What’s your favorite way to spend a Saturday afternoon?

I’m supposed to like working in the dirt. My father’s a farmer. My mother’s a master gardener. My sister is starting her own orchard with fruit trees and blackberry bushes. Even my two-year-old niece has gardening tools. But I don’t have the mulching gene, the weeding gene or the mowing gene.

When Saturday’s yard work gets rained out, I want to grab those rain clouds by the cheeks and kiss them full on the mouth.

Are you with me on this?

© 2011 Rebecca Crump. All rights reserved.

It’s been a long time, but my sister, Jennifer, is finally back and bringing the “momma love” with her recipes for meatloaf and mashed potatoes. – Rebecca

By Jennifer Rather.

My oldest son has not had an easy tween time lately.

Yesterday especially, very much like the Alexander of the children’s book, he had a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day. Between algebra interfering with his artistic aspirations and an incident involving a ruler that led to detention, he was not feeling like his usual “Mr. Awesome” self.

Short of a cruise to Rome to bolster his spirits – he’s all about Roman history lately – I knew of only one thing that would soothe his weary hormonal self: meatloaf

Continue reading: Family-Style Meatloaf with Comforting Cream Cheese Mashed Potatoes

© 2011 Rebecca Crump. All rights reserved.

Update: The winner of the Craft Coffee Artisan Tasting Box is Rachel Freeman! Congratulations, Rachel! Contact me at rebecca@ezrapoundcake.com to get the caffeine heading your way.

Looking for a Mother’s Day gift that says more than, “Oh, crap, I forgot it was Mother’s Day”?

Last week, Craft Coffee sent me one of their subscription artisan-of-the-month tasting boxes, and you guys. It was totally worth putting away the K-cups and breaking out the bean grinder.

It was like tasting coffee for the first time.

Each of the three premium coffees, made by small artisan roasters around the country, had its own complex personality. The tasting notes that came with them read like descriptions of wine: “Aromas of brown sugar and coconut lead into a round, creamy cup with lime and apricot acidity, candy-like strawberry sweetness, and clean floral notes throughout.”

For someone like me, who’s used to classifying coffee as good, tolerable or WTH?, this was a brand new experience.

An adventure in a cup.

© 2011 Rebecca Crump. All rights reserved.

Is it wrong to eat bread pudding for breakfast? If it is, don’t tell me, because I’ve got a little streak going over here. A small dish of Blackberry Bread Pudding with a very large cup of coffee.

Dessert for breakfast? Oh, yes.

For every 29 days of steel-cut oats, you need something dusted with powdered sugar. Something that makes you feel like you should be strutting around the house in a red velvet robe with an evergreen crown on your head, like the Ghost of Christmas Present. Or reclining with the bowl on your belly, like Hedonismbot.

© 2011 Rebecca Crump. All rights reserved.

I’m a weekend slacker. If there’s anything better to do on a Saturday than scrub the shower, I’m on it.

The dishes will still be there on Monday.

The only real downside to this way of life is that the dishes are still here on Monday, waiting in the dishwasher, where they’ve been since Friday. Still dirty. (That was a surprise.)

On these Mondays, when it’s especially hard to get my act together, it helps to have a good lunch. Something light and whole that makes adulthood seem like the right choice again.

Like couscous salad.

© 2011 Rebecca Crump. All rights reserved.

Last summer, after I painted the hallway, I started rolling up the clear plastic drop cloth to throw it away, and Jeff almost went into cardiac arrest.

He’s a keeper. Not just “a keeper” but a keeper of Things That Might Be Useful In The Future. Like the original boxes for all of our tech stuff. Multiple sets of hiking equipment. And me!

In my world, keeping a drop cloth was serial killer thinking, but Jeff talked me into storing it for ONE YEAR.

Last week, we called a plumber to fix a leak in the basement. He got here around 4:30, sawed the basement ceiling open and found the leak. But he was going to have to fix it later, because he’d forgotten something.

You know it.

A plastic drop cloth.

© 2011 Rebecca Crump. All rights reserved.

When it came to picnicking, my parents were like CIA operatives. They’d load me and my sister into the backseat, wedge a cooler of cokes between us, and refuse to tell us where we were going or how long it’d take to get there. We had cause to be concerned. Daddy relaxed by driving, and it was not uncommon for him to ask if we wanted to go out for Sunday lunch and drive us all the way from Clarksville, Tenn., to Georgia, Alabama or Missouri.

Do you know what tastes good after a four- to six-hour drive? Everything.

Continue reading: Italian Subs

© 2011 Rebecca Crump. All rights reserved.

Did you still let your birthdays be a big deal?

I was ready to let mine slide quietly by, since it wasn’t a milestone or anything. But Jeff was not having it. He took me out ALL WEEKEND LONG, from Friday afternoon to Sunday night. There was the unholy goodness of an apple fritter doughnut at Fox’s Donut Den. Catching Aziz Ansari at TPAC. Scoring some early strawberries at the farmer’s market. Hot chicken. Sunday lunch at Mom’s with balloons on the mailbox. Hide-and-seek with my nieces and nephews. Singing all the way back to Nashville. Meeting Mike and Windy for Sunday Supper at City House and shutting the place down.

It was big loud fun.

Today, I’m doing quiet fun. Just me in the kitchen in my PJs, stirring a big pot of risotto. This vegetarian version is made with creamy arborio rice swirled with a mountain of spinach and a big handful (or two) of punchy feta cheese. It’s rich and comforting and so good with sautéed mushrooms on top.

© 2011 Rebecca Crump. All rights reserved.

Some days, a good lunch is all it takes to turn things around.

Other days need an exorcism.

Yesterday, I was bringing a saucepan full of butter, oil, cocoa and Coke to a boil to make a Coca-Cola cake when the dishwasher started backing up into the sink.

The sink was full of dirty pans. The kitchen towels were downstairs in the dryer. This was a Threat Level Red scenario.

I rushed over to move the pans and completely forgot about the pot on the stove.

Until the sparks.

Continue reading: Tartines with Goat Cheese, Red Peppers and Swiss Chard

© 2011 Rebecca Crump. All rights reserved.

Yesterday, I made the Baked Eggs with Grits and Ham from “The Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook”for breakfast. And then I did it again today. Tomorrow, I’ll probably be selling bowls of it from a stand in the front yard.

It’s a Southern breakfast-in-a-bowl – a fluffy mattress of creamy grits, topped with thin sheets of Black Forest ham, greens sautéed in olive oil and thyme, a light blanket of cheese and a pillowy baked egg speckled with black pepper.

Holy goodness, it’s so much better than a drive-through bowl. A container full of bacon, sausage, gravy, eggs, cheese and breakfast potatoes has its dirty charm, but it’s also a heavy, greasy, coma-inducing gut bomb.

Continue reading: Baked Eggs with Grits and Ham

© 2011 Rebecca Crump. All rights reserved.