Maybe There Are Some Things I Just Can’t Make Better At Home

These are homemade “Mello-creme pumpkins.”  They are very cute in their pumpkin-y plumpness, aren’t they?  And don’t they have a rustic, artisanal quality rarely to be found in their bland, mass-produced cousins?  These are rich in butter, sweet with best quality corn syrup and fine white sugar, boiled gently, hand-molded, and ridged with a bamboo [...]

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Project Project Gutenberg: B is for The Bars of Iron

It’s so, so hot here that I can hardly bear to breathe.  The amorous slugs you see above had the energy to contemplate the making of baby slugs late last night, which gives me some questions about the word sluggish.  I barely had the energy to contemplate the slugs.  But I wasn’t going to let [...]

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And the Punchline is: $9 apiece

We had a yard sale today.  90 degrees in the shade–not that there was much shade to be had.  Lots of toys and books, of course, and the usual odd kitchen-y things, bundt pans and extra muffin tins and bits of jewelry and all the wedding cake pans I’ve acquired over the years, so that I [...]

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It’s Not All Gracious Living Around Here

Hot dog parasites?  Miraculous operation of wind in hurricane?  Alien life form on plate?
Why, no!  It’s just a BoingBoing inspired menu item which delighted the hot-dog eating members of the family.  Except Little Sunshine, who is as opposed to all forms of food-mixing as any member of an ancient Israelite priestly caste could wish. 
I consider it a [...]

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Holiday Baking

I went into cookie overdrive the other night . . . can’t quite explain it, but by the end of the evening, we had chocolate wafers, gingerbread cookies, chocolate chips, and sugar cookies for our usual tray for our beloved McDonald Elementary, plus 2 dozen Chanukah cookies for Tuxedo Boy’s winter party, plus these homemade [...]

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Tweetcret Santa

One of the blogs I follow is the terrific I Like, a design and coolness kind of blog which first caught my attention with its great pictures of British tearooms and cafes in decline, and its love for Tunnock’s.  Now she’s hosting a Tweetcret Santa. 
I have Secret Santa trauma.  Once upon a time, I went into [...]

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My Bread Lament

Recently, Tuxedo Boy helped me make the weekly grocery list.  (Yes, okay, I do the menu/shopping list/only go once a week thing.  I’m pitiful that way.  If I could swing it, I’d always do my laundry on Mondays, too.)
Anyway, he was helping me out, and he had just one request for a special treat:  “Could we [...]

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Where did the summer go?

So while I wasn’t winning Iron Cupcake (our lovely winner was Bakerella), the summer got away from me.   Work, school, homework, housework, a nibble of interest from a publisher for the first four chapters of a historical romance that I haven’t finished yet, play dates, a sudden and unexpected longing to become a player of the French [...]

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All of June’s Thrills in One July Day

These are chocolate cuppies with Swiss meringue buttercream frosting–made last Saturday to honor a good friend’s yard sale, which was a rite of passage as well as a chance to earn some extra cash.  I made them late Friday night, because it was really very hot last week.   In fact, it was so warm that [...]

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What I Did in June Instead of Blogging

June is gone.  While it was still here, this is what I was doing:

Took the kids on a breakfast picnic at Idler’s Rest.
Took Little Sunshine to the Emergency Department after she dislocated her left patella falling off that tree.
Finished my Minimalist cardigan (pictures later!)
Moved into an adorable little house in town, with the never-to-be-forgotten help [...]

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