Happy Belated Pie Day

Now I know that it's over a week since Thanksgiving, but this is Pie season people! I may have missed sharing my coma fest with you during that hectic week, but I had to share my newly found love of simplicity. I've never been a fan of the "easy" recipe. I've always been one of those crazy people that will complicate the heck out of a glass of water, but pie...well, a pie made with love and fresh ingredients doesn't need much. The beauty of it is that it doesn't even have to be pretty. When confronted with a slice of warm pie that has fallen apart in transit from the pie dish to the plate, the wreckage hastily covered by a scoop of ice cream, the grateful guest won't even pause before digging in. Presentation is entirely forgotten in that blissful combination of sweet and tart, warm and cold, tender and flaky deliciousness. The only question remaining is "Is there more?"



Easy Pie Crust Recipe
I think I pulled this recipe from Real Simple, but I've been trying to clean out my huge pile of magazines, pulling out just the recipes, so unfortunately I can't give full and proper credit. This will make just the bottom crust, you'll make an even easier crumbly topping to go over the fruit

1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 to 3 tablespoons ice water

Combine first 4 ingredients in a food processor and pulse until it's roughly crumbly. Leave the top opening of the food processor open and drizzle in the water a bit at a time, pulsing once or twice to distribute. You want the mixture to still be a bit crumbly, but hold together when squeezed, but not get gummy. If you overdo the water, just add a bit of flour, but try not to process to much or the dough will be tough.
Place the mixture onto a large piece of saran wrap and shape into a thick disk, wrapping the whole thing tightly in the process. Chill in the fridge for at least an hour up to three days. If you're making the pie today though, don't bother washing the food processor yet...you'll need it again at the end.
Take the dough out of the fridge when you're ready and flour your rolling pin and work surface. A large sheet of parchment will make moving everything easier, but you can just work on the counter top if you wish. Roll the dough into a large disk about 11 inches in diameter. Loosen the dough and carefully transfer onto the dish. If you don't mind flour all over and if you used parchment, you can try and just flip the whole thing into the pan if you want...but if when that fails and your dough still rips, you can just patch it up in the dish. It'll be covered in fruit anyways, no one will know.
Carefully tuck the dough hanging over the edge under to create a rim and pinch all around to "flute" the rim.
Voila! You have pie crust, ready to be filled. Just pop the dish into the freezer until you're ready to use it. Actually, you can wrap the whole thing in saran wrap and freeze this for up to two months if you want, but why wait when the rest of the process is so easy an delicious?

Apple and Blueberry Filling

4 medium firm apples, granny smith work great, but pretty much any variety will do
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons melted butter
a few handfuls of fresh or frozen blueberries

Preheat the oven to 375F. Peel, core and slice the apples. Dump into a large bowl and top with the remaining ingredients. Cover with another bowl, large plate or lid that fits snugly with no gaps, and holding it on tightly pretend you've got maracas and shake shake shake. I suppose you could just stir the whole thing up with a spoon or spatula, but that's not nearly as fun. Dump the mess into the crust and top with...

Easy Crumbly Topping

1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons cold butter, cut into small cubes

Process in the food processor until crumbly. Spread evenly over the pie. Don't worry if it looks like it's too much. It will help soak up some of the fruit juice and won't seem like too much at the end.

Put the pie dish onto a cookie sheet to make it easier to handle and to catch any overflow if the fruit was really really juicy, and pop into the hot oven for an hour, or until the crust has browned and the apples are cooked through.

If you're feeling particularly adventurous, you can also whip up this Honey Lavender Ice Cream to put on top, which is what I did. I told you, I can't do "easy". But if you're not nuts like me, plain vanilla will work just as well.

Katie's Wedding and an Afternoon in Milwaukee

First, a quick note: I ordered a new laptop, so as soon as it's set up, you will no longer needs to wait for weeks to see an update here. Yay!

It's been over a week now, but I'm finally getting around to sharing with you guys the cake I made for my friend Katie's wedding. But before we get to that, I have a question. Have you ever walked around a seemingly large city, that feels like it's teeming with people, and yet there's not a soul on the streets? That's exactly how I felt when I went for a walk through Milwaukee, WI after setting up the cake. It felt very surreal. I couldn't help thinking that there was a huge party or something going on 10 miles away and that's where everyone was and I just didn't get the memo since I'm from out of town. It did give me a great chance to take some nice pictures and since the sun sets early these days, the light couldn't be more beautiful. This is the view from just outside the hall where the wedding was held. I love gazebos and in that golden light moment, it felt like it would be a very romantic spot to be. I couldn't help but play with the picture a bit. Doesn't it look like the city in miniature?



