, raspberry and all the usual fruit flavors. Perhaps we should have been more adventurous, but we were happy with salted caramel and chocolate, as good as ice cream can get.
 
Back on the Seine, on our way to the home of the painter, Claude Monet in Giverny in the province of Normandy, we found our time on the river breathtakingly beautiful. The Seine is a deep moss green color and is bordered, right down to the banks, with lush green willows, sycamores, birches and even pines. The effect is perfect serenity, with swans and geese gliding through the quiet and restful waters, filled only with bird song and the soft, lapping sounds from the slowly moving water. All was green and more green, with no fast-food restaurants, gas stations or any commercial activity anywhere in sight.
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Our group was fortunate to visit Monet’s family home and garden in Giverny early in the morning before any other tourists entered the area. The morning air was filled with bird song, the sweet notes of so many different species whose individual calls created a harmony, bringing all the colors of the thousands of flowers together into one beautiful and joyful vision.
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We toured the famous water lily pond where Monet created two-hundred and fifty paintings of water lilies during the forty-three years from 1883 to 1926 that he and his family lived in this bucolic rural home and garden.
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A French style garden graces one side of the pond with a Japanese garden on the other, the areas linked by two arched Japanese bridges. An ancient Copper Beech, older than Monet, anchors the Japanese garden, backed by a bamboo grove, and fronted by every colorful flower imaginable, all selected to harmonize with the sky, the light and the waters of the pond at different times of day and through all the seasons. We were there in May when some of the magnificent blue and purple irises were still in bloom and the white blossoms of the wisteria swayed in the breeze and reflected in the pond.
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The home where Monet and his family lived is a large, old fashioned two-story French farmhouse with a yellow, light-filled dining room, a blue and white tiled kitchen with a wood stove, a sitting room with floral upholstery and curtains and bedrooms upstairs. Today the house is filled with replicas of Japanese ukiyoe wood block prints, including Hiroshige’s world- famous “The Great Wave off Kanagawa,” and other vaguely Asian looking vases and pieces of ceramics, affirming the influence of Japanese art on Monet and several other Impressionist painters of his era. Like the home in the center of the glorious Butchart Gardens in British Columbia, Canada, Monet’s home, though charming, is much less interesting that the magnificent gardens that surround it.
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After our respite in the countryside, we continued our journey down the Seine to Rouen, the capital of Normandy. This beautiful and ancient city is home to the Cathedrale Notre Dame, one of the oldest and most beautiful Cathedrals in the world. Our friend Claude Monet completed at least twelve paintings of the exterior of beautiful Rouen Cathedral at various times of the day and in different weather conditions between 1892 and 1894. Rouen is also the place where the woman warrior, Joan of Arc, was burned at the stake. We also discovered that Rouen is a culinary paradise.
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We began our walking tour of the ancient city in chilly spring rain. By the time we arrived at the Cathedral, the cobblestoned streets were flooded, and we were eager to get inside. The exterior, though, as Monet’s paintings attest, is well worth an extended viewing. This massive Gothic structure, created over eight hundred years, evolving through the aesthetics of every historic period, is covered with elaborate external carvings below three huge towers, each in a different style with a tall central lantern spire, a signature element of Norman Gothic church architecture. 
 
Since Christianity was introduced to Rouen in the year 260, a church has stood where the Cathedral now stands. Rollo, the first Duke of Normandy, was buried there in 960, and when the church was reconsecrated as a Romanesque Cathedral in 1063, William the Conqueror himself was present. After transitioning through the Carolingian and Romanesque architectural styles, the church was redesigned in the “new” Gothic style in 1145 with the emphasis on filling the interior of this sacred space with light. The famous stained-glass windows were introduced in the Thirteenth Century, and some of the original vivid red and blue glass is still in place. The glorious Fourteenth Century rose window in the north portal is the only Gothic rose window to survive in its original form. Additional stained-glass windows were added over the centuries, including two Twentieth Century windows depicting St. Joan of Arc, an ironic turn of events since this young woman was burned at the stake as a witch and heretic in the nearby Rouen town square in 1431 but canonized as a saint six hundred years later in 1920

 
We visited Rouen Cathedral years ago, and I still love it today as I did then. This time, as we entered, cold and wet, mass was going on, with the presiding priest in the elegant gold and white vestments of the Easter Season, the sanctuary infused with lavender light from the rose window and the dozens of other stained-glass windows throughout the church. The arches, pillars, statues and chapels lining the nave, the beautifully carved Choir stalls surrounded by the tombs of the Dukes of Normandy, including Richard the Lion Hearted, and the High Altar, with the sculptural kneeling angels guarding the huge crucifix all remained, as they have been for centuries, and the quiet hush of history still fills this place with the creative energies of all the artists and workers who brought this magnificent structure to life.
 
