So what we have here is banana bread from a 1947 family recipe baked in my absolutely Fave French loaf pan bestowed upon me by my good friend Susan. Chocolate chips, roasted walnuts and bananas. Yum.Yum.

I'm off to Cape Cod for a few days. I'll bring back some fishy ideas.

Inspired by the Brothers Grimm and the land of fairy tales: Irish oatmeal and shredded apple with a scattering of fresh blueberries, brown sugar and cinnamon. Add a splash of milk,Goldilocks, and the Three Bears Breakfast is served.

Next time, I will make cabbage for Little Otik.

Crumbly, yumbly, blueberry scones drenched in zesty lemon glaze take you somewhere over the rainbow.

Stephanie began our heavenly scone craze with her out-of-this-world raspberry scones. Glen jumped in with his gravity-defying, sugar-dusted, blueberry cloud scones. The recipe for the sweet, tart, golden, melt-in-your-mouth, hip-hip- hooray! I can fly, blueberry scones that floated out of my oven this morning can be found in tyler florence's real kitchen.

Surely there was a better crust than the sloppy, soggy cracker-like disk spilling a melted pink cascade of Hunt's tomato sauce and Kraft parmesan cheese into my lap; my first attempt at homemade pizza, age 11. Okay, so I may be a slow learner, but I am known for my persistence. Approximately 40 years and 40 recipes later.... I know I can rely on James McNair's Neapolitan-Style Pizza Dough for a perfect puffy pizza crust. Secret spice direct from Italy thanks to my friend Carol sauces up the simple toppings of fresh mozzarella and red onion. A final sprinkling of grated parmesan goes on as soon as the pizza is out of the oven.
buon appetito!

"Oops, I forgot to cook."
But tonight I will wedge my Idahos, bathe them in olive oil, sprinkle with salt, pepper and a soupçon of herbes de Provence, bake until crisp and golden brown and all will be right with the world.

xnipec......thank you. Nope, I didn't sneeze, although if you leave that habenero chili in this salsa for a while, a few mouthfuls will certainly clear your sinuses. According to John Ash:Cooking One on One xnipec is an ancient Mayan salsa recipe. It is hot, spicy, sweet and fresh. Just reading John's recipes makes you feel like the party is about to begin.

Those are homemade flour tortillas next to the salsa. My husband is the tortilla master. He grills them on the griddle we inherited from his grandmother. We eat them as they come off the pan. He tries to keep up, but we're just too fast for him.

Want to taste a piece of the sky on a sunny day?
You must bake the vanilla cake from Serena,Food and Stories! Toast a slice under your broiler, slather with butter and raspberry jam and you are one step away from heaven.

Oh boy! Hawaiian lunch plate! I want the mahi mahi with 10 sides of macaroni salad please.

I had been contemplating the demise of the sole pear residing in my willow basket . I refused to cast the pear soul into the trash bin, so I transformed it into 2 Tablespoons of Pear Butter, spooned the spread into the piccolo Italian dish and gave thanks for the generosity of my single pear.
1 part water, 2 parts apple cider, 3 parts pear.
Recipe is from The Forgotten Art of Making Old-Fashioned Jellies, Jams, Preserves, Conserves, Marmalades, Butters, Honeys and Leathers.

As you can probably tell, food blogging can become quite the obsession. 2 Tablespoons of pear butter?????personifying pears????piccolo dish???

"I must take a picture of the French bread." The bartender went back to work.


I always go to Raymond Carver and his spare sentences to write titles for my black and whites. "The bartender went back to work." is from What We Talk About When We Talk About Love:Stories. Even two or three words extracted from his poetry, A New Path to the Waterfall, capture a perfect moment in time. I love his writing.

IT IS A GOOD DAY TO BAKE BREAD!
This no-fail baguette recipe from Mireille Guiliano's French Women Don't Get Fat is positively addicting. I must admit that I cheat a little by using quick rise yeast (sorry all you purists out there) to hasten the rise time, but I haven't heard any complaints when this light crusty bread comes out of the oven. Today along with the traditional baguette, I shaped 2 quarter pieces of the dough into " boules," baked seam side up. Little explosions of love!

One of the first bread books I purchased in 1979, The Garden Way Bread Book/A Baker's Almanac by Ellen Foscue Johnson still gets plenty of use in my kitchen. The book has lost half its index and the pages are as crusty as the breads baked from the recipes printed on them.

Let's JAM!
Pure and simple. Fresh fruit, sugar and water. Combine and boil and let the sweet melodies play. Honestly, it doesn't take long to make jam for Sunday morning breakfast and jamming makes you so happy. You may purchase FinePreserving/
MFK Fisher's Annotated Edition of Catherine Plagemann's Cookbook
online at the used books sites to find the best jelly, jam and preserve recipes.

"eatable edibles," giggled stephanie.