Growing up, summer time meant spending time on Balboa Island. Some summers, we would rent a house. Sometimes with another family, yet most summer’s we just rented our own home. We participated in many daily activities; fishing in the bay, riding around the island in a small motor boat, and riding our bikes until the moon was our only light source.
The most important daily activity was eating a “bal bar”. A bal bar is basically a brick of ice cream with a stick in it. Then it is dipped in the most amazing chocolate sauce and covered in either nuts or jimmies. I always went for the nuts (see original ice cream here).
This dessert reminds me of my childhood. For me, it’s all about the nuts. The original bal bar didn’t have cake in it. However, topping this dessert off with roasted, salted peanuts brought back some darn good memories!
I'm spending a few days in what I'm told is the Mid-West of America (albeit the Northern Mid-West), a place I've never been to before. It's a land of lakes and fir trees and glittering silver birches, and flying in I was startled (and a little homesick) by the landscape's resemblance to Norway. Of course everyone who lives here is either Norwegian or Swedish.
The first time I ate a Chocolate Lava Cake was at 
If you had to pick just one dish that represents the category of comfort food better than any other, what would it be? My pick would be good old fashioned mac 'n cheese. Many people think of macaroni and cheese as a true American dish, but in fact its roots lie with the cheese-loving Swiss. Who better to have invented the dish?
I love parfaits. They are such pretty things to make, with all kinds of possibilities from what ingredients you are going to layer to what glasses you will serve them in.
