These last few weeks have been my favorite time at Trader Joe’s. Immediately upon entering you see and smell the peonies. At $7.99 a bunch, I can not resist. Even when the petals are falling off, they are the perfect still life. When I went to bed the night before, they looked perfect, when I woke up, this was the vision, still perfection.

Marti, a student in my series at Les Gourmettes, shared the recipe for the cake that I’m sharing with you today. After listening to my constant complaints about baking and my disdain for it, Marti handed me a printout from the January 2019 issue of Costco Connection.

The article is about the book The Gown, by Jennifer Robson. The story takes place during WWII. This one-egg cake recipe is one of Robson’s favorites because she imagines it represents the shortages of war and the community spirit of sharing that prevailed. And I imagine that Marti thought I might enjoy making this cake since it has so few ingredients and is simple and quick to put together.

Could Marti be right in that basic assumption? Let us see… Looks beautiful, doesn’t it? Look at those peonies, gorgeous!  But… what are they hiding?

Surely all is well, nothing to see here, move along. I mean, there is nothing to be suspicious about, peonies are edible after all. According to the Thompson and Morgan Edible Flower Guide, the petals taste lovely in fresh salads. I’m certain they would taste lovely on a slice of cake too.

Fine, I’ll remove the flowers for cutting.

Seriously! Is it any wonder I hate to bake?

I followed the recipe. I did substitute watered-down heavy cream for the milk because that’s what I had available and in the spirit of rationing, that seemed a fair way to go. Also, the recipe did not indicate if you were to leave the baked cake in the pan, on a rack, to cool completely or take it out after 10 minutes or any sort of instruction on that step. As such, I have added it to my recipe below. Maybe it would not have fallen apart if I’d let it cool completely. You can give that a try and let me know because I am not making this again, although it did taste quite delicious.

Marti, thank you for having faith in me, sorry to let you down. xoxo

On a side note: I do know a baking rule or two such as, always checking the expiration date on your baking powder before you use it. If it’s expired, run out and get another can. As you can see, I can’t blame my failure on that.

I had fully intended to post my Thanksgiving tablescape today but I can’t let the opportunity slip by without wishing my most loyal follower, most frequent commenter, my best friend, one of my two favorite people in the world, my beautiful (inside and out) daughter – a Happy Birthday!

Marissa Lynn, I love you to the moon and back! Ever since you’ve lived away from home, basically since your freshman year in college, my favorite thing about Thanksgiving has been that it is so close to your birthday. You always come home for Thanksgiving, which means I always get to celebrate YOU!

I’ll keep with the Thanksgiving posts and show a few photos of the Thanksgiving centerpieces I made. How gorgeous are these Velvet Queen Sunflowers!

They really do look and feel like velvet. I found them at Trader Joe’s and went crazy over them.

I used my orange and green pumpkin soup tureens as the vessels for the flowers. I then set those, along with their lids, atop wood slabs that were set on top of dyed and natural burlap runners.

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I know! It’s only been 10 days since my self-induced “break” – but it’s the day before Easter and I can’t help myself!

Just in case you haven’t already figured out your Easter meal decor, and since there is still time to get to Costco or the grocery store… I felt like I should at least share this cheap and easy floral display today.

I was at Costco yesterday to buy Easter supper stuff. I knew I wanted to get the carrot soup taken care of, well ahead of time, and I didn’t have the patience or the time to go to the grocery store to buy the carrots.  Instead, I bought a huge 10-pound bag of carrots at Costco!

Laziness wins out over practicability!

I knew that having an extra 6 pounds of carrots in my house wasn’t a problem because if I peel, trim and cut them, Dave will have those polished off in a matter of days. He LOVES carrots!

I also picked up three bunches of tulips and one huge bundle of white stock.  I knew what the plan for the tulips was but hadn’t given much thought to the stock until this morning while I was peeling the 4 pounds of carrots for the soup…

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Look at the crazy weather forecast! A blazing 93 degrees today and then a drop of 20 degrees by Sunday, and a lovely 73. What the heck is that?!?! 

This does not bode well for our neighborhood party, this evening.  The screenshot you’re looking at above was taken last night (Friday) at 10:00 PM, and it was still 82 degrees outside, at 10 PM!! That is seriously hot when you’re planning on wearing black polyester bell-bottoms and a long-sleeved polyester disco top!  And when you have made a lovely hanging flower arrangement consisting of delicate roses and ivy.

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