July 2012 A Note from Marcy Baker's Stash

Come summer, the mood is all peaches and cream and so is the baking. Try Fresh Peaches and Cream Crostata to whet your peach palate.
This beautiful photo is by Ryan Szulc, of Toronto, Canada.

Dear Fellow Bakers and Friends,

Happy Canada Day, Happy July 4th, and welcome to summer.

It is with sadness that those of us who enjoy food writing, classic chick flicks such as When Harry Met Sally and admire sunny, intelligent women of words, note the passing of Nora Ephron this recent June. There are so many influences I have for my food writing life but Nora Ephron was definitely one of them. In Heartburn she wrote, ‘anything with capers is always that much better without them’ or ‘that it occurred to her one day that no one cared about a three minute egg made in two minutes’. (I am paraphrasing but you get the drift). But Nora Ephron was not the only loss of June. My mother, in her 91^st year also said goodbye. It was not unexpected but it is a milestone.

I write about my mother’s recipes at www.Clabbergirl and also include one recipe here, My Mom’s Blueberry Torte. But this seems a good time to acknowledge that if I am creative and free-wheeling about recipe creation (and you all partake via this site of my cookbooks) it is because I had a mother who both abandoned the kitchen, leaving me free rein, and a mother who never, ever said: don’t mess and don’t invent or experiment. Alas, my mom and I, as many mother and daughters are, were quite different in core sensibilities. But she did like my baking and she also passed on a good palate, which I, my sons, my brothers, nephews and sister-in-laws all seem to possess.

Aside from this, June has been busy with everything and nothing. I did find a new ice-cream store in Montreal and experienced Salted Butter Ice-Cream and Sour Sop Ice-cream before ultimately choosing Roasted Peanut with Greek Honey Ice-Cream with a side of Mango Sorbet. I’ve spent more time replicating baking I’m impressed with (check out the White Chocolate Brioche Muffins for one of those inspirations), dabbled with Printerest, over-indulged on Etsy (purple leather business card holders, lilac glasses cases of old fabric I listened to Call Me Maybe more times that I can stand and read Fifty Shades of Grey, which has done more to inspire me to write than anything ever has. Nuff said.

On the home front, I went on a paint spree and spray-painted everything in sight. I have a thing for spray paint. It started with Adirondack chairs that needed freshening and then I went onto to painting an Ikea hutch, wicker baskets, and then my youngest son. Sprayed gold, he looks like Oscar or the street entertainer gold Elvis who hangs out downtown. But then sprayed chrome and said son resembles the Tin Man. Oh the things you can do when people are sleeping. Seriously – it’s been a DIY month in food and house décor. I also have been reviewing some new products to celebrate BB’s 15^th Anniversary Year and hope to bestow that on you sometime in July.

Wishing you happy Canada Day, Happy July 4^th, and sweet times in the kitchen and life always,
(The recipes are all online if the links do not work from the newsletter)

Marcy Goldman
Author, Master Baker
www.BetterBaking.com

July 2012 Recipe Collection

!! Free Fresh Peaches and Cream Crostata
!! Free Honey-of-a-Whole-Wheat Bread
White Chocolate Mini Brioche Muffins
My Momâ€™s Blueberry Torte
Almost Dr. Oz Approved Health Cookies
Strawberry Rhubarb Crumb Pie
Vintage Fruit Cocktail Cake
Lemon Tiramisu

Previous Monthly Essays from A Note From Marcy:

Essays to tickle your funny bone, wake up your inner baker, twinge on your heartstrings, or make you smile and say, ‘I’ve know the feeling; I know the place”. If you missed an essay, or a season in baking or inner sensibility, we invite you to stroll through our archived Notes From Marcy.

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