In Search of Happy

Guess what Julia Moskin is writing about in this excerpt from a recent New York Times article:

In my opinion, the charge of pointless excess also applies to marshmallows, peanut butter, chipotle powder, orange marmalade, cream cheese and most other frills and furbelows. If you feel compelled to tinker, consider upgrading your ingredients instead. I have had spectacular results with cultured butter, Callebaut chocolate and loamy muscovado sugar from the island of Mauritius. Walnuts are fine. Pecans are pushing it.

The "furbelows"-ness of it! The "loamy muscovado sugar"-ishness of it! The "Pecans are pushing it"-ness of it! Happiness.

Also happiness: my friend Poppy Momstocking (if you think that's difficult to type without laughing, you would be correct, sir) gifted me with this kooky retro cookie book:


And this totally sexy one (a recipe for Spiced Pink Soup?! Very sexy):


The contrast is almost as charming as Poppy Momstocking herself.

Okay, let's see...more happiness...though the following pronouncement puts me at great risk for immediate jinxing (is that a word?), I will say that I've been quite productive in the writing department. For me, of course, that translates into having covered the front and back of a paper napkin in barely legible ballpoint, but whatever.

And in final happy news, I find myself inadvertently in the midst of a Daniel Day-Lewis filmfest. Last week it was Last of the Mohicans (as I've said before—embarrassingly, probably more than once—here on Nesting Ground, "Stay alive! No matter what occurs, I will find you!"), and tonight it's The Age of Innocence.

So I really must go.