apples with honey

As Poppy lay napping beside me, snuggled under my favourite little quilt made by my great-grandmother's own hands, I joyfully peruse my new cookbooks. The windows are open to the cool spring wind and my fingers feel cold and slender. My rings swivel and turn with ease and love how slim fingers make my whole body feel slender and feminine. I look at Poppy's pudgy little hand poking out from the quilt and decide that going back to the thrift store for the faded, candy-coloured duvet cover was a brilliant decision. It matches the tangerines and pinks of the paper party lanterns I hung above our bed. Paper party lanterns I hung so we could pretend we were laying in the green grass of a picnic watching hot air balloons floating far off in the distance.

I, without guilt, scour my new cookbooks {Apples for Jam, The River Cottage Family Cookbook and The Tassajara Bread Book}some long-sought after and one new to me, but beloved-by-many bread bible. I love to cook and turning the thick beautiful pages reminds me of road trips and new flavours tried. It reminds me of that divine moment when you take a risk and order the item describing flavours and textures you would never put beside each other. It reminds of those times that the risk pays off. The flavours mingle and scratch an itch you weren't aware was there. You carry them with you for the rest of the day and think of them fondly as you slowly fall back onto the old faithful recipes you could cook or bake with your eyes closed.



Perhaps this is just what I need to finally rise up to the nasty {but entirely necessary} task of touching a whole, raw {eek!} chicken for roasting. Freshly made pasta, homemade butter and fresh loaves of bread all call for a little more organization and commitment, but I feel healthier just thinking about eating {and feeding} food infused with a little homegrown love and sweat.



So yeah, I got me some artful new cookbooks and they took me somewhere poetic and romantic...

Don't you just love when that happens?




go gently & be wonderful

e.