Harpsichordian

Getting away, part one.

2012-02-15T17:21:00.000-08:00

February is normally a ho-hum month for me. In the Northwest, it's still definitely winter, the sun still sets a little too early, and it's still mostly pointless to shave my legs.

This year, though, February has been filled with parties and lovely dinners and travel. It is rather nice that on February 15, I have so much left in the rest of this month to look forward to, and so much from the first 14 days that I'm still excited about.

This past weekend, we drove through misty valleys, across the river, over the border and into my home state. We landed in Wallace, Idaho. It was a work assignment for Joel, so we were on a mission, but it was one I could totally get behind: figuring out what the heck people in a small town do on a Friday night.

Wallace is old mining town, with lots of mines still in operation. And like most small towns, everyone is connected to each other. It didn't take us long to figure out our own connection to our hosts through May Hutton, the woman whose turn-of-the-century Wallace home is now their home, and whose building in Spokane houses Joel's office.

We stayed at the Hercules Inn, which was basically an apartment with too many nice amenities for just two people. The perk I loved most was a hot tub in the backyard that was ready for us whenever we wanted it. At 1 a.m. on Saturday morning, it was sublime.

Another favorite moment was in The Metals Bar. We made conversation with the bartender, a young miner who who made my night the moment he pointed out a giant bin of dill-pickle pretzels. World-famous. Two things I love most in this world, together. Even though I was stuffed from dinner, I jumped off my bar stool as soon as he told me to help myself. (Upon hearing this, I'm sure my facial expression looked like that of a giddy little girl who just rediscovered her secret Halloween candy stash in February.) They were basically mini pretzels, the kind you buy in giant bags from Costco, coated in a tangy seasoning. So. Good. We loved this bar. When we first sat down it was relatively quiet, but someone started up the jukebox with Ray Charles' "I've Got a Woman." Ray Charles! Around us, people started hooting and hollering about someone's birthday, and suddenly everything was buzzing in a way it hadn't been before. I felt like I was in a movie. Maybe this is what brought the directors of Dante's Peak here.

Everyone we met was friendly and drank Bud Light. We went across the street and Joel got looped in on a game of pool with three other guys. One of them decided I needed to meet his girl, Miranda, probably figuring we womenfolk could talk while the men played. She laughed (like everyone else) when I told her what brought us to town. I ordered a Rainier and took pictures.

Our time there felt too short, though I'm not sure what else we could have done (the Bordello Museum is still on our list - it's closed for the season). At breakfast we thought how nice it would be to continue on to the next town, as though this were just one stop on a cross-country journey. But we headed back to Spokane with a quick stop at the Cataldo mission. It was far more beautiful than what I remembered learning in my 4th grade Idaho history class.

This weekend will find me back in Idaho, visiting my family in Boise. It's no small town, though it feels that way each time I go back.

I am not a decorator.

2012-02-05T20:40:00.000-08:00

I’m not sure what exactly I was wanting, aside from somesimple heart-shaped gingerbread cookies with some decorative icing.

The cookies turned out nice enough. Recipe from Martha.

The scene in which I made the royal icing, however, verged onI Love Lucy material. Sometimes when Iget a little self-congratulatory (“Good job, me, for freezing egg whites acouple months ago and using them for this icing! You are so resourceful.”), I make up for it by doing something stupid. Likedumping a cup of powdered sugar in the bowl while the whisk is running at highspeed on the hand mixer. White explosion. Fine sugar dust everywhere.

And, ofcourse, I was wearing black.

Most people know not to do these things.

Another thing most people know not to do is to fill youricing gun from the top end. But I did that. Even as I was doing it, I knew Ishould have started the other way (i.e., fill it from the tip end), but I didn’tstop. Instead, I just put my finger over the tip to keep the icing from oozingout, which made things extremely cumbersome and messy.

Finally, that tip was just too large to make anythingmeaningful. At one point, I was so frustrated that I just let the pastry tiphang over the cookie to see what happened.

I gave up. This plate was pretty much the best of the bunch.It got an “Awwww.” Maybe that’s all I wanted.

Happy Valentine's

Music for these days

2012-01-29T11:14:00.000-08:00

Here are some songs for you.

It's for when you start to go bonkers from another gray day, another forecast for rain.

Picture yourself in an old house, looking through a big window dotted with trails of raindrops. There's a crunchy chair next to the window, a cup of coffee and a book on the table next to the chair just waiting for you. That's when you plop down and heave a big sigh. It will be just fine.

This mix is called "Rain in Winter." Imaginative, I know. This season is fleeting and the least we can do is appreciate it in all its soggy glory. The songs are mostly simple, raw and comforting. Some of these, I daresay, are plumb optimistic.

Rain in Winter by elizabeth strauch on Grooveshark

#2: Knit a sweater for myself that I actually wear

2012-01-26T22:00:00.000-08:00

I tried knitting myself a sweater before. I failed. But the experience always stuck with me, namely the feeling of "Seriously, you should be able to do this."

