So, here I am again. A Sunday morning in deepest February and believe it or not the snow is melting, sun is shining and it is super nice outside! I am definitely going for a long run a bit later this morning. I run while listening to my favourite podcasts. MENY from Swedish Radio, THE SPLENDID TABLE from American Public Media and THIS AMERICAN LIFE from NPR. The best runs start with new episodes of all these podcasts on my IPod.
Two of the pictures I have added today are of SEMLA buns. I bake and sell them at the cafe now until easter. They are a traditional Swedish bun that YOU HAVE TO HAVE at this time of the year. The word comes from Latin Simila which means wheat flour and the bun is made with cardamom and then you cut the "hat" off, hollow the bun out, fill the hole with almond paste cover that with a big dollop of whipped cream and finally the hat goes back on sprinkled with icing sugar! It is soooo yummy!
The other picture is a great Indian Carrot Soup I made last week. Super good and so beautiful to look at. That yellow is my favourite colour!
If you find yourself in Toronto from now until easter, please come by for a SEMLA or two!
Bye for now!

Happy Anniversary to me!!!!
Today marks the first year of being a self employed cafe owner. This year has gone unbelievably fast. I just wrote a list of 25 random things about myself and one thing that I wrote was "I love what I do but I question it everyday if it is the right thing to do right now". I mean the kids are still kind of young. Sometimes I do miss out on things I wouldn't have to miss if I didn't own a cafe. I think I would still be working though. I tell myself that at least I am 2 minutes from their school and if something happens I can be there in, that's right, 2 minutes. My two younger girls comes up to the cafe for lunch most days, sometimes that is a bit stressfull when we are busy but it is great to connect a little in the middle of the day.

Yesterday was a funny day at Beaches Bake Shop. It started with me not "feeling up for it at all". Would have preferred to stay in bed and take care of my voice, cough and throat. Since that was not an option I went to St. Lawrence Market. Jojo came with me, she is the biggest trouper there is! We picked up the 25dz bagels and went back to the cafe. I decided to make SEMLOR. I made some earlier in the week and the weekend before so I was hoping people would remember. To recap the day in a semla kind of way we sold about 25!! That is a great number. I have orders for more and I love it. I am convinced we should market ourself as a Swedish Cafe. There was 2 groups of swedes that came in and they were just as excited as I was back in the mid 90's when I found something authentic. They were blown away how "real" the choklad biskvier and of course the Semlor tasted. It totally made my day! Something not so funny about yesterday was when I went downstairs to the womens washroom and noticed the switch plate for the light switch missing. SOMEONE STOLE IT!!!! Granted it was cute, Andy Warhol's Cambell Soup look alike. The screws were screwed back in after removing the plate-INSANE!!!

Now the question is YOGA or not. I think YOGA. I feel almost healed from my little stint of being sick- loosing my voice etc. so I really should get going!