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This is my first Mother’s Day. I spent years assiduously avoiding this holiday, as I had a long and painful road to motherhood, and it felt like one more trumped-up moment to make me feel lacking, rife with clichés and shallow assumptions about what motherhood should be.

Now that I’m a mama to a glorious little 15-week-old daughter, I approach my first Mother’s Day with deep gratitude. But I don’t want brunch or a tea party. One of these 10 things would be more of a treat — maybe you or someone you know, as a new mom, can relate.

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Udon Soup with Bok Choy and a Poached Egg

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We all have those nights when the lure of the takeout menu or delivery app is almost magnetic, but if you’re committed to making something at home, you should try one of these easy meals that replicates your favorite restaurant dishes. Some require a little planning (as in prepping the ingredients to toss in the slow cooker), but there are quite a few options that you can make in 30 minutes or less.

If you’re still not convinced, open a bottle of wine, put on a great playlist, and make cooking the evening’s entertainment. You’ll feel pretty good when you sit down to the dinner you made yourself.

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Sure, coffee cake can be any cake-like substance served with coffee, but for me, there is only one kind of cake that I want sharing space with my cup — and that is a big square (it must be square) of rich, buttery cake topped with giant, cinnamon-scented crumbles. This one is my go-to favorite for all occasions.

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I knew I had to include this endive-avocado salad as part of a Mother’s Day brunch, as it is my own mother’s favorite salad (hi, Mom!). I tell people often — on my blog, in my book — that I have a long and complicated relationship with salad. My mother insisted on it every single night (no matter what) growing up. That meant that ages 4 to 12 I came up with many, many creative ways to dispose of it that did not include consumption. Only once I actually started tasting the salad did I realize that I liked it and slowly started to build a relationship with greens. Now I would say that salads make up a serious percentage of what I eat, and I am constantly thinking about new ways to dress them up and make them new all over again.

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Last fall, desperately in need of a vacation, I impulsively booked a trip to Mexico City, a throbbing metropolis I had visited some 12 years earlier and hadn’t been able to get out of my mind. While that long-ago trip had been somewhat of a whirlwind, this time around I decided to give Mexico’s largest city its due, spending a leisurely 10 days stalking its streets, barreling through its subway tunnels, and eating as many types of its ridiculously fresh, impeccably prepared street foods as my stomach could handle.

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Kiwi-Jalapeño Salsa

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When you think about salsa, it’s easy to jump to the classic tomato-based version. But with warmer weather (and a new selection of fresh produce) on the horizon, why not expand your options with a few brighter, bolder, sweeter flavors? Just don’t forget the chips.

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I grew up in a pristine home. I don’t mean to say that it was fancy — it wasn’t — but it was spotless from the fan blades down to the baseboards. This was no easy feat, considering our house was a century old and so had the unique ability to create dust after you had just wiped down that surface (whatever that surface happened to be).

Even still, those ugly faux-brick linoleum kitchen floors (and the blonde wood that later replaced them) were literally clean enough to eat off of — and that was all thanks to my German mother.

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I think we can all agree that Southerners know a thing or two about entertaining. Whether they’re throwing a backyard crawfish boil or a sophisticated porch party, you can almost guarantee it’s going to be a good time. And with Derby Day coming up this weekend, we thought it was a good time to find out what it is that makes to-dos so special below the Mason-Dixon.

We tapped the editors of Garden & Gun magazine, that gorgeous ode to all things Southern, for their top 10 rules of entertaining.

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Last year I spent a glorious week in Hawaii with my family, complete with a rather deluxe breakfast buffet. My husband was totally in heaven, but I typically find your average breakfast buffet a bit of a minefield. Given our allergies, I have to gently guide my daughters and myself past the sticky buns (gah!) and the bagel bar (sigh … ) as well as the line for the fluffy custom-made omelets. I’m not sure about you, but I need protein with my morning breakfast or I will be a shaking mess come noon, with snacks hanging from my every pocket.

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