But sweaters are intimidating. They are a huge undertaking, and if you aren't sure what you're doing, it's easy to stuff the whole thing in a bag, put it in the corner of a closet and, a couple years later, rediscover it and use the unused skeins for something else. Like a hat.

Sweaters require many skeins of yarn. And if you want your sweater to feel nice, you have to pay for the good stuff. And it feels silly to spend so long making something for yourself that costs twice as much as what you could spend at, say, T.J. Maxx, which would fit you just as well.

Now I realize that is not the point.

The point is that I just did something kind of incredible. I knitted a freakin' sweater! For myself! I stuck with it; from the shoulders to the bottom, the sleeves, the buttons. It's the length I want, the color I want, the style I want. By no means is it flawless, but it's something I can wear in public without feeling weird about it.

Seven skeins, seven months.

Done!

(Pattern: Slinky Ribs from Custom Knits by Wendy Bernard)

Winter's teeth

2012-01-22T21:51:00.000-08:00

A little change in our routine arrived this past Wednesday. Now that snow has fallen in substantial quantities, I am back to making wardrobe decisions based on what I can wear with snow boots (so long for now, slacks). Before leaving the house, I have to decide what I can reasonably take with me on the bus. Lunch hour errands are out.

For worse, but more for better, snow makes me slow down. It makes me walk with caution, whether I'm shuffling along the shoveled, frozen sidewalk or making calculated climbs over craggy snow berms.

It gives me time to see patterns across the lawn, in the ice, on the deck railings. Devoid of much color, a surprising number of these things call attention to themselves, and they change by the hour.

The snow also makes colors stand out that much more. I relish the first morning after a snowfall to notice all the smartly painted shutters and doors that suddenly pop out.

It's this time of year that I really have to work on a positive perspective. It's a challenge, but I'm finding ways.

A leaded glass window creates its own little warped world.

There's no need to think about how all this will be green again. I'm thankful to know you, winter.

Things on the table, and #11: Make the perfect crêpe

2012-01-10T13:43:00.000-08:00

I never thought I'd say it, but I love January. The days are getting longer, produce is on sale, and I find so much inspiration from not having anything to necessarily plan for. This past Friday night found me giddy with a mop and Murphy's wood soap, rolling up rugs and moving furniture. Company's not coming - I was just full of energy and a desire to start fresh.

January also is the month when you get to put all your Christmas presents to good use. Three rounds of Monopoly in one weekend, for instance.

I've also been making crêpes with a wonderful pan from my parents. I used Julia Child's recipe for my first batch a couple weekends ago, flavoring them with lemon and powdered sugar. I could eat these things all day.

Then last weekend I ventured into the savory realm in an attempt to recreate the beloved ham and gruyère crêpes we had in Paris - though I'd like to think we amped up this combo by bringing Bavaria into the equation: smoked (like, seriously smoked) Black Forest ham from the Alpine Deli. Oh, boy. Quite possibly my new favorite Sunday breakfast.

This photo was taken hurriedly because I was hungry and it smelled so good, so it's a little out of focus, and frankly, looks a little icky, but this was my delicious first meal out of my new French oven. Ribollita - a Tuscan bread and tomato soup.

Le Creuset makes colors more beautiful. I love this thing.

These go to 11

2012-01-05T22:59:00.000-08:00

When I was in 5th grade, I had lots of crushes on boys. I had my main crush - the one that lasted from 2nd grade through probably 8th. I had my new guy crush - the one who came from Michigan and taught our class how to cheer for the Wolverines...and who kind of looked like a 10-year-old Good Humor man. And I had my sports crush. Number 11 on the basketball team. It was a very short-lived crush, but when all my girlfriends were assigning favorite colors and favorite animals and favorite flowers to themselves, I declared my favorite number to be 11. Of course it had to be. Since then, while I have only an inkling of whatever happened to the crush, I have really held on to that number.

All this is to say that I had pretty darn high expectations for 2011. Now that it's over, I can say with full conviction that it was a pretty lovely year. Some firsts - a trip to Paris, homemade pasta, whitewater kayaking. Some familiars - time on the water, Boise, a visit from one of my most favorite friends. Some frustration - a swollen ankle and my inability to roll a kayak. Bittersweet moments and hugs. Breath-holding and hand-holding. A wedding, an island, a bird costume, an accident involving a miniature golf club. And, as I love to point out from time to time, a bunch of pretty average Spokane sunsets.

In celebration of what we've just signed away on the calendar, here are 11 of my favorite photos of 2011:

1. Look closely. Behind those smiles, we're tired. We're fighting illness. We're excited to see my brother and his wife return from their 10-day Italian vacation (we took this picture just before we headed out the door to pick them up from the airport). I laughed, I cried, and I gained a heightened appreciation for single parents. Better yet, I saw first-hand what a great job Rich and Sally are doing in raising their kids.

2. From that time I went to Boise and remembered what amazing friends I made in high school. High school! Kindred spirits. A few months after this photo was taken I would get to meet the little baby behind the gray sweater, too.

