Seasonal Sunday--Lemon Yogurt Cake

Mme. Bonne Amie made us some delicious chocolate lava cupcakes last weekend for dessert. She sent some home with me after a long lunch even though we'd already enjoyed them with whipped cream and artfully drizzled raspberry sauce. Of course the kids and Mon Mari are les gourmands and ate them up by Monday night. She'd sent them home in a plastic container so it was only natural that I wanted to return the container full of something. Something tasty.
The Baby and I made a big, golden lemon yogurt cake in a very American bundt pan. He brought in his step stool and helped add in the sugar, lemon zest and juice, eggs one by one and yogurt and he held the the mixer as we blended it all together; tasting and mmmming and smooching as we went. We'd take a lick of the yogurt lid, smooch and then mix some more.
This recipe is a winner found in its original version here that I've used many times before with the natural yogurt that it calls for.  But this time I decided to use passion fruit yogurt and up the zest to give it a little something more interesting. I hope you like it. Mme. Bonne Amie and The Baby sure did.

Lemon-Yogurt Cake

butter and sprinkle a bundt pan with sugar

1 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 cups full-fat passion fruit yogurt
3 teaspoons lemon zest
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 cups all purpose flour

Pre-heat oven to 350F/185C

Mix the vegetable oil, melted butter and sugar with an electric mixer until well blended. It helps if you've got a fat little toddler hand holding onto the mixer with you.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing between each addition.
Add the yogurt, licking the lid, and blend well. Add lemon zest, juice, and vanilla extract. We use organic eggs so I didn't feel bad about sharing a taste or two at this point. More mmmmming and smooching.
Mix dry ingredients and then add to the yummy lemony yogurt mixture. Blend very well.
Pour into a greased and sugared non-stick bundt pan, wiping any excess off the sides.
Put into the pre-heated oven and cook for 60-70 minutes.
Allow to cool completely and then turn onto a serving platter or cake stand.
Amaze your family and friends with the beauty of your golden, raised and beautifully moist lemon yogurt cake.

Public Service Announcement or Mon Pouce, Mon Poor, Poor Pouce

Here's a quickie. And a suggestion. Some advice for you my lovely readers and friends.
Do not attempt to cut onions in half in a dimly lit kitchen, in a hurry, and with a thumb that has a deathwish.

I did the above and now along with learning how to say, 'I cut my thumb with a knife' in French I have won the award for clumsiest person in my family. I've also been told by Mon Mari that yes, he does think I will lose the very tip of mon pouce. Thanks so much for the support and now I know that as with all things I can find a way to blame it on him...no one else will ever want me with a disfigured pouce. Is it just me or does thumb sound really dirty in French?
And so I've found out just how useful this adorable opposing digit really is. The thumb helps one a) tie shoes b) button buttons c) change diapers d) fasten things like bras and trousers d) wash hair and hands e) hitch a lift f) eat with a fork g) tickle someone h) prevent someone from tickling you i) open packages j) braid and put hair into a ponytail and many more that I'm sure to discover.
I can't recommend it.

I can't do this, for example

That's all from this end. Have a wonderful weekend. See you Sunday when my seasonal recipe will feature again...only with no onions. You know, 'cause of the thumb thing.....

Catacombs of Paris

When I was in Paris in the fall we went to the Catacombs. I don't know what I was expecting. If I'd read anything about it beforehand besides where the entrance was and that it was a collection of bones (understatement of the century) perhaps I'd have been more prepared.
You enter at one part of the city unaware and bubbly and emerge blinking and stunned at another.
As we waited in line to buy our tickets I started to get nervous. I think it was mostly down to the signs posted that suggested young children and those with a weak heart or 'sensitive or nervous nature' should reconsider. I asked myself, 'am I of a nervous nature?', 'am I a child?', 'am I scared of being way down underground Paris in a tunnel of bones?'
It turns out that the answers to the above questions are all yes.
The signs tell you there are 130 steps down into the depths and 83 steps to come back up. They also tell you it is a cool 14 degrees Celsius and that there are no toilets. Please consider: deep down under Paris, cemeteries' worth of bones, dark and creepy, a bit cold and nowhere to pee. Of course there's no toilets...that would be weird, disrespectful somehow, but isn't it a strange curse of  human nature that the moment someone tells you that you'll be freaked out and may want to pee your pants that you immediately need to go real bad. We all three did. And we all three held it, giggling nervously.
As we descended, following the winding, dark corridors it became eerily silent. It felt like the scene in Eclipse when all the unsuspecting tourists served themselves up for vampire dinner. We joked that if we saw Dakota Fanning we'd be out of there. There were also a couple of Chilean miner references as we tried to imagine them jogging up and down their subterranean prison.
The reality of it was more sobering. It took forever to wind our way down; first navigating slippery stone floors with little light and low tunneled stone ceilings dripping water, then taking the steep 103 stairs further down. As we finally entered the catacombs proper the urge to pee, cry, shiver was overwhelming. No more jokes came to mind as I looked at row upon row of what was left of thousands of people. Femur bones artfully stacked with knee joints forming designs, skulls of all sizes placed periodically, vacant eye sockets and cartilage-free noses looking down through time; strangely similar and familiar. It made me feel sad and small and painfully miniscule and human; transient.
We passed row upon row of bones, encroaching and towering over the pathway they formed for we tourists to gawk and sigh and gasp at the truth of the matter. Tears stung my eyes and found their way down my cheeks as I thought of all the lives lived, love and hardship, disease amid joy, hunger, belief, hope and the myriad elements of the human condition reduced to the bones surrounding us.
No one talked. We just kept walking through the bones, translating quotes from the Bible, philosophers, Shakespeare on the demise of we humans, on the gift of life, the beauty of our days here among the living, the inevitable truth of time passing and leading us here.
I suppose this is not the most uplifting topic for the new year. But it is true. And it makes me think about how to live this one life I've been given. Is there an original thought out there? Is there an feeling no one has ever felt; a dream longed for by no one else but you or me? The answer is no. Make your life what you can. Make it the best. Live it to the fullest. That's what I took from being hit by the realization of all those bones.
When we came out on the other end the path spit us out across the street and into the waiting arms of a shop. The nice French guy with a slight Australian accent to his English had done the smartest thing you can ever imagine. He had a sign in the window offering the use of his toilet for a euro. Either that or you could buy glow-in-the-dark skeletons, creepy bone masks, catacomb t-shirts, macabre books and deathly trinkets and go to the bathroom for free. My friend bought me a little button that says, 'I survived the catacombs.' And I did. And now the rest is out there. Worthy of more than mere survival.