Under a Blue Moon

 

My sister Kate surprised me with the Chicken and Egg book the other day.  It first caught my notice because of the cover (I'm a sucker for a pretty face) but I'm happy to say that the insides are just as gorgeous, if not more so, than the cover. 

It's not entirely a cookbook, although there are many wonderful sounding recipes.  It's also a memoir of sorts and has interesting information about raising backyard chickens. 

The photographs inside (by photographer Alex Farnum) are just beautiful. Food photography is so tricky.  Something that looks so appetizing in person doesn't always photograph well. 

So this book is a definite recommendation by me.  My only teeny, tiny, infinitesimal complaint is that the recipes are organized by season, rather than menu type.  I prefer to have the starters first, then a section on soups and salads, then side dishes, and so on.  But that is my personal preference and how I tend to use cookbooks.  I get the notion to try something new for dinner so I flip to the main dish section of a cookbook and start browsing. 

By the way – the author, Janice Cole, has her own blog so you can keep up with her experiences raising backyard chickens. 

 

 

I don't normally post on Saturdays but I wanted to show the little Easter treat bags I made for my nieces and nephews.  I think they turned out pretty sweet and they were super easy to do.

I bought glassine treat bags from Sur la Table (but honestly the waxed paper sandwich bags from the grocery store would work just as well and are a whole lot cheaper).  I used a scallop punch across the top of the bag and I punched out scalloped circles from patterned scrap booking paper.  Then I stamped a bunny and tied it all up with some rayon seam binding and a sprig of paper flowers.

 

Somehow the easy projects make just as big a mess on my kitchen counter as the hard ones.  How is that possible?

I hope everyone has a splendid Easter. 

 

 

It is that brief, lovely time of year when our lilacs bloom.  Rick cut a nice arm load of them and we had them in vases all through the house.  He also cut some of the apple blossoms off the tree and I made a loose, frowsy bouquet for the deck.

Unfortunately this time of year also coincides with the most wretched, decidedly UNLOVELY time of year.  Anyone that knows me knows I have a phobia about butterflies.  When people find out about it for the first time they always cock their head a little bit and scrunch up their face and say "Really?  Butterflies?"

But it's true.  I have a blood runs cold kind of terror about them. 

And they are EVERYWHERE right now.  And they are the worst kind – the black ones.  Don't even try to tell "oh but they are so pretty…." 

On Sunday morning I wanted to take a picture of my pretty lilacs.  And what should happen right as I'm taking the picture but a butterfly lands on my bouquet and then the entire bouquet fell off the railing and I had to run, shrieking, into the house. 

 

 

We got a little unexpected rain today.  The lighting made for a pretty picture of the Dogwood but really?  Can't we be done with the rain? 

Of course I just put all the cushions on the deck furniture this past weekend. 

We have visitor to one of the birdhouses.  Rick put a little birdseed in it so the birds would notice it and there is only little guy that has the place to himself so far.  Maybe he'll move in. 

We have a finch sock hanging from a shepherd's hook.  We have to keep it far enough away from the deck railing so Belle doesn't think of it as her own personal buffet.  Finch socks are not the most attractive things but the finches love it.  Within minutes of hanging it there were half a dozen finches on it.