Heat wave sweet crave solution

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It’s hot in London right now.  As my brother would say, hot as… well let’s just say, really hot and sticky.  Muggy.  Humid.  Still.  Not exactly comfort-food weather.  I spend all day grazing on chunks of cheese and nibbles of cucumber– anything cold and quick.

Because we love dads, even when they don’t love chocolate.

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This past weekend was father’s day.  It was also the weekend of a huge outdoor party, complete with big bohemian tents and a pig on a spit, that the bf’s dad and stepmom hosted at their house in Oxfordshire to celebrate their joint birthdays.  They took care of all the party planning and much of the food (besides the pig) themselves, so of course I offered to help.  Which meant baking 3 trays of brownies (not too hard, but very messy) and bringing them up on the train on Friday evening (really surprisingly hard).  It also meant finding a great, easy brownie recipe (pretty difficult too).

Rhubarb Coffee Cake, Rhubarb Lemonade, and Apologies Again

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I’ve been bad.  I’ve been eating too much sugar, working too little on my book, and worst of all wasting too much time online gawking at other people’s food blogs and not spending enough time working on my own.  But I’m back now, having been for a whirlwind week in New York with my bf and 'rentals, and with a brand new camera to play with!*  I've also gotten my first big book deadline under my belt, and I’m celebrating with all things rhubarb!

It’s Easter! Wait, It’s June Already? Crap.

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So, back in April, when Easter actually occurred, I was at home in San Francisco.  I had the baking bug real bad, and so I begged my mom to let me take care of the main dish for breakfast, as well provide the something sweet: a newfangled invention I’d just discovered called Monkey Bread, which basically means cinnamon-sugar-butter-biscuitiness.  Trust.  OMG.

Spring is... still springing!

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Spring is being a bit coy around these here parts.  One day it's sunny and gorgeous, and the geese are parading their fluffy babies all over the canal:

And the next day, we're having friends over for brunch, doors flung wide open to let in the... oops, and now it's pouring.  But at least the food was a hit!

Little Lemon Drops of Heaven

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I love the internet.  I never really got into 'surfing' the net until I moved to London and started trying to find new ways to keep from writing my book, but now that I'm into it, I spend most of my time hating myself for spending my life online instead of outdoors.  Except.  Except when a startup headhunter finds my old coffeehouse review page and contacts me.  Except when my old babysitter who I haven't seen since I was 10 reconnects with me on facebook.  Except when I stumble across an amazing recipe for Lemon Drop Cookies.  Have I mentioned that I love the internet?

How on earth could I miss such a sweet, little succulent recipe?!

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You have my sincerest apologies for the graininess of these pics...  vacay photography was sorely lacking.

It can't be true.  It simply cannot be that I have never shared my famous banana bread recipe with you!  How could I possibly have missed the opportunity to post the recipe that made me the baker I am today (on a good day)?!

My banana bread is what I was known for in high school.  It's better than anyone else's, including yours.  Sorry, but it's true.  And in high school, before my parents began the insane remodel that has consumed all our lives for the past 10 years (I kid you not), we had an amazing old gas stove/oven from the 50's, which used to make the tops of the loaves all chewy and sticky.  Heaven.  God, I miss that stove.