Older Adults Are Sharing Outdated Traditions They Wish Would Make A Comeback, And I Think I Can Get Behind These 23 Ideas
6. "As both an artist and an avid reader, I miss the beautifully illustrated children's books that were available in my childhood, from The Wind In The Willows (and other books of that era) to the highly entertaining sketches for The Horse With No Head with line illustrations of the poor street kids of a French town and their adventures with a battered metal horse on wheels and a gang of thieves."
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Newsweek
2 hours ago
- Newsweek
Mom's Take on Baby Days vs. Toddler Years Has Parents in Stitches
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Two moms from Colorado have captured the relatable evolution from babyhood to toddler chaos. Identical twins Danielle and Rachael Sullivan, both 34, posted a reel on their shared Instagram page (@danielle__rachael), which shows their two toddlers crawling around on the floor of an airport terminal. The text overlay reads: "New moms: I would never let my baby roll around on the airport floor. Toddler moms: she can lick the floor of Terminal B as long as she's not crying." From left: The two toddler girls are seen crawling around on the airport floor. From left: The two toddler girls are seen crawling around on the airport floor. @danielle__rachael Danielle told Newsweek that the biggest difference between becoming a toddler mom involves redefining what success really means. "As a newborn mom, you're wiping down every surface and packing the entire house just for a 30-minute outing," Danielle said. "As a toddler mom? Survival and sanity take priority." Behind the scenes of the reel, the sisters were preparing to board a 10-hour flight to London in the U.K. and letting their kids burn off some energy in the airport was worth it. "And, honestly, we think everyone on the plane was grateful for a couple of tired toddlers," the Sullivans said. Their reel, which has been viewed over 2 million times, resonated with other toddler parents across Instagram. "My new motto with my toddler: is it dangerous? No. Is it poisonous? No. Will it kill him? No. Is he quiet? Yes. Then who cares, let him," one user wrote. "We went from sterilizing bottles to, he spits his food out on the floor and then picks it up and puts it back in his mouth and we're just happy he's eating something," another commented. Rachel said that the response had been "hilarious and so relatable." "There were a few comments from moms saying they'd never let their child roll around on an airport floor and to that we say, 'You're amazing. Truly. Much stronger than us!' But as two working moms about to board a 10-hour flight with toddlers, sometimes we're just doing what it takes to survive the next few minutes with happy kids," she said. For Danielle and Rachel, the reel is just one example of what they describe as "very real moments of surrender," especially while traveling. "We always start with big hopes that our girls will try new, healthy, delicious food when we travel," Danielle said. "But when you sense a meltdown brewing in a crowded restaurant, you surrender and hand them a French fry … and who knows, maybe that French fry hit the floor for a second or two. Not ideal, but definitely not our biggest concern!" The two working moms say they rely heavily on each other, learning in real-time what it means to balance expectations with reality. "We've learned to pick our battles," the pair said. "And judging by the response to the reel, we're clearly not alone, which has been so comforting as new moms navigating all these firsts."
Los Angeles Times
5 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Tasting the best Trompe-l'œil fruit desserts in L.A.
Trompe-l'œil desserts, the fruit desserts often molded and decorated to mimic mango, pistachio and an array of other produce and nuts, look like works of art. French pastry chef Cédric Grolet is credited with starting the trend, and the desserts are gaining in popularity in Los Angeles, with a handful of shops offering their take on the beautiful confections. We taste tested more than a dozen. Here are our favorites.
Los Angeles Times
5 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
I taste tested the viral cakes that look like fruit and nuts. Which L.A. bakeries make the best ones?
More than 115 million people watched a video of French pastry chef Cédric Grolet make fruit pies that resemble giant blueberries, peaches, oranges and raspberries. A peach dessert molded and spray-painted to look like a real peach drew 63.6 million views. Caramelized banana and peanut butter logs clumped together to mimic a bunch of bananas captivated nearly 33 million people. Grolet is known for his trompe-l'œil desserts, elaborate creations constructed from various fruit, nut brittles, mousse, cake, creams, custards and chocolates. He's created desserts that look like oversize peanuts, Buddha's hands and just about every other nut, stone fruit and berry. I have spent hours on TikTok, mesmerized by these edible works of art. 'These types of desserts have been around for a while, but Cedric would be the one who started the trend and brought these kinds of desserts into popularity,' says Catherine Zhang, chef and partner at Tu Cha boba and dessert shop in Koreatown. Thanks to Zhang, and a handful of other chefs in Los Angeles, the trompe-l'œil fruit and nut-shaped desserts have made their way west. Zhang and her partners opened Tu Cha in March with a short menu of fruit-shaped desserts and what she calls 'dream cakes.' The most popular is the My Man Go ($14.50), made with fresh mango encased in crème fraîche mango mousse with hazelnut praline in a tropical chocolate shell made to look like a real mango. When you crack into the chocolate, the mousse is smooth and almost jellylike with a center that tastes like you're biting into a ripe mango. The Berry3 ($14.50), pronounced 'berry cube,' is presented like a cube-shaped raspberry. It's a striking red dessert covered in crimson velvet spray that gives the surface the textured, almost hairy look of a real raspberry. Inside, there's a core of pistachio praline with both raspberry mousse and strawberry coulis. 