My heart sank a little this morning when I saw a woman wearing a cardigan over her dress.
It was barely a month ago when summer begun around here, so I’m a little reluctant to accept its inevitable end.
I told someone recently of a certain sense of spontaneity that takes us over during the warmer season.
I feel we’re happier and perhaps kinder to each other…
I call it the happy season.

Like the day I wore this dress, I met an older couple while waiting in line at the coffee shop, they thought I looked like their daughter who’d moved away to Montreal.
I was intrigued because I rarely get that, the man showed me a cell phone picture of the daughter and all I saw was a girl with sad eyes who had a dress like mine on.
I looked at the parents and realized that they probably miss their child, so I joined them for coffee.
I listened to them talk about this stranger; a daughter who made their eyes sparkle, whose antics made them laugh, and it made me laugh.
And though I believed I was doing this for them, it was a little for me too…
And that’s the wonder of summer.

Outfit Details: Dress – Cheap Monday | Shirt – The Gap | Shoes – Fluevog | Bag – Massimo Dutti

I know what you’re thinking…
Didn’t I just write about making smarties cookies a few months ago?
Yes, I did. But these cookies are different; they’ll beat all other cookies, and tempt you to the dark side!
The last cookies I made were a bit of an experiment, I was making oatmeal cookies that called for chocolate chips. I didn’t have any, so I tossed in a box of smarties mostly to prevent myself from gobbling them all up in a sitting.

The last time, the cookies were adulterated with oats, and coconut and pistachios and dried cranberries… smarties played the role of ‘extra’ – an afterthought.
I wanted to make these cookies again with smarties as the star ingredient – so that I can rightly call them smarties cookies.

I used a whole cup of smarties for this batch and adapted a great chocolate chip cookie recipe I found.
The recipe is originally vegan and I followed it closely, but adding these smarties makes it not vegan.
What I loved about these cookies were how soft and chewy and yet crunchy they were, and they’re not too sweet.
They’re oh so delightfully colourful.

Smarties Cookies (adapted from Sweet Tooth)
INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup turbinado sugar (or granulated sugar)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup smarties
• 2/3 cup grapeseed oil (or any type vegetable oil)
• 1/4 cup almond milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tbsp dark molasses

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper and set aside
3. In a large bowl, combine and mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and smarties.
4. In another bowl, whisk together oil, milk, vanilla, and molasses.
5. Add the wet mixture to the dry and mix well to incorporated.
6. Roll dough into compact balls and place on cookie sheets.
7. Flatten slightly and leave enough room between each dough, cookies will spread during baking.
8. Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes.
9. Let cookies cool for 5 minutes on the pan before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
10. Enjoy!

Last weekend, my cousin visited briefly from San Francisco.
And although the visit was kicked off with a medical emergency that involved a hurried drive to Seattle and back, we managed to make the most of our short time together.
For a little while we played tourist in our little neighbourhood and had some wonderful meals.
And of course I brought my camera along…

I’ve had an unbelievably busy week that felt like it was going to go on for ever.
On days like this I’m thankful for quick weeknight meals.
Like this bowl of leftover black beans soup and a quick roasted vegetables wrap – the roasted vegetables, also left overs.

The other day after dinner, I looked around and thought to myself, “Dessert would be nice…“
I always have a dessert after dinner, and apparently I can’t help myself

My mom calls it sweet-after-meals, and when we were kids we only had dessert on special occasions, a slice of cake, a scoop of ice cream or a chocolate bar to share.
I have a sweet tooth and while I’m unapologetic about this, I occasionally try to find a healthy balance.
I don’t mind going a little farther for dessert.
I’ve been known to walk miles to get my dessert, this isn’t new.

On that particular day, while the evening sun still blared, I brought my camera along and went across the Cambie Bridge.
I took a beautiful scenic walk along the seawall; it felt like everyone was out – couples out for a stroll, people walking their dogs, joggers, cyclists, and folks just sitting on benches enjoying the scenery while some had a bit of dinner.
You’d swear we lived in paradise, were it not for our earthly problems.

And then I got on the bridge; the views from the bridge is amazing – here’s where I took the pictures.

Across the bridge, on the other side I picked up a box of petite fours – filled with a lovely assortment of pastries, tartlets, éclairs, fancy cakes and cookies, etc.
I got enough to last several days…