Pan Seared Duck Breasts with Mushroom Sauce

This wonderful pan-seared duck breast recipe is a follow-up to the duck confit recipe that I posted last June on using all parts of a duck. Shame on me for taking 8 months to complete the second half of the post. Discipline has been my strong suit, and gets harder these days as I am more tired than a Whole Foods paper bag reused 10 times over.  I have only 9 more weeks until my due date, and lethargy has set in early.

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The Courage to be Alone

I saved this post for after Valentine's Day because it seemed out of place to talk about being alone on a holiday dedicated to coupledom. While I choose to keep this blog a positive space to record some of my favorite recipes, thoughts and memories, some of the most important lessons stem from the more difficult challenges in life. So this is a more somber post that was the ironic inspiration for my last post when I wrote about how lucky I am to have a such supportive husband. It's much easier to tell only half of the story, and while this is particularly hard for me to share, I thought it was important.

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Absolutely Sinful Flourless Chocolate Cake Recipe

Many years ago at an alley way entrance to the Irish Bank, a messy dive bar in the financial district of San Francisco, I laid eyes on a handsome gentleman. I still remember how gracefully the warm sunset cast an orange light onto his angelic brown locks, and the bright clarity of his hazel green eyes.

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El's Ultimate Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache Frosting

What does the perfect chocolate cupcake taste like to you? My version of good chocolate is a divine symphony of dark moist chocolate cake topped with a lustrous, glossy, silky smooth icing, one that straddles the hemispheres of celestial lofty whipped cream and the full-bodied lushness of melted bittersweet chocolate.

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