high-rise Tokyo apartments. I like this about them, but when I think about spending an hour doing jumping jacks and gnawing on elk jerky, my enthusiasm wanes. Still, I am compelled by new thinking on diet and exercise, and about the effects that certain foods can have on the body. And so it was that I recently embarked on a diet low in sugar and even lower in wheat. Who knew that one could do this and still eat cake? Cake! Not me. Not until a few months ago. I had set out to make the Brown Butter Financier from the Mission Street Food cookbook -- a cake made with browned butter, toasted ground almonds, icing sugar, egg white and just a teensy bit of flour -- when I thought, heck, I'm throwing caution to the wind and leaving that flour out. I won't exaggerate -- it was a minor revelation. But the result was as delicious as it would have been with the wheat. Over the summer, when the weather permitted, I made the cake countless times, growing lazier with each effort. First, I decided not to brown the butter. Then I determined that the ground almonds were perfectly fine sans toasting. A note: Because it is so trendy these days, almond flour, which is really just finely ground blanched almonds, is often required in recipes,  gluten-free or otherwise. You can make it yourself if you have a good blender. Just grab some bulk almonds and blend them up.