Nothing goes better with cake than new toys. Right. What? It turns out Eric is obsessed with finding reasons to by new toys. Tools, gadgets, gizmos, every project or endeavor seems to need just one more. Want to put new floors in? Have to buy a nail gun. Fix the fence, need a new saw. Fix the other fence, gotta go get a different saw. Start a food blog? Must get a new camera, new lens, new flash, new tripod, new computer, another new camera, one more lens... and you get the picture. Sometimes the new toy tool costs more than the rest of the project but ends up in the cart because it has to. This is exactly the kind of thing that puts a real gleam in Eric's eye whenever theres a new project or something gets broken, which is exactly what happened to our camera flash last week. We were getting ready to start shooting

Earlier this month we celebrated our second wedding anniversary with a dinner and some sparkling wine that Eric's parents dropped off. Eric likes to joke that we ran to Vegas and came home married, but in reality we spent a year planing it, and it was spectacularly fun. Fun was actually the key, we wanted everyone who came to really enjoy themselves something that doesn't always happen at weddings. It was pretty exciting to see everyone who came, about 100 of our closest friends and family on both sides. The Wynn Hotel, where we had the ceremony and reception was really good to us and we had 4 full days of fun. The hotel had a really pretty outdoor venue and the coordinator there was wonderful. The wedding is actually a topic that still comes up at dinner parties and BBQs, so much so that everyone keeps insisting that we get

This week, Eric celebrated his new job in Sunnyvale, which is a really big deal over here in Petruno land. When we lived in San Francisco, Eric's job was a solid 15 minute walk away. He had lots of opportunity ahead of him and things were good. Then, there was that whole "economy" thing, his start up became part of a bigger corporation, and we had the opportunity to get a house back down in San Jose. When we moved down the commute once measured in blocks (and not that many of them) was measured in miles. 55.9 to be exact and 15 minutes turned into 3+ hours a day. With the economy where it was, finding another job was in the "not gonna happen" box and so Eric commuted from 5:30am until 6:30pm 5 days a week. A few weeks ago, he was offered a new job in Sunnyvale

Eric's been falsely accused of many things over the years like forgetting to pick up his clothes, forgetting to do the dishes or being too loud watching Sharks games. Being cheesy is not something he's ever been falsely accused of nor has he been falsely accused of being a big fan of cheese. In reality anything with the word "cheesy" in the title is something he will probably really enjoy. Hence he had 3 pieces of this giant scone, and enjoyed every last bite and was quite thankful to Charisse for getting the idea. Actually the thanks went to our neighbors, Bob and Nancy who grow a number of different things in their backyard garden. When we mentioned in the last post that Charisse's parents lemon tree puts out an amazingly large crop every year, we weren't thinking about what comes out of Bob and Nancy's garden. They have a

We're not usually huge fans of deep fried food. Baked, grilled and skillet cooked are our specialties but every now and again we come across something lifted out of fry oil that just screams EAT ME. Twinkies are not a part of this group. On the other hand, deep fried lemons? It sounded fun and now we've decided that from here on out these are a must eat. We came across this idea while we were figuring out what to do with the Farnsworths' bumper crop of lemons as their tree is a strange mutant that produces about 6.4 billion lemons each year. Not that having more lemons that you know what to do with is bad mind you, but you can only have so many lemon drops in a week. Ok, maybe you can have one more than that, but that still leaves more on the tree. We preserved some

The top two questions we get asked at parties are "When can we come over for dinner?" (Whenever you want)and"So are you trying to be like that blogger from that Julie and Julia movie?" (No.) Its a really strange phenomenon though, its seems like everyone's seen that movie, but nobody seems to have read the blog (still readable here, or her new blog here). Not exactly the same thing (we don't swear... as much). These blogs are all about someone's life, but we decided early on that we wanted instead to share our food with everyone, hearing about all the goofy stuff that goes on in our lives is more a side, or gravy. Pick your own analogy. We strive to tell the story of how our dinners came to be or what the dish means to us (we love food so much it gets put in that same nostalgic place as childhood toys and

Eric is a fan of mint. That is a pretty odd statement, but it is very very true. Mint (chocolate chip) ice cream, mint toothpaste (there are actually non mint flavors, he won't touch them), mint M&Ms, heck he even once ate a whole tin of Altoids in one day, simply because they tasted good. Looking back, he admitted that this was pretty gross but pointed out that he had amazingly fresh morning breath the next day.Anyways, when we hit across these carrots, glazed with mint, Eric was all for it. It also helped that this is a super easy way to spice up an otherwise normal side dish. Now don't get us wrong, normal is not bad its just that, normal. You've had it before and you'll probably have it again. We like it when every now and again we can take something so every-day and quickly and easily turn it into something

Today's entry, titled "Nectarine Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Frosting" (or as Eric called it "A plate full of Oooooh yeeeeaaaah") is one that almost didn't happen. How could that be you might ask, since we are right in the middle of nectarine season here in Silicon Valley. This is something we'd wanted to do for some time, ever since the first little buds started growing in on the nectarine tree in the backyard. Tree? Sorry, we mean shrub-that-will-be-a-tree-next-year. See, everyone thought it had died some time ago and was basically cut down to a stump. But after a little (a lot) of TLC from Charisse and her green thumb it flared back to life this year, with a vengeance. It blossomed in the spring, looking so pretty we both knew we were in for a treat come mid summer. Sure enough, all summer long we've been watching dozens upon dozens of

For some reason both of us grew up avoiding dark meat like the plague. We were both "that person" at the BBQ, insisting on getting the BBQ'd chicken breast, using phrases like "I only eat white meat, its healthier for you" or "dark meat doesn't taste as good". If you'd ask were we learned to avoid dark meat, it was just one of those things that everyone knew. In retrospect, everyone was probably looking at use like we were crazy, but I don't think we're alone here. Its really more of a bigger issue than white or dark, this whole country has a really awkward relationship with food. Its like being 13 again, with the braces and the acne and the awkwardness and instead of asking out that certain girl or talking to the cute boy, you sit and doodle on your Trapper Keeper. Then the one time you go over there, your mouth