Page 139 in this issue of Martha Stewart Weddings (sorry for the rather crappy photo which makes the hearts look totally weird - it’s dark outside and raining again. Gee, imagine that).

We catered an art opening yesterday, a group show called “Lady”, at the Charles Nolan store in the Meatpacking District. Mark made mini chocolate cupcakes with dulce de leche cream cheese frosting and our lemon lavender cupcakes, as well as some brownies and shortbread cookies, cut into mini rounds. Hope you had a good opening, ladies!

After months of rescheduling due to illness and other life stuff, I finally got together with Amber of Hey Brooklyn this week to record a podcast interview, the latest in a series of interviews with seriously cool Brooklyn peeps, some of whom are our friends (I mean c’mon…look at that lineup, how great is Brooklyn?). I’d never done an audio interview before and I think I said a lot of “ums” and “you knows”, but overall I think it went well and you can listen to it here. I confess I haven’t listened to all of it because IT IS REALLY WEIRD TO HEAR YOURSELF TALK if you’re not used to it. Amber also laughed at me because I didn’t want my picture taken. What can I say, I am not a camera loving ham like the girls.

Which brings me to these photos - how do they relate to the podcast? Mark wasn’t able to be part of the interview because he was going to be at the kitchen all day, but I really wanted a photo of the both of us posted since I’m trying to make more of an effort to make sure that people know we are a 2-person company and not just a 1 person company. We’ve been getting more requests of photos with the both of us, but if you may recall from our anniversary post, we don’t have any recent shots. But you know what I remembered? Camera self timers, hello!! So I snapped these while Mia was at school, except Claudine kept sneaking herself into the frame. We’d think we’d be safe because she was over on the other side of the room playing with her toys, but then the self timer clock would start ticking down and right before the camera snapped the picture she would suddenly be standing there, right next to us. Every single time. It was both hilarious and creepy, like “what the…how’d she…huh? How’d she get here so fast!”. So if you look at the photo that is posted on HeyBrooklyn.com, you can see Mark’s arm extended out of the frame, and at the other side of his arm is Claudine trying to push herself back in the shot.

You know you want some, but you’ll have to come to the Brooklyn Flea this saturday to get it. We’ll be replacing our watermelon coolers this week with some of this action because this is really yum!

You know the scene in Close Encounters, when he’s playing with the mashed potatoes. That’s me, except with marshmallows - stacking, restacking, arranging and rearranging. Seriously, how many times can I photograph a marshmallow? I think this is my best work yet, however, and I’m considering doing a series of marshmallow photos as art prints. So what are these? We finally found a beer that works quite well with the marshmallow, Fort Collins Chocolate Stout, and the result is quite interesting. I can’t quite describe the flavor, but it does have a distinct flavor that doesn’t make you feel like you’re, well…eating a beer marshmallow. In fact, I think it gets better with age. They’re going to go into our Father’s Day gift boxes. And this below? That’s brittle - Cashew Cocoa Nib Chipotle Brittle. That will also be in the gift box as well. Look for them in all our stores.

Ok, I never thought about rice krispie treats until a few people inquired about them, and then I did that poll on twitter where everyone was “duh, of course you should sell them”, so after one miserably failed attempt a few weeks ago, Mark made a batch that came out crispy, a bit chewy, and light and dense at the same time. I can’t remember the last time I’ve eaten a rice krispy treat - I’ve always thought of them as sticky sweet things that I didn’t much like, but I am a convert now.

We’ll most likely have some for sale tomorrow at the Flea so swing on by.

…for 300 or so rooms at the new Ace Hotel in NYC at Broadway and 29th street, an area that’s been apparently rebranded as NoMAD (north of Madison - what’s that all about?). We actually made a first shipment a month ago but the hotel has been plagued with many delays in opening, but now that it appears that they have indeed opened their doors to guests, we are delivering the rest tomorrow. I got the first scoop from our spies over at NotCot who is staying there right now and posted photos of their room on the web (you can sort of make out our biscotti in that shot of snacks. They were also gracious enough to email me the pricelist as I was very curious to see how much they would mark up the product. Yikes! I know hotels are notorious for jacking prices of minibar items up, but…but…….

I took Mia to the Flea last Sunday while Mark’s mom stayed back at home with Claudine. I know I jokingly vowed never to take the girls again, but I figured I could handle 1 kid. And yeah, it was sort of a pain at times walking around with her to all the stands, pulling her away from touching and picking up every piece of jewelry, knick knack and pleading at every single food stand for a treat. BUT, we gave her a job and that was to stand at the front corner of the table and talk to customers, informing them of all the variety of cookies and sweets that were available for sale. She was a natural and took the job very seriously. I think most of you know by now that Mia is very outgoing, talkative, confident and seems older than her 5 years. She is a natural extrovert, whereas Mark and I are not, so she relished her role and was damn good at it, charming a sale from customers who were wavering on their decision to buy something from our stand (and often talking their ear off). She closed quite a few sales for us that day.

That evening, after the Flea when the girls were tucked into bed, we watched Juno for the first time. If I ever wondered what Mia would be like down the road as a teenager, I don’t have to wonder anymore. Mia IS that character to a tee. It was weird to watch that movie and see somewhat into the future, what living with her would be like in 10 years (well, except for the pregnancy part, please).