Sunday, May 29, 2022

Bakery comparison: Carol's Pastry Shop and Mrs. Backer's Pastry Shop

Carol's lemon tart, eclairs, chocolate donut, maple bar, wedding cookie  Everything was good but the pate choux shells of the eclairs was great. The filling not so much.  Carol's Pastry Shop was established in 1948 in the Salt Lake valley in the sugarhouse area.  Find out more at their site: https://carolspastryshop.wixsite.com/carolspastry



Mrs. Backer's was established in the Salt Lake valley in 1941 in the downtown area.  Find out more at their site: http://www.mrsbackers.com/    Mrs. Backer's chocolate donut, eclairs. wedding cookie, maple bear donut  (continued below)
 

Mrs. Backer's pink sugar cookie, macaroon (coconut based-not the French sandwich macaron cookies), fancy cakes-german chocolate and pineapple rum chocolate.  Everything was great except the maple bear and chocolate donut which were just good.  


We're probably going to stick with Mrs. Backer's Pastry Shop for the most part. We did a taste test of eclairs from all over the valley including Mrs. Backer's Pastry Shop, Carol's Pastry Shop, Granite Bakery, Schmidt's Bakery (which does have the best marzipan cakes in the valley in our opinion!), Leslie's French Pastries, Eclair French Pastry (where the eclairs are $5.00 each and about 20-30% of the time the filling has been curdled inside-do not recommend but should probably try them again), V & R Bakery (which have some of the best danish pastries I've ever had along with rustic breads, cakes, amazing individual deserts,etc...),  and some grocery store eclairs.  Dan's grocery store use to have really good eclairs at some of their stores but now they tastes like the same prepacked filling that is used by grocery store bakeries and even some little individual bakeries.  

Mrs. Backer's eclairs won over-all for their pate choux, house made pastry cream, and chocolate ganache. 

Sunday, May 15, 2022

Sunday Randomness #122 : Two Grandkitties!

Daisy with O
 
Look at those adorable eyes on Miss F!

O exploring when he came to visit.

Miss F in the typical overcast shade of the northwest.

O tuckered himself out exploring.

Miss F sunning-an unusual sight up in her northern state!

O took a day to warm up to his new surroundings while his parents were on vacation but he quickly figured out the cat tunnel and jumping onto furniture.  He particularly delighted in jumping onto things in Daisy's room in the middle of the night and it sounded like he was deliberately knocking things off of the nightstand, desk, dresser, etc...  We still loved having him visit!  Maybe Miss F will come for a visit someday too!

Sunday, April 17, 2022

Sunday Randomness #121 : Imperfect spring haiku...


  Perennially

Spring renews my soul with light

Revered time of year


Want more poetry?  April is national poetry month. Think about subscribing to a poem a day at poets.org https://poets.org/national-poetry-month

Wednesday, April 13, 2022

The ongoing saga of B-B and B Part 8 A giant pink frisbee

To B-B the pink plastic children's pool is just a giant frisbee...


 

B wasn't too happy with B-B trotting around with her pool even if she had chewed holes in it earlier in the summer.

Silly puppies!

Tuesday, April 05, 2022

The ongoing saga of B-B and B Part 7 Bath Time!


We took B-B and B to a local dog washing spot in Feburary.  B-B was pretty relaxed through the whole process.  They have a couple of non-slip steps for the dogs to climb into the bathtub and a gentle cinch leash to keep them safely in the tub while they are being bathed.  The shampoos were all formulated specifically for dogs but we were still careful to just use small amount and kept soap away from their heads.  It's a single hose system where you just turn the dial to the soap you want, water, conditioner, etc...

B-B getting rinsed.


Awww...B looks rather apprehensive about her turn in the tub!


B-B after shaking off the first round of water.  They had multiple drain filters that we emptied after we were done.


B still looks like she'd rather be anywhere but getting a bath.  They were both very calm and quiet. 

There was another dog there being bathed by employees of the shop who yowled and howled through-out his bath.  They said he hates getting baths and is very vocal about it every time even though he's a frequent customer.  

We were glad our two behaved well through the process-even with the noisy blow-dryer (which was fixed on a low temp).

B and B-B were really happy to get home and run crazies around the house, rolling around on the carpet, and shaking excess water everywhere.