Babies, I have determined, are perhaps the best drug on Earth. In their presence — with just one whiff of sticky-milk cheeks, a gentle raking of fingers through downy soft hair, the trill of a new voice finding new volumes — time both stands still and speeds up, a pinwheel turning wildly in the wind. Your own future becomes both vastly clear and deliriously blurred. Those newborn nights you were certain would never end; the physical pain of complete and total exhaustion that you thought you were prepared for, you silly goose now hardly more than a “remember when…” in the wake of … Read More
blueberry key lime cheesecake tart with gingersnap crust
Hi guys! Just a quick one this week because the long weekend beckons! Around here, that means firing up the grill, strolling the streets of the Peninsula’s many charming downtowns and farmer’s marketing until we can’t take it any more. We’re also keeping up the tradition of mixing a little Ohio into our 4th of July weekend — although this year, Ohio is coming to us in the form of my bestie, Amanda. It’ll be her first time snuggling the bug in person and I have a feeling seeing two of my favorite people ever meet face to face will have this … Read More
curried peach hand pies
It’s peach season peeeeyotches! Holla if ya hear me. Peaches make me think of two things: 1) Face/Off. Which, despite Nick Cage’s sickko one liner about, um, peaches, remains one of the best worst movies ever. 2) PIE! When I was a kiddo, our neighbors had a Babcock peach tree with a limb that draped liberally into our yard and sagged heavy with juicy, white-fleshed fruit, ripe for the poaching. In summer evenings when the valley heat calmed down a beat, my mom would throw open the windows — thus inviting inward the sweetest delta breeze to ever kiss my pillowcase — … Read More
spiced summer squash quickbread (gf)
I set out intending to leave this post free of any mammary references, but then I went for my first postpartum jog the other day and realized that HOLY JESUS Running With Boobs Hurts Like The Dickens and it just didn’t feel right keeping the lid on such an epiphany, so there goes that. And to think I actually wanted these things back in high school. Ouch. Also, how uncomfortable is the word mammary? I’m having mixed feelings about it, mostly because every time I hear it I picture whales swimming around with little storybook clusters of bubbles floating about, because obvi whales are … Read More
mini meyer lemon cannoli cream tartlets
You guysssszsszzz! Mother’s Day is this weekend!! Somehow that means it’s FREAKING MAY ALREADY. Yikes. And new this year: I totally get to participate in MoDay stuffies as a momma. Yikes Part 2. Or maybe Yay Part 1? Because crudsmugglers, this whole parenting thing is spectacularly spectacular in the full-blown, John Leguizamo-as-The-Magical-Sittar kind of way. It’s at once beautiful and terrifying and easier and harder than I ever imagined and the last two weeks have passed in what I can only describe as a state of quasi-hypnosis. I’ve never been more fixated on another living thing. I’ve never been more fixated on … Read More