20 Easter Basket Treats

This is the first Easter I'll be making baskets for Nico and Leo and I can't wait to surprise them with a bunch of special sweets. If you need ideas for a better Easter basket, check out these 20 springtime treats I recently shared on iVillage. They'll all taste a million times better than a boring bag of drugstore candy.

Steals and Splurges

My mind has been on home design a lot these days. I read many design blogs (and the list keeps growing) and Pinterest keeps me up too late at night. Often, Daniel and I will be in the middle of a conversation and I'll change subjects suddenly to suggest we paint our living room gray some day or add plum accents to our minty green office. I'm constantly looking more closely at colors and combos, finding inspiration in everything from a latte bowl to a pair of citron skinny jeans to figure out which ones I really like and could live with. So far, blue—mainly deep, dark navy—has been my go-to shade at home.

We have to decorate our place slowly and rely on a lot of what we already have. But on iVillage, I love pretending I'm starting from scratch. Recently, I wrote about steals and splurges for  master bedrooms and spa-inspired bathrooms. Eventually, I hope to work some of the ideas into my own space.

And in case you're wondering why I haven't been writing much here, I thought I'd share some exciting news. In April, I'll start working part-time as a real estate agent in Brooklyn. Something tells me my latest obsession will only get worse once I start seeing lots of homes up close!

Holiday Fun in Bryant Park

After reading this post on Little Brown Pen, I couldn't wait to take Nico and Leo to Bryant Park. Just as Nichole explained, it was a less hectic alternative to Rock Center and the perfect place for holiday fun with four little ones. We went with our friends Whitney, Liam and June and had a jam-packed day. We looked at trains in Grand Central, posed in front of the library lions, spotted Santa and his reindeer in the Lord & Taylor holiday windows, rode the carousel, read some books in a cute outdoor library, sipped 'Wichcraft's extra special hot chocolate, threw pennies in a fountain, watched ice skaters at Citi Pond (open until February 26) and had a dance party before heading back to Brooklyn. NYC kids really have the life, huh?

Whitney and I definitely deserved some down time after an outing like that and I happened to have a freezer full of frozen appetizers thanks to an iVillage assignment. We sipped some wine and did a taste test while the kiddos played. It looked like a tornado and then a hurricane had hit my apartment when it was time to call it a day, but they sure had fun.

If you're planning a holiday party and want to go the easy route, try my ten favorite frozen appetizers. And to see NYC while it's still sparkly and festive, check out Bryant Park soon.

Foodie Gift Guide

The holidays are right around the corner, and in my opinion, edible gifts are the way to go. If you need some ideas, check out this gift guide I wrote for iVillage. It includes 20 edible gifts and hip-hop hooray ho, they're all $20 and under. I'd happily accept every single thing on there. Just saying.

P.S. If you want to attempt a cookie swap this year, here are some of my tips on how to have a successful one.

Little Piglet List: Three Cookbooks

When I was pregnant with Leo, I started a book club with a group of moms. For our first meeting, we read a book about the Taj Mahal and ordered Indian food. Unlike other book clubs I'd been in, this one was serious. We always talked about the book. We usually hung out together with our kids and had choppy conversations about naps and discipline. It was refreshing to talk without interruptions about other topics. When some other friends heard about that book club, they decided to form one. Inspired to read a lot, I joined as well. We talked a bit about the book the first month, but by our second gathering, we focused more on the wine and food. By the time Leo was born, I could barely even start a book. One of the groups slowly dissolved around the same time and last month, I took an indefinite leave of absence from the other. For now, I'm focusing on cookbooks. On iVillage this week, I shared three of my current favorites.

In other news, I recently started writing for baby gooroo, a parenting site that covers pregnancy, breastfeeding, nutrition, news and more. Founded by Amy Spangler who has written a number of books about breastfeeding, it's a straightforward site that's easy to navigate and full of really helpful information about babies and young children. 

