I’m mildly obsessed with macarons. No, not macaroons, the coconut cookies. The French macaron, a sandwich cookie made with almond flour, sugar, and egg whites. These cookies have a delicate outer shell that conceals a denser, slightly chewy center. They also serve as the vehicle for various delicious fillings. Macarons are tough to make properly (trust me, I’ve tried), so I’m always excited to find a bakery that does them well. Enter Bon Ami Confections in St. Augustine.

Bon Ami Confections

At our late afternoon stop-in time, much of Bon Ami’s treat supply–which includes a rotating supply cookies, brownies, and flavored marshmallows–was already depleted. Sign of a good product, I’d say. I got one of each of the remaining macaron flavors: key lime, lemon, rose, white chocolate, lavender, pistachio, and dark chocolate cocount:

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I was recently invited to check out the new summer menu at 95 Cordova in St. Augustine, a restaurant featuring “New World, Middle Eastern and Asian flavors” located within the Casa Monica Hotel. Full disclosure: invited typically means free meal on this blog, in case you’re worried about any bias I may (but try not to) have. After a tour of the historic hotel (1888) turned courthouse (1962) turned hotel again (1999), we stepped into 95 Cordova to start our meal. Because I am wicked smaht and sometimes rush through things, I managed to delete all but one of my photos of the meal. Wow. Luckily Mario actually photographs his food more than I do these days, so I’ll be posting a combination of his photos and some from the handy Flickr album the event’s organizers put up.

The first course was the Kessler calamari, so named for the entrepreneur owner of the hotel group, an interesting Middle Eastern-inspired take on the typical fried calamari. It came topped with tomatoes, olives, asiago, coriander, fresh cilantro, and Moroccan aioli:

Kessler Calamari

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