o christmas treat, o christmas treat...

i love holiday shopping--even when there's a transit strike and i have to walk everywhere and the real feel temperatures are in the teens!

one of my new favorite stores is sur la table--i loved the april cornell 'rose hip' linens for my mom...(i also loved, but didn't end up buying, the riedel o wine tumblers, and the polka dot ice cream bowls and a whole mess of brightly colored silicone spatulas).

i went to the vosges chocolate store on spring street and picked up a couple of the naga and red fire bars and a few boxes of the caramel toffee--all were a big hit. i was glad to hear it--though i am a fan of the vosges wasabi truffles and curry truffles, i hadn't tried the toffee. it looked good, but basically, i crossed my fingers and thought, well, at the very least, the packaging is cute... but the toffee received raves...

i also took a trip uptown to elk candy co, to buy what is purported to be "the best marzipan in nyc." i had walked all over downtown--dean and deluca, balducci's, citarella to go, rocco's pastry shop, bruno's bakery (they had marzipan, but the candies were huge, and like $28./lb!)--and didn't find what i wanted, i was getting tired and frustrated, so elk was to be my last shot. elk is a charming little candy store, and they make the marzipan and chocolates, on site. i was thrilled with their selection...

(i bought an array of tiny fruit candies) and was really pleased with the fresh, light, sweet, almond goodness. it definitely worth the ride to the upper east side. (and thank goodness for the end of the transit strike, otherwise i probably wouldn't have made it uptown!)

and last but not least...i enjoyed my first taste of that seasonal treat, buche de noel. the buche de noel at ceci-cela on spring street has been haunting me for the last couple of weeks--i passed it almost every day, on my way to and from the gym.

how beautiful is this meringue? do you blame me?

and even though my mom is supposed to be watching her cholesterol, she started talking about the buche de noel after having seen it on the food network every day for the last two weeks! so i knew..this is the year to bring a buche de noel to the christmas table...
what i didn't know was that this particular white wonder was not a traditional buche de noel--it had chocolate raspberry filling--and the traditional ones didn't have the meringue icing...i thought that maybe i should just go the traditional route since it was our first time to try it, but oh that meringue...the fella at ceci-cela could see i was torn, and he assured me, by making some kind of whooshy woohoo sound, and saying "it is so delicious, really, you will love it..."

he was right.