3. April in Paris. I still have a hard time believing I was really there. In such perfect weather. With such a nice travel mate. We had luck on our side in so many cases - from our little apartment, to transportation, to interactions with seriously nice French people (they exist!), to randomly getting pulled off the street and participating in a French TV show. Even the minor catastrophes are fun to think about. Like when Joel took sleeping pills thinking they were ibuprofin. Or when we got screwed by the exchange rate. Or when I tried twice and failed to visit a specific bakery for a specific treat. And then there was Brussels - a 20-hour dream in itself. And Cologne, where we reunited with dear friends. And back to Paris, where the moon was orangey-pink on our last night there.

4. Olive and Joel on the subway in Cologne. I smile every time.

5. It was fun to not be the one doing experiments in the kitchen, for once. A little home brew and, after all these years, he's still looking up to his big brother.

6. Me and Mom and Dad in front of the old birch tree, Dad wearing the shirt I made him for Father's Day last year.

7. Dog Bark Park. Google it.

8. Muckers and kites and a little piece of Camano Island to ourselves.

9. The Star Wars and Lego birthday for our sweet William.

10. Okay, one more from Paris. Only because, after all these months, our thoughts return to this day so often. Here, at Jardin du Luxembourg.

11. Here's to sweet things in 2012. Cheers, people!

Knitmas

2011-12-28T10:41:00.000-08:00

This Christmas I tried out two new patterns to make gifts for my parents. The first was this awesome infinity scarf from Brooklyn Tweed for my mom. I learned how to nupp (pronounced "noop"), which creates these cute little bobble dots in the lace pattern. I think if I had used a different kind of yarn it would have shown through better. Oh, well.

The second was felted slippers for my dad. It was a pretty quick and simple pattern, but it was a bit of a guessing game when it came to size. I first erred on the size of too big - waaaay too big. After they dried, I stuck my foot in one and tried to remember the last time I stuck my foot in one of Dad's shoes. I remember the shoe being much bigger than my foot, but I couldn't remember if that was last year, or, oh, 20+ years ago. I decided the slippers were just too comically large, so I put them back in the wash. I was worried that after shaping and drying them that they wouldn't respond to continued felting, but there was another lesson learned. It worked! And according to my dad, they fit.

These were really, really fun to make. And after spending Christmas around another avid knitter, my mind is full of ideas. Socks in 2012!

Home Alone, plus #49: Make My Own Liqueur - check!

2011-12-22T16:30:00.000-08:00

Roasted lunch

Sometimes, it's good to come down with a cold. I think I needed a little time by myself these last few days to rest, take care of myself, and get myself ready for spending the holidays in good spirits.

I'll often use a sick day to get a few miserable tasks done. For instance, when you can't smell anything, you might as well clean out the fridge and empty the compost bucket. As a reward, you can make popcorn for lunch and watch the Food Channel. Yesterday, though, during my fridge-binge, I used up the contents of my vegetable drawer to make a roasted lunch of cauliflower, fingerling potatoes and carrots with a little olive oil and salt and pepper, with some day-old bread. I exchanged the Food Channel for a steno pad and pen to jot down my final pre-Christmas to-do's.

The sun froze in the cold blue sky just long enough to brighten my lunch. Just look at that mound of vegetables. (My eyes were bigger than my stomach.) It was a lovely afternoon.

Not pictured: my ever-growing bag of used Kleenex

On another day when I was staying away from work with a cold this past spring, I got cabin fever and went out to Second Look Books and picked up a book on making liqueur. It was printed in the late 1970s and the first few pages promote the other books in the series, such as indoor gardening and how to decorate your home with macrame.

Since then, I've been dreaming and scheming about all the things I want to macerate. It sounds deadly, but it's not. Yesterday was the day to pop open and twice-filter my first little liqueur project: Kahlua. Just in time for Christmas. Every day for the last two-and-a-half weeks, I'd been shaking up the contents, looking forward to this moment. And now, all that good, hearty shaking paid off. Even though my taste buds are a little wonky at the moment, I could still taste the rich vanilla and coffee flavors.

I used vodka and instant espresso in this version, along with a split vanilla bean and simple syrup, per the instructions of my book, though I was tempted by many other version of this on the internet. Tasty.

Merry Christmas!

A stovetop Christmas

2011-12-18T18:10:00.000-08:00

A couple sweet treats - one that's long been a favorite and one that's a new favorite. Neither of which require the oven or many ingredients.

Peanut butter balls

My mom started incorporating these peanut butter balls into her holiday cookie ensemble right around the time I started realizing my baby fat wasn't going to go away on its own. But it's Christmas, and this is the time not to care. Just go to the fridge or freezer, pull out one of these bon bons (I prefer them cold) and taste all that's right in the world. I brought a bowlful to a Christmas party last night and a couple fellow party-goers asked me what makes them so "frothy." I had never thought about it that way, but it's true - these things are just as fluffy as they are heavy. It's a Christmas miracle. The secret is Rice Krispies.

