A Chocolate Cake for Grandma

For my Grandmother’s 80th birthday we all wanted to make it special for her.  In the divying up of food duties somehow I ended up with the charge of baking a chocolate dessert to go with a the summer fruit shortcakes my auntie was making, and the black bottom cheese cake my cousin was making. [...]

Day at the Beach

School is creeping up on us. My children are chock full of excitement this year, with little worries bubbling over here and there. Each day I glance at our calendar I see the very clearly written: First Day of School. As a teaching grad student, this means my summer is ending soon too, [...]

Japanese Craft Book: Tale of a failed project

I suppose I should know better by now, but sometimes I don’t slow down enough to listen to myself.  Clothing and patterns just aren’t made for me, and especially not clothing patterns for women in a Japanese craft book!  
When I visited my dear friend Anna in Seattle (Anna, are you checking up on me [...]

Lunchtime Sewing: continued

You will probably note a flurry of sewing in the next couple weeks. My semester starts the last week of August and I can feel my sewing time dwindling and so many unfinished projects still staring me down. I decided that I would dedicate this afternoon to finishing the lunch mats for my [...]

Pizza Night: Inspiration Strikes!

 
About a year or so ago, I began getting the magazine Vegetarian Times.  I am alternately unimpressed and inspired by this magazine.  Not sure if I just haven’t had the time for it, haven’t been interested in cooking, or if I’ve just become over saturated with cooking and recipes after a lifetime of reading Bon [...]

TWD:It must be summer!

In my jumbled vault of memories, I have a few, of myself and my sister, as little girls, freckled, sunburned, braids or pig-tails swinging, helping to make home made ice cream.  I am quite sure that these  memories have quantified, for it seems now that we did it many times; most likely it was exactly [...]

Artisan Baking: 2nd go.

Sticky buns! Who doesn’t love ‘em?  Even I, very selective in the sweet breakfast foods I love (I’m not a donut in the morning kind of gal), love them!  So…. having successfully baked the basic bread recipe from Artisan Baking (who by the way have their own site) I thought I should give their sticky buns [...]

Back to School: Lunchtime Sewing

  The main problem I’m finding with making something for my kids that lasts year after year is that I have to start thinking of other things to make for them, because I do love sewing things for them that they will actually use.  So while the lunchbags I made for them 2 years ago are [...]

Lime Chiffon Cake: 1 year in the making

Last summer, or fall I saw a recipe in Cooking Light for a Lime Chiffon Cake.  I thought it looked, and sounded delicious, and I had not really had a lime cake before and was interested in trying it.  Last fall also was when I went back to school to begin my Master’s and so [...]

One of those days…

Yes, it has been one of those days.  It started right off  when sewing my daughter’s shorts for soccer camp.  I was bringing the waist in just an inch or so, when, somehow, I managed to send the needle through my finger.  I’ve never quite had that experience before of seeing my finger pierced through [...]