My apologies. And, cake.

Clearly, time has flown past. I swear I have actually made stuff in my kitchen. I could tell you I haven't posted because my hard drive crashed and I lost some pictures. True, I lost some, but I managed to recover many of them later thanks to the genius of Apple's Time Capsule feature (lesson learned: back your computer up more than once every ten months!). I could tell you I haven't posted because I was out of the country for two and a half weeks (Jordan is lovely this time of year!). I could tell you that upon my return I caught a cold that knocked me on my ass for the next two weeks and I really wasn't too happy about cooking, or really doing anything other than blow my nose.  I could tell you that I've been baking way too many adorable treats for my dog and her doggie pals.

But really, I've been cooking a fair amount, and even photo-documenting it! I've just been terribly indecisive when it comes down to choosing which recipe to post.  For this, I apologize.

I've also discovered a new food website that is totally going to dominate my cooking repertoire for a good long while. Readers, meet food52. It's pretty much the foodie snob version of Epicurious. I love that they do weekly contests, the recipe searches turn up with well-tested recipes first, and that I can tag recipes that I'd like to try at some point. I've been trying to find new recipes to try out, since the spring thaw is making me crave fun produce. Does anyone else do this -- get through winter, with all your favorite warm one-pot recipes, and then suddenly be bored to death with them come the first sign of spring? Who knows, maybe some day I will actually get the nerve to post something.

Also, I want to direct your attention to Eat Your Books. If you love your cook books, but hate trying to remember, oh I don't know, where that one recipe that used soba noodles was (ahhh drives me crazy!!!), subscribing to this site will allow you to Google your own cook books. If you aren't immediately sold, go check for your favorite cookbooks. Turns out everything we have, aside from Williams-Sonoma cookbooks, are there. I will probably suck it up and subscribe in the near future. Be prepared for updates.

And, as an apology, I've got cake for you. Okay, it was for my husband. His birthday, that is. So really, here's a picture of cake for you to look at:

Specifically, chocolate butter cake with raspberry italian merengue buttercream frosting. For realz.

Remember how cake from scratch was one of my big culinary fears? Well, check out CakeLove. Warren Brown is here to show you that it is totally fun to make cakes. It doesn't say so in the book, but if I can make one that turned out so well on the first try with my little hand mixer, anyone can do it. If it didn't require me to stockpile butter like it's nobody's business, I would make them for any little occasion. Oh yeah, and if I owned a snazzy cake-transporting device. Hmm...