December 31st, 2007 ahhh food

happy new year. i’m still eating cheap christmas specials, like the panettone above. i prefer the light, buttery, spicy taste to the heavier cakes and puddings of ye olde englande. christmas usually means looking forward to a good crop of cherries and panettone popping up in shops (cheaper at your continental grocery store). mum used to work in an italian nursing home when we lived in sydney, so she would bring an odd shaped large box with a strange bready thing inside, and i came to expect to eat one every year! nowadays i’m quite happy to lug one home via the train.

panforte i discovered only this christmas though at the department store sales. i held off buying, but found when i returned the next day, other people who liked italian cakes had run off with the lot of them. luckily i’ve had a chance to sample them elsewhere… as with panettone, it’s not overly rich and goes well with coffee. but don’t put it in the fridge, because it makes this dense cake liable to break your cheap knives.