Don't Try this at Home

After our Carnival celebration at Binche last week, we had a bowl full of blood oranges from the parade. Connor was pretty uneasy about eating the red oranges so I decided to try to make a Blood Orange Tart. My friend, Kathryn, made a similar recipe several years ago and I remember the delicious the treat fondly. I bought the tart plate below the day after eating Kathryn's tart way back then in hopes of duplicating her dessert. It took me until today to pull it off. Or should I say to attempt to pull it off.I made the "curd" filling 2 days ago. It had to sit for 1-3 days. I was a little nervous that it was not as congealed as it seemed it should be. But onward I continued!
This is my attempt at making my first ever pie crust. I didn't have a rolling pin, so I used Connor's!

I was a little unsure as to if the tart was even going to fit in the freezer to cool.

Luckily it fit by the skin of its teeth.The tart actually looked pretty in the end. Unfortunately when we cut into it the filling did indeed goop out as I feared it would. And the texture didn't really make it appealing. Oh well. It made for pretty photos. Now I know why they call them "blood" oranges - I definitely feel like I put my blood, sweat and tears into this one.

But let's end this post with some cute Connor photos instead of my cooking failure:

Think you've got enough friends in your stroller, Connor?!?
Connor found these beads from a free goodie bag from a movie premier last night.
The necklace and bracelet made for hours of fun!

Cook & Book

Earlier this week Connor and I went with Julia to one of the coolest retail places I have ever been called "Cook & Book."
It is a compilation of bookstores within a maze like building made up of themed rooms. Each of the 9 rooms/stores at Cook & Book is outfitted with an individual restaurant complimenting each book genre. The themes include: travel, modern, comics, gardening, cooking, written in English (!), etc. They used the lighting, menus, surrounding book selection and overall ambiance of each room to compliment the theme. Like look at this one with the books literally hanging from the ceiling.

Or these - you can see the restaurants nestled within the walls of books. The black and white shot was of the travel room. The restaurant spilled into the silver on the left where you can literally crawl in and eat at the table right inside. It was a feast for our eyes!







Connor enjoyed the outing too. It was hard for me to focus with her hopping around in excitement over all the books, but that was part of the fun. I hope to go back solo sometime to more fully soak it all in and to try the food.