I love a good cozy mystery around Halloween, and right now I am reading the latest teashop mystery from Laura Childs called Ming Tea Murder. It is set in Charleston, South Carolina around Halloween. This is the third book I’ve read in this fun series. (If you’d like, check out the recipes I made to […]
Happy Oktoberfest! Even though I am typically a wine kind of girl, when Oktoberfest rolls around, I love to try the autumn beer at the market. Many of our local breweries make special beer just for the season. I picked up one from Pyramid Brewery, and instead of just drinking it, I decided to use […]
I’m enjoying every last morsel of summer. 🙂 I hope you are too! This dessert is my last one of the year using summer’s fruits. It’s a perfect dessert to throw together using what you have on hand, because when you want to hang out at the beach or the lake, you don’t want to […]
Happy Labor Day weekend! I hope you are thoroughly enjoying the last of summer’s goodness. 🙂 I discovered the cutest little Labor Day decorations to add a little something extra to my mini apple pies. They could be used to top anything you like…cupcakes, drinks, or even hot dogs. Aren’t they adorable? The printables came […]
The grand finale to our British anniversary dinner was a lemon syllabub trifle. I couldn’t make up my mind as to which dessert I wanted to make, so I combined three classic British sweets into one – Lemon drizzle cupcakes, lemon syllabub, and a trifle. 🙂 The lemon drizzle cupcakes were based on a recipe […]
The final pie I made for our British anniversary pie extravaganza was a pheasant, leek, and parsley pie. 🙂 I started with a chicken pie recipe from BBC Good Food, which I thought would lend itself well to the gamier pheasant. I loved the clean, fresh flavors of the leek, parsley and lemon zest that […]
The second pie I made for our trio of British anniversary pies was a rabbit pie. 🙂 I wanted to make something out of the box, and rabbit isn’t something I use everyday. It was fun for me to cook with something different, and it felt like a special ingredient to use on our special […]
I decided to make a meat pie for the main course of our British anniversary dinner. There are so many to choose from, however! I couldn’t make up my mind…So I made 3! 🙂 I made these all ahead of time and froze them until we were ready. Now we have lots of leftovers to […]
This week marks our 15th wedding anniversary, and since it’s a big year, we wanted to celebrate in a big way! We had an extravagant British-themed dinner that took me several days to complete, but it was a fun project that was well worth the effort. I wanted to tie this anniversary back to our […]
This week, my hubby and I went out dancing on a beautiful summer night in downtown Seattle as a part of the Dancing Til Dusk series. For 15 nights, different parks around the city host live music and dancing. There is everything from waltz to swing to tango. The night we went happened to have […]
I just finished a lovely summery novel called A Week at the Lake by Wendy Wax. The story transported me to Lake George in New York, which is now on my list of places I would love to visit! But in the meantime, I feel like I just got back from a virtual trip at […]
It’s Seafair Saturday! Our neighborhood is right in the middle of the party, so we don’t need to go anywhere to enjoy the festivities. 🙂 Today also marks 17 years that I’ve lived in this neighborhood with my hubby, and 20 years that I’ve been in Seattle. Wow! Between Seafair and our anniversaries, we had […]
It is Seafair weekend in Seattle! My hubby and I checked out the festivities this afternoon including the hydroplane boat races and a wakeboard jumping competition. We even got out our little floating inner tubes and went out on the water ourselves. It was a rare and special day! Dare I say a day like […]
Tonight I took a culinary trip to three different Polynesian island nations on this beautiful summer evening! I tried recipes from Tuvalu, Samoa, and Tonga. All of the recipes were from an inspiring food blog I admire called Global Table Adventure. I discovered the blog when I read the author’s memoir in which she shared […]
Welcome to the brand new look for Noon Café! It got a complete makeover this weekend to keep up with the times. I hope you enjoy the new website as much as I enjoyed putting it together. 🙂 To celebrate the new look and the new cappuccino logo, I thought I would bake a batch […]
The grand finale of our Fourth of July dinner was my hubby’s favorite cheesecake tart! It was a special request. 😉 Since I am always trying to improve and learn, I made a couple of small tweaks to the original recipe. Opting for an all natural ingredient, I exchanged the nonfat sour cream with nonfat […]
What could be more American than a thick, juicy burger on the Fourth of July? 🙂 I made trout burgers with a tarragon mayonnaise for our holiday dinner. The steelhead trout I used came from the Columbia River, which is just south of Seattle. I wanted my celebration of the USA’s birthday to include some […]
I hope you had a lovely Fourth of July weekend! To celebrate the occasion this year, I made fresh dill pickles from the farmers’ market, trout burgers with a tarragon mayonnaise, and my hubby’s favorite summer strawberry cheesecake tart. I’ll share all three recipes since we really enjoyed them all, starting with the pickles. 🙂 […]
When summer rolls around, my backyard starts to feel a little tropical. Seattle’s temperatures are about the same as Lahaina’s this week. 🙂 I absolutely love the Hawaiian Islands, and so this warm weather gets me in the mood to cook Hawaiian-style dishes! I based this dish on a recipe I found on CookingHawaiianStyle.com. It’s a […]
After my virtual stop in South Korea to try their famous bibimbap, I decided to try a Vietnamese dish on my next stop. After all, it’s only a 4 ½ hour plane ride from Seoul to Da Nang, so I’ll make a quick culinary visit, just long enough for an appetizer in Vietnam. 😉 This […]