This month’s Mac Attack Challenge reads: “March welcomes the first changes from one season to the next, hinting at warmth and sunshine, the coming of springtime for some of us, the chilly days of winter for others,” which brings to mind the first few lines from T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland:”

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding  Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing  Memory and desire, stirring  Dull roots with spring rain.

From the hundreds of poems I’ve had to read while working on my various academic degrees, this poem, considered by many Lit geeks as one of THE most important poems of the 20th Century, has always posed  a challenge for me. Heavy with symbolism and seemingly unrelated literary, historical, and cultural references, the poem has haunted me not because of its complexity and its somewhat pessimistic and bleak approach to modernist society, but because of the end message – the glimmer of hope and possibility that redemption is within reach, by peace which comes through understanding:

Shantih, Shantih, Shantih.

And on that happy note….

For the macarons:

100 powdered sugar

50 g fine sugar

2 aged egg whites

80 g ground almonds

4 drops purple food coloring

2 TB Culinary lavender

Follow macaron instructions as described here.

Before drying, sprinkle lavender over macaron tops.

For the filling:

1/4 c salted butter (room temp)

2 c powdered sugar

1/8 c cream cheese

2 TB orange essence

1 TB grated orange peel

Cream salted butter with cream cheese until incorporated. Add powdered sugar a half cup at a time until you reach the desired consistency. Add orange essence to taste, then add grated orange peel.

Refrigerate for a half hour, then fill macarons.