Edible Forests.

This week in astounding Japanese culinary creations: edible forests made using fork "trees" that stand upright when inserted into pre-cut slots on a rectangular wooden board. Jellybean leaves, branches made of fig and prosciutto - how deliciously Alice in Wonderland. 

Related: candy paint, chocolate pencils, and an edible zen garden, with sesame rocks and sugar sand (laments the very funny writer at Spoon & Tamago, "the adorable wooden rake included in the set cannot be eaten").

Via Spoon & Tamago. Made by Tetusin Design Office and local artists for the Okawa Conserve.

Chocolate Pencils.

I'm behind on the times, obviously, because these chocolate pencils by Nendo are over five years old - but as an impassioned sugar fiend and writer (albeit one who rarely writes by hand), I just couldn't let these images fester any longer in my bookmarks folder. Choose a pencil, then "sharpen" over a glossy chocolate cake. Brilliant.

I wrote about Nendo's equally magnificent chocolate paint set last year - check it out, here.

See more at Nendo's website. Found via Arq4Design.

Rainbow Cake.

Initially, I had no plans to post about this cake, which I made two nights ago for my roommate Jamie's birthday, but it was such an improvement over last year's cake (seen here), that I ultimately decided to share. (As my friend Julie wrote in a text message yesterday, "I hope you are blogging the $#!@ out of that cake!") So here it is. Though it was time-consuming, it was actually relatively simple, and while the final result wasn't quite as perfect as creator Kaitlin Flannery's, it still may just be the best thing I've ever made.

Find the recipe by Kaitlin Flannery on Whisk Kid, here. (Also, for kicks, here's a video of Kaitlin recreating the cake with Martha Stewart in 2010.) Happy birthday, Jamie!

The Sea, the Sky, the Dreaming Katydids.

After a dazzling spring-like weekend - during which I attempted to sunbathe in a bright corner of a coffee shop and spent an evening kicking back at a neighborhood bar with this guy (name unknown) - it's winter again, with daytime highs hovering near freezing.

To focus on the positive: beautiful things happen when the temperature drops - biologist Jeff Bowman knows. On his way back from the North Pole in 2009, he found a blooming garden in the midst of an ice-cold sea. "Frost flowers," he tells NPR's Robert Krulwich. "They were everywhere."

Read more about the science behind frost flowers at NPR, here. Photos by Matthias Wietz.

More for Monday:

-My friend Maria (creator of these beautiful prints and calendars) was interviewed on Refinery29 last week. It's worth checking out for her outfits alone, and for her sky-blue toenails.
-Adrianna's doughnut ice cream, served with doughnuts on the side - and sprinkles, of course.
-And this, by Shirley Jackson via Tin House: "…even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream."

Window Watchers.

It snowed all day yesterday - and there was rain and heavy wind, too - so Lily and I stayed inside and made pancakes and watched from our window. At one point in the morning, the top headline on CNN read: Seriously, just stay home. We did, and the day passed slowly: we worked, we read, we went to bed early. Not so long ago, this level of inactivity might have made me antsy; these days, though, I'm learning to embrace seasons, ones that occur internally, and the ones passing outside my living room window. Nothing happened today, I told my parents on the phone last night.

Sometimes, in winter, that's okay.

Wishing you all a very happy Valentine's Day. I'm spending mine outside the city, celebrating a friend's birthday in a very top-secret fashion (more on that later). I'll be back next week with a new POV post; in the meantime, reading material for the weekend:

-Fruit loaf and sponge cake by George Orwell.
-Italian pasta divas.
-Beautiful books with curious titles: Stories of Strange Women; Travels of a Rolled Oat; Stars, etc.
-And lastly, on heartbreak: "[Its] purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open…make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life. And you do."

See you Tuesday. Photos via my Instagram.

Sweet & Art.