After our time in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, Wayne and I soldiered on through the cold wet morning with our guide to explore the medieval city center. Along the cobblestoned street, we walked under the bell tower with one of the oldest clocks in Europe, a huge, elaborate affair with only one hand to tell the time, as medieval people were interested in the hours of the day, but not the minutes. This beautiful clock is decorated with symbolic images of the phases of the moon, the days of the week and the tides, as the Seine becomes a tidal river before it reaches Rouen. Along the way, we passed several interesting chocolate shops that sell the local specialties—macarons and caramelized almonds covered in cocoa powder known as La Larmes de Jeanne d’Arc, or Joan of Arc’s Tears. We stopped at the shop that claims to have invented these addictive little treats, a place called A Jean-Marie Auzou, and bought ourselves a bag. Delicious indeed!
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The old central marketplace, still in business with sellers offering bread, cheese and butter, is the place where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake at the age of nineteen on May 30, 1431. The Hundred Years War between England and France was raging at that time with England in control of France. Joan was a deeply spiritual young woman who saw visions filled with light and heard the voice of God. Through these signs, she felt a profound vocation to defend the French forces in the siege of Orleans and to ensure the coronation of Charles VII as King of France. To achieve these ends, Joan dressed in male clothing as a soldier and rallied the French troops. Today she remains an archetypal figure, heroine of comic books, cartoons and movies as the fearless woman warrior championing the cause of good in the world.
 
Sadly for Joan, the Inquisition that put her on trial, primarily for the crime of dressing as a man when she had been told not to, was controlled by the English, and after extensive and well-documented interrogations, she was found guilty of heresy and witchcraft. She was burned at the stake, and to keep the French from started rumors that she had escaped, her body was burned two more times and the ashes were thrown into the Seine. As a result, there was no burial place or monument to commemorate Joan’s life. However, the verdict was subsequently reversed and on May 16, 1920, at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Joan was canonized as St. Joan of Arc and is now the Patron Saint of France and a national hero. A modern church, Ste. Jeanne d’Arc, has been built on the exact location in the marketplace where she died, and is now her memorial.
 
Today, visitors show their respects to this popular heroine while shopping for Camembert and Neufchatel cheeses and copious amounts of fresh butter to make Normandy’s favorite snack, a fresh baguette with salted butter and Camembert cheese—yes, a butter and cheese sandwich! Our slender and fit guide assured us that locals have no weight problems as they walk everywhere, which did seem to be true based on our observations.
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Special equipment:
Large mixing bowl, hand-held electric mixer or food processor, plastic wrap, large parchment-lined cookie sheet, rolling pin, 2-inch round cookie or biscuit cutter, pastry brush, dinner fork, wire rack, metal box or airtight container
 
Makes: 12 large cookies

​Preheat oven to 350 Degrees F

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We said goodbye to London and the exquisite Savoy Hotel for our journey through the Chunnel and on to Paris. This adventure began at London St. Pancras International Train Station, a massive red brick Gothic Revival structure with a clock tower and spires, typical of the Victorians’ love for neo-medieval architecture. Train travel became the fashionable form of transportation during the Victoria Era, and St. Pancras is a perfect example of Victorian excess. Unfortunately, as large as it is, the station did not have enough seats in the various waiting rooms to accommodate all of the passengers waiting for trains. Since the construction of the Chunnel in 1994, linking southern England and northern France with an undersea tunnel beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover, this international form of travel has become hugely popular. 

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Twelve Eurostar trains a day, starting at 7:AM, make the 212-mile trip from London to Paris in approximately two hours and sixteen minutes. We found the Eurostar to be clean and efficient, though the seating was a bit cramped. This train reminded me of the shinkansen, Japan’s super-fast train linking Tokyo and Kyoto, but I imagined that there would be some sort of underwater viewing, allowing us to gaze at marine life as we traversed the seabed. No such thing. The Chunnel goes under, not through the bottom of the sea. It just suddenly got dark for what seemed like a short time, and then we found ourselves rolling through the bucolic French countryside.

​Our elegantly appointed river boat awaited us on the banks of the lovely green River Seine as we arrived in Paris. On the short ride from the train station to the river, we enjoyed a whirlwind tour of Paris in all her majesty—the Eiffel Tower, the Arch de Triumph, and the glorious old Notre Dame Cathedral, still under repair from the devastating fire of April 15, 2019. Sadly, we were not able to tour Notre Dame, as a giant crane hovers over the venerable towers of Paris’ most popular visitor destination.
 

