So where are you going to be the first weekend in June? I'll be in London at the Food Blogger Connect conference, where I've been invited to speak on a panel about blogging and book writing. Won't you come and say hello? I'd love that.

I wanted to also draw your attention to an interview I did some time ago with Sarah Amandolare of Writers and Cooks. She asked some very good questions, ones that really made me think. If you'd like to read my answers (none of which involve my favorite foods or what I'd like to eat before I die), click here.

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These last few months have been quite a whirlwind. They've been challenging and wonderful at once. As spring descends upon Berlin, I feel almost as though I've woken up from a strange sleep: fitful, not entirely rested, but with some perspective on the last few months.

Today, I delivered three chapters to my editor. The rest follows next February. Let me tell you something: writing a book is humbling. In terms of work, I do believe it's the hardest thing I've ever done. Some days are good, some days are awful. Some days, not much at all happens. And some days, it all comes tumbling out. Whenever the work threatens to overwhelm me, I tell myself: this is just one year, just one book, and you're just one person. Breathe.

Then I eat a cookie.

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In a few weeks, I'm going back to New York for a week. Besides spending time with my friends, the thing I'm looking forward to most is just to walk down 7th Avenue or 5th, for that matter, or the West Side Highway or 18th Street or through Union Square. Just to walk those messy streets and smell New York City air and see all the lovely people around and hear the pushy cabs and the street vendors and some dude Noo Yawking away on his cell phone. I can't wait to take the subway and eat a drippy, spicy banh mi and buy a whole bunch of trashy magazines and hear all the clanging, dissonant, fabulous noise that is the greatest city on earth and simply be in all that wild New York City energy.

Cannot wait.