Easy Baguette

Yeah, I'd have a picture of this if people didn't eat it so fast >:(

My friend who served her mission in France gave me this recipe. Are the more authentic recipes out there? Yes. Are there yummier recipes out there? Possibly, but not probably. Are there easier recipes out there? NOOOOOO And, did you know baguette is French for magic wand? Seriously go turn on your Cinderella movie and watch it in French. Baguettes are magic wands of deliciousness.

This recipe is its own Cinderella story. The dough is pretty ugly, and when you shape the baguettes they can be kind of flat, but suddenly something magical happens in the oven and out come golden baguettes! And all you need is a spoon, a bowl and a cookie sheet, and a tiny bit of foresight (for the rising part).

Recipe for 2 Baguettes
1 c water
2 1/2 c. flour
1 T sugar
1 t. salt
1 1/2 t. yeast
1 egg yolk + 1 T water

Mix all together EXCEPT egg yolk/water. Coat a second bowl with olive oil (or PAM) and slap that dough in there. Don't knead it or anything fancy. Cover and let rise till doubled, usually an 90 min to 2 hours. When it's ready your finger poke indent should stay. Turn out onto a floured board, divide in half, and shape two baguettes. Lay them on a GREASED cookie sheet. make the traditional 3 slashes in the tops. Cover lightly with saran wrap and let rise for about 30 minutes. Brush with the egg yolk mixture. This is a very important part, don't skip it. If you don't have a pastry brush (I don't) just dip a wadded up paper towel in the egg goo and pat it all over the uncooked baguettes. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 min or less.

Stourhead Garden

This is one of my favorite places in the world. I spent half a day at Stourhead, it's really close to Stonehenge, about an hour and half west of London. This garden is a perfect example of English gardening philosphy in the 18th century. While the French were manicuring hedges and flower beds into perfect geometrical shapes, the English were cultivating a more wild, natural looking garden ideal. Stourhead feels hidden and mystical. The valley surrounding the man-made lake is studded with little classical temples, a mermaid grotto, and of course the famous gothic bridge. It truly is a living work of art.


England has been called cloud cuckoo-land. Nowhere is this more enjoyable than Stourhead. We huddled on a hidden bench eating our picnic lunch in a drizzle. The lake was an hypnotic piece of fluid obsidian, complete with chips and waves. Then when the clouds passed, the hundreds of shades of green glittered with raindrops all around us.

We climbed up on the temple of Apollo and posed as Greek statues in its nooks.



This pivotal scene from the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice was shot in Apollo's Temple overlooking the lake at Stourhead. http://www.imdb.com/rg/VIDEO_PLAY/LINK//video/screenplay/vi2994798873/

Sterling Jr.'s Birthday

We celebrated my super-hyper-uber great husband's birthday this week. He turned 29. No really, he turned 29. Here is the cake I made from scratch.
It was delicious but I'm not sure if it was worth the three feet of dishes that covered every inch of my counterspace. We truly live in a four-dimensional universe. These dishes had height, depth, length and DURATION. It took a couple of days to quell the uprising.
We also had a rockin party!
Sterling is such a great husband and father (eek, father of three soon). We were so excited to celebrate his life with us.

Books for Kids

Haven't we all gone to the children's section of the library and felt helpless? When faced with 500 square feet of picture books, am I just expected to browse through while keeping my two kids from running up and down the stacks screaming? Is there any way I can join them?

Then there are the selected books on top of the stacks, sometimes they have to do with the closest season or holiday. Are the librarians trying to say these selected books are the best things in the library? It's tempting to just grab a few on display and high-tail it out of there before your toddler has ANOTHER poopy diaper.

Then, you get home and you realize you've checked out nasty bratty kid characters or dysfunctional families or just all-round bad writing. Who needs this?

Do you want books both you and your children can enjoy reading? Do you want these books to have morals and values that your family should emulate? Do you want interesting and beautiful artwork? You can have all that! I'll be posting every once in a while about the great books I've found and tried on my kids.

The Most Perfect Spot by Diane Goode

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Because I love picnics, I thought I'd give this book a try. It was worth it. It's a sweet, optimistic story with a funny ending.


View all my reviews.

Violet Comes to Stay by Jan Karon

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Easy to read aloud. It's not life-changing but it's sweet and tender and even my little 2-year-old son liked to listen to it.


View all my reviews.


1-2-3: A Child's First Counting Book by Alison Jay

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a counting book based on fairy tales. There must be 20 different traditional stories represented as this girl dreams her way from one to twenty and back. My daughter (4) and I loved this book. At first when I read it she just watched while I counted the different things on the page. Then once we realized the different fun layers to this book we read it again and again to find the cute little clues the illustrations give you about what's coming next. Also, and I'm not going to give this book ALL the credit, but she did have a major breakthrough on math and counting at about the same time we read it. So, who knows?


View all my reviews.

Baby name poll

I want a name that has some kind of history (literature or royalty). I don't want something that is too popular, like top 50. I prefer classic and although I love names that end in A (like Amelia), they just don't sound good with our last name, Mann. For instance, Lilia, turns into Lily, a man. It's a sentence fragment. I like 3 syllables, 2 are acceptable, no one-syllable names. Sibling names are Eleanor and Sterling.

Charlotte
Isabelle
Camille
Juliet
Jacqueline
Margaret
Marguerite
Caroline
Margot
Imogen
Elise
Lillian