On this very day last year, I was also writing about popsicles. Strange synchronicity. Although thoughts do tend to turn that way when the mercury soars and fresh fruit abounds. The thing about popsicles is that they are SO EASY to make. Frozen liquid, that's all they are. So you could puree bananas with almond milk and caradamom. Or blend coconut water with fresh blueberries and mint. Or even juice some carrots with a little ginger and freeze that. Willing to turn on the stove? Cook strawberries with honey and a dried ancho chile. Puree it then freeze. You don't really need a lot of involved recipes to make popsicles. Your imagination and what's in the fridge can be your guide. That said, Fany Gerson's new book Paletas (Spanish for popsicles) is quite handy. From yogurt with berries to apricot-chamomile to mezcal-orange, she'll steer you toward original combinations, many of them quite adult. Not that you won't feel like a kid again when you're slurping something sweet and icy from a stick.
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That's me. Did you know I've been married four times? And I'm not that old. Twice divorced and widowed once. But in it for the long haul now. I'm so glad I finally found what I was looking for and it turned out to be even better than what I had imagined. I'm in the zone! And so will you be when you spoon a big bite of tart, creamy and dreamy gooseberry fool into your mouth. Allegedly dating back to the 15th century, this dead simple treat is nobody's fool; or rather, anybody's. It's just a cooked puree of sweetened gooseberries folded into whipped cream. Chilled and served in a wine glass or a coupe with a long spoon, it's among the most elegant desserts you can make without breaking a sweat.
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The first time I had a Pavlova was long ago at JoJo, Jean Georges Vongerichten’s jewel box of a restaurant in an Upper East Side townhouse. That might even have been the original source for his now-classic (and copied into ubiquity) molten chocolate cake. But it was the Pavolva in all its crunchy creaminess that captured my heart. This ethereal meringue dessert was allegedly created as a tribute to the ballerina Anna Pavlova on her 1926 tour to New Zealand and in fact it’s wonderfully light—and relatively low in calories. Balthazar does a nice one with mixed berries. A Pavlova is fancy enough to impress guests and quite easy to whip up. The version below, from Gourmet magazine, is served with lemon curd.
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