a baker’s dozen of cool things on a tuesday (including Lidia giveaway winner)

Happy Tuesday!

Enjoy these bits and bobs on today’s mixed platter. 🙂

1. I’m quite partial to elephants and pancakes and love Tina Kugler’s charming German Pancakes recipe at They Draw and Cook. Tina’s new picture book, In Mary’s Garden (HMH, 2015), which she wrote and illustrated with her husband Carson, is about Wisconsin artist Mary Nohl.

(click for larger image at TDAC)

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2. Have you been following Stéphanie Kilgast’s (PetitPlat’s) Daily Miniature Roots, Veggies & Fruit project? Since the beginning of the year, she’s been creating a new tiny sculpture each day from polymer clay. She decided to do this after discovering a lot of people don’t like veggies. She wanted to celebrate the great diversity of fruits and veggies the earth has to offer as well as arouse our curiosity and appetite.

 

 

 

Stéphanie was one of the first artists we interviewed for our Indie Artist Spotlight Series. I still think she’s the best miniature food artist out there. Don’t know how she does it, but she keeps getting better and better. Her miniature fruits and veggies brilliantly showcase all their beautiful colors, shapes and textures. Incredible! You can follow her project on Facebook, tumblr, or Instagram.

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soup of the day: the secret year by jennifer r. hubbard

Ah, love, sweet love!

The perfect reason to serve up the first bowl of celebration soup for 2010!

It’s especially fitting for a first bowl to honor a first book, and even better, it was written by a Live Journal friend I had the pleasure of meeting last fall: the one and only Jennifer R. Hubbard! Today, her debut young adult novel, The Secret Year, officially hits the shelves!!

           

*wild cheering, swooning, licking of lips in anticipation*

By now you know how I feel about first books: only happens once in a writer’s lifetime — no matter how many books follow, there will always and only be just one first book — a sparkling, awe-inspiring, shiny bright moment in time that deserves to be honored, celebrated, shouted from the rooftops, and embraced by all who love to read, write, edit, publish, promote, and share books.
 
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