'It's pretty crazy how popular these desserts have been with the help of social media,' Zhang says. 'We have food creators who have made it a trend to eat these desserts in your car. Those videos get millions of views and people come from that.' A small team of chefs works around the clock to produce about 1,000 desserts a day, but it's never enough. Tu Cha sells out of every cake, every day. 'I don't think people understand the complexity behind the desserts and how long it takes to create each one,' Zhang says. 'We are capped at the number we can produce each day because of our freezer space and the number of molds.' Each dessert takes three days to make. The various components are all made by hand, layered, chilled, molded, chilled again, dipped and sprayed. Then there's the Dubai Pistachio ($22). It's a heart-shaped cake embedded in a black tin, layered with matcha sponge cake, pistachio knafeh, matcha mousse and matcha white chocolate. You use a spoon to crack the matcha white chocolate, then navigate through the many layers to the bottom of the tin. The matcha flavor is intense, bitter and grassy, tempered by the sweet chocolate and crunchy, nutty knafeh. 'After we launched, these desserts have become massive,' she says. 'I feel like it's everywhere now. Everyone has picked it up. Every dessert shop is trying its own version.' The Grigoryan family has been making a wide array of Armenian pastries at their Burbank bakery since 2014. Owner Art Grigoryan started experimenting with fruit-shaped mousse desserts. Now, the bakery produces half a dozen varieties that resemble pears, red and green apples, oranges, raspberries and mangoes. The core of each dessert is a fruit filling, with fresh diced mangoes in juice that oozes from the center and a wallop of sweet and bitter citrus in the orange. The apple filling conjures images of cinnamon-spiked apple pie. All the fillings are sheathed in silky mousse with an outer layer of Belgian chocolate. 'We're planning on bringing back pistachio, coconut, avocado and lemon soon,' says Art's son David Grigoryan. At $10 each, they are the most affordable of all the trompe-l'œil desserts we tried. When Kay Kara opened Aurora on South La Brea Avenue in the fall of 2023, the glass case that lines the store was filled with classic French desserts and chocolates. His executive pastry chef and master chocolatier, Nour Ramlawi, was trained in Switzerland and spent years as a pastry chef in Dubai. Kara and Ramlawi first introduced a lemon-shaped confection in March 2024, and it quickly became one of the shop's top sellers. 'We are pretty much following an international trend that started in France, and we thought we could do something similar for L.A.,' Kara says. 'The city was being underserved and the choices were not as novel as what was going on in Europe.' Kara tasked Ramlawi with transforming an existing mango dessert into a mango-shaped creation called Mango Madness ($15). It's a sunset-colored orb with a crunchy white chocolate shell, mousse and a fresh mango center. 'When we saw the trend of the fruit-shaped desserts was catching, we thought maybe we should follow the theme and we changed the shape,' Kara says. 'I needed to have something that was Instagrammable, and eventually people caught up with what we were doing and it became viral,' he says. 'It's been going viral for over a year now.' Ramlawi introduces a new fruit dessert every couple of months. Recently, there was a Meyer lemon-filled Lemon County ($12) and a banana-shaped Musa ($15) built with layers of double chocolate and Speculoos, banana coulis, caramel and chocolate fondant spongecake. The Orangiumum ($25) and Rose Razzleberry ($25) are massive approximations of the fruits they are meant to resemble. A cross-section of the orange boasts eight different preparations of orange and multiple days of assembly. There's orange cake, a crispy crepe, orange rind, mousse and coulis. Near the center is a round of rice pudding and the entire thing is dipped in white chocolate that's decorated to look like a sun-kissed orange. An actual leaf (I learned this the hard way) protrudes from the top. The Rose Razzleberry is just as elaborate, with a base of chocolate cake, Pop Rocks candy, Champagne mousse, chocolate mousse and raspberry coulis. 'I think it's time for L.A. to evolve beyond the doughnut and the cupcake,' Kara says. 'The city deserves more.' Anita Aykazyan says the La Pistache is 'the best dessert' in the pastry case at the Glendale shop. The dessert mirrors an unshelled pistachio, with beautiful striations of green and brown and an uneven surface covered in realistic grooves. 'This is actually his,' she says. 'I took classes with Grolet and was inspired by his work.' The La Pistache ($18) is a three-day process that involves a pistachio cream crunchy with pistachio praline, pistachio ganache and white chocolate. Each one is molded and decorated by hand. Before La Pistache, there was the Raspberry Petit Gateau, a dessert originally offered when the shop opened in April 2024. It underwent a series of transformations, including a heart-shaped design, before Aykazyan found a raspberry mold. 'When we started a year and a half ago with the raspberry dessert, there were not a lot of places doing them,' she says. 'Some places were making lemon or orange but no raspberries.' Aykazyan only offers the raspberry during the summer, and makes an effort to keep her dessert case as seasonal as possible. The petite gateau may be the most lifelike of them all, with a deep red color and a furry velvet exterior. Inside is a light, luscious mousse she learned to make while studying under Ksenia Penkina, a Russian baker based in Vancouver, Canada. And in the very center, a whole raspberry. 'We're a little behind Europe, but right now, this is a trend in L.A. because they look realistic,' Aykazyan says. 'I also think it's because they are fun and really yummy.' To see our favorites, watch a full taste test of all the desserts mentioned above in our video here, or on YouTube.
