And I now have a freezer full of lemon-yogurt cake, so bring it on, world.

This is the recipe. Do not depart. It’s the best lemon cake imaginable. Better than Starbucks lemon loaf, for sure.

Yes, you need all of this lemon zest. It tastes like sunshine and is always my favorite thing to add to anything in the kitchen.

#Prettytrash. Send the lemon rinds down your disposal to clean it and fragrance the house.

One recipe departure: poke holes all over your cake to help it better absorb the lemon syrup. Not the icing — the syrup. Yes, there’s a reason this is so moist.

I’m ready.

And speaking of lemons, have you tried my lemon crepes? Or lemon bars? This lemon cake is also fantastic — another Barefoot Contessa iteration, sans yogurt. I like the yogurt cake even more.

THRILL: Clearly, my friends at Serena & Lily are trying to make me crawl to their offices in Sausalito on my knees. These striped chairs were made for my backyard. $1795 each. .

STEAL: Striped outdoor pouf from CB2, which I’ve put into my shopping cart about four times. I need them. No, I don’t. I need them. I REALLY don’t. $89.95.

STEAL: Get your stripes on with this entire frenchified collection. $895 for an outdoor sofa that looks imported from France and will last forever? Bargain, in my book. We’re installing this at a home on Coronado this week. I also think it would be great pulled up to a kitchen table. And the bar cart! Also from Serena & Lily, which is just killing it lately.

THRILL: Despite all of my preaching about a moratorium on chevron, which I cannot stand to see anymore, I just brought this beach tote home from Anthropologie, $78. “It’s not really chevron,” said my sister Heidi, in the store. She’s lying, but that was nice of her. I love it.

THRILL: This coral-esque chandelier was just introduced at High Point market. It’s all you’d need to make a room. Available through me at DeCesare Design Group. Let’s order two. One for me, one for you.

STEAL: Lucite boy/girl bookends from The Novogratz at CB2, $49.95 each. Love those Novogratz.

STEAL: Giant drink dispenser with a bird on top, $29. And don’t miss the giant $20 mason jar version, both at Cost Plus World Market.

THRILL: In person, these crocks are so stylish and heavy, $39-$49 at Pottery Barn. My sisters and I approved.

STEAL: These dip-dyed stools from Serena & Lily (told you, on FIRE) will also be making a cameo at the house on Coronado. And at my house. Just $58 and $68.

STEAL: Stitched outdoor pillows with  major style from West Elm – even better in person and in stock at the Scottsdale store. And they’re on sale — $24.

THRILL: Loving these sayings pillows that we have  at Design*Lab.  I am tempted to wrap up “You’re Right” and give it to myself, from Tyson, as a hint. He’s one of THOSE men. Love him, but I’ve never heard these words come from his mouth.

Here’s to the good life this summer, indeed.

P.S. Did you hear my news? I’ve joined the design team at DeCesare Design Group. Renovating? Decorating? Building a new house? Telephone moi or send me a note:  480-668-5490, jaimee@decesaredesigngroup.com

I live in prime blowout real estate. There’s a drybar in one direction, and the Blow Dry Bar by Kimberly in another. Today, Kimberly Robson is opening a second location near the Scottsdale Quarter.

When I leave, my hair looks like this:

and this:

Big smiles, all around. Find these hair goddesses here.  (At the Lincoln location, ask for Stephen. He’s my man.) Above photo by Allison Tyler Jones Photography.

*

Second set of important news: there’s also a new Pizzeria Bianco open at Town and Country on 20th Street and Camelback in Phoenix. In the space that Bianco used to call Italian Restaurant, there’s now Pizzeria Bianco in front, and Trattoria Bianco in back.

The most important part: Ty and I went last night, and THERE WAS NO WAIT. We sat down at the bar, ordered icy Cokes in glass bottles, and had the Wiseguy and the Sonny Boy pizzas in front of us within 20 minutes.

This is my favorite thing to eat in Phoenix:

It’s also pretty inside. Bianco is all about the vintage find. I wish he’d take me shopping with him, or let me do it for him.

His father’s paintings are all around.

And have the chocolate Italian Ice for dessert. We love it so much that I tried to replicate it here. (Pretty close, my friends. Pretty close.)

Isn’t this exciting? Some of you know I’ve been secretly taking one or two design clients each year and working those projects on nights and weekends. And now, I can do so much more — and with Caroline DeCesare, too, who I think is one of the best there is — anywhere, bar none.

(That’s a peek at our offices, above. Tomorrow I’ll give you the tour, and you’ll be as twitterpated over the place as I am.)

Caroline DeCesare comes from Wiseman and Gale, then helped start Vallone Design, and now has her own firm. I used to study all of her images for technique and inspiration and send her fan mail at night. She also owns Design*Lab, one of my favorite boutiques in the country.

And now I’m in her club.

I LOVE it. I love helping people tell their stories in their homes. I get to use all of my decor-obsessing and journalistic training to make it happen. Yes, journalism. I interview you within an inch of your life to make your house feel your own.

So, call me. Send me an email. Let’s talk about your house. This is going to be fun.

jaimee@decesaredesigngroup.com    *      480-668-5490

More Caroline genius, below:

The team:

Big thanks to Allison Tyler Jones of ATJ Photo for the image on my announcement. Talent for days.

Tyson loved his grandmother’s rhubarb pie. I love Tyson. And so Sunday in our house meant homemade strawberry-rhubarb pie.

I followed this recipe for the filling, and made my favorite Martha Stewart all-butter pie crust. It’s fabulous. (Add a teaspoon of sugar to the flour, which is what Martha did in her original cookbook.)

