Au Pear

I've been having some lovely breakfasts lately: homemade applesauce on yogurt with maple sugar walnuts, pumpkin with maple syrup on ricotta, and pears poached with cinnamon and cardamom on yogurt and ricotta.

Some days however, I really need a treat or two for elevenses and these blood orange sticky buns from Coco et Olive hit the spot. In fact, I went first thing this morning to see if they had baked more of them, but no such luck. Coffee shop baking is a fickle mistress on Main Street, which is probably a good thing in my case.

Signs are spring are arriving in the 'hood. My neighbor informs me the pine siskins are returning. She also says the chickadees have been pulling the cardboard tubes out of her mason bee house and feasting on the larva. This is why the "predator guard" was invented. It allows the bees to escape when they hatch in the spring, but keeps hungry chickadees at bay.