Because 2 days is never enough.

Karl’s birthday was last week and I gave him a terrific pasta maker and a ravioli tool. Well, all right, that’s debatable. I’ll admit it’s possible that I gave myself a terrific pasta maker for Karl’s birthday. You see, I sort of thought I was going to get one for my birthday, and when I didn’t, and when my plan to buy a vintage bike poster for him didn’t come together, I found myself in the checkout line at Broadway Panhandler carrying our little Italian made beauty. When Hardy came over to give me a belated birthday gift that she’d been holding onto since my birthday, I unwrapped the Pasta Bible right in front of Karl. I think the gig was up at that point.

In my defense, Karl loves kitchenware. And he loves pasta. And he likes when I make dinner.

We had some friends over last weekend and I made three different kinds of whole wheat ravioli: ricotta and gorgonzola, sweet potato, and my favorite, Swiss chard. I think our pasta career is off to a good start, even though I messed up the dough by using only whole wheat flower and we didn’t roll the pasta nearly thin enough. Our guests were gracious and pretended that it didn’t matter that the ravioli was a bit like a sandwich on whole wheat bread.

I’ll get better. And let’s face it, I got both of us, a pasta maker for our birthdays. (And don’t feel too bad for Karl, I got him a bottle of his favorite wine, his favorite port, and took him to a fantastic, locally sourced meal at Applewood).

Starting today, the Food Network is accepting entries for a new competition series called Ultimate Recipe Showdown. The network is looking for any favorite “original” family recipes that fall into 1 of 6 categories:

• Chicken
• Soups and Stews
• Cakes
• Cookies
• Pasta
• Comfort Food
• Burgers

Recipes will be judged on originality, presentation, and taste by the Food Network panel, and the top 9 entries in each category will travel to LA in August for the final competition. The winning contestant will receive $10,000.

Entries must be submitted online by May 25, 2007.

Journalist Kara Zuaro has published a collection of favorite recipes from Indie bands such as Death Cab for Cutie, Belle and Sebastian, Interpol, the Decemberists, Camera Obscura, My Morning Jacket, and nearly 100 others in “I Like Food, Food Tastes Good: In the Kitchen with Your Favorite Bands.”

For example, Devendra Banhart’s contribution is for Africanas Ricas:

“RIGHT ON!!!!!!
here is my favorite recipe for:
AFRICANAS RICAS!
you shall require!
many bananas!
a box of graham crackers!!!
two eggs!!!
SOUR CREAM!!
HONEY!”

As you can see Zuaro has left the musicians’ wording and instructions intact despite the fact that the recipes are thoroughly tested.

The book release is tomorrow in New York followed by a happy hour at Manhattan’s Hi Fi bar (where the Hold Steady’s Galen Polivka is a bartender) on Wednesday, April 25. There will also be an in-store performance release party at the Brooklyn Barnes & Noble on May 17.

Additional info can be found on the cookbook’s MySpace page.

The queen of making stuff has remade herself — on the web. That’s right, there is a new marthastewart.com, which was unveiled last week. It now includes a new user interface and navigation, improved search, and a full archive of how-to videos. Over 700 videos are featured including full episodes of “The Martha Stewart Show” one day after they air on television.

A repository of over 5,000 recipes can now be searched according to single ingredient, course, or holiday - and many of those include videos as well. Another new feature is ‘Today’s Idea from Martha,’ which looks as if it culls information from the reference-size book she published last year on good homekeeping.

Martha definitely wants to turn herself into a lifestyle brand.

The goal of the relaunch is to make marthastewart.com the most authoritative lifestyle destination on the Web, according to Holly Brown, president of Internet for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. “It’s a big opportunity within the lifestyle space. There are 100 million women online monthly. We really want to be the source for all things lifestyle online (MediaWeek).”

The site promises to launch community tools such as message boards, polls, and recommendations later this year, but what’s taking so long? Other DIY craft sites have been doing this for years.

Karl gave me a sweet and craftastic present yesterday.

He had our friend Tyler make me a little sewing box and Karl filled it with antique buttons from store called Tender Buttons. He also had Tyler make me a beautiful little journal for ideas, patterns, notes, recipes… the record of my projects.

I’ve been lead to believe there may be something else on the way, but I’m actually happy to stock my little box with my spools (most of which I found in a give away box on a stoop in my neighborhood last summer, along with some great bias binding and zippers) and my newly extensive collection of buttons, including my favorite button:

Now I just need a box for sicissors and notions and I’m on set!

In celebration of easter, Mindy came over and we spent hours making pysanky, Ukrainian easter eggs. Pysanka come from the verb pysaty, (to write) as the designs are written directly onto the egg with melted beeswax using a kitska, an implement with a small brass cone attached. The beeswax is used to mark off sections of the egg to resist additional dyes. This admittedly tedious process yields great results, even for amatures like us.

After nearly 5 hours, we had 9 finished beautiful eggs, three cracked masterpieces (so depressing), one pair of jeans with egg yolk down the front, and one giant burn mark on my kitchen table.According to Yaroslova Surmach in Ukrainian Easter Eggs, the pysanky are presented to priests on easter morning and young women give them to boys as an indication of fondness. No offense priests and boys, but I worked hard enough that I think I’ll keep mine, thanks.

Pysanky are made with raw eggs and are not eaten. We were fascinated by what happens to the actual egg inside. I remember when I made these in college, Kelly kept them for years. The book that came with my kit insists that the eggs “dry out” over time. But what does that mean? Any ideas?

Easter was always one of my favorite holidays as a kid. My grandmother would sew brand new dresses for me and my cousins Tina and Danielle. The dresses were always made from the exact same fabric, but the designs of the dresses would be slightly altered for our heights. (We looked like the members of the Pointer Sisters or Destiny’s Child where we had slight variations of the same outfit.)

I might not be getting homemade dresses for Easter anymore, but there is another family tradition I am lucky enough to have delivered to my doorstep – povitica, a traditional Croatian nut bread made during the Easter holiday. My mom has been perfecting her povitica recipe for years trying to make it exactly the way she remembers my Croatian great grandmother making it. Unfortunately, my great grandmother never wrote her recipe down because she made it from memory, but my Mom’s version, with a pecan filling, is so amazing that it doesn’t really matter. The shiny golden loaf of povitica arrived at our apartment in New York in all its glory just in time for Easter, and we didn’t hesitate to slice into it.

My Mom and I were thrilled to eat povitica during our trip to Croatia in 2004. We couldn’t get over the fact that it was available in the bakery of most grocery stores. Imagine being able to eat povitica anytime you want by just walking into a grocery store! We bought a loaf one day when we had a long bus ride ahead of us along the coast of the Adriatic. We took turns tearing off pieces of the nutty goodness as thoughts of our childhoods danced in our heads. It was quite possibly the best bus ride ever.

Too bad Easter only comes once a year.

This morning was not my average morning. In fact, it was a morning filled with a very big accomplishment - one I’ve been planning for quite some time.

For breakfast I ate my homemade yogurt mixed with my homemade granola inside my homemade bowl!

Erik shrugged it off with a laugh and asked me if I was going to put on my handmade leather shoes and ride a donkey to work. Whatever. I’m not going to let him dampen my momentous occasion.

This was all possible because I’ve finally finished my first four bowls in pottery class. I am pleased with how three of them turned out. Unfortunately, the fourth one had a strange glaze effect on the inside, most likely due to glaze that was applied too thickly, and it is not pretty to look at. Three out of four isn’t bad, though.