Hello! I have wanted to write with the links to new recipes on family.com.

But then Birdy was home sick all week. The poor girl had to spend all day every day with her cat. Misery all around.



Oh right. But the recipes.

These, for instance. Which are, apparently, lemon *squares*, not lemon bars (thank you for your corrective emails). In my cookbook, the recipe is in my mother's handwriting but is called "Robert's Lemon Bars." My brother works 16 hours a day and still finds time to make lemon bars. You do the math.

And this. Which is rated NC-Carnivore, if you catch my drift, you vegetarian sweethearts out there. But I cried again a little, just now, looking at the pictures.

And this. Which might seem silly--who needs a recipe for hot chocolate? But if you aren't making it with real chocolate, I encourage you to try it. I don't even really like hot chocolate? But this I like.

A couple other things. Books. Who recommended Without a Map here? Man that was a killer good book. And I am about to finish Tracy Kidder's Mountains Beyond Mountains, which is about Haiti and Paul Farmer, and which is so good I wake up at 4 in the morning to read a few chapters. If you are in need of inspiration, I can't think of a better way to get it.

Randomly, some PR people sent me a giant box of Cabot cheese and a giant box of Olivia's Organics salads. I don't usually do promotional pitches here, but I had to laugh because we already buy and eat both Cabot cheese and Olivia's Organics salads. So I thought I'd say: they're both good. There. Now I can gorge guiltlessly on cheddar and arugula.

Enjoy your weekend. And please keep the book recommendations coming. There's no better midwinter tonic than a great read.

I will write a real blog update soon. But if you're thinking about Haiti, and I know that you are, I wanted to mention that Partners in Health seems like a fantastic organization, and might be a good place to give money to, if a relief donation is something you're able to consider. Tracy Kidder has written about them, both in his book, and in tomorrow's Times. I know that resources are tight, but all those photographs in the newspaper--those faces devastated by grief and pain and fear, all those kids--really focus my perspective. You know what I mean. xo