Quite the pair.

Here we are in Los Angeles, enjoying warm weather and blue skies with a little over a week until Thanksgiving. I was in New York just a couple weeks ago enjoying the biting breezes and investing in a earmuff-headband thing from Uniqlo because, well, it was necessary (and adorable), and it was beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. I was lucky enough to have missed the 90+ degree heat wave, but aside from some decorations up at the Grove, one would have no idea that the holidays are just around the corner.

I purposely drive on Third Street through Hancock Park sometimes just to admire the turning leaves on trees lining the street of homes reminiscent of what I'd see in a romantic comedy set during the holidays. Sixth Street is an even better drive -- those colorful leaves even blow up and trail behind cars as you make the turns on the windy stretch. when I lived on the west side, my journey to work always included a segment on Barrington before it turned into McLaughlin, and it always felt like a suburban East Coast fall in those few moments.

Thankfully, I also have desserts to bring about the warmth and fuzziness of the season, so this week's pick by the sisters (and sister-in-law) Celestial Confections was especially welcome. I've never actually baked anything with cranberry before, and only made cranberry sauce from the fresh berries for the first time last year, but there really is no better time than now to test out a recipe.

A galette is a crostata is a free-form pie, so it comes with Dorie's buttery, flaky, amazingly delicious dough that I rave about time and time again. Just that would be enough (my co-worker could probably make a dinner with the crust cookies I make with the scraps), but the cranberry-ginger-lime filling has a brightness that makes you forget the gloom and doom of the season and rings in the holidays, too. The cranberry could have been a fine filling to the galette by itself (albeit one-dimensional), but the addition of the ginger and lime zest/juice provided a kick that suddenly made the pastry more interesting. My one minor grip with the final product is that it expanded much more than I expected -- though I didn't keep it out of the fridge long before I sent it to the oven, perhaps a post-assembly chill or freeze would be good to maintain the cute, compact shape of the galette after it having been baked.

The galette was undoubtedly a rustic looking thing, but it was met with rave reviews all around. Cranberry and lime have been known to be good friends with vodka, but with a hint of ginger in a rich crust, I think I'll stick with bourbon and devour this instead.

A new zest.

Ever since we moved offices nearly a year ago, a world of eating options was opened up to my office mates and me. Now I'm a pretty religious brown-bagger, but having a selection of midday snacks available to me instead of solely the Fred Segal cafe (no joke), is a welcome luxury. We have one of the better gas station mini-marts as a neighbor, solid breads and viennoiserie across the street, and chocolate covered raisins by weight around the way. Our favorite mid-afternoon snack, however, is the controversial fruit cart, and there are quite a few to be found within a two block radius. I looked at their rainbow umbrella shaded carts with suspicion for some time, but after awhile, the chili powder, salt, and lime juice laced fruit was something that piqued my interest. My coworkers were already major converts, so by the time I had tried my first sliver of coconut, a little sour, a little spicy, I was very late to the party. I normally eschew the customary melons and cucumber, so my preferred fruit vendor, Eduardo, fills the bag up with mango, pineapple, and my beloved coconut. When he opens up a fresh coconut for me, he usually offers me the coconut water in a little baggie for later too. We've even started an informal baked goods for fruit exchange between the two of us -- a swap I'm more than happy to take part in despite the cautionary tales of pesticide use (I give him far more cookies and slices of cake than I take fruit).

So, it was with great pleasure that I participated in this week's Tuesday's with Dorie selection by Carmen of Carmen Cooks -- Coconut Tea Cake. The lime was an addition that I didn't think twice about. The two flavors just go together perfectly and reminded me that I still need to try my hand at the coconut-lime cookies that my cousin hauled across the country from CookieBar.

I normally rub lemon zest in my sugar, but it was a nice change to see the brilliant green of Persian limes dotting the white landscape of the sugar bowl, and embedded in the golden crumbs. The flavor of the finished cake was reminiscent of all things summer, naturally, but was smooth and subtle. It was unmistakably a coconut-lime cake, but nothing about it was cloying or tart. And, appropriately enough, it paired beautifully with tea. Though the recipe only called for half a stick of butter for the entire Bundt cake, the cup of coconut milk (and I used light coconut milk) added some fat so, although the cake wasn't nearly as moist as other Bundt cakes, it was just moist enough and held a tight crumb.

The foundation of this cake really is so versatile and it may become a new canvas for me to play with. Lime has proven itself to be fantastic -- so chili powder and salt, anyone??