Hello sweet friends! This week marks the meat of Mardi Gras – the real good stuff. Parades every night. Long lunches that somehow turn into dinner. Parking strategies. Late night snack strategies. Comfy sparkle shoes to walk from one side of town to the other. Friends that leave their houses open for long parade nights….
Hello sweet friends. It’s my pleasure to welcome you to another fine Sunday. I’m actually coming to you from Saturday late-morning, what might be the last sunny day for a week. The sunshine coming through my window is begging me to get up and outside. If felt like there was not enough coffee in the…
Hi friends do you know what this week is!? You do. I know you do. It’s Valentine’s Day week. Which… well it’s really just a day but I’m counting it as a week considering that’s how long I’ll have willed the romantic gesture of flowers into this home come Friday. I don’t ask for much,…
Hello dear friends! Welcome to another fine Sunday. This week has felt like a week of waiting. A week of refreshing my email. A week of waiting for permissions and collaborations, and checks. It’s ok. I’ve steadied myself for a windfall of tasks next week. Hopefully. Maybe. This week has also been a flurry of…
Hello friends! Down here in New Orleans we’re adding to the long list of reasons you should come plan your visit! We’re gearing up Mardi Gras, we’re tuning the instruments for Jazz Fest, we’re always always always cooking, and we’re praying for warm but not rainy weather for Fat Tuesday. What I’m saying is… we’re…
Hello dear friends! Welcome to another fine Sunday! We made it through January! I’m not alone in feeling like January was a full 7 years long, right!? Like… I full abandoned and then recommitted to my New Year’s Resolutions all within the first month of the year. What a trip, honestly. Let’s see what February…
We take our king cakes very seriously this time of year. We take them seriously and we take them every which way. The rule is: the person who finds the baby inside of their king cake slice, has to buy the next king cake for everyone. It’s a never ending cycle which means there is…
I went back to Los Angeles for a quick visit a few weeks ago. I spare my parents from picking me up at the airport, and I still have my house key on my ring, so I came back home to not much fanfare save for my dad in the kitchen meticulously kneading together a…
Hello friends and welcome to your Sunday! I’m keeping it short this week since it’s been a long week and I’ve promised to live a life off of the computer this weekend. I hope this finds you happy and well, with a good amount of time for yourself today (if you’re into that sort of…
I did it again. I bought bananas with great hopes of probably smoothies and healthy afternoon snacks and here we are – where we always end up – at banana bread. Honestly it’s what we deserve and where we belong so why fight it? Today’s recipe offering is a must-make. While I think everything I…
Hello friends! Happy Sunday! I feel like everyone is talking about Paris Hilton’s lasagna… but, I’m not. This weekend we hosted our first Bakehouse workshop of the year and it feels good to fill this space with people again. It’s always fun and a little rowdy and I wouldn’t like it any other way. I…
I’ve got a long list of King Cakes to make this carnival season. They vary in degrees of complication and amounts of butter. Most are sweet. One is savory. All are being testing this month and shaping up to be deeply delicious. Lord knows there’s no shortage of King Cake around here. There’s an Original…
Hello friends! Welcome to another Sunday! This week I’ve been back and forth to Los Angeles for a quick family trip which always jumbles up my week and clouds how I feel about whether I’ve done a dang thing or not. Turns out I likely have done all sorts of productive things and there are…
If there is something in my house that I can eat while standing at the kitchen counter, I can guarantee I’ll try my best to eat enough to make it a meal. I speak specifically of hummus and crackers, hummus and pretzels, hummus and a hastily chopped vegetable, hummus and a spoon – it’s almost…
Hello sweet friends! Can you believe? Can you believe we’re settling into another year and another decade? Feels good. Feels very much like a privilege. I’ve been taking it slow and steady through this holiday season. Taking time to be reflective. Taking time to have important conversations that I might have let fall to the…
Hello my dears! Are you enjoying this extended slow space between Christmas and the new year? It feels like a luxurious amount of space. Enough time to stretch and be lazy. Enough time to put off taking down the Christmas tree. Enough time for me to figure out how to incorporate the oranges I handmade…
Hello friends! I just realized this is the last Let It Be Sunday of the year! It’s actually the last Let It Be Sunday of the decade. Honestly that’s far too much pressure to acknowledge further. I’m not ready to sum of the year, let alone the decade. What is wild is that I’ve been…
I swear, the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas goes by in the blink of an eye. With so much many people to see, so many halls to deck, so many little gifts to re-gift, so many cookies to bake, … listen, we really have to concentrate. It’s really one of my favorite times of year….
