Friday Favorites from Salt & Baker, Country Cleaver, Half Baked Harvest and More

Are you looking for a book to read this weekend? How about some comfort food recipes? I’ve got you covered, I am sharing recipes, books, finds and more this week in my Friday Favorites post.

Good Friday morning friends, it is a beautiful sunny day here, I am sitting on my porch with a blanket enjoying the sounds of the whispering pines and the chirping birds. My weekend plans include time in the back yard taming and pruning all sorts of shrubs and trees that have been left to do their own thing for the last 5 years.

While we all look forward to a leisurely weekend, across the globe in Ukraine the war continues, cities are being destroyed, people are dying and now over 1 million people have fled Ukraine with their lives in a suitcase. The other 44 million are trying to survive another day. As we go about our lives, and we have to, please keep the Ukrainian people in your prayers and if you know of reputable organizations to send donations please leave them in the comments, I am a huge fan of Chef Jose Andres and his World Central Kitchen but am open to others as well.

If reading about food, books and finds is not something that you feel like doing, I respect your feelings. But if you would like something to take your mind off world events I have lots to share today so grab your beverage of choice and sit for a spell and enjoy a recipe, a book recommendation or an interesting article.

Food

I love comfort food and I definitely feel like I need some this week.

Spinach and artichoke pizza looks perfect for tonights dinner! As does Caramelized Onion Pizza with Prosciutto which is perfect for my husband.

Doughnuts or donuts? I do not care how you spell them they are my all time favorite treat. I love fluffy yeast donuts and cake donuts as well. I am thinking of making Chocolate Doughnuts this weekend for my new neighbors.

Breakfast for Dinner! I love doing this, especially if I can have pancakes or avocado toast.

How to Freeze Cookie Dough, always good to know!

St.Patrick’s Day is just a couple of weeks away and I have a treat that you are definitely going to want to make, Guinness Stout Brownies.

House & Garden

How to Start a Community Garden(In 5 Steps). My old yoga studio, Torch Yoga, had a community garden and it was an amazing place. It not only grew flowers and vegetables, but friendships, and knowledge.

If you would like to add a piece of botanical fine art to your home please check out one of my favorite artists, Elizabeth Floyd. I am in love with “Lilacs with Klimt’s Lady with Fan” and “Cezanne and Spring Flowers.”

10 Ways to Organize with Vintage Decor

Wanderlust

Where to Find the Best Hidden Spots in Venice. If you have never been to Venice and have a trip to Italy planned add Venice, even if only for a day! It is one of the most magical places I have ever been.

Top 10 Dog Beaches in the U.S.

Articles

Champagne bubbles: the science

A Look Aboard Disney’s $6,000 per Stay, Immersive Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser Hotel

Fate of Wild Horses in Limbo as Overgrazing, Drought Decimate the West

How Ikea Tricks You Into Buying More Stuff

The Quiet Way Advertisers Are Tracking Your Browsing

The Real-Life Diet of Kenny G, Who Learned to Cook to Set an Example for His Son

The Surprising Links Between What You Eat and How Well You Sleep

How to Crack the Code to Happiness in the Second Half of Life

An Afghan in Ukraine

War in Ukraine Sparks New Wave of Misinformation

Special agent seals

Fun facts about bones: More than just scaffolding

Love this story about one of my favorite cookies Revolution on the Cookie Factory Floor.

Books

Women in White Coats

In the early 1800s, women were dying in large numbers from treatable diseases because they avoided receiving medical care. Examinations performed by male doctors were often demeaning and even painful. In addition, women faced stigma from illness—a diagnosis could greatly limit their ability to find husbands, jobs or be received in polite society.

Motivated by personal loss and frustration over inadequate medical care, Elizabeth Blackwell, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Sophia Jex-Blake fought for a woman’s place in the male-dominated medical field. For the first time ever, Women in White Coats tells the complete history of these three pioneering women who, despite countless obstacles, earned medical degrees and paved the way for other women to do the same. Though very different in personality and circumstance, together these women built women-run hospitals and teaching colleges—creating for the first time medical care for women by women.

The Last of the Moon Girls

Lizzy Moon never wanted Moon Girl Farm. Eight years ago, she left the land that nine generations of gifted healers had tended, determined to distance herself from the whispers about her family’s strange legacy. But when her beloved grandmother Althea dies, Lizzy must return and face the tragedy still hanging over the farm’s withered lavender fields: the unsolved murders of two young girls, and the cruel accusations that followed Althea to her grave.

Lizzy wants nothing more than to sell the farm and return to her life in New York, until she discovers a journal Althea left for her—a Book of Remembrances meant to help Lizzy embrace her own special gifts. When she reconnects with Andrew Greyson, one of the few in town who believed in Althea’s innocence, she resolves to clear her grandmother’s name.

But to do so, she’ll have to decide if she can accept her legacy and whether to follow in the footsteps of all the Moon women who came before her.

I am #2 in line for Woman on Fire at the library.

After talking her way into a job with Dan Mansfield, the leading investigative reporter in Chicago, rising young journalist Jules Roth is given an unusual—and very secret—assignment. Dan needs her to locate a painting stolen by the Nazis more than 75 years earlier: legendary Expressionist artist Ernst Engel’s most famous work, Woman on Fire. World-renowned shoe designer Ellis Baum wants this portrait of a beautiful, mysterious woman for deeply personal reasons, and has enlisted Dan’s help to find it. But Jules doesn’t have much time; the famous designer is dying.

Meanwhile, in Europe, provocative and powerful Margaux de Laurent also searches for the painting. Heir to her art collector family’s millions, Margaux is a cunning gallerist who gets everything she wants. The only thing standing in her way is Jules. Yet the passionate and determined Jules has unexpected resources of her own, including Adam Baum, Ellis’s grandson. A recovering addict and brilliant artist in his own right, Adam was once in Margaux’s clutches. He knows how ruthless she is, and he’ll do anything to help Jules locate the painting before Margaux gets to it first.

Finds

Beautiful dress and very reasonably priced. It comes in two solid colors as well as three prints. The black and white is pretty too.

I LOVE this skirt and this one too.

Espadrille fans, I think you might like this pair.

And this pair of  summer shoes too!

Pin Me for Later

I hope that you have a wonderful weekend. Don’t forget to join Juliet, Kim and I tomorrow for Saturday Meanderings!

DON’T FORGET YOU CAN ALSO FIND PINECONES AND ACORNS ON MOST SOCIAL MEDIA SITES,  FACEBOOK TWITTER, INSTAGRAM AND PINTEREST. OR YOU CAN SUBSCRIBE TO THE BLOG AND GET THE POSTS IN YOUR MAILBOX.

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