Hot Milk Cake

The cake was a hit at our dinner yesterday! I wanted to share the recipe with you. It belonged to my grandmother on my dad's side.

Ingredients:

4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup milk
1 stick butter
Pinch of salt
2 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla

Beat eggs well, then add sugar a little at a time. Heat milk and butter until butter is dissolved. Cool, then add to egg/sugar mixture alternately with flour. Mix well. Add salt and vanilla. Mix. Then add baking powder slowly until blended.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes in two 9-inch cake pans (greased & floured.)


Icing:

1/2 cup butter
1 pound confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

add milk one tablespoon at a time to preferred consistency.

Then eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner and midnight snack...:)


(Props to Bella for taking the picture)

Happy Father's Day Weekend

Father's Day is on Sunday and it will be my first without my dad. I'm sort of dreading it, actually. I told my mom I would cook. I haven't decided on the menu yet, but I would like to honor my dad's memory by making his favorite dessert: hot milk cake. I think he'd like that!

I'm also, finally, starting a container garden on our balcony. I'm determined to grow roses in pots!

Every milestone holiday marks a chance for a new beginning, I think.

Wishing you a lovely, lovely weekend, my dears. Thank you.

PS: The photo above is of my dad and me on my wedding day.

Which Books Changed Your World?

I guess it's officially books week on the English Muse...


There's a major trending topic sweeping Twitter at the moment: #booksthatchangedmyworld.
It made me stop and think. The book that most changed my world was Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast", because I finally understood that it didn't take a lot of money to live well.

What about you?


PS: Check out the twitter stream on the subject. The answers range from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to the Great Gatsby!


Also, the above photo is from here.

Have a lovely Wednesday and HAPPY BLOOMSDAY!

UPDATE WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON: Susan Orlean, one of my favorite New Yorker writers, is the one who started the Twitter hashtag! More about it on the New Yorker's website.

More peonies...

...from the grocery store...


I love the white ones with the yellow fringe, like ribbon...

Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.

We've swooned over clips of Ms. Hepburn singing Moon River, combed through the Internet for pictures of actress with her pet fawn and donned black dresses with four-strand pearls.

Now there's something new to add to the Audrey lure. Author Sam Wasson is out this week with a new book that presents the woman behind the little black dress. His book, Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M., gives a behind-the-scenes account of the making of Breakfast at Tiffany's.

For example:
Truman Capote desperately wanted Marilyn Monroe, but Marilyn's people thought the role was too saucy for the actress. (Afterall, Holly Golightly was a "lady of the evening.")
Director Blake Edwards filmed multiple endings;
And Hepburn felt very conflicted about balancing her role as mother and movie star.

"Mr. Wasson approaches his subject from many angles," Janet Maslin writes in today's New York Times. "His book winds up as well-tailored as the kind of little black dress that 'Breakfast at Tiffany’s' made famous. And, yes, there’s lots to say here about that dress’s widespread influence. Audiences used to brightly costumed homebodies and Doris Day-type career girls were in for a big, chic, liberating surprise when Holly and her elegant simplicity came along."

I can't wait to read this book. I already know I'll love it. It never ceases to amaze me that -- five decades after the making of Breakfast at Tiffany's -- we all still adore Audrey,
perhaps now more than ever.

Anyone want to go with me to the bookstore?

What are you reading this summer?

Summer books are the best kind, I think. They're meant to be read simply for the some decadent pleasure. Recently when I was reading the liner notes on my dad's Fountains of Rome album, I noticed several quotes from a Bloomsbury Group writer, Elizabeth Bowen. In 1960 she published a book called "A Time in Rome." She makes the city sound magic.

A sampling:

It was April. The idle yet intense air smelled of honey; Rome shimmered below with hardly a stir, and bluer than the sky were the Alban hills....

and this:

It is impossible, in spring, to walk too often on the Appian Way,
under the cumulus piling into the blue...

I found a used copy of "A Time in Rome" on Amazon.com. It arrived yesterday, and I'm so excited to get started on it. I'm also reading another delicious book, "Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes," by Elizabeth Bard. It's very clever and funny.

Speaking of Paris, I wanted to tell you some exciting news: A high school student from Paris will be spending most of the summer with us! I'm busily fixing up our extra room for her now. She's coming to perfect her English, and we're looking forward to learning French. Her name is Emma. We can't wait to meet her in person! I will keep you posted on her arrival.

Meanwhile, back to my original question:

What are you reading this summer?

xo

PS: Above photos from here.