design a life you love
The temperature has yet to dip below 65 degrees in Los Angeles, but I’m still trying to get into the autumn spirit any and every way I can. The best way to infuse a bit of fall into my life? By creating a recipe for gluten free pumpkin spiced cookies, of course!
In honor of my trip to Paris (that I’m sadly returning home from today), I’m sharing two French-influenced recipes this month. French gastronomy is as legendary as it is heavenly and no conversation about the genre can be had without the inclusion of champagne. Due to the fact Los Angeles is still experiencing temperatures in the high 70’s, I decided a classic champagne cocktail wouldn’t do and created today’s strawberry champagne sorbet recipe with the last of the year’s hot summer nights in mind.
Have I ever mentioned that summer camp was a huge part of my life throughout my middle school and high school years? I both attended and later worked at camps in Washington State as a camper and then as a counselor. In fact, my first real job was at Camp Don Bosco in Carnation, Washington as a dishwasher! To this day it was one of the hardest yet most rewarding jobs I have had.
To me camp was an escape from reality; an escape from being bullied in school, an escape from feeling out of place and awkward every day. At camp I was given the acceptance and support to really discover who I was and who I wanted to be. It was working at camp where I met one of the best friends I will ever have and it was camp I turned to when I lost him unexpectedly seven years later. Camp was life, camp was love, camp was the smell of crackling embers, the sound of water lapping against the shore, the sight of hundreds of stars against the pitch black night sky. Camp was…s’mores.
I always adored s’mores and the fact that I got to make them with my campers on our weekly campouts in the woods was something I always looked forward to, as did my campers. The whole lot of us equated s’mores to a complete camping adventure and, even when our camp outs were occasionally rained out, I always made sure to still give the kids that part of their summer camp experience.
It has been years since I slept beneath the stars and even longer since I successfully built and started a campfire on my own. I’m not sure I could flip a canoe these days to save my life and the words to some of the camp songs I once loved are long since gone from my head. What remains are fleeting memories of being blissfully happy and free, memories of the sound of my best friend’s voice and laughter, sounds I will never hear again, and memories of roasting marshmallows around a campfire. Camp may be gone from my daily life but every time I bite into a s’more I’m taken back to a less complicated time and place where I fell asleep to the stars and woke to the sunrise, where I’d surprise myself by discovering tan lines on my cheeks from smiling so much, where I fell in love for the first time, where I grew up.
Today, in honor of the warming weather, in honor of the days getting longer, in honor of it almost being time for summer camp once again, and in honor of my best friend, I’m sharing a piece of myself I don’t normally share along with a recipe for s’more cookies.
As the big 3-0 approached, I found myself craving the taste of the rich chocolate birthday cakes I enjoyed in my youth. The only problem was that all of the chocolate cake recipes I had in my arsenal contained gluten. Not one to be deterred by my gluten-free lifestyle, I set out on a quest to find an easy and delicious alternative to the chocolate cake recipes I remember from my childhood.
We only have two days left until New Year’s Eve! Has this year FLOWN by for anyone else? I don’t know if that feeling comes from the fact that I’ve had such an eventful year or whether it just comes with the territory of getting older. Let’s just say it’s due to an eventful year.
I’m not really one for New Year’s resolutions, but I have always loved the concept that the clock striking midnight on January 1 symbolizes a fresh start. It means that there are 365 pristine, beautiful days ahead to make the most of. 365 days worth of unique adventures to come.
What better way to celebrate that than by clinking together a couple of glasses of champagne when you finally roll out of bed in the morning? These raspberry peach bellinis are the perfect New Year’s drink to keep the party going, all the while convincing yourself that you’re being healthy because you’re consuming fruit along with alcohol.
