Fall is arriving, reaching in and out teasingly with its chill. A crispness has returned to the early mornings, but by the afternoons the saturated heat of summer returns, heavily soaking the low hours in the depth of the day in syrupy sunlight. The leaves are changing; I stepped onto my stoop last Thursday to a single fallen maple leaf, crimson around the edges with a vivid yellow center and a bright vermillion in between.
Read moreLEMON GINGERSNAP ICEBOX CAKE
I have a soft spot for soft foods. I like pudding, especially homemade chocolate pudding (and I'm sorry to say that I especially like the thin skin that forms on top as it cools. I realize that you might not feel the same way.) I like warm applesauce that you cook on the stove, particularly when you leave it a little chunky. I like how it tastes when you pour thick cold cream over it. I like silky hummus and the custard-y filling of eclairs and all manner of stews and soups.
Read moreBLACKBERRY PIE BARS
Let's talk about good things, okay? There are so many of them. Every day, if you look in the right places. For example, if you pause outside the grocery store and stop being so absorbed in your list of laundry detergent, bananas, paper towels, cocoa powder for a moment, you'll notice the heavy scent of lilacs hanging thickly in the air. There are buckets of them, and for $10 you can buy a bunch. The woody stems always stymie me at home; I go at them with scissors and a knife and still end up twisting them apart with my hands. But it's worth it when the entire living room is perfumed with flowers.
Read moreRASPBERRY ALMOND CAKE
There’s nothing as delicious as anticipation. Even the word is luscious, long and drawn out, and strung with crisp consonants. I like how it feels to say it. I like how it feels to sense it.
The best sort of anticipation is for something good but undefined. A nebulous, hazy event awaits, shimmering ahead of you. You're ready, but you don't know quite for what.
Read moreBERRY BUTTER CAKE
You may be wondering where I have been. You may be sitting at your dining room table at this very moment thinking: "listen up girl, I have been JONESING for some cake, and it is your job to provide me with it, and you've let me down!"
I'm so sorry; I really have let you down. Does it help if I tell you that I have been gallivanting about the East Coast, eating warm baguettes from the King Arthur bakery in Vermont and playing with my new niece who is getting wonderfully more chubby with each passing minute (by playing, obviously I mean squeezing her thighs and singing her terribly off-key Josh Ritter and John Denver songs)?
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