use real butter

Recipe: cheesecake

We prepped a late dinner Sunday evening. As Jeremy opened the door to the deck to get the grill going, we noticed a nice little layer of snow everywhere. [I realize I talk about the weather a lot. It's not because I'm trying to be polite, it's because I am a bit of a weather dork.] Just a few hours earlier we were in Boulder, enjoying these:

tulips on pearl street

April is like that around here. Can’t make up its mind about the seasons. That’s sort of how I felt about this month’s Daring Bakers challenge… I couldn’t make up my mind about the flavor – so I did both.

daring bakers, baybeee – we knead to bake!

The official line: The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge. The unofficial line is that Jenny rocks it along with our Superstahhh founders, Lis of La Mia Cucina and Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice. I heart them all.

**Jump for more butter**

My head hurts this morning and I all I had last night was a sip of Jeremy’s Sauv Blanc. The hell? [I'm pretty sure it was my 2-hour cardio workout because my ass hurts when I walk right now.] A very good friend of mine is in Colorado all the way from Sydney. She and her husband came to Boulder last night to meet up with us for Community Night at The Kitchen. Oooooh Comm Night…

herbed gioia ricotta and fennel confit wood roasted flatbread

This was our fifth time at Comm Night. Come hungry and wear elastic waistband pants: fixed menu, family-style dining with a bazillion courses! Well, to be honest, over the past 4 years, Comm Night has gone from serving *insane* amounts of food to just *quite a bit* of food. I don’t feel like I’m going to pop and die at the end of the meal anymore. Or perhaps I’ve just learned to pace myself. Either way, it’s still a big treat partly because we don’t typically eat like that and partly because we aren’t made of money. Because our friends know their food (the hubby is a chef in Sydney), we thought Comm Night would be a perfect meal to share with them… and the dozen other diners at our table!

marinated shell bean salad with prosciutto, country terrine, grilled bread

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I’ll have a recipe for you all tomorrow. Right now I’m baking up some tried and true recipes for some of my favorite dudes while rocking out in my kitchen to some good tunes. And I’m going to rattle on like a dope. I’m just not in the right mindset to come up with new recipes to make and shoot lately. Must be party-lag. It’s waning fast though. Even as I type, ideas are leaking into my mental desktop. Nice.

tulip(s) that nichole and luke brought for me

I know that several folks have complained about Daylight Saving Time kicking in, if for no other reason, the loss of an hour is pretty distressing for those of us with a shitload of stuff to do. But despite losing that precious hour, I kinda like that it stays light later. [Sorry babe, those of us in the higher latitudes experience far greater variations in daylight - but you know I still love ya.] The days are getting longer here… we’re on the upswing! That always puts an extra spring in my step. I mean more so than usual. Jeremy was explaining (in his calm, cool, collected and professorial way) why Daylight Saving Time is a crap concept and my mind just wandered off, smiling. I know it’s stupid, but I like it. I like it.

feels like spring

**Jump for more butter**