I have a major sweet tooth; I blame it on being a Libra, that stance does not hold up too well by the way with my health conscious friends.  So to spread a little sweetness on this Friday the 13th, I wanted to share one of my favourite pound cake recipes with you.  This recipe is from Art Smith who used to be Oprah’s personal chef and who is also the owner of the restaurant, Table 52 in Chicago.

Let me know how it turns out

Gina

Lemon Sour Cream Pound Cake:

by Art Smith

Sour cream is the secret ingredient in many a pound cake. This one is based on a lemon pound cake recipe from my family’s recipe collection.

Servings: Makes 12 servings

Ingredients:

Directions:

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 325°F. Butter and flour a 10-inch fluted tube (Bundt) pan, and tap out the excess flour.

Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together; set aside. Beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl with a hand-held electric mixer on high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then the vanilla and zest. On low speed, add the flour in 3 additions, alternating with 2 additions of the sour cream, beginning and ending with the flour. Beat until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl often with a rubber spatula. Spread evenly in the pan.

Bake until a wooden skewer inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, about 1 1/4 hours.

Bring the lemon juice, zest, water and sugar to a boil over high heat and cook until it is reduced to 1/2 cup, about 15 minutes. Allow syrup to cool before drizzling onto the cake.

Transfer the cake to a wire rack and cool for 10 minutes. Drizzle half the syrup over the cake. Invert onto the rack and brush with the remaining syrup. Cool completely.

Recommended technique: If a recipe calls for room temperature eggs, place the uncracked eggs in a bowl of hot water for 5 minutes so they can lose their chill.

I have been slacking when it comes to blogging.  Life is all over the place right now, literally, we are moving out of our first home and will be in between homes until our new place is ready in November.  So it has been a little crazy but we have it all figured out, for now at least.

I am spending all my free time on getting outside the box and exposing myself to different art forms and just looking for ideas and inspiration.  I am dedicated to taking my art to the next level, I believe that we never stop growing and learning and in other to do that I want to expose myself to as much as possible.

I want to leap out of my comfort zone and explore things that I would normally think too weird or different.  Art is in everything and it is time to embrace a new perspective.

I came across this teaser for an art exhibit by Gregory Colbert that is breathtakingly beautiful and truly an amazing experience.  I am better for having experienced it and I hope you will enjoy it too.

Please let me know if you have come across any inspiring art lately.

Celebrating love and life,

Gina

So, I was watching Oprah a while back and she had Will Smith and his entire family on her show.  The family was there for the release of the karate kid and as well to talk about why the Smith family remains strong when so many other celebrities and regular people can’t seem to keep it together.  There was one moment that touched me so deeply that I had tears streaming down my face. (this happens 90% of the time when watching Oprah)  Oprah asked Will, if it was true that he flew home every weekend (13hr flight one way) from China to spend time with his first son Trey Smith while filming the karate kid?  Will responded with a resounding yes, it is true.  It was a life changing experience for me and just thinking about it bring back the emotions I felt watching the show.

For some reason days later this emotional exchange was still on my mind and I was joking around with a friend of mine and was talking about the episode and said that I wish I could be adopted by the Smith’s.  She then said jokingly, you should blog about it.  I sat there and thought about it, I am a grown woman, I really don’t want the Smith’s to literally adopt me but I would like to know the feeling of having that kind of fierce, openly expressed, parental love.

In realizing this, it helped me to see that I can’t change the past or expect my parents to be the fairytale story that I created as a child.  Instead I can only focus on who I want to be for my daughter and that is to be her soft place to fall.  I can adopt some of the things that the Smith family does instead of sitting there wishing that they would adopt me.  It reminded me that we build a life by deciding how we respond to what happens to us rather than just accepting what happens to us.

No more talk of being adopted, instead lets see what great tools and advice we can adopt from others.

Celebrating life and love,

Gina