sweetfrenchtoast » come into the light.

A few weeks ago, Whole Foods had an amazing one-day sale on big, juicy, sweet cherries, so I bought a few pounds with the thought that I’d figure out what to do with them later.

I wanted to try something new, and I had never made a cherry pie before. Smitten Kitchen’s recipe was simple enough that I decided to give it a go.

Pitting the cherries was actually kind of fun using my new cherry pitter. It was a bit messy, though.

I used a pie crust cutter (kind of like a cookie cutter) to cut out a cute little star in the crust, but it kind of morphed into a distant relative of a star shape while it baked. However, it was still a very pretty pie, and it tasted wonderful. That’s what matters, right?

RH later informed me that while he doesn’t usually like cherry pie (he didn’t tell me this before I baked the pie…this is why I love him so much)—he liked the pie a lot more than he thought he would. In fact, he thought it was really good!

I’d like to try a blueberry or blackberry pie before summer’s over, and I’m definitely tackling apple pie this fall. Which means I get to make more vanilla bean ice cream too, because what is homemade pie without homemade ice cream?

After running (and walking) the Peachtree Road Race yesterday, brunching at West Egg Café, taking mini-naps and grilling, RH and I went to Centennial Olympic Park for the fireworks show. It was an absolute madhouse, and we vowed never to return.

But that was before we saw the show, which was simply awesome. They had fireworks going off in the front of the park as well from the tops of buildings, so we were basically surrounded by fireworks.

And even though we were packed like sardines onto the park’s lawn, I managed to set up my tripod and get a few fireworks shots using a remote shutter release, the “bulb” setting on my camera, and a black baseball hat.

I hope you all enjoyed the holiday! I am looking forward to taking more fireworks photos, although I think I am going to have to wait a while to get another chance to do so. And I’m promising myself to at least train a little bit for the Peachtree next year, so I’m not walking like a 100-year-old woman the next day!

I’ve become one of those bloggers I love to hate—the ones who swoop in every few months with the “I’m so busy” excuse. So…here I am, and yes, I’ve been extremely busy!

We hosted the family meal for the first time on Mother’s Day. This was quite an occasion, fitting everyone into our tiny condo. I think it turned out great, and I had fun trying several new dishes. The menu included bacon cheddar deviled eggs, buttermilk biscuits with honey butter and some homemade strawberry jam that some sweet friends gave us, asparagus with parmesan-basil butter, rosemary mashed potatoes, and a ham with bourbon-maple-pecan glaze. Dessert was a very rich chocolate cake with dark chocolate cream cheese frosting and homemade vanilla ice cream.

Yum.

It was really nice having RH’s family and my mom all together in our place for the first time. It was definitely worth it, and I’m looking forward to the next time we get to host!

In other big news, I got a new camera! And it’s not just any camera. I’ve finally made the leap to a full-frame sensor dSLR. And since I’m a very loyal Canon user, I got the camera I’ve been dreaming of for many moons now…the 5D Mark II. Because my walkabout lens for the 30D won’t fit the new camera, I also had to get a lens, so I got the kit lens and have my hands on L glass for the first time.

And it’s awesome.

I’m seriously loving the new cam, and I’ll be posting my beloved 30D and some accessories for sale when we return from vacation. Oh yes, vacation! We leave in a little over a day for…Hawaii! It’s one of my favorite places on earth, and I’m so excited about sharing it with RH.

For those of you who may be new to my blog, let me go ahead and clear this up for you: no, I’m not Hawaiian.

I just love Hawaii. It feels like home. I’ve been three times (I think?) and every time I have to fight myself to get on the plane and come home.

RH and I will be spending two nights in Honolulu, four nights on Maui, and four nights on my favorite of the islands, the Big Island. I know it’s a lot of hopping around, and we will certainly leave a lot unseen, but that just means we’ll have to go back, right?

In anticipation of our trip, and in recognition of the fact that I am a total slacker blogger who probably should just consider shuttering this thing (did I hear a “don’t do it!”? or was that a “why the heck did it take you so long?”)—I’ve started myself a tumblelog. I am not abandoning my little home at sweetfrenchtoast; I see microblogging as filling a completely different need. But since I can’t seem to keep up with this on a regular basis, I thought a tumblelog might be more manageable and fun. And what better time to start than when we’re leaving on a jet plane?

So, without any further blathering on like the sleep-deprived woman that I am, I present to you pretty delicious. Note the URL, which is not a dotcom but is instead one of those clever URLs that uses the TLD (that’s “top-level domain”) to spell something out. I promise I’m not trying that hard, but the dotcom was already taken.

Those who know me well know that I love pretty things, and even those who don’t know me that well know that I love delicious things, so I thought it was a fitting name.

Anyway, that’s all for now. The next time you hear from me I’ll probably be screaming “aloha!”

RH and I celebrated a lovely Valentine’s Day this year. I made Julia Child’s boeuf bourguignon and chocolate pots de crème. I also got some yummy goodies from my favorite bath shop Lush.

I’m a little late, but I hope you had a lovely Valentine’s Day too.

I started writing a rather long post to share my kitchen disaster story from last night (let’s just say I managed to make our crock pot explode), but I’ve changed my mind.

I would rather share some thoughts of how grateful I am for things like kind, supportive friends, my sweet mom (although at times we drive each other crazy), my amazing husband (seriously, there aren’t even words!), and my wonderful family, which about tripled in size once I married RH. (He doesn’t have a huge family, I just had a really small one.)

I’m grateful to be able to try new things constantly, like making homemade apple butter and a pumpkin pie from scratch (including a homemade pie crust)—I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of trying new things and learning.

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

(The apples in these photos—a combination of Gala and Mountaineer apples—were transformed into apple butter. I can’t wait to try it tomorrow.)