Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Here's a photo of the cake from our "same-sex wedding" 2 years ago in Canada. My partner and I decided to go with fresh flowers over the figurines...we couldn't find any that matched "us" since neither one of us wore a dress. The only figurines for two women that I've seen show at least one of them wearing a dress...oh well. We loved our cake anyway.

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Everyone's talking about quinoa and I still hadn't tried it, so I made some last night and brought for lunch today. It turned out really really well. It's kind of a sweet salad that's good hot, warm, cold...whatever. So works well for lunch. Just boiled some quinoa, added cinnamon to taste a tsp or so of brown sugar and a pinch of salt and then chopped up two pears drizzled with lemon juice to keep them from browning and stirred it up. It's like a dessert--so tasty.

The most "authentic" Aztec/Mayan chocolate I've had, based only on actual ability to taste the spice is Vosges Haut Chocolat Red Fire bar. It's a dark chocolate candy bar with cinnamon and ancho chipotle chillies that you can definitely notice. Leaves a little bit of a "bite" when you let the chocolate melt on your tongue. So good. If you try one DON'T pass up on their bacon candy bar--try that too, but be forewarned--they are both addicting.

Growing up in a German family transplanted to the US, I was lucky enough to live near a local German specialty store that provided some favorite foods. When I moved away from the area with the specialty store, I found germandeli.com to be a GREAT resource. Small online import company with excellent customer service. Everything is always shipped in a very careful way, and their products are great. German specialties you just kind find locally--great especially around the holidays.