Welcome To The Sweet Spot

Thank you to anyone who took the leap from my (now members-only) parent blog, Magalie's Garden!  It started as a wonderful open plot of space to plant and harvest creative ideas and gradually became overgrown in a few areas.  I took a look and did some weeding and found a theme I really wanted to explore, my sweet tooth.

I do enjoy all sorts of cooking and baking but by no means find myself any sort of authority.  I don't have a gourmet kitchen or a lot of fancy tools.  I have a decent cookbook collection and I can generally follow a recipe, but I have had a lot of dishes go painfully wrong and sometimes at the worst possible moment.  It's usually when I'm bringing a dish to a hostess to share and I usually haven't left myself a back up plan.  Something still remains after all the food has been consumed and I guess that is what made me decide to open a new blog just for this purpose.  Satisfaction.

Everyone has a hobby or career or thing they do that makes them "zone in" and get lost in the process, yes?  Reading a book, perhaps, and getting lost in the pages for a while as time flies away?  If I had any musical talent I'd imagine playing an instrument with varying degrees of success and ending the last note feeling either complete or inspired to try again.  It's that sort of immersion I'm talking about.  And that's the place I'd like to go with this blog.

I don't claim I'll be any good at it, or even original.  But I do promise I'll always list my sources and give credit where it's due. I will also be brutally honest about my failures and humble about my success.

I also intend to bring you new content and fresh ideas from the outside to show you my INSPIRATIONS.
Why sweets?  Why not, it's universal comfort for most people I know to turn to something sweet when they're looking to satisfy their soul with food.  I give you the evidence now.

1. Early memory of birthday cakes made lovingly by my Mom in shapes like the heads of pandas or bunny rabbits.  Food = Special + Magic.
2. Younger years shaped by a great grandfather who was a baker, who took me to bakeries and left me with olfactory memories like yeast, sugar, and toasting flour.  His hands kneading bread dough, his table topped with kuchen, and a basement (my playroom) with pastry bags and cake pans.  
3. That horrible packet of Swiss Miss cocoa tasting so good on a cold day.
4. The movie Chocolat that left thousands of us salivating in slow motion.
5. The act of making something good of what you love and sharing it.  Please meet Heather Baird from Sprinklebakes and see how this is done very well.  She's a class act and such a nice person, too!
6. Finding your secret ingredient.  Hats off to you, Erica Bauermeister.  Again!

There is so much more I would like to say but  for now, I would like to leave you with a palate tempter.  My first endeavor for this new blog:  The Madeleine Project:

The Beginning: The Cake That's Eaten Like A Cookie

The Task:  To try a handful of recipes for these delightful favorite sweets of mine, taking notes, and learning as much as I can about what makes this three-inches of scalloped french goodness so warming to my soul.

Come along, if you will!  Bring your own toothbrush!