Carrie Saum

So, when your BFF moves into her first real home and her husband has a birthday at basically the same moment, you bake a cake. And not just any cake but a beautiful thing made of the best ingredients. You aim high, confident that you can come through for your BFF and celebrate her family's milestones with four spongy layers filled with thick raspberry preserves and succulent buttercream.

This week is full of high emotions.

What do you do when you're provided with a bunch of winter squash? You make soup. You make veggie bowls. You make coconut curry butternut squash mash!

Nothing says fall to me like a pumpkin treat, and I love the combination of cloud-like cookies and frosting. It’s like an Oreo and a birthday cake had a baby during pumpkin spice season and created a true joy of autumnal desserts.

Here’s a crash course on self-talk. Self-talk is the voice in your head, the invisible responder, the captain of your brain ship.

The amount of mental/emotional/invisible labor that we carry out every day, in addition to kids and regular work, takes a toll. It's okay to be exhausted.

I LOVE brunch. I love brunch more than I love most humans/animals/home renovation shows. It will come as no surprise when I tell you that I revere brunch like many people revere Lady Gaga and The Big Lebowski and Christmas. Brunch is a Big Deal for me — I take it seriously.

No-bake cookies were always one of my favorite potluck eats. These seemed like straight-up magic to me, and I was fascinated by cookies that tasted awesome without baking them. It was potluck sorcery at Hogwarts level.

20 years later, it is still an experience that I am actively deconstructing. Why? Because I joined a cult. And maybe have too. If so, here’s how to get out.

We're in flu season hell! In fact, according to, uh, science, it’s one of the worst seasons we’ve seen in the last 10 years.