Good Things by David

I hope that you will agree with me when I say that all of us can use a little green at the start of spring.  For me, the color green represents life,  renewal and positive energy.  Surrounding ourselves with a bit of green in our homes, at least in my opinion, is the equivalent of allowing vitality into our lives.  To my mind green equals happiness, and let's be honest, we can all use some cheer in our lives right now. This is especially true during these unusual and uncertain times all of us are living under.  If you're stuck at home at the moment like so many of us around the world are, it's important for our mental health to engage in activities that will give us a sense of calm and peace. A Spring Table Setting Whether it's reading, cooking, baking, organizing, exercising, learning a new language or whatever you happen to be doing to pass the time right now, don't let our social distancing or imposed quarantines make us throw our table manners ...

It's difficult to imagine a Christmas without cookies.  For this year's sweet edibles, I turned to that mid-century colored glass known as jadeite/jadite/jade-ite for my color palette.  Working with three particular shades of green, I decorated several holiday shapes for our town's Christmas cookies.  Ornaments, mittens, candy canes, tiny houses, hemlocks, junipers, arborvitae, and spruce trees, were given the jadeite treatment in royal icing.   When you're in charge of decorating dozens upon dozens (I can't photograph all of them) of cookies and you are working solo, you tend to stick to easy decorating techniques.  Most of the cookies that you see here were decorated with multiple colors of royal icing, and were then either sprinkled with nonpareils or were enhanced with holiday-themed candies.  That is it.  Nothing fancy. For this project you will need royal icing tinted with Americolor Avocado, Wilton Kelly Green and Wilton Leaf Green....

It was National Dessert Day this past weekend and I began to reminisce over the sweets that I've indulged in and shared here on the blog.  It's impossible to photograph and write about everything that I bake and serve, but thankfully I've managed to do so for some of my all-time favorite desserts  For those of us who can't pass up an occasional sweet, this post is for you.  I like just about every type of dessert, with the exception of a couple of pies and/or flavors, and am willing to try something if I've never had it before. When all is said and done, I like those things that I enjoyed from my childhood, like a layer cake, some freshly-baked cookies, a hand pie or two, and cupcakes just like the ones mom used to make for our elementary school parties.   Cakes, cupcakes, puddings, souffles, pies, tarts and cookies can be as elaborate or as simple as you want them to be.  Depending on the occasion and the season, I like to mix things up based on what I...