Lucy- See, the siren song of your pizzas, so delicious that they even lured Lou in to take a peek :-). I must have spaced & completely missed your suggestion about baking the pizza on the stone with the cast iron pan above. I wish that I had noticed it! I'll try it that way this weekend (my guys looooove pizza- I swear that's why my husband married me, the fact that I made pizza & the whole Italian Christmas eve fish frenzy). I was a woman posessed and made pizza this weekend while test driving recipes for the boozy bake off. Using Julia's french bread recipe for the crust was insipired and produced a much crispier crust than I had ever achieved before. This dough could also be worked much thinner than my usual pizza dough. I'll be using this dough method from now on unless I'm in a super hurry for pizza. While my pizzas were nowhere near as gorgeous as yours the pizza under the stone (baked on the cast iron pan) was far superior to the one baked over the stone (but not directly on the stone, what a dope I am!). I will begin the quest for a second stone...and a peel! Do we even have a restaurant supply place in our neck of the woods anymore? The one in Port Chester is still there, I think, but the huge one in Elmsford is gone & the one in Peekskill seems to have mainly commercial ranges and giant mixers. I love to mix provolone in with the mozzarella but my son claims it's "too spicy" (he's 3, whatcha gonna do?) Oh Lou, I crave one of those outdoor brick ovens! My father used to build them (him being a bricklayer) but he passed when I was a little girl. He'd be very amused to see his little girl pining for one of those old ovens that he used to make. I swear, I'm gonna have to build it myself one of these days. BTW- I got my baking stone on the clearance shelf at Kohls for 3$ a few years ago. It can't hurt to keep an eye on the dept store clearance, especially after the holidays. I would definitely be interested in the wirtual pizza party, as well as the cupcakes. throw in cocktails and, well, you're playing my song :-). Nina

Jasdip, I had to look up butter tarts! Apparently a Canadian term, perhaps? Looks yummy, that's for sure. Speaking if yummy, weren't you the one who complained about the price of cauliflower a few weeks ago? We all did, as I recall. Anyway, the price is way down now at my stores, with a big head costing about $1.20 each. And the orange variety is around $2.50. I bought a head of the orange to steam tonight.....I'm curious to see if it tastes as different as reported.

Everything does look delicious, and congratulations on that new love, Ricky. What did I do here? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Well, mostly, I did stop and buy my Mother her favorite white chocolate/raspberry coffee drink. Elery is prepping for a colonscopy and diet is limited for five days before, which never was required previously. Mother had an echocardiogram, I did tell her that it was fitting to have a heart test on Valentine's Day, LOL. And so it came and went without so much as a cupcake, or heart shaped food of any type. Annie

I had originally planned a stay at The Georgian Terrace in Atlanta with a few activities and dinner at Livingston’s but canceled because the restaurant is STILL not open for dinner since their pandemic closing. We substituted a trip elsewhere a couple of weeks ago, and, thankfully, still had the club reservations I made as a backup. As a rule we don’t care for crowds either but over the years have enjoyed looking at all the couples celebrating Valentine’s Day and wondering about their stories and lives. The first timers are usually easy to spot 🙂