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Strange to think that just this morning, young Lloyd and I were eating room service breakfast and building forts out of our pillows for maximum teevee-watching comfort in our nice room at the Westin in Providence.  It seems like mere hours ago that I said to him, “would you like to go to Providence for our anniversary?” and he agreed, sweetly.  Now we are back home, trying to ease gently back into our everyday lives.  This might not seem like such a grand task, considering that we were only out of town for two days, but it’s amazing how quickly one can acclimate oneself to wandering around the Culinary Museum at Johnson & Wales, talking shop with the workstudy students in the library and poring over baking ephemera; trooping through the nifty used bookstore Cellar Stories and eating up a good two hours in the stacks; and eating and drinking very, very well, from the split of Chateauneuf du Pape we used to kick off the weekend, to our anniversary dinner at Al Forno, which has left me lost in rapture and admiration for the past 24 hours.

I had high hopes for a good night’s frenetic writing ahead of me, but said frenetic writing will have to wait, as I am just beat, beat like a biscuit.  However, even though I am a wuss, I am not a wuss who has completely forgotten her manners.  Thanks to everyone who has been nice enough to add me to their blogrolls.  You will be on mine very shortly.  To Kitty, who responded to my plaintive candyfreak cries by sending me several packages of Valomilks and a pair of Chase’s Cherry Mashes:  you are a good, good friend.  As soon as I can figure out how to send an egg cream via the mails, you’ll be the first to know.  To A.K., the self-described Professional Slacker (even though I don’t know how slack one can be if one can bake such beautiful pies like those):  the apple butter recipes are on the way.  To Kimberly:  I have scheduled Lemon Curd Night for Wednesday, at which point your prize will be on the way.  To anyone else who has shown me kindness over the past few weeks:  hang on.  Cluefulness is on the way.

Because I know it would be unfair to vanish for the night without giving up any of the beans about Al Forno, I’ll leave you with the Number One Reason Why Al Forno is My New Favorite Restaurant:  All desserts are baked/roasted/otherwise prepared to order, so the customer is asked to place his/her dessert order at the same time s/he places the rest of the order.  I ordered a raspberry upside-down cake.  The cake was a yellow cake, enriched with creme fraiche; the raspberry topping included fresh raspberries and pecans.  That cake arrived at my table hot, the berries glistening, a little boule of creme fraiche melting over the surface.  As lovely as the fruit was, the cake was lovelier, egg and creme fraiche and butter and vanilla melting all over my tongue and palate.  I could hardly make a dent in my entree, I thought I would be too full for even espresso, but I ate every last bite of that cake, all the while thinking about how I take yellow cake for granted, how I always think of it as the boring photography on a box of Duncan Hines mix, how easily swayed I am by the promise of chocolate mayonnaise cake with vanilla buttercream, or gingerbread so hot that it makes my mouth tingle and my blood feel clean, and how, really, I should reacquaint myself with the subtle yet deep pleasure of a good basic yellow butter cake.  No buttercream, thanks.  This is a rendezvous that should remain as unfettered as possible.