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?

I’m looking forward to pulling my first batch of golden, flaky croissants out of the oven!

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!

Well, not really, because my dear hubby of course made it back to the mainland with me.

But man, do I love Hawaii. I already can’t wait to go back, and I’m looking forward to sharing some pics and stories with you soon.

Meanwhile, you can check out my new digs! I upgraded my blog’s guts as well as the look and feel. The header slideshow currently features a few of my favorite shots from our awesome trip!

If you’re reading this via RSS, come on over to the blog and let me know what you think.

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!”

I joined five other bakers, cooks, bloggers and food/photo enthusiasts at an airy, light-filled loft in Castleberry Hill. We snacked and drank mimosas while Tami showed us how to transform a pile of lettuce and a bunch of vegetables into a thing of beauty.

We each received a goodie bag of tools and our ingredients.

After some magic-making, I had a salad!

There was much photo-taking.

It was a fabulous workshop! I learned a ton and met some lovely people. And lemme tell you, food styling is a lot harder than it looks. The next time you see a gorgeous food shot, think of the talented man or woman who made it look so good.

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

Thank you to Stacey Bode for the fabulous wedding photos.

2009 was also the Year of Food. We ate a lot, and we ate well. Very well. Not only did we dine at some amazing restaurants (Joël Robuchon, Rick Bayless, Kevin Gillespie, anyone?), but we also seriously upped our game in the kitchen at home. RH has been cooking a lot lately, and he’s really good at it! And he enjoys it, which is awesome. I’m really good at sides and—of course—desserts.

For New Year’s Eve, I made a tarte noir with a chocolate shortbread crust and a Valrhona bittersweet chocolate ganache filling. I also made a homemade raspberry sauce to go with it. It was delicious! I was really pleased that it turned out so well, especially since I have been known to have issues with crusts in the past.

It was quite lovely to look at, too.

Yesterday, I made marshmallows. They were quite yummy too, especially melted into a mug of French chocolat chaud, which uses bittersweet chocolate, heavy cream, and milk to make an oh-so-rich hot chocolate that is to die for.

I still laugh at RH’s reaction to tasting the marshmallows after I cut them into little pillowy squares.

“Well, I’m going to be completely honest with you,” he started, which immediately sent my eyebrows northward. “First of all, I don’t like marshmallows,” he continued. “But these taste JUST LIKE MARSHMALLOWS!”

I wasn’t sure how to take that, but he assured me that I had accomplished my mission because they were indeed marshmallows instead of some mutant relative to marshmallows. I think they taste way better than store-bought marshmallows (WAY better!), and, as usual, I really like knowing what’s in them since I made them myself.

On a totally different note, it’s been really, really cold lately in Atlanta. I’m talking break-out-the-thermal-underwear cold. So tonight, RH suggested that I have a cup of hot tea, and I decided to try the Korean snow dew tea that I brought back from Seoul.

I used this wonderful little tea cup that I bought in Seoul. It has a lid/saucer and an incredibly convenient insert for steeping loose leaf tea.

I had forgotten a few important things about the tea: it’s really sweet, and it only takes a few leaves to make a cup. The cup I made was a little too sweet for me because I used too many leaves. The tea is naturally sweet, and it pretty much tastes like sugar in your tea. If you like tea, I recommend trying it sometime. It’s definitely different from your traditional green, white and black teas.

Now that I’ve shared some food and drink with you, I’m off to be domestic. There are dishes to put away and laundry to fold. I guess humans still do their own laundry in 2010. Rats!!