Peanut Butter & Jam Cake

This is a fun cake to make! Peanut butter icing slathered with triple berry jam between vanilla cake layers to look like a sandwich. Tasty too!

La Foire Gourmande

 We had a delightful day, last weekend visiting La Foire Gourmande. Two sites boasted tents full of flavourful morsels ready to be tasted.

 One site was on the Ontario side in Lefaivre...

...the other, with a quick hop on a ferry across the Ottawa River,
was in Montebello, Quebec.

 I got a real kick out of this bouncy cow thing for the kids...

 ...and the food was divine. This was a date-wrapped slice of prosciutto with buffalo mozzarella and a squirt of red pepper jelly.

Best of all? I made the front page of one of the local newspapers!

Strange bedfellows?

Saw this in Alexandria, Ontario the other day and just loved the juxtaposition.

Volunteer Appreciation Picnic

Last weekend we attended last weekend's Volunteer Appreciation Picnic over at the Glengarry Pioneer Museum in Dunvegan.

There was a huge crowd his year and we all tucked in under the shade of the Williams Pavilion. Perfect weather and perfect meal with a "100 Mile Diet" theme. Local hot smoked meat, pickles, rye bread. What could be bad?

And we ate to the jazzy accompaniment of the Trevor Clefs with Trevor Stanton on sax.

My cake was served for dessert with much anticipation by the younger set.

They were particularly keen on getting an outside piece that had colourful Smarties, which were all around the cake. There wasn't a piece left by the end of the afternoon.

Volunteer Appreciation Cake

This cake was made for last weekend's volunteer appreciation picnic over 

at the Glengarry Pioneer Museum. A crowd of 60+ devoured it!

Sunflower cake

One of my favourite cakes I've made in a while. A giant sunflower for a sunny birthday gal. She loved it too!

Mondrian Cake is in the Building!

 I go the most delicious delivery this afternoon.

 I had a feeling that the metallic bubble wrap, squishy peanuts and dry ice 

could only mean one thing.

 Could it be???

Yup! All the way from Oakland, California, FedEx delivered (next day!) my very own Mondrian cake. I'm tickled pink. Or red, yellow and blue I guess.

This is the very same cake I had last year at SFMOMA 
(which is now closed for renos for a few years).

The clever folks at Blue Bottle Coffee have decided to start shipping their signature cake and lucky me, I got a test shipment all the way to the great white north.

Yipee!! Thanks to Caitlin Williams Freeman, the inventor of the Mondrian cake for the speedy and welcome sweet delivery.

Chewbacca cake

This is the third year in a row that I've made a cake for my friends' triplets.
This year the theme was Star Wars so I made them a Chewbacca cake.

The cake, which was half chocolate and half vanilla disappeared in no time flat.

Sunflower birthday visit

My friend Elizabeth and son Liam from Toronto dropped by for dinner last night. Liam is piping at the Glengarry Highland Games today and since Maxville is just around the corner from me, it's always a great excuse for them to come over a visit.

As it happens, Friday was Elizabeth's birthday and since I know she loves sunflowers, I whipped up a few sunflower cupcakes. I love happy birthdays!

Thistle and Shamrock Cake

This thistle and shamrock cake -- the national symbols of Scotland and Ireland -- is for a lovely couple celebrating their 60th anniversary today. Congratulations to them both!

What's It Worth? Day

 Last Sunday, the Glengarry Pioneer Museum in Dunvegan held its What's it Worth? Day.

 Besides appraisals, there were very cool displays. This one a model of a schoolhouse that sported a removable roof.

 My friend Sigrun was there selling a few of her antiques and collectibles.

 I was there but only as a collector, showing my favourite jadite pieces.

 The gal beside me is president of the local quilting guild and she showed off some antique pieces and some more modern ones as well.

 At the silent auction, I bid a few times on this picnic case from the 1950s. Alas, I didn't get it...but it sure is a cutie!

 This beautiful glass was also offered up at the silent auction. It's value was posted as $1,200 with a minimum bid of $500. Apparently it is quite unusual!

 There were several assessors, each with a different specialty.

 For $5 an item, it seemed pretty reasonable to see if your knick-knack was valuable.

 The dealers were pretty busy all day.

 These people brought in a giant bellows, assessed at $500. You don't see one of those every day!

 There was also a parade of antique cars like Model Ts but I especially liked the AMC Pacer wagon. I drove to Florida with a friend in a car just like this in the '70s.
Hers was white with denim seats!

A friend of mine brought this in to be assessed. Although the condition isn't that great,
the antique expert said that many people, including Oprah Winfrey,
collect Black Americana and a collector like that might just be interested
in purchasing something as unusual as this container.

Maple Leaf Goodbye

The Swiss family the Buchards, known as "Les Bubus," have been here in Canada for a year on an exchange program and are now on their way back home. This cake was for their farewell party. I tried to show a year's journey in Canada through aging maple leaves. Kinda works, eh?

NOT an emerald ash borer

There is much talk about the emerald ash borer and how it is destroying the ash trees across the land. I keep looking for them because I have a wonderful old ash at the front of the house. When I spied this creature, who looks more green in real life, I was really concerned. Turns out it's a harmless six spotted tiger beetle. Beautiful looking bug that isn't going to eat my ash trees. Phew!

Baby wren

I put this wren box up last year and this year the wrens nested in it, instead of the other bird houses I have around the place. This little one isn't so sure he wants to leave!