My crazy little man is 4 years old! Jake definitely gave me a run for my money this year. He is rambunctious and giddy and willful and very invested in understanding every single thing. This year we celebrated Jake’s birthday in the most fitting way I could imagine: with a mountain of candy and a giant board game. […]
We recently spent two weeks in Ireland. Ireland is gorgeous, in case you were wondering. Wildflowers are absolutely everywhere, peeking through the cracks in ancient stone walls and clumping along the sides of the roads. There are rock-bordered, green fields for miles, thanks to the soft, misty rain that falls almost every day. We loved […]
When I was a kid and someone brought out a carrot cake at a birthday party or celebration, I would seriously mope. No offense if carrot cake is your favorite…but who wants vegetable-flavored cake? Not even cream cheese frosting can redeem that. Cake should be rich and sweet with a light but even crumb. There […]
Over Memorial Day weekend, we took our first family adventure since Caitlin was born: strawberry picking at Wegmeyer Farms! It was a perfect sunny morning, and the strawberry fields were absolutely full of huge, ripe red strawberries just begging to be eaten. (No, not by me…I still don’t like strawberries.) This was by far the […]
The first day I met my husband, he shared a little analogy with me. “Dave is to strawberries as Melissa is to muffins.” (I had just finished telling him that muffins were my favorite thing to eat, ever.) As we got to know each other better, he totally held up his end of that analogy […]
I sometimes joke that my entrance exam into my husband’s family was learning the recipe for rhubarb pie. Dave really loves rhubarb. But he has never even batted an eye at my suggestions of non-pie rhubarb desserts…until one day last week, when he suddenly looked up and asked me to make him a rhubarb coffee […]
You guys, I have had it all wrong! For years, ever since first setting eyes on rugelach on my honeymoon in Germany, I believed that these cookies were always stuffed with dried fruits or poppyseeds. Apparently…rugelach can be chocolate! Or nutty! Or, really, any flavor you please. So, many thanks to C Mom Cook, my […]
Have you ever met someone who says they don’t bake because they don’t like to measure? (Are you that person?) I have several friends who have confessed that or similar hang-ups about baking. But here’s how I see it: it’s Christmas! Everyone deserves fresh baked cookies, whether or not they wake up in the morning […]
Thanksgiving is over and now it’s Christmas season! Do you even know how much I look forward to what I informally think of as “cookie month”? Yet…for all the delights of Christmas cookies, sometimes it’s a little sad to say goodbye to pie week. So why not make your pies into cookies? Ease the transition […]
My baby is 1!! How did that even happen? In keeping with my goal to one day turn into Annie of Annie’s Eats, I planned the heck out of a birthday party for him. I landed on a Curious George theme (from the books, not the show), because my kid looooves to investigate anything he […]