Spice, Etc.

Gnocchin’ me crazy ;) 

There's nothing like a chocolate croissant to start the day...or end the day...or in the middle of the day...am I right guys?

So impressed and SO BLESSED by pizzeria locale in Boulder😍

S-S-S-SALAD YEAH A MEATY SALAD WHY BECAUSE YOU HUNGRY YOU HUNGRY YOUR MAMA SAYS YOU HUNGRY

Having a magical morning mocha at Le Pain Quotidien, which is my spirit animal in restaurant form. Plus, coffee and chocolate are both health foods (according to SCIENCE) so I feel really good about this.

Whoops, forgot to attach the picture tho #amateurhour #lemonbars

Make lemon bars. Am I right guys?

Today was one of those days. Not in a bad way, just one of those days where I felt the insatiable urge to go to Panera and eat an aggressive amount of bread. I feel very good about my choice and will repeat it. Nothing comforts me like the grilled cheese tomato soup combination. Something about it is just magic for my soul. And then having a bunch of extra bread on top of that certainly doesn’t hurt. SHOUTOUT TO PANERA BREAD; THX FOR A GREAT SUNDAY

Let’s get to the point: I AM A GENIUS. I made popcorn with melted chocolate and peanut butter. People are probably thinking this is no big deal--OH, BUT IT IS. It’s not as easy as you’d think to melt the chocolate and peanut butter (SEPARATELY) to the exact right point of melted-ness, and then drizzle them evenly over the popcorn. To be fair, my drizzle skills need some work. Besides that though, I nailed snacktime today and I want to share my accomplishment with the whole world.

YAS BOO, PREACH GURL

Tonight I learned, while making these coconut macaroons, that it is not as easy to casually drizzle chocolate about as one would think. Anything vaguely involving art overwhelms and defeats me instantly. Oh well, chocolate is chocolate, am I right? No one says no to chocolate - no friend of mine, at least >.<

WISHING MORE THAN ANYTHING I HAD THIS MOCHACCINO RIGHT NOW. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but it still hurts~

How you all felt in my absence. 

Alright people, let's just drop everything and talk about this freaking PISTACHIO TART right now. Yeah, these exist. I have a serious--yet forbidden--passion for pistachios. My relationship with pistachios is kind of like that of Romeo and Juliet, and here's why. As a young child, I loved pistachios. I still have vivid memories of going grocery shopping with my mom, when she would buy me a bag of pistachios. I would begin eating them immediately in the car on the way home, but would make myself save some to look forward to later in the day. It was pure magic. I will never forget the rush of emotion that filled my very soul as I reached into that crackers cabinet and joyously took out the half-eaten bag of pistachios. I'm really not exaggerating here. Anyways, shortly thereafter, we learned that my younger sister has an allergy to nuts (and peanut butter, which is equally devastating and will most likely be the topic of a post in the near future). Thus, we stopped buying pistachios and all other nuts FOREVER. It was devastating. It wasn't until I went to college that I had them again. And even then, the only "grocery store" in my tiny college town was sold out of them 99% of the time, and the other 1% of the time they were so ridiculously expensive that I didn't ever make the purchase. So I've had to stifle my pistachio passion for most of my life, and it has not been easy to do so. But now I am in the real world, and these glorious delicacies are part of my life once more. So naturally, when I saw a pistachio tart on the menu of this bakery, I literally gasped out loud and ordered it. And believe it or not, it actually did live up to all the hype I'd built up over the years. I left that fine establishment with a tear in my eye and a new kind of smile in my already-smiling heart.