Here's how I make them:

Peanut Butter Balls
makes 4-7 dozen, depending on the size of your balls (says Alec Baldwin)

2 c. crunchy peanut butter
1/2 c. butter
4 c. confectioner's sugar
3 c. Rice Krispies, lightly crushed
2+ c. semisweet chocolate chips or almond bark - the latter is less rich, obviously

Before you begin, be sure to clear a little room in your fridge or freezer for the first step. You'll be placing sheets/pans of balls in there.

Melt peanut and regular butter together in saucepan over low heat. In a large bowl, combine the sugar and cereal. Pour the warm pb + butter mixture into the dry ingredients and stir a bit. I have never been able to do this process, however, without using my hands to make everything come together. Once things start holding together, start balling. You're probably going to need to really squeeze these together with a little force and let some crumbs fall out of your hands. Don't worry, they'll hold. But your hands are going to be messy. Sorry! It's a small price for your future bliss. Place the balls on a lined cookie sheet.

When you've balled all that your hands can handle, place the sheets/pans in the fridge or freezer. I like the freezer because I don't have to wait as long for them to chill. Either way, though, you can leave them in there overnight.

Later, melt the chocolate in a double boiler and get a new wax-paper-lined sheet ready. Take your balls out and roll them around in the chocolate, one or two at a time, and place them on the fresh sheet to set. Get your mind out of the gutter and continue until you've covered each and every ball in chocolate, adding more chocolate to the double boiler as necessary. Place them back in the fridge/freezer, and once completely set, transfer them to a storage container and store them wherever you'd like. Make sure to store one or two in your tummy right away.

Salted pistachio brittle

Some Christmases find me poking myself with a needle over and over again from stringing popcorn, but this year, I just have sore thumbs from shelling nine ounces worth of pistachios for Salted Pistachio Brittle (I had some help, fortunately). It was definitely worth it.

I lifted this recipe from Kristin Silverman via The Kitchn. She took much more attractive brittle pics, so I'll let you visit that site if you are interested in the recipe. I didn't let mine get so dark, mostly because I was concerned about it getting too dark. I'm sure the darker version tastes that much better, but dang, this stuff is so yummy. Especially with a sprinkling of sea salt. Who knew the pistachio nut was so pretty?

#35: Stay off Facebook for a week (part 2 of 2)

2011-12-14T12:30:00.000-08:00

Here’s what happened: Nothing, really. After a few days,after the initial withdrawal, I mostly forgot about Facebook. This was only aweek, of course, but after I logged back on, I found that I didn’t miss out onanything major. A few photos had been posted, and a bunch of status updatesregarding Christmas had been kindly bundled together for me to review.

Perhaps I sent and received a few more texts and emails thannormal this past week, but the fact is that Facebook is not where I go to trulystay connected. It’s where I go to waste time. To stalk, to reminisce, to sharemy witty reflections of the day. It’s wonderful, but being away from itconfirmed that it need not be a permanent part of my daily existence. Maybejust every other day, or every couple.

My dad thinks of Facebook kind of like a communitynewspaper, where all the articles are written by and are about people you know.And of course, there are all the annoying ads and clutter that go along withall of that. I also think of it as a kind of museum that I curate, where I havecontrol of what is contributed to my permanent collection (photos, statusupdates, links to things that are of interest to me) – and that my friendscurate, too. And to that end, I try tobe a bit more selective and careful about what I post and how often I post. Sometimes,though, I just really want to post another cat video.

Regardless of how we use it or how we think about it, all ofus on the other end can passively observe until the moment we run into eachother and strangely know a whole lot about what’s going on in our lives. It’s sometimeshelpful (in cutting the small talk), sometimes creepy (I didn’t realize youlooked at my profile so much!). But now Facebook is so engrained into our vernacular,I guess it’s just not that novel to think so much about what it meansfor our society, or about all the questions I have about the permanence of our online existence – what happens to ourFacebook pages after we die, e.g. That seems too heavy for this blog, anyway.

I did get a lot of work done in the last week. I also madecookies, read more of the news, and finished up some Christmas stuff. I alsounsubscribed to every automated email that I knew I would never read, which wasa lot. It all felt good. But I’m happy to return to that little universe thatis filled with some of my favorite people and places, with a little more willpower to resist the urge to check in so often.

Where I checked in on Saturday morning - instead of Facebook.

#35: Stay off Facebook for a week (part 1 of 2)

2011-12-06T16:27:00.001-08:00

Yesterday was my day for logging off. I made a small announcement to who knows who, and I didn't even wait to see if anyone would comment on it. And then I promptly deleted the application on my phone and the bookmark on my browser. It was over in a minute. Totally anticlimactic, as it should be.

Now that I think of it, though, my professional career has never beenwithout the presence of social media. I remember checking Myspace on my lunchhour and sometimes throughout the work day. At that point it was mostly to lookat photo albums of my college and high school friends and to pick a new song toplay on my profile. And then cameFacebook, which my boss told me he was sure would be the next big thing - all the students were using it. Now Icheck Facebook while waiting in line at Target, before going to bed, throughoutmy work day – it’s even part of my job. Since I joined over 5 years ago, it's been part of my life - about 2,000 days worth.

