Little red gems

This morning while slicing up some strawberries for a decadent little dish of strawberries and cream, I noticed that some of them were bruised and a bit mushy. In my humble opinion, it would be a sad state of affairs to waste strawberries. So what's a girl to do? You could eat them right away (problem solved), use them in a baked or cooked dish, or employ this method when they're too bruised or mushy to eat fresh.

When one has tasted watermelon, she knows what the angels eat (or drink)

Mark Twain said it best, but I wonder if he ever tasted the watermelons ripened under the Egyptian sun and fed from the waters of the Nile? 

Amazing almond cake...with a dash of rum if you desire

A few weeks ago I was invited to dinner at a friend's house here in Cairo. He was making Indian and Pakistani style food, and I told him I would bring dessert. Having converted to a low impact, mostly grain-free, sugar-free way of eating after the New Year (with a few slip-ups here and there), I racked my brain and my cookbooks for inspiration. Suzanne Pirret, in her book "The Pleasure is All Mine" had a lovely recipe, called "Cake" which seduced me by its simplicity (and possibly also by her witty writing). Her recipe used grams which I converted into cups for the American kitchen, although I personally like using a small kitchen scale and measuring ingredients in grams.