Winner of Your Best Late Winter Tart

Congratulations to lorigoldsby, whose Tangerine and Almond Shortbread Tart won this week's contest for Your Best Late Winter Tart, earning her a handsome Marble Rolling Pin and a Pillivuyt Porcelain Cake Stand from Williams-Sonoma, plus big prizes from Viking, OXO and Tiny Prints, and a spot in the next food52 cookbook!

Q&A with lorigoldsby

• Describe an early food experience that has influenced the way you think about food and/or cooking. 
• My grandmother was a fearless cook -- she taught me to really analyze a recipe and feel confident to substitute and switch ingredients. She also really encouraged me when I began experimenting with ethnic foods -- she always found the most interesting cookbooks, and I discovered that a good cookbook is a really good read!

• What's your least favorite food?
• Fish, it has to have a pretty yummy sauce for me to eat it.

• What is the best thing you've made so far this year?
• Honey Balsamic Lamb Chops -- a trip to Italy inspired me to find lots of uses for an incredibly expensive bottle we brought back... although I still can't put it on ice cream like they did at the villa where we saw how they aged/bottled it. I also purchased a jar of black truffle sauce. My refrigerator quit last month and I was so busy with my mom's treatments, we didn't catch it until everything was so warm, and the jar spoiled. Broke my heart, paying to repair the fridge wasn't nearly as "costly" as losing that jar! 

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• Describe your most spectacular kitchen disaster.
• I'm giggling now...it's so funny that the first contest I ever entered is a baking contest -- I really think of myself as a creative cook rather than a baker. I said that my husband isn't a big dessert fan? For his birthday every year, I make him a cheesecake. One year i was inspired by a leftover box of Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies, and decided to make the crust from the cookies...well, it was a hit. The cookies gently infused the mint into the cheesecake... mmm. But as I said earlier, I don't spend as much time baking, so the next year I went to replicate the cheesecake because that was now his favorite. He's building it up, telling everyone how wonderful it is... a houseful of guests waiting for dessert, I have chocolate letters spelling out "Happy Birthday" I light the 40 candles around the cake and by the end of the song, the letters have melted from the heat. That's not the worst part, because I hadn't written down the recipe and was going from memory, I had left out the sugar! Oh well, 10 years later, still get teased about that.

• What is your idea of comfort food?
• Something warm in a bowl that is shared with friends... pasta, soup or lamb stew.

• Apron or no apron?
• Depends on my mood. I have my daughter's matching apron (from when she was 3) still hanging up next to mine. I do have a "fancy" apron.

• What's your favorite food-related scene in a movie?
• Does the diner scene in When Harry Met Sally count? Actually her antics with ordering food is such a throwback to my mother, that it makes me laugh.

• If you could make a show-stopping dinner for one person, living or dead, who would it be?
• My Gran. I miss her everyday. She would get such a kick out of the new recipes I've found/perfected/created in the past 11 years since she passed.

• You prefer to cook: a. alone, b. with others, c. it depends on your mood
• It really does depend. When stressed, I find cooking alone relaxes me but I love the conviviality of cooking with friends. I would love to be a cooking teacher.

• When it comes to tidying up, you usually: a. clean as you cook, b. do all the dishes once you've finished cooking, c. leave the kitchen a shambles for your spouse/roommate/kids to clean.
• Again, that really depends. My husband is a great sous chef and chief dishwasher. And my family is always so happy with whatever I cook, they know once the food is served, my work is done, and so all tidying that is left is up to them and we all feel like winners! But if I know no one is around to help, I can be very efficient and tidy as I go along because I do not like to have a huge mess waiting for me.

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• The lovely Marble Rolling Pin and Pillivuyt Porcelain Cake Stand lorigoldsby has won from Williams-Sonoma!

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