We’re making Christmas candies, chocolates, and cookies as part of our gift strategy this year. I’m probably most excited about trying my hand at the Jacques Torres Nougat Montilimar, which is going to require a deft hand.
Ten or eleven years ago, I went to a steakhouse in Omaha, Nebraska during a trip home from college. The chef that day had decided to make either a brandy or cognac reduction sauce using the drippings from the beef. Feeling adventurous, I decided to order off menu and see what it was like. The word incredible doesn’t even do it justice.
As we approach the end of 2014, I’m looking back on the year. One of the major changes from an investing perspective what a modification Aaron and I made in the investment policy manual. That doesn’t happen often. We added a handful of companies to the list of permanent business; those companies we consider so…
I’m putting together a retirement portfolio for several people I know. One of them is proving to be a fun intellectual exercise. Essentially, the mandate calls for me creating a ghost ship of a portfolio that, once it has set sail, will drift almost untouched for the next 30+ years when it will be gifted to the children at the end of the life expectancy of the owner. Beginning in 7 to 10 years, the owner will start taking 3% to 4% distributions to augment an otherwise secure retirement. The portfolio is to be allocated 70% to a collection of 70 to 100 blue chip stocks, 25% to high-grade bonds, and 5% to cash or cash equivalents.
I mentioned yesterday that I baked a caramel pecan apple pie. We had some surplus homemade pastry dough and granny smith apples from the two granny smith apple pies I made on Thanksgiving, using my favorite apple pie recipe. I wanted to try something different, and needed to find another apple pie recipe that didn’t require a top crust as I had just enough to cover the bottom of a pie pan to use the leftovers. I began the search, ultimately settling upon a perfectly rated derivation from a publisher called Taste of Home.
A lot of you have written me over the years about picking up your own French Oven or Dutch Oven given that they last forever, are one of the best tools to have in the kitchen, are so versatile, and can make cooking certain types of recipes much easier. I never deviate on my past…
Aaron asked me if I would make a couple of my apple pies for Thanksgiving with my family tomorrow. It’s been awhile since I baked this particular pie recipe. He brought it up three or four times, each entreaty accompanied by ever-escalating puppy dog eyes, so I knew he wanted me to do it even though I was planning on making some sort of specialty cake in the spirit of the honey lemon bee hive dessert I baked a few years ago; maybe a giant pumpkin or spice cake, in the (appropriately enough) shape of a pumpkin, with a cream cheese glaze drizzled over it; even better, perhaps a chocolate peanut butter bundt cake! (Normally, I like vanilla cake with buttercream frosting but who doesn’t like chocolate and peanut butter?!)
We met up with friends at a new wood-fired Italian Neapolitan pizza restaurant that opened 45 minutes north of Kansas City called Il Lazzarone. This is the same group with which we regularly try new restaurants, though I’ve been terrible about posting them all over the years. We sat inside for hours talking about everything from economics, rental…
A reader asks, “Unless I missed it, I believe it has been many years since you talked about your foundation (foundations?) and the passive investment approach you use for it/them. Do you still buy index funds? Has anything changed? I enjoy hearing about that part of your life and am thinking about setting up something similar.”
It’s been a long time since I’ve talked really about Nestlé SA other than mentioning it in passing last week. It was on my mind this morning, so I wanted to revisit it and talk about the business.