Tales of Woe and Dessert

The hard drive on my laptop bit the dust - again! Just a mere few months after it crashed and burned the last time. My back up file from our external hard drive has gone MIA and along with it and the now defunct drive - all my files (pictures, music - including the new stuff for the Youth Dances I spent hours to put together, and my document files - my stories I've been working on the last several years). My only hope is that my dad, computer guru of the universe who can fix anything, can spin write my old drive (since it tells me now it is inaccessible) and salvage something. There have been a great many tears of frustration and distress over this technological mishap. So, I did what I do best in times of stress and despair - I made dessert!

This little lovely is a recipe introduced to me by a very dear, very sweet friend from my newlywed college days. A wonderful lady from Down Under, and an equally fabulous dessert. I haven't made it in awhile, and for the life of me, can't think of a good reason why! It's called a Pavlova and there is some hot debate over who exactly is responsible for it - Australia or New Zealand, but what is not contested is that it is named after the Russian Ballerina Anna Pavlova who toured both in the mid 20's. Essentially this is a large meringue with a lot of whipped cream and fruit. I have made this at Christmas time also and substituted crushed peppermints for the fruit and sprinkled grated chocolate over that - very yum. We ate half of it last night and the rest was gone by lunchtime today! Enjoy the pictures - come visit me and I will make it for you to enjoy in person. (please excuse pictures though - I am still trying to figure out my camera settings - grrrrrrrr)