Loco for Coco

Ta da! Here's the latest painting from my studio-- at least the latest one that has had time to dry! I have been painting like a mad woman lately. I have lots of wet canvases in the studio and more paintings to post as soon as they're dry.

This piece is for the shop window at Loco for Coco gourmet chocolates in Greensboro! I've started working there on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I love it! Not only have I gotten to sample some mighty-fine chocolate confections, but I've also met lots of happy people coming in to choose their chocolate treats! It's a hard life, I tell ya...

Loco for Coco is celebrating their third birthday soon, so mark your calendars for Thursday, October 7 from 5-7 p.m. and come in to see my latest painting and to sample a chocolate martini! Yumm...

Take That Martha Stewart!

Last weekend I saw the movie, It's Complicated, with Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin. I loved it so much that I vowed to conquer the chocolate croissant this weekend. Starting last Monday, I made the dough and then followed very specific patterns of rolling and folding to create lots of luscious croissant layers. This morning, we woke up to a blanket of snow outside our window and I knew the time had come to bake!

I rolled out the dough packet and sliced it into triangles using a pizza cutter. Next, I placed little pieces of chocolate on each triangle and rolled those up into the famous crescent shape. Letting the dough rise for an entire hour was hard-- but worth it. I baked those suckers 20 minutes at 400 degrees and it was heaven. The whole house smelled like butter. Chocolate croissants taste even better served on wedding china with a fresh cappuccino. We didn't even need lunch. These were even better than I expected. If you're bored during a snow day and want to whip up your own batch of these delights, visit: http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/croissants