Guest Post by Stephanie Stiavetti: Crème Fraîche Stuffed Asian Pears

For the next few weeks I'm taking a long overdue vacation. This is also my first vacation from blogging EVER as on previous escapes I always took my computer. It's one that is soundly needed. I'm touring China and Tibet with my mom and enjoying the sights, sounds, and flavors of locations such as Shanghai, Lhasa, and the Yangtze River. I cannot wait.

As beautiful as China is I cannot blog while there as blogger sites are blocked by the Communist Party of China (as is Facebook, my e-mail, Twitter, etc.). As such, I'm proud to announce Vanilla Garlic's first ever guest posts.

This second of two guest posts was written by my partner in culinary crime Stephanie Stiavetti. Her blog, The Culinary Life, is one filled with Gluten-Free Recipes and plenty of wit. She's also a well-known expert on the subject of SEO and an amazing freelance web and tech guru. So much so she's spoken on the subjects at many blogging conferences and has been hired by many big name bloggers you've definitely heard of.

Now, Stephanie and I agree on a lot of things. However, one of the few things we do disagree on is the subject of pears. I think they kick ass. She wants them expunged from human taste.

Except, that is, for one particular exception...

~Garrett

-Delicious pears and dairy.-

My name is Stephanie and I'm a sugar addict.

My family is bred of fine, sugar-obsessed stock, and as a result, I'm one of those people who finds themselves elbow-deep in a bowl of M&Ms before consciously realizing there's candy in the room.

As I've gotten older health issues have forced me to seriously scale back on my sugar intake, and this unfortunate fact has put a damper on my culinary enjoyment.

Avoiding sugar has been a struggle, especially with tempting blogs (such as this one) occupying my attention every day. Yet summer is an easy time of year to avoid refined sugar because we're surrounded by so much fruit that it's impossible to ignore the bounty of fresh stonefruit, berries, and jams that dominate produce displays. As summer turns cool, though, our natural sweets selection changes. White nectarines give way to apples, and root vegetables start replacing the colorful berries that monopolize local farmers markets from June through August.

While I find it terribly depressing to see summer fruit season end, there's a shining light piercing the early dusk of these chilly September evenings: Asian pears.

First, a confession - I hate pears. HATE them. Their gritty texture makes me want to rip every tooth out of my mouth and hurl them across the room. When I was little, my mom would try to feed me pears and I'd projectile spew them straight into her lap. So, as you can imagine, I was a little trepidatious about trying Asian pears.

I remembered seeing Asian pears at the grocery store as a kid; the produce manager would wrap each individual pear in a stretchy foam sleeve to keep the delicate flesh from bruising as the fruits sat stacked in shoulder-high mountains. I can't tell you how many times my grandmother smacked me up beside the head for stealing those sleeves, sliding them up my arms and running around the produce section like I was the ninja protectress of our local Safeway. As a staunch pear-hater, that was the only pleasant pear memory I had filed away in my mind.

Guest Post by Irvin Lin: Black Garlic & Vanilla Bean Marble Brownies

For the next few weeks I'm taking a long overdue vacation. This is also my first vacation from blogging EVER as on previous escapes I always took my computer. It's one that is soundly needed. I'm touring China and Tibet with my mom and enjoying the sights, sounds, and flavors of locations such as Shanghai, Lhasa, and the Yangtze River. I cannot wait.

As beautiful as China is I cannot blog while there as blogger sites are blocked by the Communist Party of China (as is Facebook, my e-mail, Twitter, etc.). As such, I'm proud to announce Vanilla Garlic's first ever guest posts.

The first if from my buddy, Irvin Lin. His blog, Eat The Love, has only been around a short time but already possess a cult following for his inventive recipes, engaging voice, and sense of style.

Irvin has done something I've never been able to do: actually combine vanilla and garlic into a unique and musky-sweet dessert.

Bravo, Irvin. Bravo.

~Garrett

-Chocolate, vanilla, and garlic. Together at last!-

I woke up on a sunny bright day in Maui on the sixth day of my month long stay with my partner, AJ. Through saving, planning and a little bit of luck, we had been able to do an extended trip to Hawaii. My partner is a teacher and had the summer off and, for the first time in I don’t know how long, I did not have a day job and could freelance wherever I wanted to.

I logged onto my computer and sitting in my inbox was a message from Garrett, both flattering and pleading, asking me if I would consider writing a guest post for him, as he went off on his own extended trip to China and Tibet. I immediately said, “Of course,” and then went into a minor panic about what to write about.

It’s easy when I’m writing for my own blog (I have no standards there, I just ramble about my own life stuff) but a guest post for someone else should probably be a little more… ahem… well put together. However, I went about the rest of the day in my usual vacation way (going to the beach, laying in the sun, getting slightly sunburned) with that email in the back of my mind, not sure what I was going to write about, but hopefully I would think of something.

-Marbled goodness.-

That day in paradise did not go well. I had a rather adventurous evening the night before, with my partner and I ending up in a new friend’s hotel hot tub and there were large plastic tumblers of wine involved (it all sounded like a good idea at the time, and not the least bit sordid as it does now, in retrospect). I was not feeling so hot at the beach, which of course, was one of the more difficult beaches to get to (why do the gay beaches have to be the ones that you have to climb over treacherous terrain to get to?). When I told my partner I was having gastrointestinal issues – something you really don’t want to have on a remote gay nude beach with no restrooms (did I not mention it was nude?) – we left shortly before what I’m sure was a spectacular sunset. I was too concerned about my stomach to pay any attention to what I might have missed.

I spent the next six hours curled up in my bed, fading in and out of consciousness, while my partner fretted and came in with various beverages and medications for me. Perhaps it was the wine, the not-so-sanitary hot tub, the strong tropical sun that I still wasn’t use to, dehydration, or a combination of it all, but I pretty much felt like I was going to die.

When I woke up right after midnight, exhausted but very much happy to be alive without any real urgency to run to the bathroom, I knew exactly what I was going to write about for Garrett. Black Garlic Dark Chocolate and Vanilla Bean White Chocolate Marble Brownies.