Repertoire

On the umpteenth thumb-through of Cooking for Mr. Latte, I was seized with need to jot down my repertoire. Did I have one? I think I can say there is a list of recipes I consider favorites and have made each at least two times, most of them more often. The repertoire is a work in progress. I would like to pare it and beg more time for this. Besides, who has a repertoire of cookies??

Almond Coconut Granola
Orange Yogurt (Barefoot Contessa)
Banana Bread (The Silver Palate)
Cheddar Rolls (my mum)

Old-Fashioned Italian-American Lasagna with Ricotta and Tomato Sauce (The Dean and DeLuca Cookbook)
Oven-Simmered Beef Brisket (Sunset)
Cheese Soufflé (Sunset)
Tomato Bisque (Carla A)

Roasted Carrots (Barefoot Contessa)
Carrot Salad (France)
Tuscan Fennel Salad (Rachel B)

Katherine Hepburn's Brownies (Gourmet and Laurie Colwin)
Cherries Glacés (my mum)
Raspberry-Lemon Trifle (Gourmet)
Spiced Hot Chocolate (anonymous magazine at the gym)

Cookies:
World Peace Cookies (Dorie Greenspan)
Orange Shortbread Cookies with Chocolate Chips (Gourmet)
Buckwheat Butter Cookies with Cocoa Nibs (Pure Dessert, Alice Medrich)
Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies (Chocolate on the Brain, Kevin and Nancy Mills)

Walla Walla Washington to Kalamazoo

Here is a list of places I would like to visit next (and have never been) in somewhat of an order:

1. The Grand Canyon
2. Denmark including the Karen Blixen Museum
3. Montréal for French everything
4. British Columbia (a trip I'd like to take with my brother) and trips to islands.
5. Maine coast to look east to Europa, find sea glass, and haunt the shore towns. I would wear beautiful foreign silk scarves on my head when standing in the fierce wind on the bluffs. I would take a beakerful of sand and label it for display in my home.
6. Charleston and Savannah for local color and dunes

Casting Pearls

In case you're wondering if the Valrhona Les Perles are of note, they are. I bought this container of 0.45 lb dark chocolate pearls at Whole Foods in February and used some to decorate this birthday cake. I recommend both the cake and the pearls. The pearls have been sitting in my cupboard and I recently started eating them, one at a time. They are quite good and satisfying if you have nothing else that is chocolate or a fun sweet. They are small and nicely melty in the mouth. Tonight I channeled autumn and tossed a few in a mug of Mexican hot chocolate hoping they would float and look a charmed garnish. They sank like stones. I threw in a few more. By the time the mug was empty of all but froth, the pearls had gushed and let me bid a special farewell to the chocolate warmth. Please note the poached succulents and found shells in a mosaic bird bath, handmade.