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The good news is that reconstruction is actively underway, and President Emmanuel Macron has vowed that the Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Paris, its official name in French, will open once again to tourists, worshippers and art lovers from around the world by 2024. Meanwhile, the archaeological crypt has been reopened for art and history lovers who cannot wait. Notre Dame, which I have visited in the past, is truly one of the glorious buildings of the world, and it is certainly the finest example of French Gothic architecture ever created. This style of architecture, still imitated throughout the world, features upward-moving visual design, using breathtakingly high towers and spires to lift the viewer’s eyes away from earth toward heaven. Medieval architects achieved astounding effects using the medium of heavy stones to create this ethereal lightness, employing vaulting, flying buttresses and other design elements to ensure that the walls remained stable under the weight of the massive towers and spires.
 
Notre Dame is located, serendipitously, on an island, Ile de la Cite, in the middle of the Seine River and thus forms the physical, artistic and spiritual center of Paris, the City of Lights. Construction of this magnificent cathedral was begun in 1163, and nearly two hundred years later, in 1345, it was opened of all to enjoy for centuries to come. As with all Gothic cathedrals, additions and renovations continued over the generations, and Notre Dame’s stunning 300-foot spire, destroyed by the 2019 fire, was added in 1859 during the Victorian period.
 
Notre Dame’s glorious round rose windows added in 1220 and 1250, masterpieces of colored glass design and construction, are among the most beautiful features of Gothic architecture. The use of stained-glass windows featuring biblical figures, angels, saints, and religious narratives, allowed the predominantly illiterate population throughout Europe to learn the biblical stories from the Old and New Testament and to identify the apostles and saints by the visual symbols associated with them in medieval art, including stained glass-windows. The use of vibrant colors, especially deep blue, red and gold, filtering the light from high above into the dim interiors of these massive churches, created a numinous, spiritual effect.
 

When the fourteen bells in the north and south towers of Notre Dame were chiming, and masses were being chanted in the centrally located choir, as red and blue light from on high mingled to create a mysterious violet ambience, we can certainly imagine the creative energy that was generated and released throughout Europe, inspiring the art and aesthetics of the Middle Ages, which were anything but dark. Back on earth in the 2020s, Notre Dame is still the place to see and experience. Let’s hope that the current reconstruction brings this beautiful building, created by thousands of workers, artists and craftsmen over the centuries back to life in even greater glory.
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Although on this trip we viewed the highlights of Paris from the comfort of a tour bus, Paris is really a pedestrian’s paradise. On our previous visit, we walked all the way from the imposing domed Sacre Coeur Basilica at the top of the hilly Montmartre neighborhood, to Notre Dame Cathedral. Fortunately, this three-and-a-half-mile walk was mostly downhill, and it was the best possible way to enjoy the charm of everyday Parisian life. The view from Sacre Coeur provides a stunning panorama of the City of Paris, and the Montmartre neighborhood itself has a long and fascinating history. In the 1800s Montmartre became famous for its night life and dance halls, where beautiful women danced the racy can-can. One of the best-known paintings of the French Impressionist painter, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec is named At the Moulin Rouge. Between 1892 and 1895, the artist created this compelling portrait of the cabaret night life surrounding the Moulin Rouge, the popular dance hall which opened in 1889. Other painters who went on to become famous also lived and worked in Montmartre, including Renoir, Utrillo and Picasso.
 
During our leisurely walk through the Parisian neighborhoods, we also enjoyed visiting the local bakeries, coffee shops and sidewalk cafes along the way. In Paris, and indeed throughout France, it is still customary to buy freshly baked bread every morning at the neighborhood bakery. In France, bread and pastries are not filled with preservatives and wrapped in plastic with an expiration date stamped on the package. Stale pastries and day-old bread are not part of the French culture. The coffee in Paris is always fresh, hot and very good, and every meal, even at the simplest corner café, is made from the finest local ingredients and prepared by a person who respects food and cares about the taste, aroma, visual appearance and presentation of every meal. 
 

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To help you enjoy the everyday elegance of French food, it is my pleasure to introduce you to Financiers, small French almond cakes that became popular in the financial district surrounding the Paris Stock Exchange, although they were originally baked by the Visitandine order of nuns in the Seventeenth Century. You will find the recipe for Financiers at the end of this blog.
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Before leaving Paris, we needed to visit the second most important building in the city, the Louvre Museum, the most visited art museum in the world. Centrally located on the banks of the River Seine near Notre Dame Cathedral, the Musee du Louvre contains a collection of 380,000 objects of art from pre-history to the 21st Century. The building in which this glorious collection is housed is itself an art treasure. It was originally built in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries as a medieval fortress designed to protect the city of Paris from invaders, and elements of this gothic castle fortress are visible in the basement of the current Museum building.
 