Anyhow, onto the wedding. It was beautiful! The flowers, the settings, the bride, gorgeous. Even the people couldn't be nicer and I found many of Katie's friends and family to chat with. The food? Fabulous...which brings me to the cake :D (that was a smooth segway, don't you think?) If you remember from my post several months ago, Katie picked a white chocolate cake, with white chocolate ganache, blackberries and a lemon buttercream. The blackberries were to go with the lovely floral arrangements that she picked and the florist would be providing the flowers to decorate the cake, so my job would be to just bake and deliver. I don't know why, but I couldn't for the life of me remember how big she wanted the cake to be, all I remembered was her fear of tiered cakes with pillars. Something about them crashing. Silly Katie :D But since I couldn't remember, I just followed the picture she sent me showing a 4 tier cake...which turned out a little bit higher then I anticipated...okay a LOT higher. No matter. Wedding cakes are supposed to be large and impressive. They always put them on those huge tables and anything smaller than huge gets lost on it, so while it wasn't exactly what she intended, I think she was happy with the results. And in my humble opinion, it tasted even better then I remember it from the tasting. I won't even tell you how many pounds of chocolate, how many dozen of eggs, how many cases of butter, or how many tubs of berries went into it (and the backup sheet cake that was to stay in the kitchen). I'm still slightly amazed that it fit in my fridge. Isn't it pretty though?



Side note: Driving on the highway with this cake as my passenger was a nerve wrecking experience...I don't know how those people on Ace of Cakes do it.

Coconut Cookies - Can't eat just one

It's nice to be able to get away every once in a while, and when you're on a strict budget, it's nice to know that you can "get away" just by visiting a friend. Visiting J&J's house is like going to a B&B. It's right on the water on a quiet street, the couches are comfy, and the food is fabulous! They are both foodies and it's a pleasure to just sit with a cup of tea, play a game or two and chat. I went up there a few weeks ago and on the table was a freshly baked batch of these addictive coconut cookies. We must have polished off at least half of the batch before we even realized what happened, they were that good, so I thought I'd share the recipe with you too. They go great with a cup of tea and a nice conversation.

Toasted Coconut Icebox Cookies
The recipe was adapted from an orange coconut version by Aida Mollenkamp, and if you like, you can add some orange zest to the mix, but my friend left it out and I liked it just that way.

* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1/2 teaspoon table salt
* 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
* 1/2 cup sugar, plus extra for rolling cookies
* 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
* 1 large egg, at room temperature
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1 cup toasted sweetened coconut

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F and arrange a rack in the middle.
2. Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl and whisk until evenly combined.
3. Using a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment beat together butter and sugars over high speed until light and airy, about 2 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla and mix until just combined.
4. Reduce the speed to medium and add the flour mixture and coconut and beat until just evenly combined. Lay 2 large pieces of plastic wrap on a clean work surface and put half of the dough along the center of each piece. Shape the dough into 2 logs measuring about 1 1/2-inches in diameter and 10-inches long. Roll logs up in the plastic and secure tightly. Refrigerate the logs for 1 hour or up to several weeks.
5. Cut the logs into 1/2-inch slices. Roll the cookies in sugar to coat and shake off excess. Arrange on a baking sheet, leaving 1/2-inch between the cookies. Bake until set and golden on the edges, about 15 to 18 minutes. Remove to cooling racks to cool completely.

Enjoy!

How about a little game of Poker?

