Grandma’s Cherry Snowballs

My grandma is an awesome lady — I wish I knew her better.

She’s still alive n’ kicking, but my grandma has Alzheimer’s disease and hasn’t recognized me  for a long time now. I visit her occasionally and I see her at family dinners, but I could and should visit her more often.

Especially since my grandma has one of the kindest hearts and sweetest dispositions you could ever hope to find in a person — she loves animals and people and I remember someone in my family once telling me that the most terrible cuss they’d ever heard her say was “hell’s bells”!

From what I know from the stories she’s told me, she grew up just a block from where I grew up and attended the same school (back when it was a high school — by the time I went there it had been switched to an elementary school and the high school had been moved to a bigger building down the hill).

I went to the same university as she did, but she majored in social work while I did an English degree.

My grandma even belonged to a sorority (back when sororities did charity work instead of drinking with frat boys) and worked with the YMCA to help underprivileged children.

I remember once she gave me a bottle of pale green glittery nail polish for Christmas, and, upon seeing it, my teenage self exclaimed, “Grandma, this is wicked!”

“Oh… well,” she said, “If you don’t like it, I can always take it back.”

Then I had to explain to her that wicked meant awesome, kind of like how bad can mean good. I think she was a little perplexed, but accepted the fact that I liked her present after all.

Haha!

♥ Mont Blanc // モンブラン ♥

So, here it is: my last post of June’s Japanese dessert month.

It’s been a challenge — I had to make the matcha castella three times before I got it right — the soufflé cheesecake, twice — barely salvaged a dango disaster — but it’s also been fun.

Reminiscing about Japan through baking and blogging has been bittersweet.

Although it didn’t seem as rosy-coloured to my adult self as it did to me as a teen, I still gathered a lot of unique experiences and new perspectives.

Japan is a historically rich and culturally diverse nation, brimming with beautiful landscapes and architecture, and full of kind people.

And, of course — Japan is full of amazing food!

Bouchon Bakery, Bouchon Recipe

When I went to Las Vegas a few weeks ago, I made a point of visiting the famous Bouchon Bakery.

It’s located on the bottom floor of the Venetian on The Strip — it took quite a bit of wandering and getting lost in a labyrinth of hallways to find it, but was well worth the journey!

I don’t know if the bakery makes everything on site or what (it didn’t look very big from the outside…), but they had it all — macaroons, eclairs, croissants, mousse cups, cupcakes, cookies, muffins, breakfast pastries, yum!

Deciding what to try was really difficult — I knew that I had friends back in the hotel room that could help me eat anything I bought, but it’s always better to exercise a little self control and conserve money, too.

In the end I spent nearly $30 on goodies and coffee and booked it back to the seedy hotel my friends and I were staying at so that we could dig in to my haul!

What a feast it was!

Though out of all the baked goods I tried that morning, only two were particularly delicious: one was the twice-baked apple cobbler croissant that tasted just like apple pie! Mmm!

And the other delectable morsel I tried that morning was the Bouchon Bakery’s signature sweet: the chocolate bouchon — moist and sweet and oh-so-fudgy!