yup.
all together, creamed and crushed and squished and pressed into
a dense doughy ball of pre-pastry preparedness.
mmmmmm.
i have a tart shaper.
i do.
it looks like the smallest wooden dumbbell,
but it's the smartest tool in my tiny tartlet arsenal.
what?
that's a real thing, neighbors.
my mini muffin pan, and a well-floured tart shaper,
and that dough, after a short stint in the refrigerator,
for the basis of an adorable miniaure tart cup creation.
i mean it.
puff pastry cups to hold all the new hottness are what i'm all about today.
check the tart-but-actually-very-sweet-type teleport:
you'd better believe that's expert!
mmhmm.
crispy-edged buttery creamchee' cups,
and silky chocolate pastry creme occupying all the empty space in each one-
it's richer and firmer than pudding,
it's softer than fudge,
it's better than either,
and it lives very happily in the middle of all of that cutesy cuppiness.
word.
did i roll 'em all in shredded unsweetened flaky coconut?
use your eyes, for goodness' sake, kids.
of COURSE i did.
why?
because i'm not a complete A*-hole, for starters,
and because i'm about that complimentary complementary coconut cooperation, too.
i mean,
chocolate and coconut are pretty much best friends...
well, whenever peanut butter isn't there to vie for all the attention, anyway.
right now, though-
it's chocolate and coconut, and activated flavors in full effect.
crema de coco?
it's coconut sugar syrup!
that's rad.
coconut flour, and crushed-up coconut, and coconut oil, and coconut milk,
all whipped and spun and whisked and whirled into a no-joke burly
swirly heavily-laced pasty batch of frosty frosting freshness,
made possible in part by the crema de coco blops that smoothed the whole thing out,
and sugared the whole thing up,
and made some minor magic start poppin' off in the kitchen.
c'mon.
that's good, right?
yeah.
i thought so, too-
but,
good is not enough-
too much is the right amount.
therefore,
there's also ground chocolate fairy dust drifting down on each one,
for a final exxxtra extra component in the new new hotter hottness.
yeah!
they're tarts,
but,
they're sweet.
you get it.
*
there sure is a whole lot of night to fight through,
and it doesn't get easier the more of them you make it past.
plus,
with the seasons getting ready to transition,
and the woodsly goodness always running faster towards fall,
the dark is showing up earlier, and staying longer, too.
it's getting a whole lot more noticeable these days.
i wonder if the full moon casting long shadows on tall trees
is making me see more deepening dark tidings,
or if that's just the unfolding plot of a secret universal plan getting illuminated
by blue spotlight floods in the night-terrorizing recesses of the evening's creases and cracks.
i don't know for sure,
but i am well and fully aware of the duration that each black patch extends along,
and spans in expressive ever-expanding expanses as the searchlight in the sky travels
an arc across horizon to horizon.
yikes.
it's sneaky, the darkness.
it moves.
and while i'm baking away the hours,
it's plotting and planning new ways to take up more time and space,
and even the magnetic rays of lunar luminescence have no effective means
of preventing it.
sure,
those beams have got some power.
i mean,
they tug and tear at the fabric of iron-filled flesh,
and draw out the slivers of savagery and ferocious furious battle-beastliness...
...but the dark?
it just waits.
and when the waning is underway,
it comes back sooner, and stays a minute more,
and will for months yet.
there are circles that overlap,
and as the year moves away from summer,
the interconnected rings of spirit and memory
spiral away from light and heat,
and from a coiled counterclockwise corkscrew,
gloom, doom, cold, and dark all rotate their way into the inner circles
of time and place like an augur digging down
and dredging up whatever should've stayed buried. damn.
that's the way it goes.
why?
because nature wins,
and the winner does what she wants.
meanwhile,
i'm just over here baking treats,
trying to mix coconut and chocolate in a way that seems bright, light, and warm.
i'm creating my own counterpoints to the decline of this year.
but,
i'm also eating them.
which, in turn, contributes to the decline of my counter offers.
it's a continual circle, a slow-motion cycle,
not so much vicious as languid,
but totally inevitable for all the speed it lacks.
the year is ending,
the treats are getting eaten,
and all of it is exhausting in all the ways that word implies.
yeah.
this is What Is,
and the daylight isn't revealing anything different;
never quiet, never soft.....
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