It's that time of year again, folks…the time when desserts all begin "flourless…"
To ease the pain of a cookie-less cake-less week, I'll share a fantastic post by awesome blogger Deb over at Smitten Kitchen. She offers 17 dessert ideas for Passover — let's face it, who ever knew there were even that many possibilities? — and they all look completely scrumptious. Go on, have a look!

Meanwhile, if you're still itching for ideas, be sure to check out Susie Fishbein's new cookbook, Passover by Design — you can buy it straight from here by clicking the picture in the sidebar right next to this post. I've already given three as pesach/seder presents, and have made three balebustas very happy. Have a wonderful holiday!

When it comes to brownies, everyone has his or her preference. Some prefer cakey (though god knows why), others prefer raw, yet others favor the fudgey dense sort — there's a recipe for everyone. I even know someone who made a habit of mixing up two full batches each time she made brownies: one to bake, and one to eat raw, straight from the mixing bowl. If that's not enough to make your stomach turn, I don't know what is.
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Let's see, where did we leave off? Have you already forgotten that more tales of molecular gastronomy and showmanship were in store for you? This is the final installment of the Minibar saga. So as not to reveal all my (their) cards, I'll cover only highlights of the remaining courses, leaving some of the show to your imagination (should you choose to explore this restaurant yourself).

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Ever have a total jonesin' to make something that you had not intention of eating for a couple days? No, of course not. You're not crazy. Maybe it was the urge to blog that got me cooking this weekend, backwards as that sounds…but for whatever reason, I found myself chopping garlic, toasting pine nuts, and steaming broccoli and raisins, knowing full well that I was going out to dinner last night, out to a brunch baby-naming this morning, and … well, out to dinner again tonight. The broccoli is still sitting in my fridge, save for the little bits I've been sneaking here and there. And now you all know what I'll be taking for lunch tomorrow.
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(For those who haven't been following, a bunch of friends and I went out to dinner last week at Minibar and had a $$delightful$$ meal; I'm documenting our adventure, course by course, on NDP. You can see part one here.)

Our story resumes with one of the evening's most whimsical dishes: "dragon's breath" popcorn. We were each handed a ball of popcorn (kettle corn, actually — sweet and salty and delicious all over) submerged in liquid nitrogen. We were instructed to exhale when we ate it, so that upon chewing and breathing, we actually exhaled, um, smoke. What DB popcorn lacked in actual culinary innovation, it made up for in giggle factor. D literally couldn't keep a straight face as I tried to photograph, so I ended up with a bunch of blurry pictures in which the smoke is visible only because I know it's there.

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