Friends! Here’s one late addition to our holiday cookie table! Last week I told you about my holiday cookie swap. It’s this coming Saturday which means I’ve had my nose firmly planted in Dorie Greenspan’s cookie book for the last week straight. Dorie has a recipe for a mulled wine jam cookie topped with a…
Hello friends, Happy Holidays! It’s Sunday. We’re here. We’re in it. It’s not Christmas just yet. We’re all ok, I promise. There’s a frenetic energy this time of year – a buy, buy, buy encouragement that I’ve mostly just observed from a distance this year. I’ve spent this week writing towards a 2020 project, drinking…
I’ve got a little baking adventure for you! It involves yeast, pumpkin and spice, and pastry cream. Cranberries get all the glory come December but I’m not done with pumpkin just because pumpkin pie season is a few weeks past. This is a weekend recipe. The sort you bake up on a late Sunday morning…
Y’all. I’m not doing a gift guide this year. There are enough people on the internet telling you to buy a lavender stand mixer or a set of rocks glasses for your father in law. Enough is enough. I’m taking it easy in the gifting department and leaning full body into cookies. The Bakehouse is…
I’ve got a lot of things on my mind this time of year: How can I keep my cat from climbing the Christmas tree in the middle of the night? Do I have enough wrapping paper and ribbon and why do I always forget to buy tape? Can I just tear open my entire advent…
You know when you find that one clothing item that drapes perfectly, clings in the just the right place, is flattering and comfortable, is basically the unicorn of clothing items actually come true? The item that makes us look like we’re wearing mascara and having a good hair day even if neither are true? Ugh…
I like to challenge myself. Yesterday’s challenge was pizza-related – and I’ll tell ya – many of my challenges involve yeast, flour and a very hot oven.. The challenge was whether or not I could make a homemade pizza faster than a pizza delivery dude could bring a pie to my house. It’s like a…
Hello friends! I’m on a high from one of the best Thanksgiving days ever. My parents came to New Orleans, bringing with them some of the finest Southern California weather. They helped me hustle the Bakehouse together into a little wonder of a Thanksgiving home with dinner outdoors, drinks on the patio, every detail accounted…
I have a better understanding, and much more gratitude to my parents who managed to put actual warm dinner on the table all the nights of my young life. They were hardly every overly fancy and they often involved a fish stick with a carefully drawn line of ketchup thankyouverymuch. There were some nights (and…
Hello friends! Happy Sunday, indeed! This week I went to my sorta monthly acupuncture appointment where my kind acupuncture lady asked me all sorts of questions about my mood and sleep and digestion and cycle (all while making steady unwavering eye contact). I mention this and that. I tried to meet her steady gaze. I…
Friends it’s time. This is not a drill. It’s time to fill the fridge with soon-to-be leftovers and preheat the oven for pies! It has come to my attention that I don’t have a classic pumpkin pie recipe on Joy the Baker. I sure do have Pumpkin Pie Spice but left you with the spice and…
Hello friends! It’s Sunday, let’s do this! This week we turned my house into the tiniest cooking school, yet again. This time we welcomed Zoe Francois into The Bakehouse for a weekend of puff pastry and pie crust. It’s been tremendous so far and Zoe and I are both patting ourselves on the back, walking…
If I were to say my baking is influenced by a place, I’d call it a hodge podge of my Tennessee-raised grandmother (who may actually have been from Alabama), my California-raised father who loves figs and fruit pies, my California roots that may entertain coconut oil and avocado as substitutes for butter, and my New…
