Watch some clouds.

Makes me happy.

Meatballs with Chickpea salad.

Up until now and safe from a few tests that yielded good, tasty results, I have not made so much as a dent into Arabic cooking. Part of me doesn't see the point: my mother-in-law lives just a floor down and cooks really well. Let her cover the Arabic food while I indulge in all the other recipes I want to make.
Part of me feels overwhelmed about the responsibility. Arabic dishes cannot be hacked that easily. They need to stand up against the original made by the husbands mother. And my mother-in-law, in true fashion, is not easily copied what with a pinch here and there.
Also, Arabic cuisine is not one for experiments. There's a way to prepare a dish and one way only per family. Sure, make some alterations but then everyone will tell you that this is not dish xy but actually cd.
So I feel a bit guilty for being glad my house has never smelled of cooked lamb/sheep to make mansaf (much to the dislike of my stepson as it's his favorite dish).

Grapefruit olive oil pound cake

My husband and I have very different ideas about what makes and breaks coffee cake.
Apart from being too sweet for my husband most of the times - all cakes (delete) sweets really, except for the store bought stuff where he never minds - my husband also finds pound cakes tremendously boring.
They're too normal and standard for him not promising any excitement. They are something he knows from the kitchen of his mother. He wants excitement, something different! Something new with each bite he takes. But! Not too sweet, no crumbles and other things I have given up memorizing because there are just too many rules.

I, on the other hand, love pound cake. I grew up with it. It was what we ate on the weekends, often marbled with cocoa powder, cutting big slices off of it for breakfast on Monday morning.

Book club food.

I've mentioned before that I joined a book club. We usually meet once a month, during the week, to drink wine, share some food and cheese and yes, discuss the book but not too much.

It was my turn to host this months gathering. So I overdid it with the food. You know, the usual.

There were vegetable sticks with two kinds of dips (feta cheese with garlic and a minty-pea dip), several different cheeses (fine I didn't make those but somebody had to arrange them nicely with some grapes and dried fruits on a platter!) as well as chips.
For dessert I made chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting as well as gluten free macaroons from EveryDay Food (they're nice when really fresh but get super soft when they're sitting around too long. I much prefer David Lebovitz recipe but as I was expecting a gluten intolerant guest I wanted her to be able to enjoy the desserts as well.)

My piece de résistance, though, was a quick bread I have fallen for head over heels some months ago when I made it for a wine tasting in the countryside. It sat in my binder with recipe clippings for an awfully long time before I made it for the first time which is a real pity because it's super simple, very fast to make, a nice addition as an appetizer as well as accompaniment to soups and you'll have most of the ingredients on hand.
It does, however, taste best when it's fresh from the oven and still slightly warm.