What can I expect from spending just 7 days (maybe more) away from it?

I can’t expect to be able to live as though it doesn’t exist.Life has adapted to the ways of social media so much that I think that expectationis unrealistic. For instance, no one is going to mail me the doubles of theirphotos, let alone email them to me. They can just wait until I get back onFacebook and let me find them at my leisure.

Therefore, I expect to feel out of the loop. On the surface level, at least. I am not anti-Facebook; I enjoy reading myfriends and family’s postings, despite how exhausting it can seem at times. AndI feel the need to say that none of them has ever posted about going to thestore to get cereal, which seems to be the type of post that everyone loves tocomplain about.

To counteract that a little, I expect to be in moreintentional contact with people. That would be nice.

I expect to get a little extra work done. Not much, becauseI’m pretty good at finding other ways of wasting my time.

I expect not to use the word “post” as much, except inreferring to something that happened after, or the mail (unlikely), or someone's place, orsomething resembling a pole. This might result in more intelligent conversation, but let's not make too many assumptions.

I can't really expect much, and maybe I won’t get anything outof this. But it’s a fun experiment, and I’m all in.

Part 2 will be my summary of how it all went from here.

Cookbook love

2011-11-27T09:58:00.001-08:00

In these days of beautifully photographed food blogs, it's easy to abandon cookbooks. I've spent many a lunch hour perusing my favorite sites (smitten kitchen, the kitchn, food gawker, Epicurious, 101 cookbooks) looking for an idea for dinner or fancy lunch. These sites make it easy for me to select recipes with my eyes - we're talkin' close-up shots of vanilla bean speckling pale batter, said batter flowing from a cup into a muffin tin, billowy frosting bursting out of a star tip, finished cupcakes gleaming in subdued and tasteful wrapping colors on a pretty antique plate. Thoughts of, "Oh, yum" are almost immediately followed by thoughts of "I can totally do that!" And sometimes, I do.

In the last year, though, I've been making more of an effort to cook from my cookbooks. It's such a blind adventure. Mastering the Art of French Cooking, for instance, provides illustration but no photos. The older cookbooks that do offer photos are usually in such need of color correction (or color, period), that I try not to be distracted by them. So rather than making decisions on what to cook based on pretty photos, I'm selecting recipes based on method, season, and imagination. Or based on how much I just really want to bake something out of this adorable 1933 home baking book I found at a local antique store:

The butter cake family is one I greatly look forward to getting cozy with in the coming months. Stay tuned for that.

But because it was Thanksgiving weekend and I knew that pumpkin pie trumps all fork desserts, I consulted a 1971 cookie cookbook I nabbed from my mom's vast collection for something simple, spicy, festive - something I could nibble on all weekend. The end product was a honeyed gingersnap.

Honeyed gingersnaps and Earl Grey at 3 p.m. on a Friday afternoon

This is a lovely alternative to molasses-based gingersnaps. The center is a little chewier than you'd expect from this kind of cookie, but I think the honey gives the ginger that much more room to snap back at you about five seconds in. I sprinkled some natural cane sugar on top before putting the sticky dough drops (this dough is seriously sticky) in the oven.

Honeyed Gingersnaps

adapted from Homemade Cookies by the Food Editors of Farm Journal

Makes just about 4 dozen modest-sized cookies

2/3 c. sugar

1/4 c. butter

1+ tsp. ground ginger

3/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 egg

1/2 c. yummy honey

1 1/2 c. sifted flour

Sugar crystals for topping (a few tablespoons worth)

Cream butter, sugar, spices, baking soda, salt and vanilla until it looks like wet sand. Add egg and beat until light and fluffy. Blend in honey. Slowly add flour and blend well.

Drop teaspoon-sized dollops 2 1/2" apart onto parchment lined sheet. Sprinkle with sugar. Bake at a moderate heat (I did 350) 10-15 minutes until lightly browned. Remove from baking sheets immediately and cool on racks.

#42: Get a nice winter coat

2011-11-21T11:52:00.001-08:00

Things I did this past snowy Saturday:

1.Went to Troy's, our local tire shop, and got in line to get my snow tires put on.

2. Received the gift of four or five hours to kill with someone I like to kill time with.

3. Got breakfast at Molly's. This is a Spokane institution I had never been to, a place that even David Byrne has visited for heaven's sake, and it just so happens that Molly's is across the street from Troy's. So I zipped up my nice new coat, pulled up my hood, grabbed Joel's arm and slipped around on the sidewalks in my cracked red rubber boots and made it safely to the diner. As it turns out, once you have a new coat keeping your torso warm, you have more ability to focus on your cold, wet feet (more on that to come).

Oh yes, I bought a coat. A nice one. At that point, I'd had it just over a week. It's a dark blue Merrel l coat that covers my bum, has a detachable hood, is stylish and warm and goes beautifully with every scarf and pashmina I own. Gone are the days of wearing a ski jacket and pencil skirt to the office, or freezing in my $30 Target coat that has a Thai take-out stain and dangling button.

