Sunken Rubies: Raspberries in a Browned Butter Tart

It is not easy to pass up luscious-looking berries.  Once a week I waddle over to the square in front of St. Joseph's church and fill my granny tote with fresh farm milk, lake trout, and some of the home-grown produce that looks particularly tempting.  This week I couldn't resist buying some ripe "himbeeren" (raspberries) along with my salad items, but once I returned home I wasn't quite sure what to do with them.  These berries were just right for snacking, but a pregnant woman's belly is only so spacious, and I didn't want these little gems to go the way of other well-intentioned purchases: molding in the back of my refrigerator.  Luckily I happened upon this recipe from the Bon Appetit website and it came out beautifully.  The shortbread crust is a breeze to assemble, and the rest of it is easy as...pie.  The butter content is staggering, but makes a cup of cold milk on the side or a scoop of vanilla ice cream all the more scrumptious.

The Piano Tuner

As charmingly ridiculous as Bavarian television often is, I have found reading in the evenings to be more stimulating for my imagination than "watching distantly" (or "fernsehen", in German).  I recently picked up The Piano Tuner, by Daniel Mason, at a thrift store and it has proved to be an exquisite find.  An unusual tale of a man who travels to Burma during the British occupation to repair a piano, at the behest of a very curious general who believes in bringing peace through music, the novel is one tremendous adventure interwoven with many other mystical small stories and lovely observations of natural beauty.  The book isn't long, so I'm trying to ration myself, and not read too far ahead any one night....

Starting a blog: too much time on my hands?

It has been pouring all day long, and my belly is very heavy.  I am at home in my living room, resting my swollen, pregnant feet and dreaming about a raspberry tart to make for dessert.  Are these the sort of lazy afternoon circumstances that prompt the average internet surfer to blog?  Don't I need an adventure of sorts to start one of these public pages?  However, I just remembered that the last time I was exploring overseas or pursuing some exciting venture, I did not have time to even think about creating a blog.  Now I have all the time in the world- to wait for my baby, bake raspberry tarts, and write.