In 1546, the old castle became a residence for the French kings, undergoing a monumental “modernization” process over the centuries in a variety of architectural styles, including French Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical, and even Modern, with the addition in the 1980s of an enormous glass pyramid in the courtyard of the museum complex designed by I.M. Pei. In 1793, when King Louis XIV chose the Palace of Versailles rather than the Louvre Palace as his royal residence, the Louvre became a museum. The collection of classical Greek and Roman sculpture, which had been in the Palace since 1692, formed the foundation of the Louvre collection, and currently some of the world’s finest paintings, sculptures and artifacts reside at the Louvre.
 

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Among the priceless masterpieces that every visitor to the Louvre will want to see are the most famous painting in the world, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, along with Veronese’s The Wedding at Cana, Caravaggio’s Death of the Virgin and Eugene Delacroix’s revolutionary allegory, Liberty Leading the People. The magnificent classical Greek marble sculpture, Winged Victory of Samothrace, created in the Second Century before the current era, is gloriously displayed at the top of the massive marble Escallier Daru staircase, allowing visitors to view this masterpiece of artistic skill and craftsmanship from a variety of levels and directions. We were fortunate that Tauck, the tour company that sponsored our trip, arranged for an after-hours visit to the Louvre for our group. This allowed us to view not just The Winged Victory, but also the Venus de Milo and even the Mona Lisa up close and personal. There were no crowds with selfie sticks jostling us, and we were able to take our own time standing right in front of Mona Lisa and her mysterious smile, a lifetime peak experience for me.

 
The only downside of the magical time we were able to spend with all these masterpieces of world art was that the gift shop, down the escalator in the recently added Carrousel du Louvre Shopping Mall was closed after hours. This is the visitor to the Louvre’s go-to destination for art-themed gifts and treats to take home to family and friends. Coffee, tea and snacks are readily available at the Carrousel, including the Mariage Freres tearoom, La Maison du Chocolat, for some of the best chocolates in the world (see my September, 2021 blog, “Artisanal Chocolates,”) and even a L’Occitane en Provence shop.
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We have another palace to visit before we board our river boat for a cruise down the Seine: The Palace of Versailles, twelve miles west of Paris. This enormous palace and garden complex, designated a World Heritage Site in 1979, welcomes fifteen million visitors a year. Now the property of France and directed by the French Ministry of Culture, this country estate was built by King Louis XIV in 1623 as a hunting lodge, then expanded into a chateau between 1631 and 1634. As the king grew more and more fond of country life, he expanded his rural home into a Palace between 1661 and 1715, moving his court and family out of the Louvre Palace and into the Palace of Versailles, designed over the years in the Greek Neoclassical and Baroque architectural styles. 
 
This opulent style of architecture, and the aristocratic values it represented, was pervasive in the royal palaces throughout Europe during this era, especially during the 1700s. The royal families of England and France and the czars of Russia, who emulated the French down to the last gilded detail, lived lives of excessive self-indulgence and luxury at the expense of the peasantry, whose lives were profoundly impoverished. This was the age of Marie Antoinette, the French queen who replied, “Let them eat cake,” when she was informed that the poor of France had no bread to eat. It should be no surprise that the American colonies of England, as well as France and Russia, experienced bloody revolutions instigated by the downtrodden subjects of these narcissistic monarchs. It is also worth noting that one of the most popular paintings in the Louvre is Eugene De la Croix’s Liberty Leading the People, painted in 1830 to celebrate the French Revolution. In this allegorical painting, Liberty, symbolized by an attractive young bare-breasted woman, carrying a French flag in one uplifted arm and a musket with a bayonet in the other triumphally leads an “army” of rebels over a heap of vanquished bodies. Beside her a young boy in rumpled clothing with a pistol in each hand helps lead the assault.
 

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Visitors to Versailles can observe first-hand the lifestyle that inspired the French Revolution and ultimately led to the execution in 1793 of Marie Antoinette and her husband, King Louis XVI by guillotine. Versailles is a huge palace complex constructed of stone and brick with gilded fencing and roof decorations, including a chapel with a gilded dome. The entrance area is massive and paved with squarish cobblestones to accommodate large numbers of horses and carriages. It was unseasonably hot the day we visited Versailles, and it was challenging to walk over all those cobblestones and up and down so many flights of marble stairs before we even reached the palace. Inside the palace, we toured the Hall of Mirrors, a gigantic passageway filled with glittering crystal chandeliers with all the walls paneled in mirrors, creating a stunning effect of glittering light. In the king and queen’s bedrooms and various meeting rooms, the motif of gold and light was pervasive. These rooms were filled with copious amounts of Greek-themed statuary, gilded furniture, elaborately painted ceilings, tapestries, paintings and fleur de lis, the golden lilies that were the king’s symbol, alluding to the Greek sun god, Apollo, as King Louis XVI fancied himself the god-like “Sun King.”
  

