Choice Designs: dancer and dessert

Anna Pavlova was considered the greatest ballerina of her time. She was born in 1881. She brought ballet to the world in the 1920's as she toured the world. In 1926 she toured New Zealand and in 1929 she returned to that corner of the globe when she toured Australia. With her grace and elegance I am sure she inspired many a dancer and became the picture synonymous with the image of dancer conjured in the minds of thousands of people.

Around the same time a dessert started appearing in both New Zealand and Australia -- it was called a pavlova. I first had a pavlova in Stratford, Canada at the Olde English Parlour in Stratford, Canada. Never before had I experienced such a thing and wondered how I had gone so long without experiencing this dessert that seemed next to godliness.

The fact that I had it at all was an amazing twist of fate ** this is romantic so I am adding it in here. ** Everything was going right for Steve and me. We had been dating pretty seriously for about 6 months. We had decided to go on a trip for a few days, it would be our first together. We weren't sure where but we had a couple places in mind and we planned to make a few phone calls and then just go. This was the week of August 10, 2003. On Thursday the 14th, the HUGE NORTHEAST BLACKOUT -- some 50 million people in the US and Canada without power! For some reason after a day or two power started being restored we thought we'd try to go somewhere anyway. We randomly called a hotel in Stratford to see if they had power up there, they did so that is the direction we started driving. Everything fell into place magically. We were able to get a B&B because of a cancellation, front row theatre tickets because of cancellations. Normally these are things booked months in advance and without the help of the blackout it never would have been possible. Speaking of inspiration. There was an older couple staying at our B&B who had been coming to Stratford for 20 years or so, never missing a year. You could see after all the years they so enjoyed each other, enjoyed traveling and their time together. At the conclusion of our stay, Steve was so inspired he by them and our good fortune and absolute best time together he asked me to marry him! (He wasn't prepared for this but he had planned to ask in a month or two.) The best proposal because he was so moved by the situation, he wasn't nervous, there was no plan, he just looked at me deeply and asked!

So every year we go back to Stratford and we always stop in for a pavlova, too.

Yesterday, I was leafing through my favorite cookbook, Extending the Table and all along the recipe was there. I was thinking about Stratford, the time was right. So I did it, I made my first pavlova. One look and you'll see how it got its name. Beautiful. Light. Romantic. Magical. Delicious. Inspirational!

It is a meringue piled on a piece of moistened brown paper to bake.