Hello friends, good morning! Let’s nod our heads knowing we get another Sunday here together. I’ve got a record playing this morning: Bill Evans. It sounds like he’s in the room even though he lived his entire life before mine even started. Did you know that Bill Evans named his son Evan? Oh the places…
Dough-whatnow? Doberge. Doberge Cake. It’s common knowledge that Doberge (much like many other things New Orleanians take pride in) is confidently pronounced the way your grandmother said it. Since my California (through Alabama and New Mexico) grandmother likely never uttered the word Doberge, I tend to say Doh-berj. Doh-bashj is more common down south and…
There is no one cookbook you can buy to learn how to cook heartfelt New Orleans food. To learn to cook food from the south, I think you first have to learn how to EAT food from the south. More specifically, learning to discern what to eat from whom. Everyone has their specialties – the…
Hello friends! Happy Sunday, welcome to it! How are you? How are you sleeping? Me? Not so much this week. Is it the moon? Hormones? Unconscious stress? All I know is that I’m not alone. So many of you said on Instagram that you can’t sleep either. It’s ok really. I seem to muster the…
Hi hi! It’s your old friend Joy waving excitedly with another gluten-free recipe for you! It’s not that every recipe on Joy the Baker is now going to be free of all the gluten, sugar, and diary we love (and we love it, we really do). But this is a place I get to play….
Hello friends, Welcome to another Sunday. How are you? Really. Have your socks on and your mug full of something warm in your hands? I don’t quite know how to describe this past week. It was cold – really so cold. It was without our beloved Mardi Gras It was without the daily energy I’m…
You’ll find me in a bit of a haze this week. It’s too cold down in New Orleans to keep our feet on the ground for too long. Down here our houses are lifted three feet off the ground so during these winter cold snaps there’s nothing but frigid air between our uninsulated floor boards…
Hello friends! In a normal world it would be the big Mardi Gras weekend and gosh what I wouldn’t give to dance in the streets with the entire city! Will and I rode bikes around town this afternoon (cold… toooooo cold) to look at the houses decorated as floats. I have glitter on my face…
Hi friends! Let’s talk about a few things. Are you ready for a midweek chat? Consider this a check-in / overshare – that’s what friends do. It’s February which means that last month (which feels like a lifetime ago) I did that thing so many of us do – I made a New Year’s resolution…
Hello friends! Welcome to the 6th Sunday of 2021. They fly by if we don’t mark em down with out thoughts. This particular Sunday happens to by my mom’s birthday so I’d like to take a minute to mentally hug Patty and thank her for making me the strong, independent, and appropriately nosey neighbor I…
For the past few, oh I dunno…. decades the only real question for family gatherings is: who is going to make the Texas Sheet Cake? It’s goes without saying that this unassuming, pecan studded cake will be sliced up at the end of every family celebration. As sure as the sun will rise, ya know?…
Hello, friends! Happy Sunday! If I’m being honest, I don’t know what I think this week. I’ve head my head in recipes and food styling all week and that’s what I know. I know I mostly kept up with laundry and “swimming”. I know I didn’t keep up with text messages and emails. I know…
What’s your go-to birthday cake? I’m taking a wild guess and crossing my fingers that it’s the best chocolate birthday cake with chocolate frosting. My dream cake? Literally any cake someone else bakes for me, amen. Though if they happen to bake an angel food cake topped with mountains of fresh raspberry whipped cream that…
Hello, friends – good morning Happy Sunday! I hope this finds you starting a restful Sunday. If it can’t be restful, I hope there’s at least a few moments. I’m in the middle of a big project at the Bakehouse, shooting several dozen cake recipes with Denny Culbert, the photo mind behind Mosquito Supper Club….
I wouldn’t call myself lazy but I will admit that I find myself staring down a plate of plain scrambled eggs for dinner more nights than I’d like to admit. Something about figuring out that third meal of the day that just feels like… much. That third mean of a full day fussing in and…
Hello, friends. I’m glad you’re here for another Sunday. This week marks thirteen years of Joy the Baker. I started Joy the Baker in January 2008 on a borrowed laptop with a borrowed camera (thank you, Michael) while I was working the 4am shift at a bakery in Burbank, California. Even then I was trying…
Carnival season comes with a soft knock at the door this year. I regret to say that we don’t get to open the door and leap into the arms of our beloved Mardi Gras, but she’ll be gracious and leave the cake she brings with her every year on our doorstep. Mardi Gras 2021 look…
Hello friends! Happy Sunday to you. Are you able to rest today? Thank you for allowing me a reprieve from our Sunday reads last week. I was out in the Piney Woods of East Texas taking a few good deep breaths. All of my clothes from the trip still smell like campfire and I can’t…
This month I’m in the business of cranking up the oven and filing in sheet pans of chopped vegetables. I’m charring tomatoes and roasting whole garlic. I just went through a pretty serious turnip phase and I can strongly attest to the fact that roasted cauliflower and furikake is great for breakfast, lunch and dinner. …
Hi friends! I hope this finds you taking some much needed, very well-deserved rest. We’re almost at the end of this hurricane of a year. I know we don’t just twinkle back to normal life (what, even?) at the stoke of midnight on January 1st, but we can mark it down as the moment we…
