New Year's up North

I spent the days leading up to New Year's first snowboarding at Cascade Mountain in Wisconsin, which included a drive to Devil's Lake State Park and the nearby towns of Baraboo and Portage, and then hanging out around Evanston, Ill., on our last day. Lots of Wii was played.

Brazos Bend State Park

I'm finally getting around to going through the pictures I took over the holiday break. While I was home in Houston, I went with Vannie to Brazos Bend State Park, about an hour south of us.



It was a great opportunity to test out my new camera. There was lots of wildlife, including not a few alligators, to focus in on! We ended our outing with a lovely snack of beignets at Crescent City Beignet; I haven't had any since my April 2008 trip to the Big Easy with Sally.

Old-fashioned chocolate cake

Okay, this chocolate cake recipe is just ridiculous: Vinegar, yes. Butter, eggs and milk? No. Apparently it's a holdover from war-time recipes affected by rationed staples. But trust me on this: There's some delicious magic at work here.

Recipes don't get much simpler than this one, and you probably have all the ingredients in your pantry already. My favorite part is how the vinegar begins softly fizzing the second you add it as it interacts with the baking soda. The only change I made was to reduce the sugar by half a cup, so I used 1-1/2 cups. In my quest to get by on as little sugar as possible in baking, I may even try just 1 cup next time.

I have only recently come to the revelation that chocolate cake, unlike chocolate-chip cookies, taste best the next day rather than straight out of the oven. This cake wasn't bad straight out of the oven -- but 24 hours later? Mind-blowingly scrumptious. The cool-down leaves it unbelievably moist and the sweetness, more pronounced. I have to say this baby even rivals the chocolate zucchini cake I tested last fall and publicly debuted at Christmas.