summertime bits and bats

Hi friends! Are you having wonderful summers? Here are just a few odds and ends from ours — it’s mostly been a sunny mix of visits from friends, recipe testing and manuscript scribbling, baby cuddles, and the occasional baked treat. I have also rediscovered the glory of regular old ice cream sandwiches, that kind with all the hubbub about not melting, and may or may not have taken down a box in the last week — which is neither here nor there.

More importantly, our monkey is now a silly little 9-going-on-10-month-old who has discovered crawling, and pulling up! He spends most of his time these days charging gleefully around the house, testing whether this time will be the time we finally let him touch that outlet (spoiler alert, it is not), keeping up a constant refrain of “dada,” and yelling when he’s pulled himself up on his baby gate but can’t figure out how to sit back down.  His favorite toys are none of his own toys and all of ours, so (1) phones, (2) videogame controllers, (3) the remote, (4) not the toy remote we bought to trick him. And seltzer bottles. He’s gobbling chunks of kabocha and purple sweet potato (when I don’t eat it all first — I demand to know how it is possible that a vegetable can taste like cookies and cream), gnawing on broccoli and cauliflower, and will suck on a mango pit for as long as you will let him.  His biggest smiles stretch his face wider than it is long.  It is true what they say — it really does just get better and better every day.

(This doesn’t stop me from scrolling through old baby photos and wailing, “Look how chubby he used to be!  Look how squeaky he was!  Look how tiny!  Look how [insert every other adjective you can think of]!“  I miss him at every age already.  Does that mean it’s time for B4?  I kid.  (I kind of not kid.))

I hope your summers are all full of sunshine and delicious things!  The recipe for the blueberry hand pies, which taste pretty much like summer baked into a flaky heaven of a pastry, is here, and the golden focaccia, which is crisp on top and chewy but tender inside and may have ruined me for all other focaccia forever, here; the cake will be in this little thing, but I can’t wait to share it with you, because it might be one of my favorite cakes yet.  What’s your favorite thing you’ve made lately?  I’d love to hear.

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