i was just about ready to commit to cornell when george washington university came and swept me off my feet! i visited the school yesterday, and it truly seems to have everything i want. urban? check. cool people? check. financial aid? check. journalism school headed by the emmy-award winning, NPR- and CNN-seasoned frank sesno? i admittedly didn't know who [...]
i'm currently in ithaca, ny — home to cornell university, and also home to a huge annual apple festival! the festival is in october (this cake is sorta seasonally inappropriate), but it's one of the many cool events that take place in this tiny town. ithaca is small, and it's in the middle of no where, but [...]
one of my favorite breakfasts is warm banana bread smothered in cream cheese. it's simple, but the flavors pair unbelievably well together. this dessert elevates that breakfast to a new level: it combines cream cheese, bananas, and spices into a rich filling that gets baked inside a buttery nilla wafer crust. the cheesecake is then topped with bananas foster — [...]
have you ever tried those jelly fruit slice candies? i only ever eat them at passover* — we stock up on them in lieu of [preferred] gluten-y desserts — but i suppose they're available year round. this cake is topped with the elevated, "from scratch" version of those candies in the form of candied clementines. after [...]
it's so hard to think about college when all i want to do is open a sandwich shop! it would be a bakery too, of course — i'm thinking "pastries and paninis" will be the tagline — but mainly sandwiches. i'm sure it'll happen some day. this fantasy sandwich shop definitely caters as well. weddings, bat [...]
i've lost track of the number of times the media has named durham the new "it" town of the south, specifically when it comes to food. southern living says we're the south's tastiest town. the new york post deems durham the foodie capital of the south. even buzzfeed ran an article called 34 amazing things that will make [...]
the last time i made ice cream was in my seventh grade science class. we put milk and sugar in a ziploc bag, stuffed that bag into another bag filled with ice and salt, and shook it until our hands felt like they were gonna freeze off. the experiment illustrated how sodium chloride lowers water's freezing point, [...]
i recently watched whiplash and black swan. one is about andrew, a jazz drummer, and one is about nina, a ballerina. the movies are very similar; both are about dedicated artists driven to madness by their abusive mentors and their own ambitions to achieve greatness. i see myself in both characters, mainly through andrew's desire to attain musical perfection [...]
i wish we had tea in the u.s. i'm not talking about a cup of chamomile, i'm talking about afternoon tea. with crumpets and scones and cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off. our fast-paced culture lends itself to an on-the-go espresso much better than it does to a sit-down afternoon meal, but i think it's something we should start doing. a [...]
traditionally, religieuses are filled with crème pâtissière (pastry cream) and dipped in chocolate ganache. the chocolate coating is thought to resemble a nun's habit, hence the name religieuse, which means nun in french. these look more like a courtesan au chocolat — a fictional pastry from mendl's bakery in wes anderson's the grand budapest hotel [...]
LENA'S LUNCHBOX 