The gardens behind the palace are also laid out on a massive scale with geometrically divided sunken flower beds filled with fountains, Greek-style sculptures and a wide canal that stretches far out through the countryside toward the horizon. The gardens also include and orangery, planted with deep green citrus trees, viewed from above at a great distance. Among the carefully clipped shrubs and topiaries in the flower gardens, an army of gardeners was busy pulling up low-growing flowers that were no longer in bloom and replacing them with bright summer flowers in shades of yellow, blue, pink and red.
 
Versailles certainly has its place in history as a magnificent example of neo-classical and baroque architecture, and it has been the inspiration for many other palaces and buildings, including the Winter Palace, now the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, and the palaces of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, also in St. Petersburg. But visiting a building of such magnitude can be overwhelming, and I welcomed our return to our river boat on the green and serene Seine. Next month, as we cruise down this gentle, slow-moving river, I hope you will join me in Giverny, at the lovely home and garden of the father of modern painting, France’s own Claude Monet. Meanwhile, you can plan your trip to Paris, or simply daydream about the City of Lights as you enjoy a cup of good strong Café au Lait and a Financier.
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Financiers
French Almond Browned Butter Cookies

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Financiers are elegant little French pastries resembling both a cake and a cookie. They were originally baked in the convents of the Visitandine Sisters, a French order of nuns founded in Annecy, France in 1610. These tiny one or two-bite treats are created from a few simple ingredients that magically combine to form a pleasant crunchy exterior and a fragrant chewy, marzipan-like interior. These secret ingredients are browned butter, almond flour and egg whites. The Visitandine Sisters’ tasty little treats remained popular in France throughout the Seventeenth Century, but later in the Nineteenth Century, a Parisian Chef reinvented them as Financiers, by baking them in small rectangular molds resembling gold bars and selling them to the workers and financial professionals in Paris’ Financial District. 
 
I have baked Financiers at home using pastry chef Ian Lam’s recipe which appeared in the March and April 2020 edition of Cook’s magazine. Lam’s recipe makes two dozen little cakes using a 24-cup mini-muffin pan. Since I do not own a mini-muffin pan, I improvised by using my twelve-cup madeleine pan, which creates charming little shell-shaped cakes and my mini-Bundt pan. I ended up with one dozen shell-shaped Financiers and eight mini-Bundt Financiers. They had a charming appearance and tasted wonderful. In my opinion, these little French pastries are more festive than muffins or cookies and add a touch of gourmet grace to Afternoon Tea, dessert after a special meal, or even with morning coffee.

 

• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter
• ¼ cup finely ground almond flour
• ½ cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup egg whites (from 3 to 4 large eggs
• Baking spray with flour for the pans

 

Special Equipment: 12-cake madeleine pan and 12-cake mini-Bundt pan or 24-cake mini muffin pan, 10-inch skillet, heatproof rubber spatula, small heatproof bowl, medium sized mixing bowl, wire whisk, 1 or 2 wire racks
 
Makes: 20 small cakes
 
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F

1. Preheat the oven and adjust the oven rack to the middle position. Spray the baking pans with baking spray with flour and set aside
2. Melt the butter in the skillet over medium-high heat. Cook and stir the butter continuously with a spatula, scraping the skillet, until the butter turns a dark golden brown and develops a nutty aroma, 1 to 3 minutes. Pour the browned butter immediately into a heatproof bowl. Set aside.
   
3. In a medium sized mixing bowl, combine the almond flour, sugar, all-purpose flour and salt, and whisk to combine. Add the egg whites, and using the rubber spatula, stir the mixture until combined, mashing any lumps against the side of the bowl until the mixture is smooth. Stir in the browned butter just until it is incorporated.
4. Divide the batter evenly among the prepared pans. Each cup should be about half full. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes until the edges are well browned and the tops are golden. Remove the pans from the oven and immediately place a wire rack gently over each pan of Financiers. Carefully invert the rack and the baking pan. Gently lift off the baking pan, releasing the Financiers onto the wire rack. Turn the cakes right side up and cool them for at least 20 minutes before serving.