Drum Roll....The first post

Welcome to Bay Leaf and Rosemary, my new blog, or at least what I think will be my new blog. I've not done this before, but since I've always threatened, I decided to follow through with that threat.

The idea behind this blog is to give me something to do and perhaps get and give some enjoyment from the result. If you stay with me from the ground up, perhaps this will even get better and we'll both learn something, but there are no promises.

Since what I do best is read and sometimes what I do second best is produce things from my kitchen, that's mostly what you will find here, comments about what I'm currently reading and exhortations to pick up the book if I find it particularly good. I'll also share some of my cooking and baking adventures, with photos, of course, because who doesn't take pictures of what they cook, bake and eat these days. In fact, this weekend's results are shared below (not physically because if it can be done, I haven't reached that level of expertise yet in blogsphere).

You're looking at the edges of a very pretty plate from Anthropologie (there's a reading bird in the tree) and treats from Monica Holland's recent cookbook, Lick the Bowl Good. The chocolatey-looking squares are Chocolate Gingerbread and the caramel-like squares are pieces of Apple Cake with Cinnamon Brown Sugar Glaze. If you like some brownie with your gingerbread, the first resemble a chewy take on a spicy brownie or a chocolatey take on a chewy gingerbread. The apple cake is as moist as it looks in my rather poor photo so put your mind to work and imagine how this little square of goodness would feel in your mouth. There are a minimum of five more recipes in this book marked with little tabs waiting for a turn in my kitchen.

Reading Sarah Waters' The Paying Guests and Robert Goodard's Long Time Coming and one of them is beckoning now, perhaps the Waters' book since it's an e-library loan. Both are keeping my interest. I'll report back.

Laurel