Awwww, nuts.

So where are you? I am currently in North Carolina visiting my family in an "extended stay" situation, thanks to that big ole blizzard in NYC. I was supposed to go back Sunday night, but after two canceled flights and several hours online dealing with very limited options for rescheduling those flights, I am now home for a few extra days.

While it's nice in theory to have additional time here, it's a bit hard when you're not prepared. There are still deadlines to make at work. I've had to play phone tag with a doctor in NYC so I could fill a medication I didn't have enough of, and I could only pick it up at a drugstore that took me 45 minutes to find. My contacts are about to jump off my eyeballs because they're dry and expired. And praise Jesus my parents have a washing machine in the house.



But, okay, let's don't lie: the positives outweigh the negatives. I mean, I don't usually have this much time time to hang with my parents, my brothers and their significant others, and, of course, my delicious baby nephew. Tonight, for example, we just did normal stuff. We ate leftovers. We sat around and read magazines. We watched football (go N.C. State!). And my youngest brother and I practiced our O.C.D.: I rearranged my mom's spice drawer (meaning, I threw out the expired jars and alphabetized the rest), and Steve-o shelled every single pecan we had in the house for no reason whatsoever. NORMAL STUFF.


To shell the nuts, Steven used this cool contraption that used to belong to our great-grandmother (it makes an awesomely loud CAHHH-RuuuuuuuNCH). The pecans also just happen to come from the tree in the backyard of my aunt's house. And since I took photos (natch) and made the obvious jokes that sisters are supposed to make when their brothers sit around cracking nuts, I felt that, in every way, this celebration of obsessive-compulsive behavior was very much a family affair. A NORMAL FAMILY AFFAIR.



But you know what? Sometimes I secretly think that I could perhaps find this kind of normal family-time stuff obsessively nice. And while I did not sign up for a change-your-flight-twice, run-around-rearranging-your-week (and your mom's spices), blizzard-y white Christmas, it's honestly been abnormally lovely.

Things My Brothers Made to Make the Holidays Great

New holiday recipes:

New holiday photos:

New reasons to start setting out cookies for Santa again:

(To be fair, I'll give my sister-in-law some credit in this one, too).

Hope your holiday was just as full of family, food, and fun!

Lighting with Red Cords

Aw. I am going to hate it when I am over this trend. It's kind of cool, you know?

Wastberg desk lamp, scp.co.uk

Heavy Light, decodelondon.com

Stilt Table Lamp, Blu Dot

ATYPYK Lampshade Lampe, selekkt.com

Mega Bulb Pendant, greatdanefurniture.com

Heavy Light, twentytwentyone.com

Torch table light, scp.co.uk

Georgia & Susan's Charming Coconut Cake Recipe

Oh, ya'll. If I could, I'd send you all a piece of this heaven. It's my mom's coconut cake (you remember the mom and her red-velvet concoction? This is on the same level). The recipe originated with my great-grandmother Georgia, and since her passing, my mom has spent the past 20 some odd years figuring out just how Georgia did it. And Mom has nailed it, I tell ya.

I've placed it in my blog's "Easy Recipes" category, but this isn't the easiest in the bunch, to be honest. It involves fresh coconuts and their milk, and takes about two days from start to finish. Nevertheless, IT IS SO WORTH IT.

This year's cake was especially amazing--"shut-your-mouth good," as my sister-in-law would say. Print it out and keep it for a special occasion. You'll be so glad you did.

Fresh Coconut Cake

3 cups cake flour

2 cups sugar

5 eggs

8 oz butter

1/3 cup Crisco

1 cup evaporated milk

1 tsp vanilla

2 coconuts (shake to make sure they're full of milk)

Cream butter, sugar, and Crisco. Add eggs, one at a time. Add flour and milk alternately. Add vanilla. Make 4 layers. Bake at 325 degrees for 25 - 30 minutes.

Grate coconut and save milk. Make 7-Minute Icing.

7-Minute Icing

1 1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp lemon juice or 1/2 tsp cream of tartar

2 egg whites

4 tbsp cold water

1/2 tsp vanilla

Boil ingredients until a soft ball is formed. Pour over egg whites and beat. (Beat egg whites first.) Pour coconut milk over layers. Then spread icing and sprinkle coconut until layers and sides are covered.