Latest news with #Marzipan
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Calico Cat Spotted 'Skateboarding' on Lazy Susan Gets Points for Creativity
Calico Cat Spotted 'Skateboarding' on Lazy Susan Gets Points for Creativity originally appeared on PetHelpful. When you have a curious cat at home, nothing is safe from their wandering paws. After all, cats love to climb, scratch, and squeeze into tight spaces, and when a cat is determined, not much can stop them. Luckily, many cats are also light on their feet and aware of their surroundings. They can be surprisingly nimble if they put their minds to it! Whether they're scaling walls or skateboarding on a Layz Susan like Marzipan the calico cat, our feline friends are parkour experts. Marzipan has been having the time of her life ever since her family brought home a new Lazy Susan for their table. It seems like a helpful tool to have for family dinners, but it's also the coolest new toy for this tri-colored cat and her fur siblings. Somebody call Tony Hawk, because this cat is about to give him a run for his money! Marzipan is a natural skateboarder, from the way she gains momentum to the way she tucks her body in to spin faster. "Be careful," a commenter warned. "If she spins too much, she might take flight." Flying cats would unleash a level of chaos the world isn't yet ready for, but fortunately, they're still fiction (for now, anyways). As another viewer pointed out, this Lazy Susan makes the perfect cat toy for felines with short attention spans. When they're done spinning, they'll have a blast pushing off all the dishes you place on the table to serve! Marzipan, the calico kitty, may be one in a million, but she's not the only one who likes using the Lazy Susan as a ride. Just ask her feline brother, Berlioz! These chaotic cats couldn't be any cuter, even if they make themselves comfortable on the dining room furniture. If that's the sacrifice needed to raise healthy, happy cats, then so be it! Why Do Cats Climb? It's no secret that cats love to crawl and climb. After all, that's why we have feline home accessories like cat trees and towers! Sometimes, though, this isn't enough to satisfy a curious kitty, which is why they make their own adventures as they go. Cats have always had a natural inclination to climb. This trait has been passed down from their wild ancestors, although some cats may be more persistent climbers than others. You might have a cat like Spider-Man, who enjoys scaling walls and reaching high places. Alternatively, you could have playful and curious felines that have swapped climbing for spinning!
New York Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
The Ascent of the Princess Cake
New Twists on a Classic Swedish Dessert Princess cakes didn't always have such a regal name. In the early 20th century, when the Swedish home economics teacher Jenny Åkerström invented the sweets, she called them green cakes, a reference to the color of their marzipan shells. But the daughters of Prince Carl, Duke of Västergötland, who were her students, developed such a fondness for the confections — which are typically dome shaped and contain layers of fluffy cake, pastry cream, raspberry jam and whipped cream — that they soon became known as prinsesstårta. Before long, they were the country's most iconic cake, sold in bakeries nationwide. Now they've caught on well beyond Scandinavia. In Jersey City, N.J., the baker Paris Starn, 31, creates cakes from pistachio sponge enveloped in pistachio marzipan. She slices them into rectangles, which she then wraps in marzipan, letting the centers sink and filling the craters with pink rose petals. The princess cake at Lost Larson, a Scandinavian-inspired bakery in Chicago, skews more traditional, though the chef-owner Bobby Schaffer, 39, adds a thin base of crunchy roasted almond praline. The pastry chef Hannah Ziskin, 37, a co-owner of the pizza-focused Quarter Sheets in Los Angeles, alternates olive oil chiffon cake with vanilla bean custard and raspberry jam and tops it all with mascarpone whipped cream and salted marzipan, the color of which might be aquamarine or blood red, depending on the day. After tasting Ziskin's version, the Berkeley, Calif.-based baker Christine Yang, 35, was inspired by the 'harmony between all the components,' she says, and has been adapting her own recipe ever since, making one with elderflower crème diplomate and plum-and-black pepper jam. But perhaps the best measure of the princess cake's popularity is inedible: Last winter on a trip to New York, Richard Christiansen, 49, the Los Angeles-based founder of the lifestyle brand Flamingo Estate, became so fixated on the lemon-chiffon one served at Sant Ambroeus on Madison Avenue that he ate a slice every day of his visit. A few months later, his company debuted what it calls its 'most delicious' candle yet: the sweetly scented Prinsesstårta. — Martha Cheng Lea Colombo's Monumental Stone Furniture Born and raised in Cape Town, Lea Colombo moved at 18 to Paris, where she established herself as a fashion photographer for brands like Prada and Chanel. Yet in recent years, after stints in London and New York, she began to miss her hometown, eventually buying a house there. Feeling invigorated by the landscape, she started creating sculptures in 2021 out of red jasper, a stone found in South Africa's Northern Cape province as well as Namibia. Russet-hued and intricately veined, the material is 'harder than steel,' she says. Last year, she made furniture from it, selling some of her first creations — a coffee table, a dining table and matching low stools — to Matthieu Blazy, the artistic director of Chanel. Now, Colombo, 32, is crafting bar consoles as well as stools and tables to order, all featuring red jasper and semiprecious gems sourced from nearby mines. The pieces have an organic, almost primitive feel and are often monumental in scale: Her Twin Flame dining table — a slab bisected by a natural fissure and mounted on a base made from irregularly shaped blocks of amethyst, rose quartz, dragon jasper, chalcedony, sodalite and tiger's-eye — weighs more than 1,600 pounds. 'I'm attracted to the colors of these stones,' she says. 'They hold energy and frequency and have the power to excite.' — Kin Woo Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
