Weekends, I typically have a cooking and/or baking plan. Yesterday morning as I gathered ingredients and utensils for making the creme patisserie for eclairs I was struck by how much I enjoy puttering in the house, even though I spend most of my weekdays here as well. The light, the quiet, the serenity of just being here is so wonderful for me that it is sometimes hard to go anywhere that is a bit noisy or crowded.

I took the above photo to share some of that.

And then I made the creme.

This morning, with the creme fully chilled, I made the shells, stuffed them with creme and dripped the chocolate glaze. I’ve been making the pastry shells from Julia Child’s recipe…practice runs, you know :)! They are amazingly simple and fast to mix and get in the oven and another of those cooking astonishments – making something that seems so complicated and turns out to be simple and great fun.

Eclairs.