This one's for Inv Robbins, who died on Monday after helping to make about a zillion kids happy by creating the first American food franchise: Baskin-Robbins. When I was a munchkin, I loved Baskin-Robbins. There was a BR store within walking distance of all my usual haunts and they gave you free ice cream on your birthday. Even better, my older brother's best friend was a shift manager. For him, this mostly meant he, at 17, got to herd 15 and 16 year-olds, which I am sure was a pain. For him. I, on the other hand, thought that the point of being a shift manager was free banana splits. Not for him. For me. Since then, I have switched to making my own ice cream.  read more »

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amoreee. Wouldn't this cake be perfect to make for your sweetie on Valentine's Day?  read more »

Again, I should REALLY be in bed. My preggo butt will be T-I-R-E-D tomorrow.

Especially considering I'm in a new job and should really be trying my utmost to impress all and sundry.

But I can't sleep without sharing this cake.

So here it is....from the Best of the Best of Bridge, this is what I craved. I was all set to make a much healthier dessert (a very good one!) from Self magazine. It's a lovely apple caramel strudel in phyllo, done with a creamy caramel sauce. As long as you eschew the cooking spray for butter, it's a GREAT dessert.

But then I saw this one. And it was like the helpless moth, fluttering blindly, yet oh so lovingly, toward the flame.  read more »

With rising food prices, consider spending more time in your kitchen honing your home cooking. It will help stretch your food dollars.

[We could just hide under the bed covers - Brownies-like cookies and banana ice cream sandwiches] Quite unexpectedly, summer showed up; with its glorious harvest , hot breezes and refreshing drinks . Quite unexpectedly, I hadn’t noticed how time flew by. These past months; this past year. It seems that since I came back from New Zealand, things haven’t stopped. Not even for a brisk moment. New Zealand. Bang. Nice. Bang. Pierre Herm. Bang. Nice. Bang. Paris. Bang. Toulouse. Bang. Nutrition & Sant. Bang. Nutrition & Sant. That’s what keeps me busy at the moment. And actually, that’s what has kept me busy for the past few months as well. It might sound clich, but although four months have passed by, the day I arrived feels like it was yesterday . Now the project I’ve been working on is drawing to an end, and just the thought of it gives me that strange sensation: I know where all those hours of hard work go into a terrific biscuit, period; however, I can’t help but wonder why the hours faded away this fast .  read more »

We women have a lot to learn about simplifying our lives. We have to decide what is important and then move along at a pace that is comfortable for us. We have to develop the maturity to stop trying to prove something. We have to learn to be content with what we are. ~Marjorie Pay Hinckley Sometimes I think women are their own worst enemies. Men think that we go to all the trouble of wearing makeup, dressing nicely, having our hair done etc. for them, but really, truth be known . . . its mostly for the benefit of other women. We just cannot stand the thought of another woman looking at us and thinking silently to herself, or out loud to a friend . . . My goodness did you see that?  read more »

Today's recipe: A cupcake adaptation of a Cook's Illustrated recipe for carrot cake. Light crumb, lightly spiced. Excellent cream cheese frosting. People, as if we need one more reason to share our very best recipes, it's this: should we lose a recipe, we can call to ask, "By chance, did I give you my carrot cake recipe?" and then sigh with relief when hearing, "Yeah!  read more »

FOR TODAY, OCTOBER 20, 2008 ...

Outside My Window...
The wind is just a howling. It started yesterday. This will really bring the leaves off of the trees now. They will be looking quite bare after this I expect. We really have had a fairly nice autumn, much nicer weather wise than the summer was.

I am thinking...
About my friend Margaret. She is leaving to go on a trip to Egypt today. I hope that she has a lovely and a safe time. I think she's very brave. I have long wanted to go there and to the Holy Land. It must be exciting to see the Pyramids and walk on the Sahara Desert and see and do all those things I've only ever seen pictures of in books. I can't wait to hear about everything she saw and did when she gets back!  read more »

FOR TODAY August 25th, s008 . . .

Outside My Window . . .
It's still very dark, the sun is just beginning to raise it's head above the horizon, or at least the light is. I still can't tell if it will be sunny or not. The weather machine, which sits on our kitchen window sill has a great big sun on it, so . . . maybe we'll get lucky!

I am thinking . . .
About the wonderful conversation I had with my mom yesterday afternoon. It's hard to believe she is 76 now. Her voice is still so lively and vibrant on the telephone, but I know if I were to see her today, I'd notice that she seemed much older and more frail than she did the last time I saw her. That's the way it was the last time I was home to Nova Scotia, which was two summers ago . . . it suddenly hit me how tiny she was and she looked so much older . . . she hasn't been very well this year. She caught the shingles, for the second time, and it has really affected her. She had it on her head and in one eye and down one side of her face this time and is still suffering with it. It sure takes a long time to go away! I try to call her every second week and my, oh my, we talk for ages and it's hard to hang up at the end of it, as I could just talk to her for hours, it's so much fun. I wish I could call her every day . . .  read more »