Sam is a published writer!!  This is amazing. It’s barely been 3 months since graduation and she is a real-life writer.  This gives me faith that people appreciate good writing, that there’s a place for really truly beautiful things.

We went to Good Girl Dinette to celebrate and had crispy tofu rice cakes, which Sam called, “the best things ever”, and bun and curry.  But food is besides the point.  Sam is published!

the lady of the day

me, grace, saeyoung

Grace had her farewell party today in Laguna Beach.  She’s leaving to teach in Korea for a year.  I don’t know how or when this happened?  Grace is an absolute touchstone in my life.  I feel a little devastated that I won’t be able to see her for so long.  Tomorrow we’re going to have some one-on-one time but for today we had a big beach potluck to wish her bon voyage.  I brought a lemon blueberry loaf adapted from Smittenkitchen.

Lemon Blueberry Loaf

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour

1 cup greek yogurt

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

zest of 3 lemons

3 extra large eggs (I used 3 1/2 large eggs)

1 1/2 cups blueberries (preferably fresh but all I had was frozen and well, that worked too)

1 cup sugar

1/2 vegetable or canola oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

for the syrup:

1 1/2 tablespoons sugar

1/3 cup lemon juice

1. preheat oven to 350

2. combine in a medium bowl the flour, baking powder, and salt

3. whisk together eggs, oil, vanilla extract, lemon zest, and greek yogurt

4. fold in the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients in 3 separate additions

5. toss the blueberries with 1 tablespoon of flour and gently fold into batter

6. pour into a greased and flour loaf pan and bak for 1 hour

7. in the meantime combine the ingredients for the syrup in a saucepan and heat until the sugar has dissolved

8. unmold the cake and poke holes across the top with a toothpick and brush the lemon syrup over the top of the cake