Dear friends,
There is high-quality blogging in me tonight, I promise. Right now, though, I'm jumping the gun on the 7:30 post and posting it at 7:20 so that I can make dinner without running the risk of overcooking the macaroni. For everyone still sticking with me, thank you. I will make it worth your while.
Dear Potential Comment and Trackback Spammers Who Would Be Leaving Their Comment and Trackback Spam on PTMYB Today:
Suckers, you picked the wrong day to try to spam me. I have been online for 10 hours, I will be online for 14 more, and I am full of Red Bull. I will cut to ribbons your pathetic attempts to get me and my dear friends to buy your penis enlargers.
Kisses,
Bakerina
Dear friends, I wish you were here. The aroma in our little apartment is so grand you would swoon.
Dear fellow focaccia-baking friends, Is your bread risen? Is your oven hot? Here's what you do: Remove the plastic wrap from your focaccia. (My, how pretty.) Stipple the dough again with your fingers. Yep, you want to do it both before and after the rise; that's how you get that lovely bumpy texture. Stipple it all over and drizzle it with some more olive oil. Not too much -- about 2-3 tablespoons should do it. If you have a nice coarse sea salt, like Maldon crystals, Celtic grey sea salt or Fleur de Sel de Guerande, it's very nice sprinkled on top. If you don't, no worries. Once it's all done, put it in the oven. It will probably bake fully in about 30 minutes. Rotate it after 20 minutes. If it's still pale after 30 minutes, keep it in the oven a little longer. It should be golden brown, looking almost as if it's lit from within. Err on the side of overbaking, rather than underbaking. You will be rewarded with a crust with a brilliant crunch, and a taste that is both sweet and deeply savory. Why, of course there will be a picture when it comes out of the oven. 
Dear friends,
I have spent part of today, as well as the days leading up to the Blogathon, encouraging you to visit the other participants. I still encourage you to do so, but I'd also like to encourage you to go visit my dear friend Moira at Who Wants Seconds? Moira had been on a bit of a sabbatical, and I had thought that she was caught up in the general maelstrom of life (which included the Tube and bus bombings in London on July 7; Moira lives in the U.K., although thankfully she and her family were fine). It turns out that Moira took some time off after receiving some of what she describes as constructive criticism from a fellow food blogger. I am scratching my head because I don't know how Moira could have made her site better than it already was. But then, she is a nicer person than I am, and I trust her judgment.
It's all a moot point, anyway, as she is back, and she is posting this amazing little charmpot of a dessert, created by my own personal kitchen love god, Nigel Slater. If you go, I promise you'll be enraptured. But don't just go for the dessert. Go because Moira called me this morning, from the U.K. to wish me good luck and Godspeed during Blogathon. If you want to see what sort of person would do something like this, and the generosity of spirit that abides within her, then run, don't walk, to her page. It will make you thankful for the internet all over again.