On Saturday, I went with my mom and her friend Nava to visit my sister at college.

Northampton is a really great town, full of really cool stores and and of course the beautiful Smith campus. We lucked out and had the most gorgeous weather for our visit- I didn't even wear a coat!

Mostly, though, it was just really nice to see Dewey and her friends and her school, and to hang out with my mom.

It was a pretty perfect Saturday.

A Sunday Tea Party!

Last Sunday, Cait invited me over for a little tea party in her gorgeous apartment.

We made scones and ate them with devon cream and jam. Then we sipped tea (Harney and Sons Paris Blend is the best for a tea party) and chatted on Cait's comfy brown couch. Then we ate some more scones.

I highly recommend a Sunday tea party. It's such a relaxing little tradition.

Morning Light

I am obsessed with the light in my room in the morning time. It's so bright, it wakes me up at 6:30 most days (I still don't have curtains), but it's so lovely, I don't even really mind.

I just want to take pictures of it.

Polcari's

On Saturday, I met up with Nithya for a trip to the North End. After filling ourselves with pizza and espresso, we wandered over to Polcari's on Salem Street, where I got the most delicious coffee for the week, and where they were extremely accommodating to a baby photographer who just wanted to take pictures of it all.

{I have memories of going to Polcari's when I was tiny tiny. They had candy.}

{They have approximately seven hundred thousand kinds of coffee.}

{Which they custom blend for you}

{The guy pulled me behind the counter so I could take pictures of the big bins. I couldn't really get a good shot, but I thought that was so sweet!}

I know I was just extolling the virtues of having access to a kitchenaid, but last night I was reminded of the joys of baking with nothing more than a wooden spoon.

I was craving banana bread when I went grocery shopping last Sunday (I love banana bread), so once I finally had some free time after the birthday cakes of doom project, I had all the ingredients. I wanted to use my family's favorite recipe, which comes from a worn-out booklet of children's recipes that my mother ordered for fifty cents from Gold Medal Flour at least five years before she had any children, but I couldn't get her on the phone to read it to me, and I couldn't find it anywhere online. Instead, I went to that bastion of deliciousness, Smitten Kitchen.

Unlike a lot of the other recipes I found online, this one doesn't call for the butter and sugar to be creamed together. Neither does my family's recipe. Instead, I always use the biggest mixing bowl and my favorite wooden spoon to stir all the ingredients together by hand. Using a wooden spoon always makes me feel earth-mothery and old-fashioned, like I'm cooking the way Laura Ingalls Wilder and family always cooked.

And cleaning a wooden spoon is way easier than cleaning all the crevices in a kitchenaid.

Happy Friday, friends!

I hope your weekends are full of homemade baked goods and not too much cleanup.

Sometimes I think a personal assistant would be helpful.

{My kitchen isn't quite this bad anymore. But almost.}

Man oh man, you guys.

I have been so busy lately. Work is busy, and for the past week or so, I have been on a cooking bender. Just tonight, I made two cakes, challah, and then my whole dinner (salmon, green beans, asparagus and brown rice). And I didn't even get home until 8.

Sometimes, I am crazy.

p.s. I am a very lucky girl- my dad lent me his kitchenaid. It really does make baking a million times easier! He won't notice if I never give it back, right?

A petite blizzard!

Every so often, you get exactly what you asked for.

Don't you love it when that happens?