[ Pie. if you’ve been around here much in the last few months, you know that I make pie. A lot of pie. And I’m particularly excited to share this pie with you today because it helped me break out of a rut. A pie rut. A baking…

Much like friends, types of Sunday mornings, or books — there are many different kinds of desserts. Sometimes you may be in the mood for a light French cake piled high with summer fruit. Other days, a thick slice of fragrant pound cake will do.

Remember when you started middle school and didn’t really know what to expect or what kind of shoes the other kids would wear or how the heck to open a damn locker? But within a matter of days you kind of slyly studied the older…

What I’m about to tell you doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It’s one of those rare things that happens to you and that’s so much bigger than you — it’s difficult to put it into words. And the reason I have waited to…

Let’s not beat around the bush. There won’t be a recipe today. That just hasn’t happened in a bit, and we’ll have a heart to heart about that soon. I promise. There are a few things we’ll chat about, actually. But for now, I…

Do you ever have those spells where you just feel really alive? Where you’re ravishing good music and everything tastes better and you’re curious and engaged and people who cut you off in traffic just don’t seem to matter all that much? When you battle wanderlust…

I failed geometry in high school. Literally failed. Had to take it over the next year. And I was a really good student so this was shocking (well really, I wasn’t all that shocked at all when it came right down to it). I doodled on…

So Marge. A few of you have asked how things are going. I love that. Thank you. Things are plugging along. I’m adding another farmer’s market onto the weekend docket in a month or so and testing some new pie recipes. It’s good.

It’s been a busy two weeks. I moved! Not far–right across the bridge into a sweet little 1920’s building in Oakland that’s close to bookstores, coffee shops, cafes, and running trails. I’m vowing not to move ever again for a very long time (please,…

Last weekend my Dad turned 60. He decided to throw a party out in West Marin at Nick’s Cove right on the Bay. They have a great rustic restaurant with awesome barbecued oysters, an amazing view  and little cabins right on the water. My sisters…

I’ve spent three weeks baking in my commercial kitchen for Marge. I’m still running around doing what feels like hundreds of errands each week, but things are starting to become a bit more streamlined. I’ve done two farmer’s markets and a few great local events.

I’m not at all a New Years person. I was trying to think about a memorable New Years that I’ve had and I actually can’t recall a one. Oh wait, I take that back. I do remember one New Years in college that involved…

There’s nothing like New York during the holidays. As many of you know, I spent Thanksgiving in New York this year visiting family, staying with my little sister in Soho and eating many, many cookies. And slices of pie. And cupcakes. I wanted to share a…

I do believe this may be the first ever A Sweet Spoonful Gift Guide. And I’m excited to share with you a few things that are making me happy right here right now, and that may make a few of your loved ones smile…

I’ve been a big tease lately. I mention secrets and new endeavors without as much as a hint. Truthfully, I wasn’t doing this to build suspense or for any other weird reason. I just have this theory that it’s bad luck to say you’re starting something…

Well here we are: Thanksgiving week. I had a grand post planned for you today but I’ve come down with my annual ‘could you come at a worse time?’ cold, so it’ll have to wait. Instead, we have something relatively short but sweet and perfect…

Last week at my favorite yoga class, the instructor started talking about the concept of Remembering Forward. It’d been a long tough class and my mind was wandering over to latte land, but as I half listened, the concept grabbed me.

I read a nice little post on The Blue Hour a few days ago that made me think. It was called “Where I’m At” (thus the name of this post) and was just kind of about sitting back and taking stock. One of the great things…

I carved a pumpkin at my Dad’s house on Halloween night. Yes, trick-or-treaters were arriving as we were slicing away. Better late than never. And pumpkin. I heard some ladies talking at the gym this week that they were “all pumpkin-ed out” (this was after the…

This has been a banner year for fall cookbooks. There are always some great new releases that I get particularly excited about, but this year’s different. I can hardly keep up and I wanted to share some of my new favorites with you. These are the…

Mary Oliver is a wise woman. I’d love to have tea with her someday. Or take a really long walk. Apparently she loves birds and I could pretend that I really loved birds for that one afternoon (I hate birds). But…

Last week was a whirlwind of flour, sugar, cool fall evenings, early morning drives to the industrial part of the city and some new baking friends. I enrolled in a one-week intensive baking course through San Francisco Baking Institute in methods and ingredient functionality.

As you’re reading this, I’m probably in my little Volkswagon driving five hours North to visit Jean. Remember Jean? She’s my dear friend who, exactly one year ago, was hit by a car and killed while crossing the street in Brooklyn. I remember what I…

I generally work on weekends. It’s something I’ve come to terms with only because I know it won’t last forever. I write. I bake. But those two things don’t always pay the bills, so I work retail on the weekends and dream of the day when…

Today we’ve got cookies and sisters on our hands. You may remember me talking about Zoe, my youngest sister, and the weekend she graduated. But I’m not sure that I’ve talked a whole lot about Rachael. She’s the middle sister in our family and…

It’s been awhile since I’ve written a ‘sigh, I’m alone’ post. And god, I thank you for sticking with me through those. In one sense it feels like just yesterday and in another it feels like it’s been a decade. And I haven’t written…

I got home from Seattle today with a mailbox full of fall catalogs. Yikes. Then I was talking to a friend and she mentioned how wild it is that tomorrow’s September. I can name something equally wild: the fact that I haven’t updated this blog in…

I picked up the most recent issue of Time Magazine to find Jonathan Franzen on the cover. I’m a big fan of Franzen and think what he does in depicting ordinary folks living ordinary lives is nothing short of genius.  If you’re looking for intricate plots…

I got an email from a reader last week that made me think. And then smile. She mentioned how she liked my blog because it was about food while simultaneously being nothing about food. The more I thought about it, the more I realized she’s probably…

In a recent post, I mentioned that I’d just gone up to my family’s Tahoe cabin for a few days with my dad. I mentioned ice cream and lounging by the lake. What I didn’t mention is the grand renovation that’s taken place this past…