Change of Cover Already

Yes.  I was working on the cookbook and had taken a shot of a dessert this morning when I noticed how much I liked the colors, so I turned it into a new cover for Unspeakably Desirable.  I wasn't crazy about the banana tart to begin with so this will be a good if perhaps temporary change.

I think here's the funny part to this.  I had that Nikon D70 for years and hated it because I couldn't get it to be knife edge sharp.  I get the D7K and all I can talk about is how sharp it is, right?  So I take this photo and blow it up past being sharp and use that.  Aside from the fact that it's shot through glass that's fogged over and that's what I love about it.

It's remarkable to me that even given those 2 elements, glass fogging and the blowing up past sharp, how sharp the cake part still is.  I do wonder if that will bother some people.  The drunk trolls I suppose will be really annoyed.

The white is mascarpone which is ridiculously expensive and you can make it at home.  It's really just about reducing the liquid in the cream.  I used to do it in a double boiler but yesterday I did it in the microwave.  Use a large bowl because it will boil up.  Heat on high in 1 minute increments, stirring between, until the cream has thickened.  Then you can try draining it with a coffee filter, I did but the only thing that happened was the coffee filter got wet and I had trouble scrapping the cream off it.  I left it uncovered in the refrigerator and this morning it was the exact correct thickness.  I  saved like $5 or more and it took about 15 min while I was doing other stuff.

Now I'm going to make some polenta for the book.  You can make that in the microwave, too.