[Alice Waters' Chocolate Cake, and my mom's birthday cake.]

[Mustard greens from the market, March 2010.]
Never let it be said that I’m not stubborn. I’m the girl who will, if you offer to pay for dinner, cheerfully (but cheerfully!) fight with you over the bill (just ask my best friend). I’ll finish books I’m not enjoying all that much (see: that Dylan [...]

Near Sebastopol, Calif.

[Mustard grass near Sebastopol, February 2010.]
March, lovely March, here you are at last. You are one my favorite months — with polite apologies to sweet April with her sun showers, smoky blue June tossing her still-green branches against a summer sky, quiet, still August, and white-gold October; these I love truly and look forward [...]