Any game, poker included, can be much improved by the addition of cake. Toss in a few birthdays and it sounds like an all out party. A coworker from my last job emailed me a few weeks ago asking if I'd be interested in making a couple of cakes with a poker theme for her husband's and his niece's husband's birthdays. And she was pretty open about the flavors she wanted, so after going back and forth for a bit, we decided on a rich chocolate cake, my no-carrot carrot cake, and a white chocolate dulce de leche cake. I decided not to experiment with any new recipes this time around and go with the old standby's so that I would be absolutely sure everything would come out great. I found some poker chip designs online and copied them for two of the cakes:


And the chocolate cake lent itself quite nicely to being turned into a poker table:


And since the cakes were for 2 birthdays, I put two jokers on the table :D

The Biggest Cake Ever

I find myself making a lot of extreme statements lately. The best focaccia, the best hot chocolate, the greatest cookie icing ever, and while it might sound like slight exaggerations, this one certainly is not. This cake was meant to feed 175 people and it could have easily taken care of over 250, especially if you consider the tiny slices the caterers chopped this monstrosity into. It was a yummy lemon cake with a buttercream heavily spiked with fresh lemon curd and it was the wedding cake I made for my coworker's big day. For once I planned ahead, I went to Home Depot and had them cut down a block of wood to use as a base and I wrapped it with a pillow case (a quick pat on the back for resourcefulness), lined with saran wrap layered the freshly baked cakes and spread with the frosting I made the day before (I still have a day job you know), and decorated with white chocolate leaves I made while the cakes were baking. And then I went to pick it up. I tried, I really did, and I promise you, I'm no weakling, but I could not pick this thing up to save my life, let alone carry it down several flights of stairs to my car. I made this realization maybe an hour before I had to leave the house, with cake in tow, and carefully make my way to the land time forgot where the wedding was to be held.



I had to call for help. Luckily I have a friend that lives near by and after she stopped laughing at me, she grabbed her brother and rushed over to help load the beast into my trunk. I'll skip the story about how I got lost on the way there and saw the "Welcome to Indiana" sign 6 times before I finally found my exit, and just tell you that the cake was very well received...even if no one but the bride, the groom and the photographer saw it. You see, they ran to the cake right away for pictures and then the caterers whisked it into the kitchen to be cut. I was a little sad at first, but then I decided that as long as the cake was good and the bride was happy, I'm happy.

Easy Lemon Curd Recipe

1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons finely grated fresh lemon zest
1 cup fresh lemon juice
1 1/3 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 3/4 sticks unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon pieces

Whisk together zest, lemon juice, sugar, eggs, and a pinch of salt in a 2-quart heavy saucepan. Add butter all at once and cook over moderately low heat, whisking constantly, until curd is thick enough to hold marks of whisk and first bubbles appear on surface, about 10 minutes. Immediately pour curd through a fine sieve into a bowl. Press plastic wrap directly onto surface of curd and chill until cold.

It should be made the day before you want to use it so it has enough time to set, and you can either slather it directly onto cakes, muffins, and toast, or whip it into your favorite buttercream recipe as I've done for the wedding cake. Be sure to lick the spoon, this stuff is great!

The Best Hot Chocolate, and just in time

As the weather cools and the last of the golden leaves fall to the ground, your thoughts should turn to the one great winter time diversion....hot chocolate! And if you find yourself in Chicago, wondering around in the bitter cold, with your frozen hands tucked deep in your pockets, searching for a small reprieve, consider stopping by XOCO. I'm trying not to sound too much like a commercial, but this recently opened restaurant from Rick Bayless to which my friend introduced me a few weeks ago serves the best hot chocolate I've ever had and I just can't not share this find with you guys. I'm sure their food is good too, but both times I've been there I've been drawn by the freshly home ground chocolate fairies, besides, a cup of the stuff is basically a meal on it's own. So go...and when you do, take me with you :D

We be jammin'

No matter how much I try, I am a baker not a cook. I've always envied those that can step into the kitchen without a plan, swing open the fridge and produce the perfect, or at the very least edible, three course dinner. I end up swinging open the fridge door....and then making mac-n-cheese. With water, because I'm usually out of milk. Or ramen with whatever vegetable or herb is lying around hiding behind a row of colorful jars full of frosting leftovers. Whenever I have company coming, I always get very anxious and I research different dinner menus for days on end, make extensive shopping lists of things the cashiers can't pronounce, let alone know how to ring up, and run around like a chicken with it's head cut off (shoot, I forgot to buy the chicken!) trying to make sure that everything comes out just as the recipes, and numerous reviewers, promised. I don't know how, but my mother, who has entertained on many various occasions over the last few decades, always manages to put out a table groaning under all the assorted dishes with seemingly no effort at all. And should you ask her for a recipe, oh my, you better have a bit of patience. She speaks in ingredients, not quantities. The recipe for a herring spread, for example, will start with "send your father to the store" because no one else knows exactly what to get, how much to pay or how many to get and you're just doomed right away should you go without him. The rest of the recipe will go downhill for me because everything will depend on just how many herring he bought, how big they were, how low the tide was that month and how many chipmunks ran across the back yard driving our cat crazy in the last 14 minutes. These conversations inevitably send me running to google as I frantically enter the ingredients into the search box to see if anyone else has tried making this concoction.


