Athena Plichta Photography

Busy baking more cookies for friends and family...

Double Chocolate Peppermint Biscotti

And my new favorite, Sandies by the Sea (pecan cookie topped with melted dark chocolate, caramel, and fleur de sel). Soooo good. I'm forever grateful to my neighbor for introducing me to the recipe (she needed to borrow my KitchenAid mixer to make these for a party so she gave me a few of these as a thank you).

Last night hubby and I watched the finale of The Next Iron Chef. The final two chefs standing were Geoffrey Zakarian and Elizabeth Falkner. Seeing Falkner on tv reminded me of my trip to San Francisco several months ago when I took part in the first-ever Scharffen Berger bakery crawl. Fun times, and one of the stops during the crawl happened to be Falkner's Citizen Cake where she demonstrated her take on a classic dessert using Scharffen Berger chocolate. It was cool to see her larger than life on the tube.

p.s. Just a few more weeks to enter their Elevate a Classic Dessert Contest with a $10,000 grand prize to the winner.

First, some scenes of San Francisco and the Ferry Market Building before heading to Anthony's Cookies, Citizen Cake, Kara's Cupcakes, and Miette for sampling.

It was Fleet Week so the Blue Angels were in town. A lot of people were annoyed by the noise but I love it; I grew up in a Navy family and am now married to it, and was always a fixture at airshows.

Our mode of transportation around the city to the various bakeries.

I saved my loot from Kara's and Miette. I had a great breakfast the morning after the crawl.

Have a great week, everyone!