with Mary Anne Mohanraj
Since Kevin made Valentine’s dinner for us, I made it for the kids.
Bacon roses (using Irish bacon from our local Irish store) topped with jaggery + pancake hearts (a heart cookie cutter makes it easy, especially if mom is perfectly happy storing the pancake edges to eat for breakfast tomorrow).
And then I couldn’t resist having a few pancakes myself with some passionfruit yogurt (Ellenos, new brand at our local Whole Foods, love it) and a drizzle of extra passionfruit purée, just ’cause.
In celebration, and to help us get through this cold, snowy February in Chicago, we’ve decided to do our FIRST EVER BIG SALE today at Serendib House — everything in the Serendib shop is 20% off!
That’s cookbooks, curry powder, other books (sci fi, lit fic, and romance), tea towels, masks, greeting cards, and more.
The site still has list prices on items, but you’ll see the 20% discount in your cart. Today and tomorrow only — enjoy!
I’ve now reached the stage where my daughter ducks her head into the room where I’m working to ask whether it’s okay if she makes cookies, and I say sure, and point her to my favorite sugar cookie recipe (Sweetopia), and then later, she brings me a bowl of chocolate ice cream + cookie. Is good.
Trying to get the last Valentine’s orders out the door, though these orders were placed past the shipping deadline, so they likely won’t arrive in time for Valentine’s Day. Still, I feel like I have to try?
I love that some people add my books into their sweet gift orders. 
I feel like Christmas is a time when people often gift books, but Valentine’s Day not so much? I think we need a new tradition there. My little romance, Perennial, for example, seems like a perfect little gift to go along with some sweets…
At this point, I think I’ll keep taking orders on these items up through Saturday – locals, at least, can pick them up in time, and other people may just want sweets and not care that they won’t arrive before Sunday. Then I’m going to shut it down and switch to working on the spring Patreon boxes next…
(Plus an extra chocolate when I had one on hand and remembered to put it in….)
A little sweetness, a little relaxation. I’m always impressed by people who just order more of the things they particularly want (in this case, milk toffee and cayenne chocolates, along with lavender bath salts), when there are other options on the table.
Personally, I’m a sampler — I always want one of everything.
I suddenly got really cold and a little shaky — I think I’ve been working slightly too hard, the last few days, and my thyroid disease (not normally a big deal, well-controlled) does mean that sometimes my body is very bad at temperature regulation. It’s like a very minor disability? Doesn’t usually stop me from doing anything, but can be annoying.
Luckily, I have nothing else scheduled today, so I’ve moved the radiator that normally lives in my office into the bedroom, refilled the humidifier, and am tucked up in bed with a mug of tea and some oranges, so I expect to be nice and warm again soon. Re-reading a little bit of a Bujold novel on my lunch break, and then will likely switch to e-mail, alternating with bits of laundry and straightening up.
I leave you with my adorable new stickers — I love that you can now easily get affordable customized stickers like this on Etsy and Amazon. Stickers on EVERYTHING! Isn’t this so pretty for Valentine’s and spring?
The 8-year-old in me is pleased.
And sometimes someone just says, “Give me ALL the sweets!” You gotta admire their ability to commit.
(And speaking of shipping, hey, I just heard about PirateShip — do you use them? Do you love them? Tell me more.)
How much do I love that these neighbors (on Home, across from Mills Park) did up their house for Valentine’s Day? I love it a lot — I actually parked the car and got out so I could take this picture for you. I picked up a few small outdoor Valentine decorations myself, which I’m hoping to have the energy to put up before the weekend, but nothing like this! Good job, neighbors!
In related news, I do like the effect of these little edible paper hearts on my vanilla-rose heart cookies. They are goofy, and I still kind of wish they actually tasted like something, but en masse, pretty charming. I’d planned to pipe little pink and white dots around the edge, but I ran out of time (and honestly, my hand is shaky and my piping skills are rarely great, so trying to do even dots might have been beyond me). If you’re good at piping, though, that would give these a more finished look, I think.
This order: passionfruit-honey-lime marshmallows (2), milk toffee (2), passionfruit gummies, vanilla-rose cookies, and a knitted heart soap. Such a sweet little package.
Making another batch of passionfruit-honey-lime marshmallows. Honey is just so, so pretty. I’m thinking the summer treat boxes may be honey-themed.
(I think there were 1-2 people who maybe wanted to switch from these marshmallows to other marshmallows after I said Kavi liked the other ones better, but I’m afraid I’ve lost track of who those people were. I may have already shipped your orders, sorry, but get in touch if you want me to check, please. Also, please don’t go by Kavi too much on this kind of thing — she doesn’t actually like honey at all. Her palate is still developing at 13, and she’s not up for complex flavors a lot of the time.)