This is exactly what happened when I asked for my mom's awesome plum jam recipe. Everyone loves when she makes it and my dad's only complaint about it is that it gets a bit runny making it hard to quickly fish out of the jar with a fork without getting caught (she keeps the fruit chunks big for him to think he's getting away with it). I came across a small mountain of perfectly ripe Italian plums at the store and since I've been on a small jamming frenzy lately, I called her to ask how she makes her jam.

Mom: "You'll need a lot of plums and some sugar and then just cook everything down"
Me: "But how much sugar do you add? How many cups of plums? How long do you cook it?"
Mom: "I don't know...how ever much you want and until it's done. Why are you making it anyways? I gave you a jar just the other day."
Me: "Sigh" and off to the internet

I was surprised to learn that there are not that many recipes out there for this jam, which is shocking because it's AWESOME! It goes great on pancakes, toast, inside crepes, with tea and a spoon, on waffles and I'm told it's even good with pork. I did find some reasonable recipes, but they seemed to add gimmicks, like cinnamon or Grand Marnier, which is nice, but all I wanted was straight up Plum Jam. Other recipes included a pound for pound ratio of plums to sugar...and that's just crazy, or at least way to sweet for my taste. I'll try not to judge. So I decided to combine a bit of what I've learned from the other jam recipes that I tried and just whip something up.

Since I wanted to repeat this experiment if it went well, I measured everything and the ratio that I came up with is 1 cup of sugar per pound of pitted fruit and a tablespoon of freshly juiced lemon. I like recipes that are easy to remember :D These are the amounts I ended up using and in the end I had about ten 8oz jars of yummy jam:

6 pounds of washed and pitted plums
6 scant cups of sugar
juice from 2 lemons

- The lemons are high in pectin and would make sure that the mixture jelled well even if I didn't want to thicken it with sugar. I ripped the plums into shreds using my fingers while I was pitting them. Why get a knife and a cutting board dirty? It's faster and more satisfying to do it by hand anyways. I then mixed all the ingredients and let the mixture stand for 30 min in the fridge. I mean, hey, it did wonders for the strawberry jam back in July, so it can't hurt here either, right?
- Then I dumped everything into a huge pot, making sure there's plenty of room because the mixture will rise and bubble and you wouldn't want all your work to run away from you, turned the heat to medium and cooked for about 20 minutes until the fruit was very soft.


- I took it off the heat and used my immersion blender to smooth out the mixture into a rough pulp. You don't have to do this, but I wanted a more spreadable jam.
- I popped a plate into the freezer (this will make sense later) and put the pot back over medium heat, stirring constantly. Once it looked like it was getting to the right consistency (about 15 more minutes) I took the plate out of the freezer and dropped a few drops of the jam on it. Let the drop sit there for a bit and then nudge it with your finger. If it wrinkles, even a little, the jam is done. If it just runs away from your finger, it needs to be cooked a bit longer, so put the plate back into the freezer and test again in 5 minutes. You may want to skim the jam if it gets too foamy, but I got lazy and just kept stirring.


- Fill several clean jars within a half inch from the top with the jam and screw on clean, pre-boiled for 5 minutes, lids.
- Put your jars into a large canning pot and fill with water so that the water covers the jars by an inch. Put over high heat and once the water starts to boil, set the timer to 15 minutes. When the timer goes off, turn off the heat, fish out the jars with tongs and let them cool completely on a kitchen towel. I like to flip them upside down while they're cooling. This may not do anything, but I'm convinced it gives the jars a better seal. The tops should all pull in and not budge when you press them with your finger. If one of your jars doesn't seal properly, feel free to give it another hot bath, but I haven't run into this scenario yet, so I'm sure you have nothing to worry about.
- Make pretty labels, wrap in pretty paper, hide in the pantry or share with a friend, the jam should keep for a year...that is if it survives that long without getting eaten :D

I'm still having camera problems and it was too late at night to make the jars all pretty, so you'll just have to take my word for it when I say the jam came out a perfect dark purple and looked and tasted just like my mom's, that is to say, yummy!