Back to Molly's, though, and my Saturday morning. I treated myself to buckwheat pancakes. Pancakes are something I never feel like making for myself, but I so love a good scoop of melting butter and a pitcher of warm maple syrup. And don't forget it's buckwheat, which cancels out the butter and syrup.

In the end, I could only eat one.

4. Walked to the theater to see a morning movie, the kind that you would rather not pay full price for (even $7 often seems too much). So we saw Tower Heist. In hindsight, though, I wouldn't have felt so bad paying full price for it because I was so entertained by it. I might even say I really liked it. But I didn't pay full price. I didn't even pay half price. I paid no price. Thanks, Joel.

5. Handed my cracked red rubber boots to a sales lady and said, "Go ahead, throw them away. The duct tape doesn't even stick to these anymore," and then walked out of the boot store wearing a brand new pair of Sorels. Red. With fur! Never pictured myself wearing such a fancy boot, but it only took me putting them on to know I was doing myself a great disservice to my feet up until that point. So warm and cozy.

6. Sat down for coffee at Atticus and realized I was sitting diagonally to the man who ran into my parked car with a moving truck five years ago in front of our apartment building. It was actually his adorable little boy sitting across from him - a new addition since those apartment-dwelling days - that got my attention. If I wasn't so shy, I would have gone up to his table to say thanks for that time all those years ago when you totaled my car, though it was still completely drivable, and for helping me save up some money with what I received from your mover's insurance to buy a new car, which I was waiting on right now to get fitted with snow tires. Instead I just kept looking at his darling little boy and was glad to imagine that life has been good to them.

Coincidentally, a photo I took immediately outside that apartment building, wearing the boots I've since thrown away.

7. Drove back up the hill feeling in charge of the road, just in time for dinner.

I'm still feeling warm and thankful.

Paisley frost

2011-11-17T15:49:00.000-08:00

This morning when I got in my car to start blasting the heat, I looked up at my windshield.

Leafy, swirly, textured.

Is this not the most beautiful frost you've ever seen?

Good smile genes

2011-11-11T17:42:00.000-08:00

I recently came across this photo in one of my Dad's Facebook albums:

I love everything about this. I love the people in it: my parents and grandparents. I love Dad's outfit and swoopy bit of bang across his forehead; Mom's long (for her) hair; the way my Oma's head is tilted toward my Grandma, with her arms around her and an oft-worn charm bracelet dangling from her wrist; Grandma's colorful smock and that facial expression I recognize in many a family member; Grandpa in the back, just as I remember him, sporting a goatee and exhibiting quiet charm.

These are the faces of people who are responsible for my existence and right now they're all just looking at me from an era in which I wasn't yet a thought. Three of these faces are no longer here; two of them have aged with a few lines created by those smiles. The look of this scene is so dated and yet there are so many things about it that remain timeless.

Photography kind of blows my mind sometimes.

#63: Take an acquaintance out to coffee

2011-11-10T13:29:00.001-08:00

Okay, so calling this person an acquaintance might be astretch. Last week I basically treated a stranger to coffee. She’s a freshman from Tucson, and I was given hername by my P.E.O. chapter president with a vague instruction to reach out to her because her grandmother was a member of our organization. A good P.E.O. doesn't need a reason to invite a woman to coffee, but the fact that this young woman and I were on the same campus made it easy to arrange.

Sidebar: P.E.O. is a philanthropic organization thatsupports women’s education. It goes wayback and chances are that you, your mother or your grandmother has someconnection to it. There are chapters and members all over the world.

When I emailed her my introduction and invitation, I triedenvisioning myself on the other side of the note. Perhaps she'd feel intrigued or feel special in being sought out. Maybe she'd look me up onWhitworth’s network to find my picture. If she did, she would see that I'm younger than the average P.E.O., and that I look friendly (hopefully). Whatever she did, she replied with an enthusiastic yes.

The morning of our meeting, I sent her a quick email toconfirm the time and location at our campus coffee shop. Fortunately, I waswearing yellow tights and told her to look for those walking towardher. She wrote back to tell me she was wearing a purple shirt and black jacket.It was kind of like a blind date.

The yellow tights found the purple shirt and within minuteswe were extolling the wonders of college life over lattes. One of the first things shesaid was how scholarships and donors made it possible for her to get here. Way to warm a fund-raiser’s heart. Well, that and, “You were a comm major?That’s what I’m studying!” At times I felt like a mentor, encouraging her to take aclass from so-and-so, telling her about my internship during my senior year,and hinting a little about life after college and the value of a liberal artsdegree. But I didn’t want to tell too much. I wasvery aware of how fresh and new everything is to her right now - how lovely itis to relish a free Thursday afternoon and to have a dance aerobics class as your only evening obligation, and howmarvelous it is to walk across the grass under brilliant red and yellow treeson a brisk, autumn day. And also how excitingit must be for a girl from Tucson to hear about snow in the forecast.