Make the world's most beautiful cookies with cutters by Printmeneer of the Netherlands: Mad Hatters, golden ratios, 1990s Volvo station wagons. You can even make a chocolate bar shaped cookie, as shown here. Just what I've always wanted.

Shop these shapes and more at Printmeneer. 

Salt & Straw.

Portland-based ice creamery Salt & Straw has unveiled a new line of five Thanksgiving-inspired flavors, including salted caramel with a brittle made from fried turkey skin, and Apple Cranberry Stuffing, sweetened with celery soda. Other highlights? Pumpkin custard with chèvre, and a sweet potato ice cream with maple marshmallows. 

(You might also consider a little coffee and bourbon to finish.)

Visit the Salt & Straw website, here. Photos via Salt & Straw's Facebook and website.

Ears, Elves, & Illustrated Etiquette.

Three things to share before the weekend: hats with ears (I'd like to find something like the gray hat below and center my entire wardrobe around it for the remainder of winter),

slices of cake the size of thumbprints and doughnuts meant for elves (brilliant creations by the Unconfidential Cook - the doughnuts are actually decorated Cheerios),

                      

and a guide to kissing, written by a seventeen-year-old in 1976, and illustrated nearly forty years later by her daughter, artist Hallie Bateman.

Hope you all enjoy the weekend! What are your plans? I'm going to a friend's apartment tonight for cocktails, catching up with my pal Bekka over pie, and attending a love-themed film festival in Bushwick - why not extend Valentine's Day a few extra days?

Have a wonderful long weekend, and I'll see you Tuesday!

Top images via Arletta Queen and the always-inspiring Le Blog de Betty.

Smoke & Oak.

There may be snow on the ground and slush in the streets, but thanks to this gorgeous - and very intriguing - recipe by Beth Kirby of the blog Local Milk, I'm suddenly dreaming of ice cream. Ice cream flavored with toasted oak chips, smoked sea salt, and a drizzle of black tea caramel, that is.  

Beth originally posted the recipe to Local Milk in late September, writing, "This is a spectral time of year, romantic and eerie and crisp...This ice cream tastes like it." I have a hunch it'd be the perfect treat for the moody-gray days of winter, too. (I'd eat it inside, by the radiator, of course.)

Find the full post at Beth's blog, Local Milk, here. (And be sure to click around while you're there - everything is stunningly beautiful.) See more photos by Beth in her portfolio, here. 

Cake Crush.

Someone help me. I can't stop staring at this beautiful cake, which blogger Cristina Sciarra recommends serving "warmed, with just a swipe of butter." (As evidenced below, frosting - in this case, Swiss cream cheese - doesn't hurt, either.)

Cristina's blog, The Roaming Kitchen, is one of my new favorites (take a look at this gorgeous gallery). It's the complete package: great recipes (Cristina attended Le Cordon Bleu), excellent writing (she also has an MFA in creative writing), and beautiful photography. Check it out.

Happy Tuesday!

Sweet Thing: Toby's Estate.

Anyone who works from home will tell you how important it is to have a place like Toby's. I've parked at one of those little round tables for the better part of many an afternoon - finishing work, paging through a book, soaking in the light from its gigantic front windows (a coffee shop so bright is a rarity). 

But if we're being honest, the real draw for me is the food. Most days, I order the avocado toast (drizzled with tahini and flecked with sea salt), or the yogurt if I'm feeling especially virtuous. Every now and then, though - try as I might to resist - I succumb to this.

Baked at Roberta's, one of my favorite restaurants from my old neighborhood, this sturdy little curlicue of a sticky bun may be gone in three bites, but it packs an exquisitely buttery wallop. Words can't describe how much I look forward to having one on certain slow-moving, cloud-cast days - so I'll let those sublime, glossy drips down the side speak for themselves. 

Read more about Toby's, here. Top image via Dwell.

Dude, Sweet.

