Hello! As many of you know, today everyone casts their vote for Bake My Cake 2013. I’m looking forward to it; even when I don’t win, I love watching the results throughout the day. I think I have a decent shot at the gold this time, though, so if you feel so inclined to help a girl out, head over to Movita Beaucoup and throw a vote in the general direction of this crazy cake (and read all about it here and here): Continue reading →
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(Setting: early Summer in the American Middle West. Shannon has been up for hours planning the day, doing some grocery shopping, and has just returned from the gym. A thought occurred to her while on the treadmill – a rare happening – and she can’t wait to tell the one person she knows will be excited about it.)
Shannon: (slams outside door and sets her things on the counter) Lottie? Lottie!
(silence)
Shannon: Lottie? Hello?
(more silence)
(A slight fear creeps in to Shannon’s heart as she wonders where her sheep is. She goes quickly to Lottie’s new home and rings the bell.) Continue reading →
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Some of you may remember this from Facebook, but I made this pavlova a few months ago. And then I never wrote about it on the blog. Like, ever. Some of you may have wondered, “Where did that wee pavlova go? Did it not work out? Why is Shannon holding out on us like this?” Friends, I would never hold out on you unless it was for good reason. Truth: those tiny individual pavlovas were not meant for this blog; they were meant for my first-ever semi-regular freelance food writing job. What? We have several great food magazines in St. Louis, and one of them was just insane enough (in a good way) to ask me to write for them. Continue reading →
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It’s a good thing I consider Memorial Day to be a weekend event and not a one-day-only event, or we’d be in trouble. At this moment, it’s pouring down rain, with thunder and lightning so loud it woke me the Wee One up from her nap, so at least for right now, there will be no outside cooking. Thankfully on summer holidays at my house, we start picnic-fooding on Saturday, so we’ve had two days of pretty excellent weather with food to go alongside. Continue reading →
Dear past, present and future library patrons,
I feel like we had a really good national library week together, yes? I got cosy with a few cookbooks, made some recipes, and hopefully got a few of you turned on to all your local library has to offer. I was fortunate enough to read about how the library has been a big part of your lives, as well. So many of you already use the library on a regular basis (and love it as much as I do), and that was a delightful surprise. I loved hearing your memories of childhood library visits, and spending tons of time there during high school and college, or losing touch with the library but finding your way back. It seems like everyone has a different favorite thing about the library, and that’s maybe what makes libraries so great; so many things to love. Continue reading →
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Dear Library,
I don’t love to admit this, but there was a time in my life that I didn’t think I needed you; I was wrong about that. After high school, and a few half-hearted attempts at college classes, I thought maybe living my life was way more important than learning things from books. I kept working full-time; no college for me, at least not at that point. I was burned out, needed a break, and if there was one thing I was sure of, it was that I had zero ideas about what I really wanted to do with my life.
Looking back, I don’t think that was a bad move on my part. I still don’t understand how most kids know at the wee age of 18 what they want to do with the whole rest of their time on the planet. Some do: I have a friend whom I’ve known since middle school who always wanted to be a veterinarian, and she is – you guessed it – a veterinarian now. But it seems like most kids have roughly the same idea of their future at 18 years old as they did at 8, when their hearts were set on being astronauts or race car drivers. Continue reading →
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Dear Library,
Let’s talk about high school. I wasn’t nearly as studious as I was in elementary school, but that didn’t dampen my love for reading. I still visited you regularly, although I mostly left behind my Nancy Drew in favor of more grown-up books. I never knew what I would find in your shelves, and I liked it that way; quite often, I would wander through your book-stacked aisles and grab what looked interesting. I found Barbara Kingsolver and Ellen Gilchrist this way, both before they were popular. I still read books by those two, and other authors I discovered purely by chance, to this day. Continue reading →
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I’ve talked about my love of libraries for some time now. This week (April 14-20) is National Library Week, and I’m going celebrate it by talking about why the library has been important in my own life for over three decades, and why it should be important to you. Hopefully, your library is awesome, and you visit it regularly. You can use it for a multitude of things, from music to movies to, yes, every conceivable type of book. In this little corner of the internet, you’ve seen it used most often for cookbooks; in fact, many of the recipes I’ve researched, toyed with and practiced on over the past few years have come from none other than my lovely library. Continue reading →
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Happy Easter, everyone! I hope all of you had a lovely, relaxing day, whether it was in the kitchen, on the nearest sofa, or outside hunting easter eggs in the yard. Whatever, as long as you had a great time. It was warm here – I almost said “unseasonably” due to the 39 feet of snow just last week, but no; the weather was completely seasonal, and sunny, so we were thrilled. So what did everyone do: lunch, brunch, or dinner? We typically do a brunch at Easter, and I try to do mix the dishes up each time. I decided to not muscle in with the camera when everything was set up; I could see the hunger on everyone’s faces, and I knew no one was waiting for me to take photos, so what you see here is after the demolition. Continue reading →
“Art and music are the first things to go in schools. The role of art is disappearing. When we were kids, we learned about bakers and candlestick makers. We learned about cobblers and all these old-school, awesome things that people did their entire lives. They specialized in making one thing. … In archeology, the things that matter most are handmade: ceramics, glass, sacrophagi, paintings. The most valued objects of lost cultures are the things that were made by hand. We need to start making things with our hands again.” – Ira Coyne, sign painter. Continue reading →
Monica: I absolutely get what you're saying. Completely.
And I really comm...
movita beaucoup: (Sorry, I was speaking Canadian there. Let me rephrase: you're my yard...
movita beaucoup: You do everything with grace - from mini donuts to losing competitions...
shannon: that's the cereal devotion talking. it's like you're possessed. :)...
shannon: So cute: like i wish i could convey how adorable they are in real life...
seems like lately my kitchen smells like…
stalking = so much fun.