Yummy Sweet Potato Pie

I hate pumpkin pie. I know this is the season for it and making a statement like that is probably heresy, but I keep giving it a chance and each time....bleh. I guess it's just not my thing, but I always felt like I was missing out on a tradition. My coworker told me about a variation about a year or two ago in a long winded tale of how he can't find one anywhere and how he'd PAY to have it right NOW. Huh. An opportunity to learn a new recipe, make someone happy, and possibly recoup the cost of the ingredients...how could I pass it up? The pie he wove tales of was a sweet potato pie, with a graham cracker crust and a pecan topping. Doesn't that just sound yummy? I thought it did, so I gave it a try and the pie came out great. I also learned that while it looks just like pumpkin pie, it doesn't taste like it, not really, and I love this variation. Also, if I remember the story correctly, I think my coworker took his pie to a poker game and made money by selling it to his hungry friends by the slice towards the end of the game when snacks ran out. This was over a year ago and recently he's been hinting that life would be a heck of a lot better if that pie found it's way back into his life and when I found myself in front of a pile of sweet potatoes at the grocery store, I thought of him and caved.


Sweet Potato Pie with Pecan Topping
You can make the crust yourself with some crushed graham crackers and melted butter, but usually I cheat and just buy one. It's the one time I don't think homemade makes that much of a difference.

* 2 medium or 3 small sweet potatoes
* 1/2 stick unsalted butter
* 3/4 cup sugar
* 3/4 cup whole milk (at room temp)
* 3 large eggs
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 1/2 tsp cinnamon
* 1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
* 1/4 tsp salt
* 1 Tbsp dark rum
* 1 Tbsp all-purpose flour
* 1 deep graham cracker crust

Preheat the oven to 400°F and set the oven rack to the middle of the oven.

You could bake the sweet potatoes in the oven if you like, but I find that it takes too long and your microwave can do the job in a fraction of the time, so...stab the sweet potatoes with a fork all over (very therapeutic), place in a microwave safe bowl, cover loosely with a paper towel to avoid cleanup later, and nuke for about 10 minutes, turning them over around the 7 minute mark so they cook evenly. Poke them a few times with a fork to make sure they're done and pop back in for two more minutes if you hit a firm spot. Cool until you can handle them, peel and mash in a large bowl until smooth. I'm impatient and I usually pretend I've got asbestos hands so I don't wait to peel them and then I end up doing a little dance where I peel a piece off and then hop about blowing on my singed fingers for a second before doing it all over again. Don't be like me. Wait.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan and stir in the sugar. Add the melted butter mixture to the sweet potatoes with the milk and the eggs and beat with a whisk until smooth. Whisk in the remaining ingredients (the filling will be pretty liquid) and pour the filling into the pie shell.

I like to put the pie dish on a baking sheet, especially if you're using a store bought crust in one of those flimsy foil pans. It makes moving the thing around once it's hot so much easier. Carefully transfer the pie in the baking sheet to the oven and bake until the filling is almost set, about 35-40 minutes. When there's 5 minutes left, make the topping:

* 1/2 stick unsalted butter
* 1/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
* 2 tablespoons honey
* 1 cup pecans

Stir first 3 ingredients in heavy medium saucepan over low heat until sugar dissolves. Increase heat and boil 1 minute. Mix in nuts, coating completely.

Carefully take the pie out of the oven (aren't you glad you used the sheet pan now?) and spoon the hot nut mixture all over pie, distributing the nuts evenly over the top. Put the pie back in the oven and continue baking until topping bubbles, about 5 minutes. Transfer to rack and cool completely.

If you doubled the recipe and made two, you can share with a friend, if you really really want :D

Happy Halloween!

