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Today is Mother’s Day. I am not yet a mother, but three women who have shown me how it’s done leave me no doubt that I will be a strong one when the time comes. And when I falter, they will be there to support me.

Who am I talking about? My mother, my nanny, and my sister. Today, my post is about them. They are three of the most precious women in my life, for a myriad of reasons. I hope by the end of this post, they know how just how precious.

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Hummingbird Cake is one of those recipes that’s uniquely Southern, and found nearly every springtime at someone’s baby shower, wedding, or barbecue.

Rumor has it the cake’s name comes from its over-the-top sweetness – so sweet that there’s no way a hummingbird could resist it’s sugary lure.

Personally, it reminds me a lot of carrot cake, but instead of getting its sweetness from carrots, it gets it from fresh pineapple, ripe bananas, and warmly roasted walnuts. They’re each equal stars of this show.

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You might be looking at that photo and thinking to yourself, “Amber, that’s just another chocolate chip walnut cookie. Yum, but, come on! It’s been done!”. Well, my friend, you’d be right, except that that right there is a Levain Bakery chocolate chip walnut cookie, that I made at home.

The Levain Bakery is famous in this area, and honestly, beyond. It’s been the subject of New York Times articles, Food Network Shows, and many a food blogger discussion.

These cookies, they’re special. They’ve got weight. They’ve got this outer.. shell, for lack of a better word. When you bite into the cookie, the outer layer has a crunch to it, a bite. But it’s ever so slight, and gives way immediately to a texture somewhere between cake and chewy that I thought I’d never be able to duplicate.

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Earth Day is about celebrating the planet that we live on. The Nature Conservancy came up with the idea of having a Picnic for the Planet. They’re encouraging communities around the globe to come together and enjoy the great outdoors, good food, and each other and celebrate the beauty that is Nature this Earth Day. …

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You might be asking yourself, what the heck is a cascarone (Cask-ca-roe-neh)? A cascarone is a hollowed egg that has been dyed and filled with confetti, and then resealed using tissue paper. What is the purpose of cascarones, you might now ask yourself. In South Texas and Mexico, cascarones are as synonymous with Easter as dyed hard boiled eggs are in the rest of North America.

In doing research for this pots, I found that cascarones have actually been around hundreds of years, maybe even thousands. Some people believe they even started in Roman times. The egg symbolizes fertility, which is what Spring is all about. No matter which era we’re talking about, to have a cascarone broken on top of your head (covering you in confetti) is meant to be a sign of good will and good fortune for the rest of the year.

Plus, it’s really fun to break eggs on top of your friends’ heads and cover them in brightly colored confetti!

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