photo by amy_eggsonsunday.

I was craving a chocolate strawberry tartlet today, and thought you might like to have a little bite. While you’re wrapping your lips around this luscious beauty, check out these other tidbits:

 Thank you to Candice Ransom (uber prolific author of a million books, fellow teddy bear collector and antiques junkie), for awarding alphabet soup the One Lovely Blog Award. I love reading her Live Journal blog, Under the Honeysuckle Vine — we’ve been slowly discovering that we have similar tastes in bears, old children’s books and china, and of course, food. I’m honored Candice found my blog worthy of recognition. Bring on the tea parties!

 I’m also tickled to report that Becky Levine has awarded alphabet soup the Love Ya Award. The criteria for this award is as follows:

"These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated."

Wow! *beaming* Thanks so much, Becky! I appreciate your taking the time to stop in regularly, in between blogging here on Live Journal and at your website blog, "Moving Forward on the Writing Path."

 Congratulations to Cynthea Liu on the recent release of her second book, a middle grade novel called Paris Pan Takes the Dare (Putnam, 2009)! For the past couple of weeks, she’s been hosting an extended online Launch Party — yes, there’s plenty of food, games, and fun, but there’s also an awesome auction to benefit Tulakes Elementary School in Oklahoma. You can bid on fabulous prize packages as well as critiques by published authors, editors and agents! The auction deadline has been extended to midnight (EST) July 8, 2009. 

 I’ve mentioned before that one of my absolute fave food blogs is Cakespy.com. This is where I get my daily fix for all things dessert — and it’s calorie free! Just wanted to point you to two especially delicious posts — "Malasada Madness: The Portuguese Doughnut That Took Over Hawai’i," and "Cinema and Sugar: Movies to Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth."  The first post is about a place in Seattle that sells malasadas; it includes mouthwatering tidbits about the history of this island favorite, and the cinema post has a great list of movies with storylines featuring some form of dessert. I’m going down the list, and adding anything I haven’t yet seen to my Netflix queue. The perfect summer diversion!

Finally, in case you didn’t have a chance to stop in at Grace Lin’s Launch Party yesterday for Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, I wanted to remind you about her contest. All you have to do is take a picture of yourself with the book and post it on her Facebook Fan Page. She will draw winners at the end of July, August, and September for a $25.00 gift certificate, good for purchases at her new online store. Then, on October 1st, she will draw a grand prize winner — and the prize is your name or likeness in one of her upcoming books! Eeeee! 

Oh, and there’s one more thing:

photo by shotsi.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!

Have a great Fourth of July weekend, and I’ll see you next week!