Treats for appetites of every size
As I think I mentioned last week, Hurricane Arthur managed to cancel all of the 4th of July events last weekend. That meant that yesterday, the 12th of July, became the night for fireworks and festivities at the waterfront. The condo I’m in for the summer happens to have a perfect panoramic view of the fireworks show, making it the natural location for friends to come and watch. Which, of course, meant I needed to bake.
As I write this post, I am sitting on the patio of our condo, surrounded by beautiful views of Plymouth Bay. I’m watching a sailboat as it comes out from behind the jetty. I don’t think my parents are going to be able to get rid of me at the end of this summer.
At 12:36pm tomorrow, I will have completed my first year as a high school biology teacher. This is crazy to me. I started this blog the night before my first day of school in September, because what first year teacher doesn’t want to add additional commitments to an already overwhelming amount of work? Every week, no matter how much lesson planning I felt I needed to do, I found time to bake something and write about it.
Yesterday I had the most perfect first day of summer you can dream up. I started the day with a nice long run, did some chores around my apartment, and then biked to a farmer’s market where I met a friend (Hi, Ashley!) to shop for some local produce and eat food truck tacos. After that, we wandered around my town’s stores before heading over to our school to watch one of her students compete in a skateboarding competition. When I got home, I roasted up my vegetables for a delicious dinner. All in all, exactly what I wanted to …
Before I get into this post, I just want to say Happy Father’s Day to my amazing dad. I had grand designs to use my post this week to share one of his secret recipes, but, realistically, I shouldn’t make an entire batch of pancakes just for myself. So instead I hope he’s ok with a shout out.
My family came to visit me this weekend and we spent the time cramming the entire month of June’s festivities into two days. On Saturday, we celebrated my birthday, which is actually this coming Wednesday, and today we celebrated Father’s Day, which is actually next weekend. It was the first time we’ve all been together in awhile (maybe since Easter?), so it was awesome to get to spend time with them. Also, I consider birthdays weeklong events, despite my dad’s insistence otherwise, so really it also served as the kick-off to my birthday week.
Do not despair, my loyal followers, I’m back. I’m sorry for not giving you a sugar fix last weekend, but in all honesty I did try. I had this whole grand plan in place. I was going to post a picture like this:
About two hours ago my Dad called me. He was upset because he had gone to our favorite bakery to get a half moon cookie, only to find they are closed on Sundays, causing him to settle for Dairy Queen instead. Funny enough, as he called to tell me this, I was in the middle of frosting half moon cookies of my own.
Happy Mother’s Day! This weekend, I traveled back home to hang out with my mom on her big day, so naturally I had to bake something for her. And, as you should all know by now, that means it had to be something coconut. First I was looking at coconut coffee cake, thinking it would be good for a Mother’s Day brunch, but I wasn’t really sold on anything I found. Then, I stumbled upon this coconut quick bread from Smitten Kitchen and knew it was meant to be: quick, easy, and it would take away minimal time from Mother’s Day …
This past Thursday was Report Card Night at school, which means that we had a half day before having to come back to meet with parents in the evening. Whenever this happens, a group of teachers uses it as an excuse to go out for lunch. This time, we decided on Red Robin (mostly because I was in the mood for a burger). Two of us got there a little early and were starving, so we ordered an appetizer of pretzel bites while we waited for our friends to arrive.