Back to the future...

We've been away for ages.

We're back and we've got soooo many new selections to be listed.

And we've got even more plans for the future.

This is an exciting time for us.

How is 2008 treating you?

For the PRICKLY people in your life...

On the second day of Christmas... our holiday gift guide suggests gifts for the more prickly people you know. Be honest. You know who we're talking about. Everyone has a somebody in their lives who is just a little bit...spikey.

Hope you enjoy!
Eclu

Zesty beads

Mary Ink

Sleeping Forest Studios

The Black Apple

(Don't you love a diptych?)

Kitchen Confidential

In my house, it's biscuits and butter--the old fashioned kind that are made with baking soda so they are a little bit salty. And chocolate cake with cinnamon and pecans. And potato soup with lots of black pepper. All from scratch.

By the way, isn't scratch a wonderful word?

These are the ordinary family meals that our lives are organized around. (We're carb people!) My great-grandmother made the biscuits first. She fed them to her children for as many meals as they could tolerate during the depression.

My mother made them for her own children as a special Saturday morning treat. At our house, they were served with butter and jam and syrup.

Now my husband makes the same biscuits to go with his soups. They are a part of my favorite evening meals--the ones that bring comfort against the cold or solice at the end of a difficult work day.

Life seems to happen around the kitchen table and it is those most ordinary moments that I also bring me comfort and solice when my world is rocked.

Today I am listing a new memory board in our etsy shop. I think it is totally darling in a bright kitchsy sort of way.

I already want one for my kitchen--one to hang up reminders, one to hold our memories, one to recall the laughter and love we've already shared together, so often in that very room. I look forward to the special Saturday morning breakfasts and the birthday parties to come. I want my own children to know that despite our sometimes meager means, we are rich in the things that matter--chocolate cake and love. And these are the recipes that will be their most precious inheritance, the thing that links us to those we've loved and lost.

I often think that when I am older, I will be able to look back on the tapestry of my life and find that the common thread that binds my memories together is baking soda biscuits.