It's hard to know which of the delicacies on offer at Dude, Sweet Chocolate to mention first. The artisanal bourbon chocolate sauce known as the "break-up potion"? The chocolate-hazelnut "tub of love", sweetened with condensed milk?  The eucalyptus and honey truffles? The maple waffle cone marshmallows? The cocoa "mulch tea"? 

Have a look for yourself on the Dude, Sweet website, here. Hunger will ensue - don't say I didn't warn you.

Speaking of chocolate, I just read that a "Wonka-like" chocolate factory will be opening in my old neighborhood later this month, and will feature a "Chocolate Jungle." I don't know what that means, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to like it. 

Sweet Thing: Bakeri.

It's both a blessing and a curse to live within blocks of Bakeri. It's the kind of place you'd imagine might exist in the pages of a book, or in a romantic comedy, or in some lovely corner of an adorable Parisian neighborhood (this is coming from someone who's never been to Paris). Its excellent coffee, charming backyard, and cheerful staff (you can purchase the powder-blue jumpsuits they wear) make it one of my most beloved Brooklyn haunts. 

What's best, and also most dangerous: its glass cases are stocked daily with an abundance of alluring treats like this one, the curiously-named skolebrød (Norwegian for "school bread"). Pillow-soft, with a shower of sweet coconut and a velvety vanilla custard center, it is, dare I say, even better than a doughnut. And true to its name, it's also the perfect pastry to ring in September, a month I'll always associate with the buzz of going back to school. 

I'll take another, please.

Top two photos by Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times.

Buildings, Bowties, and a Beautiful Dessert.

Three online discoveries that made me smile over the weekend:

1) Illustrator James Gulliver Hancock's attempt to draw every building in New York. Here are just a few of many, including my favorite, Pete's Candy Store in Williamsburg. (Thanks to Curiosity Counts for the introduction.)

2) These handmade accessories for dogs, which are both adorable and ridiculous. They're ridiculously adorable, really. See more at Charlie Hearts Diesel, here. 

3) These ice cream waffle sandwiches from Martha Stewart, which absolutely look like heaven. (Thank you, Satsuki, for pinning them!)

Happy Monday, everyone! 

Sweet Thing: Marlow & Sons.

Despite the many culinary wonders Williamsburg has to offer (a new restaurant seems to open up weekly these days), Marlow & Sons remains steadfast at the top of my list. It's cozy and community-oriented, and the menu - which changes regularly - always manages to be both mindblowing-ly delicious and completely unpretentious. The restaurant also houses a small general store that stocks everything from soap to sheepskin. It's the perfect place to spend a weekend afternoon.

So when my pal Bekka and I found ourselves stranded there during a surprise downpour on Sunday, we were happy to buy a few treats and settle in to wait out the storm. While Bekka sipped her coffee, I tucked into a hefty serving of this - can you guess what it is? 

If you answered black pepper ice cream (which I'm sure you did), you're exactly right. Creamy, canary-colored, and only mildly peppery, it's like vanilla ice cream with an attitude. A perfect hot-and-cold treat on a day with such moody weather. It also may be the most unusual ice cream flavor I've ever tried - great inspiration for the ice-cream making I'm hoping to do this summer! 

What's the most memorable flavor you've tried? Have any favorite ice cream recipes to share? Please do!

Visit the Marlow & Sons website, here. Shop Marlow Goods, here.

Candy Cravings.

A few charming chocolates, just for fun. Favorites include a set of dark chocolate goose eggs stuffed with bacon caramel, French hot chocolate on a stick, and Jackson Pollack-inspired "Art to Eat".

From top to bottom: "The Goose's Golden Eggs: Bacon & Eggs," $22; Chocolate Googly Eyes, $10; French Dark Hot Chocolate on a Stick, Service for 2, $7.50; Berkeley London chocolate bar; Avant Garde chocolate bars, $25.

Also worth noting? These chocolate-filled toadstools, and a beautiful box of candy-coated "river rocks".

Hope your week's off to a sweet start!