The chorus of birdsong starts up every morning around 5 AM. It’s loud enough to wake me up until I close the window and, yawning, fall back to sleep. The backyard is becoming more lush with every passing day—purple day lilies bloom beside the raised beds and a climbing bush with flowers the delicate blush pink of the inside of a seashell has taken over the back corner of the fence. The smell of fresh mint (which grows rampant among the flower beds) and just-cut grass hangs in the air. Bright green hydrangea bushes are poised for their moment, the buds tightly curled still like tiny closed fists. But I know what splendor lies within—violent bursts of color that erupt suddenly in late June like fireworks.
Read moreSTRAWBERRY BASIL ICE CREAM
I eat ice cream year-round and think everyone else should too. Summertime means outdoor ice cream season, of course, which is a little different from curling up at night in the winter with a spoon and a bowl of dark chocolate cacao nib gelato. I like my ice cream in a cup, in general, but there’s something particularly wonderful about ordering a cone on a bright sunny day and letting it drip down onto your fingers, leaving a sticky sugar residue that signals it’s time for a dip in cold ocean water at a hot sandy beach.
Read moreTURKEY PICADILLO
Are you confused? Wondering if you’ve come to the wrong website? But that isn’t a baked good, you’re thinking. In fact, that looks an awful lot like a nourishing and savory dinner, not a crinkly chocolate cookie or a fruit-studded, sugar-dusted cake. What the heck!
As it turns out, man (or woman) cannot survive on biscuits and brownies alone. You could certainly try (I’ve done it) but you’ll likely end up slightly puffy in the facial region and craving a bowl of crunchy romaine lettuce something fierce.
Read moreBLACK SESAME SWEET ROLLS
They say good things come in three, and that’s certainly true for language. Consider some wonderful trios of words: I love you is the obvious one. But also it’s snowing outside, come December, or a package arrived or let’s get ice cream. Oh wait. That’s four words.
Read morePECAN PIE BROWNIES
I biked to the beach this morning, getting there early enough to be the only one in sight. The day was still brand new, existing in that tenuous and delicate state of creating itself anew, before it has declared what it will be: sunny and hot or warm and breezy or cloudy and persistently gray. This beach—my beach—is rocky and wide, stretching for miles in both directions before twisting and turning to hide itself behind the far-off sandy cliffs of Orient Point.
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