On this Tuesday morning, this is all that’s left of the pie, which is sweet-tangy-buttery-floral and a really great breakfast, if you’re feeling naughty.

Grandmothers are always the best inspiration.

Those 25 men, they’ll disappoint you every time. But oh, New York, New York.  I went every year for my birthday to see Central Park in the fall. I went in December with my mom and my sisters to realize “it’s Christmas time in the city.” I went for a hurricane  — and stayed. I went in January and never will again. And finally, this month, I went (with Marni) to see the spring.

It was only once we’d arrived and found ourselves wandering the streets that I realized I’d left my worn-out map and guidebooks at home. Maybe I didn’t need them, I thought. Maybe now, after all this time, I understand New York.

I suppose what I wanted was just to feel comfortable here.

The city  scared me the first time I came — as a little intern from The Baltimore Sun who took the train up for the day  to visit the paintings at the Met, alone. I was afraid to go into the restaurants and ask for a table for one. I was afraid to take the subway. I was afraid to walk under scaffolding, even. My mother had warned me about dark corners and New York.

That same summer, I realize now, I was afraid of many other things. I was afraid to take a job offer that would stretch me. I was afraid NOT to get married. I feared being 24 and single. I was scared to leave Arizona, and home.

A few weeks ago, as Marni and I tripped along the city streets, pausing at daffodils and tulips and white-flowered trees, I thought about that frightened girl.

She would marvel at this older self who yells at cabbies,  laughs when she gets lost on the subway, dances on tables with drag queens at the Standard Hotel on Halloween, sits alone in restaurants all the time and sometimes even prefers it. She would admire the open smile that invites strangers to become friends — on street corners, in cafes, at museums and plays and standing outside photo booths, waiting for a turn.

She would love the reading room of the New York library, too, and be glad to have found it.

Maybe now, after all this time, I also understand her.

Traveling, I think, is brought on by the instinct to search for something: a memory, an experience, a painting, a dessert, a place, an ideal, or the thought of a different kind of life.

“There are two kinds of travelers,” writes my beloved New Yorker scribe Adam Gopnik. “There is the kind who goes to see what there is to see, and the kind who has an image in his head and goes out to accomplish it. The first visitor has an easier time, but I think the second visitor sees more.”

This spring, in New York, I found myself on the brink of many frightening things: another wedding, the hope of starting a family, and new jobs that will stretch and scare me.

When I set out for New York all those years ago, I held an image in my head of a girl who charged bravely around town and knew just where she was going.

And this spring, I saw her there.

If you’ve never lived la vida linen, know that it’s summer salvation, especially in Arizona. It breathes, wicks moisture, cools you and keeps the temperature just right. This throw is going to change my life this summer in the following four genius applications:

USE #1: Throw over every lounging surface in house — chair arms, sofa corners, beds — as an ode to the life lived in the MATTEO catalog — my beloved linen bedding source. (Which I can now order for you! As part of my new and very exciting collaboration! Which I am SO excited to tell you about in the next few days.)

A linen throw to cuddle up to on a hot summer night is practically the only blanket you’ll need.

USE #2: Garden party tablecloth, except I’d cut it into runners and lay them the other way, so that the fabric doubles as place mats and fringe dangles onto your lap.

USE #3: Tyson and I have been discussing picnics, parks, Sunset Cliffs and Coronado. There will be cheese, crackers, linen, and mini pies to come. This is the perfect picnic blanket.

USE #4: Beach blanket — up high, or on the sand. Better than a towel, and you can walk off the beach pretending it’s a pareo, if you wish.

What a find! Save a few for me.

You want to go there this weekend for dinner — it’s my new favorite patio in town, and just the place to honor these breezy evenings.

It’s from the team behind The Mission — chef Matt Carter and manager Brian Raab, who always makes you feel as if he’s so happy to see you.

The menu is a little Southern, a little American, a little “whatever-Matt-wants,” as Brian says.

We wanted farro salad with arugula and salame, and jerk chicken on Arizona fry bread.

Go, and happy weekend.

P.S. Hayden Flour Mills is up for Entrepreneur of the Year — the company makes those gorgeous flours in Chris Bianco’s pizza and other cool carbs around town. If they win, they get more money to revitalize their old, beautiful building and to feed us. Vote here.

Follow our adventures on Instagram, if you’d like (@JaimeeRoseStyle). Here’s what’s going in my carry-on:

Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings is the big, buzzy book of the moment, and I’m biting. It’s about being a teenager at summer camp. I love living in books that remind me of being a teenager in the summer.

Have you ever been to New York in the spring? What was your favorite moment?

I piled together this textured table setting for our Easter dinner for two: eggs, mini vintage terracotta, slubby linen and a sprig of green.

Flowering branches and hydrangea on the buffet.

My first attempt at deviled eggs, courtesy Martha Stewart. I hate eggs, but I love to make them.

I don’t know if this pink quartz thing is supposed to be an egg, but I love it for Easter and all the days in March, April and May. It will soon be styled in a more appropriate and rough-edged setting.

For supper, I tried to make a copycat Honey Baked Ham. It was good. But next time, I’m going to stand in line with the rest of the smart people.

Greens with hazelnuts and shallot vinaigrette:

Popovers hiding under woven beehives from Sweet Salvage, and Tyson in coral linen:

A little marble birdbath from Antique Gatherings:

And behold the most evil and caloric dish in the history of the casserole universe: Funeral Potatoes. In this little dish, there is a pint of sour cream, a half cup of butter, almost two cups of cheese. They’re called funeral potatoes because church ladies like to bring them to funeral luncheons. I think of them as potatoes that will hasten your funeral exponentially. Use this recipe. Add 1/2 tsp. salt.  Die happy.