• Tropical carrot cake cupcakes

    Sorry I haven’t posted in a while; I was out of town. But I wanted to share what I baked for Easter/my dad’s birthday. We usually have coconut cake for Easter, but this year I wanted to something a little more bunnylicious. Carrot cake was a no-brainer. You may notice these photos were taken in […]

  • Wondershadow

    I’ve been doing a whole lot more eating than shopping and swimming lately. But I did want to share some awesome eyeshadow sets I picked up a while back. As anyone who read my Watchmen review knows, I am not exactly a big comic book person. (Although I do have a Batman pillowcase… but that’s […]

  • Peepcake!

    I love Peeps. I’m sure that isn’t surprising, given that I love marshmallows, candy corn and Red Vines. My friend Aaren thinks Peeps are disgusting (I await her comments below) and gave me a super-cute Peep-bunny Easter basket one year because she said I was the only person on Earth who likes them. But she’s […]

  • Artichoke and goat cheese strata

    Toby really likes to have lots of food for breakfast or brunch, whereas I usually can only eat about a serving of cereal or two pancakes before I’m full. So, while Toby loves strata, I often can only eat a few bites. This one is different. I tried it because I like artichokes and goat […]

  • Cherry blossom cookies

    The Cherry Blossom Festival ended Sunday, and tiny pink petals are floating all over DC — but some of the trees are still blooming. Toby and I went down to the tidal basin two weekends ago and it was beautiful. Naturally, I was inspired to bake cookies. I thought about something with cherries, but instead […]

  • Biscuits with uber-flaky layers

    Ever since I read “The Secret Life of Bees,” I’ve been obsessed with biscuits and honey. When I was reading it, I would buy a can or bag of frozen biscuits and make one or two at a time to slather with honey. And while homemade biscuits taste better than the canned kind, mine never […]

  • Chocolate layer cake

    About a year and a half ago, I met and interviewed a really amazing person: Gunnery Sgt. William J. Dixon, the Marine Corps funeral director. I have seen him a few times since, and was always surprised to see he hadn’t been promoted yet. So I was excited to get an email a few weeks […]

  • Asparagus, peas and basil

    You may have seen Gourmet’s newest special edition magazine, Gourmet Italian Kitchen. I bought it as soon as I saw it, which is not surprising, but what might be surprising is that this is the first thing I wanted to make from it. I don’t love asparagus, but Toby does. And I’m trying to cook […]

  • Mini cherry pies

    Because it’s cherry blossom time in DC, because I had been wanting to try this for a while, because I opened a jar of cherry pie filling for Belgian waffles on Sunday and because cherry pie is amazing… I made mini pies the other day. I did it the easy way — using refrigerated pie […]