When the weekend rolls around, there is nothing that seems more decadent to me than a hot breakfast followed by a long, lazy walk on the beach. Accompanied, of course, by my handsome dog Oliver, who is utterly charming in the way he lies down for every dog or child, and who smiles (full-on toothy grins!), at anyone whom he suspects might find him adorable – most do.

This weekend was perfect for both lazy walking and breakfasting. After a week of being sequestered in a library, hunched over textbooks until every blood vessel in my eyes was visible and the bags beneath them had bags of their own, a weekend of perfect weather and nothing to do was embraced with delight.

As guilty proof that I almost never ate from home, I was left with a stale loaf of bread – it was meant to become lunch sandwiches but, owing to midterm sluggishness, was left to dry up in favour of sushi. A happy outcome, when the weekend arrived, because nothing beats a stale loaf of bread finding new life in a bath of sweet custard.

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On a grey winter day, it’s usually easy to justify an afternoon kneading dough, isn’t it? Particularly if you know there’s a ball of fresh mozzarella in the fridge begging to become a blanket of bubbly goo on a chewy, homemade pizza. On days like this, I find endless comfort in classics – a movie I’ve seen a thousand times, my favorite cozy sweater, or a perfect chewy, cheesy, tomato-y margherita pizza.

Today is not just a any grey winter day. It is a grey winter day 48 hours before two gargantuan midterms for which I have mountains of information to stuff into my brain, wherever I can find an empty crevasse. So, however justifiable it would be to spend another afternoon kneading dough, today’s time constraints demand that the breadmaker should have all the fun. (Although, in retrospect, beating the bajeebers out of a lump of dough might have been significantly more therapeutic than hearing the loud, mechanical throbbing of a machine echoing the throbbing in my temples).

The sauce is gorgeous and simple, bursting with fresh tomato flavour, and mercifully – takes no time at all. A swirl of olive oil in a saucepan, toss in some garlic to brown, then empty a can of tomatoes. Let it bubble for about 15 minutes, then blend with a few whirls of an immersion blender. I like to keep mine quite chunky.

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I just finished devouring a cinnamon bun hot from the oven. A swirl of soft dough, oozing with buttery brown sugar and cinnamon and thickly gobbed with cream cheese frosting. Actually, for the sake of truthfulness, I just finished devouring two. Oops.

(Don’t worry – I ate a carrot straight after to make up for it).

This is what I do when I am supposed to be studying “Advanced Topics in Clinical Nutrition”. With midterms next week, I should probably feel ashamed at being covered in flour when I should be covered in something studious like post-it notes. But really – what would you do if the thought of warm cinnamon buns kept floating into your mind in place of something like Chapter 18: Diseases of the Hepatobiliary. Hmm? Would you think about bile? Or would you think about the cinnamon buns? Come on, you know you’re on my side.

This recipe is from Molly Wizenberg, written for Bon Appetit magazine. It is the best cinnamon bun recipe I have ever tasted. Ever. Since I found it, I ceased my faithful pilgrimage to the local jewish bakery. I like mine better.

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This Sunday I started with a typical trip to the market: a well-planned grocery list riding happily in my purse, reusable bag clutched under my arm, and a twenty tucked in my pocket. The list looked something like this:

• garlic
• apples
• sweet potatos
• red onion
• bananas

I had good intentions, really. Under normal circumstances I’m sensibly faithful to my purchase plan. But in an inexplicable, rapid-onset frenzy of produce gluttony, the noble list was ditched and the respectable basket of apples and garlic was suddenly bulging under the weight of things whose names had never graced the list at all – persimmons, rapini, spaghetti squash, meyer lemons, blood oranges and fresh dates, to name a few. Though the vegetable-fever lasted only minutes, it was long enough for greens to fly and for impulse decisions to be made. The reusable bag was soon outnumbered by plastic counterparts, and the twenty was ousted for the Mastercard.

Among my grocery-basket captives was a curious head of lettuce, one that I’d never used before. They called it Endive Lettuce, but I was suspicious. It looked an awful lot like escarole which I knew was related to the endive. And since these veggie-mongers were also touting Meyer lemons under the pseudonym “Sweet Lemons”, I knew the nomenclature here was not to be trusted. Continue Reading »

Whoopie pie. I think the name alone has the power to coax feelings of glee from even the toughest old birds. In fact, when I announced to my friends that I intended to make them, the mmmmm’s and ooooooh’s far preceded the ‘what is it?’s.

My childhood memory of this gleefully-named treat is of eager anticipation and zealous consumption. Oversized cakey chocolate cookies with an oozing marshmallow-y filling would stickify my hands, face, and whatever surfaces got between me and my enthusiasm for the whoopie-filled treat. I can still see my mother crouched in front of the hot oven, mitts donned, and nose centimeters from the steamy window to watch the rising mounds of chocolaty batter (yes, it is from my mom that I inherited my squat-and-stare approach to oven use).

The chocolate part of a whoopie pie thicker than cake, but lighter than cookie. Traditionally, where I come from anyway, they are filled with a billowing mound of marshmallow frosting. Many recipes include Fluff, but I prefer a 7-minute frosting. In my version, rich chocolaty cookies sandwich a pile of creamy, caramel frosting. Continue Reading »