Grace in Small Things: Issue 43

1. A city park dotted with people catching some rays, a bride and groom getting photographed, football-tossing dudes and many, many dogs.
2. Those little pink petals that swirl around off the trees, dotting the sidewalk, letting you know it's spring.
3. Good natter with a friend I haven't seen in way too long.
4. The first al fresco lunch of 2009: an Arnold Palmer, a strawberry and field greens salad drizzled with sherry vinaigrette, and a jumbo lump crab cake.
5. A cup of Capogiro's blood orange sorbetto, before driving home to the 'burbs.

Favorites, Part I

Among my favorite Christmas tree ornaments is a miniature pink-frosted cupcake house that has a delicately fluted base and a tiny door, out of which a jaunty little mouse is peeking, welcoming you inside.

My Mom gave it to us to commemorate our first Christmas in our house, and it has stood the test of time.

Each year, unwrapping it and finding it a place of honor on the tree results in much giggling.

Unless I think about it too hard, the weirdness of finding a mouse in a cupcake - or in your house, for that matter - doesn't really cross my mind.

It's just one of those super-cute things that makes me smile at the incongruity of it all. A photo will be forthcoming, as soon as we unearth all the holiday decorations. (Someday...)

Heaven in a Tinfoil Cup

Staying home from school with a sore throat, at least before my tonsillectomy as a six-year-old, usually involved a cadre of special "sick treats."

One of the best was Hanscom's egg custard.

Smooth as silk, it was topped with a golden brown haze of nutmeg dots, nestled in a tiny crinkled-foil cup. I'd scrape off the nutmeg bits and eat those first.

Hanscom's Bakery was a Philadelphia institution, with outposts even in the suburbs. For a while, I recall a corner of the Acme had a Hanscom's display, with treats stacked high.

My grandmother had treats from Hanscom's, too, from time to time. Although, with Nanny, I recall more frequently having a whole chocolate frosted Tastykake Junior to myself and thinking it the very definition of heaven. I don't recall her ever making my sister and I share; we always had our own slab of cake.

While I've always been a cake girl, those egg custards are the things I associate with Hanscom's, and which I miss dearly. Smooth and filling, they were a great comfort food.

I could really use one of those custards. Right. About. Now.