It was a lovely little coffee date. She was grateful for the connection, and I had fun viewing the world through starry-eyed freshman lenses again. We promised to be in touch.

Walking back to the office, I thought about how I used to walk the very same path every Thursday afternoon during the fall of my freshman year. My Core discussion group was held in what is now my office building. It is on the very edge of campus and makes for one of the longer walks to class (a whopping 10 minutes from either campus end). It is so removed from everything that everyone would groan in sympathy for you when you told them you had to head to class there.

My college campus. Not in November.

On that afternoon, though, I felt my distance from the heart of campus in a completely different way. I am older, wiser, and my college friends are, too. We're scattered across the globe. The students around me are practically the age of my nieces. I remember things about this campus that current students don't (landlines in dorm rooms, the world before Facebook, the old Village buildings). And though I loved my years as a student, like many people I know exactly what I would do if I had the whole experience to do over again. Every thought I had on that walk was bittersweet.

Just before I reached my building, I crossed paths with Ron Pyle, one of my (and my classmates') most influential professors. As though the universe and Ron knew exactly what I needed at that moment, after smiling and greeting each other, he said, simply, "You look happy."

When I landed back at my desk, I was ever more grateful for taking the opportunity to get out of my everyday world and simply walk across the street to remember the reasons I am doing what I am doing, to reflect on the path that got me here, and to keep moving with a renewed optimism about my ability to figure things out.

Thursday rewards

2011-11-09T17:39:00.000-08:00

Something that makes me happy is having my own little lunch spot.

For years, I've driven by this place called the Maple Street Bistro on my way to work. Each week their reader-board advertises overly sweet food drinks, like Gingerbread Coffee Cake lattes and S'more mochas. So over the top. About a year ago, though, I ran out of my morning coffee and stopped at their drive-thru in desperation, determined to live cheap with a cup of drip. Instead, I gave in to their agave cinnamon latte. Though no dessert was implied in the name, in the end it reminded me of a cinnamon graham cracker. Delicious. Before long, it was my weekly reward for driving to work on a Thursday morning (the most difficult morning of the week to get up). Then I started noticing their weekly lunch specials. Their fresh sheet menu uses whatever goods have come in their CSA boxes that week. And their regular offerings are homemade and homey, like old-fashioned boiled bagels, Boston squash soup and French toast panini (I have yet to try one, but I intend to). I now have regular lunch date there with my fresh copy of The Inlander every Thursday afternoon.


Remnants

Its ambiance is admittedly strange - out one window I can gaze out at a Conoco station. Another window gives me a lovely view of northbound traffic and the O'Reilly Auto Parts store. On a nice day, I sometimes sit out on their patio and deal with the loud motorcycles and semi trucks barreling past. But sitting inside on an overcast day with the paper, cup of tea, hearty soup (or salad) and B.L.T. is something I look forward to. Sometimes I get an itty-bitty chocolate chunk cookie for 25 cents, too.

Pflaum Kuchen

2011-11-05T19:25:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up in our house in Boise, I would jump on the trampoline in the backyard and look over the fence at our next-door neighbors' mini-orchard. At the time, these neighbors were sourpusses and were often perturbed about the goings-on at our house, from pool parties to even my sister's alarm clock going off in the morning. They built the fence when I was still small, and I remember how one of their raspberry bushes would creep through the cracks and over the top to our side. I got quite the thrill from peeking through those cracks to make sure they weren't outside and then picking a few berries. Sometimes I worried that they were poisonous berries because it seemed like the type of thing these kinds of neighbors would do to teach a little girl a lesson.

In hindsight, I'm sure they were very nice people, and maybe we happened to live next to them during a difficult time in their lives. I wonder whatever happened to them. These days, a nice German woman and her husband live there. She gave my mom a goodly quantity of Italian plums from those trees, which Mom and Dad brought with them on their recent visit. Mom left the rest with me, and I've been keeping them cold, waiting for a nice weekend afternoon to make a Pflaum Kuchen. Today was the day.

This is one of my most favorite cakes. It's the simplest recipe and just the right amount of sweet. And it's even better with a little whipped cream or dusting of powdered sugar and a cup of tea. The recipe I have is from a Sunset cookbook from the 1970s which suggests any number of other fruits - nectarines, pears, whatever you have - but plums are always the prettiest.

#13: Cut my hair short

2011-11-02T17:45:00.000-07:00

I had about 6 inches of my long summer hair snipped off.

Things I learned:

When a hairstylist has cute hair, it doesn't necessarily translate to her own abilities.
Be very specific about what you want it to look like, especially if you're going to a new hairstylist.
It's okay to go back to get it fixed, even if it means going to someone else.

I love getting my hair cut short, but this was the first time I nearly regretted it. You can see it on the look on my face.

Are those tears in my eyes?

This picture was taken during those awkward first days when you're getting used to having 60% less hair to shampoo, condition, blow-dry and style. Since then, I've found a better way to part and style it so that it looks a little less limp and blah. It's grown on me.

