Happy Easter!

I realize it is not quite Easter yet. My family and I will be attending Easter vigil services this evening. Growing up, we always attended the Easter Vigil. It is a very long mass ripe with ritual and ceremony. There will be candlelight, there will be chanting, there will be incense. And in the morning, we won't have to go to church after hunting for Easter eggs. We can just get up in our jammies, hunt for eggs, eat brunch and lolligag until it is time to drive to Grandma Church Lady's for lamb. (I love me some lamb, yes, I do!)

My assignment is dessert because I'm so good at dessert. Grandma Church Lady does not know it yet but I made something special for her. The dessert I have made for the past few years features strawberries. Grandma Church Lady does not care for strawberries. Grandma Church Lady actually likes the desserts that I do not care for myself - pie crusts, shortbreads, those sort of things. Despite my apathy towards them, I am a rather decent baker. I am not one to boast. Really, I'm not. But my short list of "Talents I will readily admit to" contains "Rather Decent Baker."

This week someone sent the boys a set of Easter cookie cutters. This was just the excuse I needed to try a shortbread recipe that I had filed away after seeing Ina Garten prepare shortbread on an episode of Barefoot Contessa. I even found a pretty pink flower plate at the grocery store to present the shortbread. (Although when I went to use the plate, somewhere between the grocery store and my kitchen, the plate had been chipped! I am not a happy baker but at least the cookies hide the chip for now.)

Last night I made the cookies. This morning I used Daddy Doc's new camera to take a picture and I even found an auto-correction setting on my fast, easy and lame photo editor. For shortbread, they're rather decent: