I believe in the creative space of the personal blog, I really do, Tumblr and Instagram and Twitter and all those noisy spaces notwithstanding. I’m old-fashioned like that. But you’d never know it; the password to this blog has been buried deep, and it took a radical moment of procrastination to dredge it up. Book-level procrastination.

Yes, I thought I’d take some time off after That Pudding Book but, as they say, something came up. Something like this radicchio, romaine, and fennel salad, with a sexy bit of farro peeking out. Something that requires a hustle of a deadline, weekend marathons of recipe development, and a co-author (for whom I am deeply grateful). More soon. The salad is only Exhibit A.

To distract myself from an all too-imminent deadline, here are a few things I’ve been eyeing, appreciating, and coveting lately.

• Vicky Bhogal’s Cooking Like Mummyji, finally available in Kindle format.
• Heated bathroom floors.
• Dystopic escapist fiction (thank you Abbey!)
• This living room.
• 48-hour recipe development marathons with this fine lady.
• Hot water radiators in January. February too.
• This measuring cup. Especially after the commenters went eight rounds over whether it was OK for me to donate my old one.
• This throw. It’s not pink, it’s fuchsia, I told my husband.
• Every post Michelle Slatalla writes. Especially on marble countertops. And the travails of buying a couch. Her writing gives me fits.
• Sour cream panna cotta with raspberry star anise sauce.
• Photos of this cutie.
• Catering my brother’s wedding, of which the second-best part was Dorie’s butter sables.