Tiramisu

A while back my housemate and I made tiramisu for the first time. I was looking for something I could make quickly and easily for an Italian dinner party later that night, so I grabbed a recipe off the internet and modified it heavily to fit what we had on hand. We made the happy discovery that tiramisu is very forgiving.

We substituted extra-strong regular coffee for the espresso, and used store-bought ladyfingers instead of piping our own. We also made it in baking dishes, but it would look beautiful in cups or glasses.

If you're ever looking for a rich, delicate dessert that you can make at the last minute, I recommend this recipe. The flavor will improve after it's been in the fridge for a day or two. But I know for a fact that instead of waiting you could just eat it all immediately as soon as it's chilled.

Ingredients:

• 6 cups of coffee, brewed extra strong (we used four scoops of coffee in a drip coffeemaker)
• 7 Tbsp. Kahlua
• 4 eggs, separated
• slightly more than 1/2 c. powdered sugar (we didn't have castor sugar, so we used powdered sugar we'd made in a blender, and just went by taste)
• 500 g mascarpone cheese
• 2 c. heavy whipping cream
• 500 g ladyfingers (savoiardi)
• cocoa powder for dusting

1. Beat egg yolks and sugar in a large bowl until the mixture goes pale and thick.
2. Add mascarpone and beat until combined. It doesn't matter if it's a little marbled.
3. Whip the cream until stiff peaks hold, and fold gently into the egg mixture. Gently!
4. In a perfectly clean metal bowl, beat the egg whites to soft peaks.
5. Fold the whites into the cream.
6. Mix the coffee and Kahlua together in a small bowl.
7. Dip ladyfingers in coffee & drain well.
8. Cover bottom of dish with ladyfingers, layer with half of cream mixture.
9. Repeat with another layer of ladyfingers & cream.
10. Smooth top & dust with cocoa.

Fiber has kept me sane through some really difficult times, and this week is no exception. Having a simple mechanical task to complete helps, especially when it means you get to touch something soft and watch something colorful.

I've had a few skeins of yarn waiting to be wound into balls for quite some time, and this week I've gotten most of them ready to be knit into scarves and neckwarmers and other warm things. One of them didn't have ends. No, really. It was a skein of Manos with a few knots in it, and apparently somebody skeining it got knot-happy and accidentally tied the ends together. It was like Sam Beckett's life all tangled up in a big red yarny octopus made of one continuous loop. I made a break in the loop and got it all untangled and neatly wound, so I guess he gets to go home now.

And there's this:

It's the most awesome yarn ever. It's handspun art yarn from Cool Climates and it is filled with bazillions of fibers in bazillions of shades of white & off-white, and LOTS of wild and crazy texture, and bazillions of cool things in it like pearl beads and antique lace and super twisty bits of overspun crazy-plied awesomeness. It's going to be a scarf or neckwarmer when it grows up.

For the past several weeks, I have been semi-absent from a lot of the great online communities where I usually hang out. As some of you may know, my aunt passed away recently after a long battle with cancer. It hurts. A lot.

She was one of the rare people in this world who are truly kind all the way to the core of their being. Kind and sweet and gentle and smart and fun to be around. She cooked and baked extremely well. Like, made-from-scratch cheesecake well. Like the chocolate-covered cherries at Christmas were made individually by hand and the sweet creamy filling inside them started out as powdered sugar and vanilla and whatever magic dwelt in her kitchen. She made beautiful jewelry. She was wicked good at Scrabble.

She was good at life. I miss her.

Her death and her life have given me a lot to think about. I've been trying to find my way back to a normal routine and get back in the swing of things. Some days I succeed more than others.