Calamity Shazaam in the Kitchen

Right now I am so friggin' tired I have literally lost any ability to concentrate for longer than one minute. Totally frustrating. Although quite frankly to be fair my body believes that it is about 3am, as does my brain and my eyeballs. So here are a few photos from my trip to tide you over until all the parts in my body match up again: Every morning I made a big pot of coffee. Most days I had pain grille (toast) with apricot jam, but two days we had treats from the boulangerie - pain au chocolate, croissants, et croissants aux amandes. The woman who runs the boulangerie is a sweetheart and pretty much we saw her once a day for the pain (bread), except for Wendnesday when they were closed and we had to get bread from the Vival, the local convenience shop. From the shop to the house!

I am in heaven. Baguettes, butter, apricot jam, Nutella, et tiny fresh radishes. See my post over on Shamrag as to why this post isn't longer, but I will try to post again tomorrow or Friday. You are going to sacre caca! when you see the foods I've eaten so far. I will post photos as soon as I can.

It's a long story but anyway I am here at Logan Airport waiting to board a plane that will take me to France. To Monts sur Guesnes to be exact. Have no idea where that is? Yeah me neither. I'll let you know when I get there. I have had terrible writer's block, writers rot really, and I hoping this trip (petit vacances!) will help shake it. See, this is what happens when I decided to stop saying no and starts saying yes. Or "oui!" as it were. Anyway, if you don't believe me, here is a photo of the duty free:

As some of you may remember a little while back I corralled a bunch of you lovely readers into joining Team Calamity Shazaam. And WOW what a bunch of fab bakers you all were! YOU baked, packed, and shipped boxes and boxes of cookies over to Kevin in Afghanistan, much to the delight of his wife Lisa. Now for the sad news. Over the weekend Kevin and a fellow Canadian soldier were involved in an incident with an IED. The Canadian soldier was killed and Kevin was apparently badly burned. He was flown to Texas for treatment where Lisa has now gone to be with him. I have to ask all Team Calamity Shazaam members, and Calamity Shazaam in the Kitchen readers, to send as many positive thoughts as possible to Kevin and to Lisa. When I know more I will update it here. And as always, thank you for being a part of Team Calamity Shazaam.

What they really mean by this is that the built up pressure will cause the lid to explode off the top of the can and send trails of black treacle dripping from the ceiling. Not that it will have gone bad or anything.

Oh my effing word! This is the birthday that I think that I have eaten the most. I started eating on Sunday and haven't stopped until juuuuuuussstttt.................. NOW! (Well I think that there is going to be March Birthday Cake in the office tomorrow. Shhhhhh...) Saturday night I went over to my oldest friend's Mom's house for dinner. Ennairda & I have known each other since we were one, we share the same exact birthday, and well pretty much we are biologically unrelated sisters. It was a real treat to have dinner together. Her mom made us broccoli, asparagus, baby potatoes, and delicious pan seared lamb. I ate an embarrassing amount and then tucked into a gorgeous dessert of mango sorbet with a four berry sauce on top. Thank you OtherMother!!! It was such a nice treat. By the time I was hungry again it was Sunday morning and as it would turn out a very fabulous friend threw me a surprise birthday brunch for my family & friends. For starters he served up grape

Over on Shamrag I was lamenting the loss of my sweet tooth as a sign of my advancing senility. However I think I was wrong, because my sweet tooth is BACK! Whoo hoo! Yesterday I ate an entire sleeve of Thin Mints. I did share with the Evil Twin and so I don't feel AS bad as I would if I'd eaten it all myself, although truth be told I don't usually feel anything but pure happiness when I eat Thin Mints . But really I can't eat too much processed stuff anymore. It makes me ill. So I make sweet stuff from scratch. Today I made the Ginger Cake that I can't just cannot get enough of, I like to have a slice in the late afternoon with tea to power me through the last bit of work. I also like to have a slice for breakfast when I have a tough morning. And sometimes a sliver before bed for sweet dreams.... Oooh I love that cake. And I also made this kumquat-golden raisin-cranberry compote that I like to eat out of the jar. It's an Alice Waters recipe and it is crack i