After listening to my stream of complaints about my ancient computer that's refusing to get with the times and recognize any USB devices including my camera, a very wise (or very annoyed) friend recommended I just go to Walgreens and make a CD for just a few bucks. Huh. Now why didn't I think of that? Genius! I'm not completely in love with the kiosks that are available at the store, and neither was the poor woman trying for almost an hour to scan her pictures and get a CD made that was ahead of me in line, but once I got everything loaded up I was able to walk away with two CDs full of over 1000 pictures for about three bucks. Can't beat that. So why am I telling you all this? Because all the past few weeks that this blog has been sitting idle, I have been baking, cooking, and generally coming up with evil schemes while angrily staring at my stubborn computer, and now I'll be able to share with you some of what I've been up to starting with these Halloween Cookie Pops!

A good friend's little girl is turning one tomorrow and in honor of the occasion my friend is throwing a HUGE party for all family and friends within a reasonable driving distance. She's making a ton of decorations and food and asked me to make 75 cookie pops to include in the party favors. Since the birthday is the day after Halloween, she wanted a fall theme and pumpkins sounded perfect. Besides, everything is just THAT much more fun to eat when it's on a stick, don't you think?


I've made sugar cookies before, I have a great recipe and I make them every year around Christmas to include in the cookie boxes I give out, but because I always go a bit crazy, I never have time to really decorate them, so aside from a small attempt at Valentine's I've never actually made iced cookies before. Determined to make the very best icing that would not only look good, but also taste good, I again went hunting on the net and I found a great post for cookie pops on this fabulous blog: Our Best Bites. Her story about finding the perfect recipe echoed my own goal so closely that I decided to give her sugar cookie recipe a try along with the icing. And let me tell you, they came out great. I was a little nervous when I tried one straight from the oven as it was a bit dry, but they blossomed overnight and when I tried another cookie the next morning while testing the dryness of the icing, the cookie was tender and deliciously buttery. Success! Plus the addition of a bit of lemon extract to the icing gave it a nice hint of flavor that transformed the simple sugar cookie into something really special.

I ended up making over a hundred of these and after packaging up the prettiest ones for my friend I took all the rest to work as Halloween treats, where they were devoured with only one small fist fight over the last cookie, so I would HIGHLY recommend you find some time, head over to Our Best Bites for the recipes, make a batch or two of these cookies, decorate however you like, and share with a friend over a cup of tea. Tea optional.

Oh, before I go, in the spirit of Halloween, and since I can't exactly hand out candy to all of you through this site, I'll give you something else that I found recently, yet another awesome blog! Yes, it seems I've become an international serial blog stalker and no blog is safe from my prying eyes! Bwahahaha! Ahem. Anyhoo....where was I? Oh yes! The awesome blog! This lovely lady has taken recipe sharing to the next level by adding witty stories and colorful illustrations, and you better believe I'm putting her book on my Holiday Wish List. Click on the illustration to go to her site and join me in my unbridled adoration:



Enjoy and Happy Halloween!!!

Peachy Keen

Can I just start by saying that despite many years of faithful service, I have come to hate my computer? It's kind of like living with a temperamental toddler who will play nice one day and throw a tantrum and refuse to acknowledge the outside world the next. Right now he's in a "mood". He's determined that he is the center of my world and that none of the other so-called "devices" exist or deserve his attention. In short, he's refusing to recognize almost any of my USB devices, including my printer and my camera. I even tried to trick him by trying to upload pictures using a little memory card converter I had lying around, but no dice. So while I have a ton of pictures building up, I can't get any of them onto this computer to share with you. You know what this means? Time to start saving up for a sleek, sexy, and completely complaisant new laptop! That'll show this old clunker!


Speaking of sexy...and please forgive me if this gets a tiny bit risque, but doesn't this look like a tushie to you? It's completely possible that I've been staring way too long at this food porn site, but then I dare you to go there and not get lost for at least an hour. I double dog dare you.


I realize that I might be just a smidge juvenile here, but when I was looking at this picture, I had to giggle and when I had to give it a title I had bright neon flashy signs in my head saying "downward dog". As in the yoga position? anyone? okay, it's just me then.

This was one of 9 perfectly over-pampered peaches that were delivered to my office from Harry and David, and while they were probably the most expensive peaches I will never buy, I will accept a gift of them any day. It was perfectly juicy and sweet, and it was obvious that it was never exposed to a stern word, let alone the cruel cruel world, before it was lovingly dressed in the gauzy tissue and cradled into that cushy box. It never even guessed that it was on it's way to it's demise at the hands of strangers. Such a bittersweet story...slurp...excuse me, I have to go wash my hands and get rid of the evidence.