Fresh Picks is  a new weekly feature I'm writing that explains how to select, store and serve fruits and vegetables. The first one was about apricots. Today, I'm sharing ideas for cauliflower. Now that Leo's eating solids, I plan to refer to all of them a lot. In fact, I've been meaning to make a roasted cauliflower recipe I referred to this week for a while. Bon Appetit describes it as vegetable candy. I hope this is the weekend I finally do it.

Little Piglet List: 25 Recipe Resolutions

I thought about posting my 2011 resolutions right here, but decided to keep them to myself. Except for one. You've probably already figured it out.

I want to write more this year.

I started This Little Piglet before I had kids. Back when I traveled a lot, planned parties and knew all the best restaurants in New York and abroad. I always wanted to write more. I just never got around to it. Eventually, I stopped writing altogether.

Life certainly isn't calmer now. Parenting is a different sort of busy and I have a lot less time for myself. Still, I'm trying to write whenever I can, even if it's late at night when I should be catching up on sleep. It's nice to have a creative space of my own. A place to share recipes, restaurants, inspiring people, sites I like, or stories about life in Brooklyn with two little boys.

Thanks to Sitemeter, the site I use to track stats, I know people are reading. Many find me via Google and probably just come for a certain recipe or restaurant and don't stick around. Others have subscribed through readers and seem to check in whenever I post something new. Even though most of you are keeping very quiet, it's nice to know you're out there. If you feel like commenting here or on Facebook, I'll be your best friend forever. It'd be so nice to hear from you.

So while I'm not going to share any personal, potentially embarrassing resolutions, I will tell you about 25 food-related ones that I recently shared on my blog for iVillage. I came up with the idea after frying a few strips of bacon—for the first time in my life—the other night. The bacon was for a very decadent quiche that I'll write about soon, but it got me thinking about all the other foods I've never made and cooking techniques I still must conquer.

I'll admit it's a pretty ambitious list. If I want to make some progress, I have a lot of work to do. Tons, actually. It's a good thing food resolutions are much more fun than personal ones. Plus, there's no real pressure to plow through them. It's best to check off promises like these slowly. One by one.

Calendar image from statingtheobvious via Etsy

Staying In

New Year's Eve kind of snuck up on me this year. After such a hectic holiday, we don't have anything special planned. This has never been one of my favorite holidays, unless we're somewhere warm like Brazil all dressed in white. New Year's Eve is always a lot of fun when we're there. Here, it's usually too cold, everything is unbelievably overpriced, and don't even get me started on Times Square. I'd rather do just about anything than celebrate New Year's Eve there. Last year, we didn't do much either. I was pregnant and happy to stay home. Daniel, these pork banh mi meatballs and The Hangover made it one of my best ones yet.

Friends invited us over for ropa vieja in Ft. Greene tonight, but since our regular babysitter is on another coast at the moment, it looks like we're staying in. Now I need to think of something fun to make. Any suggestions? I have a few bars of dark chocolate and a fridge full of fruit, so there will definitely be a big pot of fondue for dessert. 

What are your plans for New Year's Eve? I'd love to hear!

Baby Chef

This is Leo. Or Baby Chef, as people referred to him last night while we celebrated Halloween in Park Slope. He was supposed to be the Pillsbury Dough Boy, but I never got around to making the sign for his hat. (Now that I think about it, Baby Chef is a better costume anyway. I love Pillsbury's adorable icon, but I don't want to promote bread from a can.)

A punctual little guy, Leo arrived on his due date almost 5 months ago. Since then, life has been exhausting and exhilarating. Busy, and sometimes blurry. Becoming a family of four is intense, and incredible.

In other news, I recently started freelance writing for a few sites. I'll have some articles launching soon on baby gooroo, a weekly blog on iVillage Food (starting tomorrow), and I'm now a Brooklyn contributor for Mommy Poppins, a great site for kid-friendly activities in New York City. I recently wrote about bakeries in Brooklyn that serve seasonal sweets and have fun places to play nearby. It was inspired by my food tours which I've taken a break from for now, but plan to start again at some point on a regular basis.

Life is busier than ever, but it feels good to be writing and cooking again. Come back tomorrow and I'll tell you about the best pie in Brooklyn.