Lemony Zest :: Kim Lewandowski

Archive for January, 2011

Time flies when you’re freezing half to death. I can’t believe it’s been so cold here in January. So that’s my excuse for not blogging more That and my micro-studio fell apart and I haven’t found a suitable new box for it yet. Anyway …

This week’s Photo Friday challenge is Travels, and those of you who know us know we love to travel. So for this challenge, I went back to the photos from our 25th anniversary trip to Europe in 2009. We had purchased train tickets for traveling from Rome to Florence and then from Florence to Zurich to Frankfurt to go home, and we had an extra day of travel on the tickets. So while we were in Florence, we took a side trip to Pisa.

This is when you find out how important prior planning is Since the tower isn’t stable (it’s leaning, after all), they limit the number of people who can climb it at one time, and you have to buy tickets in advance. We had no tickets, so we spent a beautiful afternoon wandering the grounds and taking pictures of the tower, the cathedral and the baptistery.

I was hungry after we traveled to Pisa and walked several blocks from the train station to the grounds, so I bought a local specialty as a snack – marinated seafood salad – and ate that as we sat and admired the beautiful marble that comprised the buildings.

Marinated seafood salad and Pisa guidebook

The popular thing to do in Pisa, apparently, is to hold your arms as if you’re preventing the tower from falling over. I can’t tell you how funny it was to see dozens of people from all over the world all posing the same way.

“Holding up" the Leaning Tower of Pisa

The tower *is* leaning to a frightening degree. It was definitely worth the side trip to see it again (for me – Dan had never seen it before).

I printed out this recipe last year, but this year I finally made chocolate bark for the first time and OMG was it good. It was amazingly easy to make, beautiful to look at, and GOOD FOR YOU! Dark chocolate, dried fruit, and cashew nuts – what could be better? It was popular with everyone I shared it with.

Barefood Contessa’s French Chocolate Bark

8 oz. dark chocolate chips (I used Hershey’s Special Dark)
8 oz. milk chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli)
1/2 cup chopped dried apricots
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 cup cashew pieces

Place a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet. Draw a 10″x14″ rectangle on the paper; turn the paper over so the drawing side is down and set aside.

Place a stainless steel bowl over a medium saucepan containing 1 inch of simmering water. Place chocolate chips in the steel bowl and stir till completely melted. Use a spatula to scrape the melted chocolate onto the parchment paper and spread out until the rectangle is covered. Sprinkle the fruit and nuts over the chocolate and press lightly to adhere.

Set aside in a cool place for 2 hours (or in the freezer for 10 minutes) to harden. Cut into 1″x2″ pieces.