Fall: the season of new projects

Well, it's been a while. The far coast is awfully far away these days and I don't even have an out of the way farm house to center my activities around just now. I DO, however, have electricity and wireless internet access in my living room and two different jobs that find me in front of a computer more days than not. So I'm back--no promises but we'll see how it goes.

I'm not the first to comment on the abrupt and welcome arrival of fall but I'm appreciating it anyhow and have celebrated this second week of September with a trip to the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival and an end to the summer moratorium on baking. After scrolling through pages and pages of rave reviews about Orangette's flourless chocolate cake, I was antsy to try it and decided a cool rainy Monday was reason enough to turn on the oven. It never quite set up but it's the sort of cake that you really don't mind eating half raw. In fact, my brother's lone claim to any sort of culinary fame are the years that he specialized in half-baked brownies. i won't say the recipe is a new all-time favorite but it took about 10 minutes to prepare and I'm awfully excited to eat the last slice when I get home this evening.