This blog is slowly morphing into a food blog. I realized that most of my time not blogging is spent cooking or simply thinking about food, so I suppose that writing about it is quite appropriate.

Anyway, my new food obsession is making my own handmade bread. The scent of fresh bread baking in the oven is heavenly! Today I made a whole wheat oatmeal bread and yesterday, I made a delicious, hand-braided loaf of challah. It was so good that me, the Ex, and Gavin ate all of it within minutes of taking it out of the oven.

Ingredients:

• 4 cups flour
• 1 package yeast
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 eggs for challah dough
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 egg for egg wash

Recipe:

Combine flour, sugar, and salt in a big bowl. In a separate bowl, pour 1 cup of warm water, add the yeast, and let it soak for 5 minutes. Add 1-1/2 cups flour mixture to the water, beat, set aside with a dishtowel covering it. Let sit for 30 min. Add two eggs, beat, then knead in the rest of the flour mixture for about 10 minutes. Let rise again for about an hour.

Knead the dough on a floured board for about 3 minutes, and cut dough in thirds. Make three “snakes” with each and braid, pinch ends, tuck under. Let rise again for a about an hour or so while covered with a dish cloth.

Brush gently with egg wash (1 egg and 1 tsp. water), bake for 10 minutes at 400 degrees. Reduce to 375 degrees and continue baking until a nice, golden crust forms.

Enjoy!

Lately, I have spent much of my time patrolling websites like J.Crew and Bluefly, looking to see if any of the million or so items I have recently purchased have been reduced further in price.

Everyday, Bluefly sends me emails with their “lowest price of the season” or “biggest sale of the year.” While these emails, taken together, signify nothing, I cannot help but panic. Did I buy my jeans at the peak? I wonder. I often feel like an investor who got duped into buying stock right before the market tanked. These emails taunt me so.

My natural recourse, of course, is to hop on their website and see if all the jeans I bought have been marked down. Instead of searching for the products on my own, though, I now simply IM the sales reps - aka “flyshionistas” - who find my goods and credit me whatever difference I am owed.

I seriously spend so much time IMing these flyshionistas that they know me. I literally had one say to me today, “Oh you’re Erica.”

Perhaps it is a sign I shop too much. Of course, once I am on the site, I cannot help but browse a little bit. You know, to check out all the new deals

People stop and stare when I carry my “baby” in public. That is because my son, who is just a month shy of three, stands a whopping 3′ 3 tall, while I come in at a measly 5′ 2. My carrying him is quite a sight - his legs dangle past my knees and our heads are virtually the same size! Still, he insists that he is my baby and, as such, requests that I carry him frequently. There will come a day when he is too large for me to carry (likely very soon!) so I indulge him while I still can.

So just how tall can I expect my baby to grow? Well, the rule of thumb is to double the child’s height at age two. At two years, Gavin stood 3 feet even, so that puts his adult height somewhere around 6 feet.

I like to say that Gavin got the best of my Ex’s and my genes. With regard to his stature, I am very thankful he appears to take after his 6′2 father.