Wedding Shower Cupcakes

My mom has been helping me A TON with Lily this summer so I can work during the day, so when she asked me to help her make cupcakes for a bridal shower, I jumped at the chance to pay her back. I'd also been dying to try some grown up cupcakes, and I loved the examples in Hello, Cupcake and What's New, Cupcake? of cupcakes patterned after pretty fabric and pretty designs.

I was all set to make the brown and blue cupcakes on page 118 of What's New since they matched the wedding colors, and I bought all the things I'd need. So I was thrown for a loop when the Shower Czar informed me that someone else was making chocolate cupcakes and I'd have to find something else. Really? Did this someone else already have her stuff? Did she have a super cute design? Probably not. I fretted for a while and even considered defying the czar-- I mean, is there such a thing as too many chocolate cupcakes? In the end I decided I was too chicken to defy the czar, and back to the store I went for the ingredients for lemon cupcakes (I used the one in the back of Hello, sans the poppyseeds).

The icing on the proverbial cake, or cupcake, was that my syle-queen niece, Isabel, came over to help me decorate them. We monkeyed with a few techniques and several different designs before deciding that it would look cool to have several different designs on the plate. The plate, though beautiful, turned out to be too small to fit all of the cupcakes, so we were able to sample them. We decided that they were, after all, the perfect Sunday afternoon wedding shower cupcakes. Chocolate schmocolate. 

Summer = Basil

As summer winds down I'm thankful for one thing: that the basil in my herb garden that defines all that is good about summer will last long into the fall. I like to think of it as God's consolation prize for making me live in a crispy-hot climate. And while I find millions of uses for basil while it is flourishing - a mix-in for salads or salad dressing or a topping for grill-roasted vegetables-- nothing compares to a heaping plate of bright, peppery, velvety pesto.

I have rarely tasted pesto as good as my mom's, so I have a high standard to compare myself to. But my mom subscribes to the same cooking philosophy as I do-- our best meals are made from recipes tucked somewhere in the recesses of our hungry minds, refined to taste as we go. So... if you need a step-by-step recipe, head over to epicurious. But if you want to celebrate the last days of summer with the best pesto ever, do what my mom does: start with a huge bunch of bright, fresh, basil. Rinse it and throw it in the food processor with a clove of garlic, a snow-heap of grated parm, and a generous handful of toasted pinenuts. Drizzle in olive oil until you get the right consistency and season it with plenty of salt and pepper. The flavors are so distinct that you will easily be able to tell what you need more of. Once you get it right, toss it with freshly cooked pasta, top it with a bunch more grated Parmesan, and mangia!