Making Pizza with Cathy

I was the youngest child in my family -- the baby.  My brother and sister had already left our family home by the time I reached high school, so for those last three years prior to my own college mecca, I felt like an only child.

Friday night was date night for my parents.  Little stood in the way of their going out to any one of the hundreds of fabulous restaurants in Miami, Miami Beach and Ft. Lauderdale on date night.  That left me home alone, where I was allowed to use their credit card to order in pizza delivery from Marcella's, the neighborhood Italian restaurant and pizzeria.  I had a standing order: small pizza, half pepperoni, half cheese.

Tiramisu Torte

Tiramisu Torte is a little bit more time consuming than its Italian Tiramisu predecessor which is traditionally made with store-bought lady fingers. For the torte, not only are you tasked with stirring the custard until it boils, and whipping the fresh heavy cream until it forms peaks, you'll also have to make the torte cake layers.

A Day With Molly

A book recently authored by Molly

For me, lunch and shopping with my friend Molly is as good as it gets.  Although we both have creative blood flowing through our veins, Molly is an endearing eccentric --

not only does she dance to the beat of a different drummer,

I can't even hear Molly's drummer!

I met Molly Sellers Robinson Seaver in 1997, the year I moved to the mountains, and in Molly's pre-Seaver days.  Two women couldn't

Party Girls ~ Part 1 ~ Premier Designs

With the exploding popularity of women earning extra money selling everything from jewelry to decor through the home party plan, new generations of
party girls are born every day.

I recently joined a PREMIER Designs Inc. party gathering in Cathy Jarrett's home, and became reacquainted with the chunky-style jewelry like we wore in the 70s and 80s, and

Buttercrust Lemon Cheese Tart

One of my favorite things growing up in South Florida, was going out to the backyard and picking Myer lemons my mother squeezed into juice for lemonade, sliced to drizzle on swordfish and red snapper, and grated into zest for pies.

I saw Myer lemon trees for sale at Home Depot last week, and was reminded we are not botanically bound to regions anymore.  We can grow palm trees here in the mountains, tropical orchids in greenhouses when it's snowing outside, and lemon trees in patio pots almost anywhere.

I get a lot of requests for Lemon Cheese Tart, and quite frankly, it's one of the simplest desserts I make.  Although the original recipe was time intensive, I re-invented it a few years

An Open and Shut Case

I always have projects going on around Dove Cottage. 
Some of them are short term, instant gratification;
others are finished gradually...

Now you may be thinking to yourself:  gradual projects never get finished, and end up sitting half done forever.  Not so with me, my friends.  I'm very improvisational -- we improv-artists start with a basic plan, and it slowly evolves from there.  It made me a better designer through the years because improv is flexible. Of course, it might be .. well.. why I'm divorced.  Improv drove J crazy!

Sunday after church at Unity, I thought to myself: I think I'll have a relaxing day around the cottage and start on those kitchen cabinets.  I already had the plan, but had put it on the back burner as