happy birthday, mum!

more and more i'm having those omg i'm turning into my mother moments.

like this weekend when nobody was allowed to leave my apartment hungry.

how just about every loaf of bread must be homemade,

and how nearly every condiment must be served in a ramekin.

the large amount of energy i expent this week on thinking about my hair,

the way that i'm slowly becoming intolerant of crowded spaces and long lines.

in preparing for the b.y.o.p. party on sunday, i must have said a hundred mum-isms:

let's wait to bake the bread until right before guests arrive so the house smells nice,

do we have enough donuts?

do we have enough whoopie pies?

please. take some pumpkin bread to go with you. do you have snacks for the plane tomorrow? take this, you're going to get hungry.

soon it's going to be,

do i have roots? 

and 

has anyone seen my glasses? {when they're on my head.}

and you know what?? i'm ecstatic about all of this turning-into-mum business. because she's the bomb and she is wonderful in the goofiest funniest hilarious way. in the way that i can talk to her about anything and in the way that when she comes to visit she often brings an entire suitcase filled with homemade rugelach and pumpkin bread.

and today she turns one year older! which is a secret number, although if i told you you'd be like damn she looks younger than that.

happy birthday, mum!!!!!!

love,

molly

mum's visit, in food.

pig, three ways: after bacon-y polenta and pancetta bruschetta at al di la brunch {which i really can't get over}, we met a pig on a leash. i didn't even know that was legal, i said, ummm actually it's really common, said the pig mom all attitude like, oh ok well i just ate pig and i intend to eat more tomorrow and the next day and the next, imaginary me said.

rugelach: but obviously not better than mum's.

kind of like the best brunch i ever had: at miriam, and with schnitzel. that would have been enough, but challah french toast, shakshouka, and civilized political conversation added a little somethin somethin that defied my sometimes impression of brunch as being just a fun hangover activity. 

afternoon coffee + cake: olive oil cake and a caramel-y mini bundt from one girl. with a side of, please can you fill me in on my sister's wedding plans?

morningtime punkin bread, two ways: dog days closing pumpkin bread and thank-you-for-driving-me-to-rehearsal-through-all-that-new-jersey-traffic pumpkin bread. [fact: early morning baking with mum is the best beyond bestest best thing in the brooklyn.]

-yeh!

fall failures

when i want to feel like a failure, i make a hole-in-the-middle, then i take pictures of it, and then i let the pictures stare back at me with sad puppy blog-about-me eyes because it's like they know that i can't resist an egg portrait these days. what is the reason for this? what is so attractive about eggs? why do i keep trying to make a hole-in-the-middle even though i know that only mum and sometimes cracker barrel can make them perfectly? overnight me a hole-in-the-middle, mum, please.

why is there suddenly someone in my life who eats one and one half dozens of eggs each day?

-yeh

i spy...

{a rosh hashanah party aftermath}

i spy with my little eye...

the remnants of the best sweet potato chips in the world,

the salt and pepper shakers that mum and i painted for my first little apartment on a hot summer night about a zillion years ago,

oven mits covered in brisket fat,

roommate's patrick literature that will always be way over my head,

an empty olive oil bottle that was full just hours earlier,

a strainer and a cutting board that belonged to old roommate grace. oh, i miss me some grace!

apples and honey, some turnips that went unused, popsicle molds from the i-don't-know-where-these-go pile,

and a generic grocery store pepper mill because for some reason i still do not have one of these. {it's called a housewarming present, people?}

but as mum always says, 

"a messy kitchen is a happy kitchen!"

-yeh!