I’ve been promising this Snickerdoodle recipe for weeks. Sorry it’s taken so long…but when you get back from a vacation you need an additional week to be a slug, and get over the time difference. (I was in Iceland – it is unbelievably gorgeous!) Then a few days to catch up on laundry, mail and email. Plus, I’ve been in book mode every day, all day trying to…
July Fourth was the ONE day of the year that my dad, a man who never spent money frivolously, took us to the drive in to see a movie. (This was a man who had to be begged, repeatedly and loudly, to stop at Twin Kiss, the local ice cream place in the summer. Begging didn’t always work. He’d say, “Oh, we have better stuff than that at…
Some days include a wrong turn down a one-way street, a GPS system that decided to take me on a tour of the area around the place I was headed to instead of directly there, a spilled latte that hit both my computer and my phone, and a general feeling of crappiness. As the Shirelles sang, “Mama Said There’d Be Days Like This.” That was my day on…
This time of year I walk into local supermarkets and see pumpkin cookies with bright orange icing. They always look tempting but just a little fake to me with that bright orange hue. I want a pumpkin cookie that looks a skosh more natural. So, I was perusing the internet and found a recipe on the website, GimmeSomeOven.com. I clicked on it and her pumpkin cookies, looked like…
I’ve been in the mood to bake lately. Like the bears featured in Fat Bear Week, I’m like Chunk, the winner. I don’t weigh 1200 pounds yet, but it may not be far off if I keep this up. Or maybe it’s because it’s Italian American Heritage month and, like my mother, I’m all about the food. I can’t help it, I just want to cook and eat…
It’s amazing how much a reasonably confident bread baker can learn by screwing up a recipe. This week was a learning experience for me after attempting my mother’s scrawled Easter Bread recipe. I learned: Once it finally rose, my mom’s bread looked pretty good. I was feeling very positive, but was still concerned because I’d never used her recipe before. So, I decided to make that Finnish Spring…
I am hosting Easter on Sunday. I’ve bought almost everything I could think of, so since Easter is a few days away, and I was feeling both nostalgic and brave, I thought I’d give my mom’s original Easter Bread recipe a try. This meant putting my faith in Mom’s words on a yellowed, grease-spotted paper that’s more than 40 years old. I found the spots reassuring thinking she…
Ever try a recipe and think, Wow, this is so good, it couldn’t possibly be better? That’s what happened to me in 2014. Then you make the recipe again, change something, and think, Whoa, I am a genius! I had my genius moment with lemon ricotta cookies, a recipe I got years ago from Theresa, my ex’s lovely first wife and all round good human. The first time…
Happy Valentine’s Day! I wish you happiness on this love-fest of a day, which I detested in college because the parade of flowers always went to the other girls, but never to me or my close friends. Of course I was jealous! Who doesn’t want someone who you’re crazy about to love you back and lavish you with gifts? I’d like to say I’m much more mature now…
Watching Ted Lasso, last fall, I could not shake the image of Ted’s boss sensually biting into the biscuits Ted brought her each morning. The look of satisfied, dare I say, orgasmic pleasure on her face was something I would love to see on my face fairly frequently. As you may recall, I recommended Ted Lasso to you because it renews ones faith in humans, and let’s face…