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**

Recipe: chocolate chunk bundt cake

yup, this one

Talk about superconnected. That would be Andrew. I feel like a mountain hermit as it is, but hanging out with Andrew makes me feel like I’m visiting Boulder… from Mars. We met for lunch at The Kitchen yesterday and indulged in some good conversation over awesome salads. It’s always a struggle for me to figure out whether to go with what I love or try something new. You ever have that problem at a restaurant? I went with what I knew – the poached salmon salad – since I felt risk-averse (read: tired).

andrew’s chopped chicken salad

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Recipe: macadamia nut and chocolate chip blondies

Before I began blogging, the only Crazy emails I received were from people I knew. And because I knew them, I could usually understand the Crazy in their emails (I don’t mean understanding why they were headcases, but just that it made sense to see Crazy in their correspondences). Now, with a public blog, I get lots of Crazy from people I don’t know. That makes it harder to determine if the sender is Crazy, Stupid, or just a Jackass. Thankfully, the majority of the emails that pop up in my in-box from strangers are really very nice. So thank you (you, as in the emotionally stable and well-mannered yous) for being so sweet and polite and funny and for not being a nutjob.

not so nutty: after the big dump, it was a bluebird day

april skiing – get it while it’s good

Sometimes I wish I didn’t have a local’s mentality. We skied up the powder on Saturday and then woke up Sunday morning debating whether or not to ski. There was only 1.5 inches of fresh (snow) overnight. Should we go? Is it worth our time? Won’t be as good as yesterday. Yesterday was soooo good. I’m sure it won’t be that bad… Well, it was freaking awesome. Not as awesome as 10 inches of pow, but pretty spanking. Add to that the calm winds (a rarity for our area) and you really cannot ask for much more. At home, we had a late lunch which I’ll have to blog about next week (the words New Magic Awesome Sauce should stir some curiosity). Spring skiing, I thought staring into the lovely flowers Nichole had brought me on Friday. Good stuff. Here we are straddling two seasons again and I love it.

daffodils inside, snow outside

**Jump for more butter**