One of the lame things about getting older (listen up, young ‘uns) is that it becomes rare for your mind to be blown.
When you’re young, every experience is new and hence interesting. With time, the range of your experience grows, and while the brand-new experiences aren’t as frequent, there’s satisfaction in feeling like you know what’s going on. Eventually, though, the time between eye-opening experiences becomes ever longer, and the feeling of competence that comes with experience is no longer sufficient consolation.
Which makes such experiences all the more precious.
It also makes it all the more important to seek out such experiences, because if you don’t go looking for them they won’t necessarily come looking for you. On the other hand, you never know when or where you’re going to be treated to such an experience.
Our Bûche de Noël. That was a mind-altering experience. I didn’t expect it. But we saw them all over Paris, and everyone gets one, so we did too. I’ve had a lot of desserts in my life. Some were good, some weren’t, but very few have made me say “I didn’t know such a thing existed in the world.”
Now I have to wait a whole year for them to come back!
Even better than Grandma Novak’s baking? Can’t imagine – she gave me some wonderful dessert experiences! Glad you are enjoying the food.
Saveur magazine, a couple of issues back, featured this holiday treat. It gives quite a bit of insight into the confection itself as well as the tradition.
http://www.sacher.com/en-original-sacher-tart.htm
Take a look at Vienna’s version of a super confection. You might even contemplate traveling there, just for this one…
Hmm, this does look good. We will have to go check it out whenever we make it to Vienna.
The most famous cake in the world for 175 years!
The Original Sacher-Torte has been the most famous cake in the world since 1832 and the original recipe a well-kept secret of our hotel.
My climbing partner, when I climbed Mt. Whitney the first time, sent me one of these, when she returned to Austria. It came packaged in a special wooden box.
Yum!