Sylvia's Scenario

Meet Joy Wilson, aka  Joy, the Baker , cookbook author and popular food blogger.  Today, Barbara and I went to her book signing for her third and latest cookbook called  Over Easy .  It was fun to meet her in person, get her cookbook and hear her speak.  I really need this cookbook because it's all about brunches.  With all the family brunches I've hosted since we moved back to Seattle, I really need some new ideas and this book is chock full of delicious recipes.  Joy lives in New Orleans, one of my favorite places.  And she has a recipe for beignets, of course, and lots of other wonderful treats like strawberry shortcake doughnuts, breakfast sausage pretzel rolls, spaghetti quiche, a whole chapter on sandwiches and cocktails that include the Aperol Spritz that I drank all over Italy in September.  I am excited to start trying all her recipes.  She is such a fun person and recently started having cooking workshops at her house i...

It's been six months since we returned from our Italy trip and today I took a little "Italian field trip" with my sister-in-law, Jennifer.  Three days ago she returned from a fabulous business trip to Italy.  Jennifer is a hair dresser with her own business and she was traveling with four other colleagues touring hair product factories and learning more about hair products made in Italy.  She also did lots of shopping and eating.  Hearing about her adventures and stories brought back memories of our trip to  Italy  in September.  Today, we both got an "Italian fix" here at home.   She loved the food and coffee in Italy (of course!) so our first stop was  Bakery Nouveau  for some coffee and pastries. Even though Bakery Nouveau is French and not Italian, it was our first stop because they have the best coffee around and their bakery items are rated #1 in Seattle.   We shared each other's pastry choices with our cof...

Tonight we are having our traditional St. Patrick's Day dinner of corned beef and cabbage ,  Irish soda bread , and for dessert I made  chocolate stout cake with Bailey's Irish cream frosting .  We are not going hungry in this house.  The Irish soda bread was great for toast this morning at breakfast  and the corned beef is cooking in the crockpot, smelling up the house - just heavenly.  I'm getting ready to go swimming at the Y so I can work up my appetite for dinner.  I think for drinks, we'll just have green beer or add some green coloring to gin and tonics with lime that we've been drinking recently. I think we are so eager for Spring that gin and tonics are just hitting the spot right now.  What are you doing for St. Patrick's Day?   May the roof above you never fall in and those gathered beneath it never fall out.     

I've been on a cooking frenzy ever since we  said good bye to Ichi  on Thursday.  I can't help it, it's what I do.  Before yesterday, I also made shepherd's pie ,  stuffed jumbo shells , and turkey thighs and wings in the crockpot with cranberry sauce; all favorite comfort foods. Yesterday, we had my sister and her husband over for dinner and I made  beef stroganoff , my ultimate comfort food, with  biscuits .  I know that's a lot of carbs together with noodles from the stroganoff but this was about comfort, not nutrition.  I left out the cheddar cheese, jalapeños, and chives in the biscuits and just made them plain.  We have one jar left of our  plum jam  that made the perfect combo.  I did throw in a salad, our favorite   watercress and mango salad .  Fruit like mangos are tasting pretty good just about now when we're getting tired of winter.  I added some red leaf lettuce to it along with so...

The year was 2002.  Lauren found two litters of abandon kittens that needed saving; one in a junk pile behind our property in Idaho and another among a neighbor's bales of hay.  They ended up in a refrigerator box in our garage.  I don't remember how many we had but it ended up being the "summer of kittens".  That's how I remember it. Lauren was twelve and she was in heaven. After finding homes for all the kittens, Lauren begged me to keep the last one that nobody had chosen.  Being the animal lover that I am, I, of course, said "O.K".  His name was Ichiro, named after the up and coming rookie baseball player for the Mariners.  We called him Ichi.  Today, we said good bye to the last of the "summer of kittens". Fifteen years later, this little guy just got too old and tired to continue on anymore.  Fluid was accumulating around his lungs and it was a struggle for him to breathe. Another ch...