My sister's visit!!

My sister's family came to visit us for a week at the end of October. Her baby's (my niece) first birthday isn't til the end of November, but we decided to celebrate it anyway, so I could make her a special birthday cake (me being a culinary student and all...). I kind of got into an argument with my sister over this... I offered to make a simple cake with soft pancakes and baby yogurt frosting, that even the baby can eat...but she insisted that her baby not eat the cake. I felt bad for my niece...I mean, it's her first birthday and she can't eat her cake? Why make a cake at all? But I relented and decided to make a cake for my niece.

So what cake to make? There was a stash of frozen strawberries and a 6" round genoise in the freezer. How about a strawberry mousse cake? With white chocolate glaze?? That'll be a nice, pink and white cake! I wanted to try making a dome-shaped cake, using a mixing bowl. I tempered white chocolate into disks--the process which, again, had trouble with. I seem to have the worst luck with white chocolate. So it took me a good while before they (finally) set into nice disks. I prepared the strawberry mousse, poured it into the bowl lined with plastic, inserted the white chocolate disks, and set the genoise in...except the genoise was a little too thick and I had to press it down a little more than I wanted (pressing down too much can squeeze/deflate the mousse). In the freezer it went...

The next day, I took out the cake and unmolded it. The cake came out nice and domed. I prepared the white chocolate ganache glaze, and poured it over the cake. It seemed to glaze the cake pretty well...until I noticed that the glaze was not setting. It kept dribbling down until there was a barely-there translucent coating on the mousse. Eventually, the glaze just slid off. I was confused... The glaze was at the right temperature (not too warm, not too cold) so it shouldn't be doing that. I re-glazed the cake several times before I finally decided to add more white chocolate to the glaze to see if that'll help make it set. It kind of worked, but alas, the glaze slid off again. I hid the ugly bald patches with buttercream frosting, and it turned out fairly decent, although definitely not my best.

I printed out her picture from the months leading up to her first birthday and taped it onto a wire for cake decoration. The cake tasted good...but again, not my best.

Then we visited a raw food restaurant here in Salt Lake. My sister and her hubby are health food nut, and wanted to try this place.

Raw food is a type of cuisine that requires all foods to be "cooked" or processed below 118F. This method prevents nutrients from leaching out, which occurs during cooking. The food is literally alive and full of nutrients.
We got two combos and a dessert.

Sweet Basil Salad and Lebanese Wrap. The filling in the wrap was very flavorful, with creamy tahini dressing adding body to the otherwise bland veggies.

Seaweed Salad and Falafel bowl. The seaweed was a mound of nori with tamari dressing. The whole meal was very flavorful and vibrant...and surprisingly filling. We were getting pretty full by the end of the meal...and yet not heavy at all.

For dessert, we had the Cereal Bowl with Hemp Chai. It had goji berries, shredded coconut, granola and seeds. The freshly grated cinnamon added a nice kick.

Would I come back here? Probably. I would love to come here once a week...the only drawback is that it's pretty pricey. But it's worth every penny considering the quality of the ingredients and the herbs/spices in the dishes.