It's also about now when I really start to miss my longer hair and forget about how annoying it was to dry every morning, how much time it took to curl it, and how much work it took to keep it looking good all day - an effort I rarely bothered to make. But wasn't it cute?

The before shot (from July). I look a little regretful here, too, I guess.

Here's to the next 11 months!

Doing things

2011-11-01T12:00:00.000-07:00

I have not written a single darn thing on here in awhile. It's really bad blogging behavior.

But that will change, I hope.

The reason: On October 23 (six months before my 30th birthday, not so coincidentally), I started the Day Zero project, where you write down 101 things you want to do in the next 1001 days. So far I've got about 60. I'm finding it a bit difficult to come up with 101 things that I've never done, want to do, and believe I can accomplish in the next 3 years...at least the kinds of things that are worth writing down. But I'm kind of pumped about it. And since this blog is all about personal accountability, I'm going to use this as a space to report whatever progress I've made.

See? Look to the column on the right. (If you're reading this via email, you probably won't see it, so please visit my actual blog.)

One item on the list: blog at least once a week.

So far, I'm winning.

Stay tuned!

Self-reflection is good every once in awhile.

(I know what you're thinking. Eat Pray Love, Julie and Julia, Harpsichordian, right? Women in their 30s making millions off their roads to entelechy. We have to make the big bucks somehow.)

What I'm talking about

2011-09-21T21:12:00.000-07:00

5:15 a.m. - Arriving at the gym

6:30 a.m. - leaving the gym


6:45 a.m. - oatmeal and homemade cinnamon raisin swirl (kinda burnt) toast

Yep, it's fall.

What I'm wearing

2011-09-19T17:30:00.000-07:00

When we were getting ready to go to Paris this past spring, I read several bits of fashion advice regarding the differences between Parisian and American women. One thing that stuck with me was the explanation that Parisian women dress in such a way that communicates that they are cared for. This probably implies that a man is in the equation, the kind who bedecks his mistress with jewels and fringe, but of course a lover is not required to achieve the look.

Ever since, I've been trying on the Parisian mindset, thinking of how to convey that time and thought were put into my clothing choices. I don't do it all the time, but I've been more conscious about adding a scarf, belt, necklace or bracelet to my outfits. These are things I hardly ever shop for (and to be honest, I don't really like spending money on them, either), but they've been making me feel strangely complete. And it feels good to care for yourself, anyway.

A few weeks ago I was stuck at home with a cold. It was so beautiful outside, though, and I just couldn't bear to lay around in my sweatpants and watch another show on HGTV. So instead of resting, I cleaned myself up. I curled my hair, put on blush and assembled a nice outfit and headed downtown. I figured if I didn't look miserable, I wouldn't be miserable. I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror and thought, now there's a girl who looks cared for. Ironically, of course, I should have really been caring for myself at home with plenty of fluids. Oh, well.

Either way, the effect lasted for hours (which was how long the ibuprofin lasted). I felt great. I felt normal. I felt like I was playing hooky from work. And I bought two new pairs of pants! (Thanks, Ann Taylor, for suggesting I get a head start on my fall wardrobe with your tremendous bargains.)

But the lesson that I've been learning is that it's not hard to make a little effort for yourself.

Actually, sometimes it can be a little too easy. Here's an example of how to look too put together. Check out this matching nail polish and blouse combo:

That's enough now.

Cacio e Pepe

2011-08-16T22:12:00.000-07:00

I remember a few times when my mom and I would watch a cooking show on TV and mom would quickly grab a notebook to jot down a recipe, before the days when the internet made it easy to look up the show's website and find the episode and/or recipe. Oh, those days.

Actually, I ended up doing that on Sunday because America's Test Kitchen makes it extremely difficult to access any of their recipes unless you pay $30 a year. That Christopher Kimball, he's a sly old miser. A few 21st century luxuries made this process easier for us, however. I have the show scheduled to record every Saturday morning on my DVR, so we could rewind this particular episode as many times as needed to write down their recipe for Cacio e Pepe. Also, we didn't actually write it down - Joel typed it up on his iPad and so we could prop it up nicely on the counter as we worked. (That was how I always envisioned life with an iPad - a constant kitchen counter companion.)

This recipe inspired the first-ever use of my Imperia Pasta Machine, which I've kept for maybe 5 years in the cupboard. I watched a bunch of YouTube videos of people making the dough and using their Imperia machines, which inspired some confidence in me. I went in the kitchen, made my little well of flour and put the eggs in the middle. Then, like molten lava, some of the egg white began to creep over the top of the well, and my efforts to keep it all enclosed only made more channels for the eggs to escape, resulting in a big gooey mess. I swore and carried on in frustration, then dumped the gloop in the sink. I went outside and watered my garden in a rage.

Someone kindly cleaned up after my catastrophic flour-egg sink mess, which gave me a little boost. I gave it another go. Dough success!

The machine was fairly simple to use (once I read the instructions), too. It was actually quite fun.

The rest of the dish was a breeze, mostly because I wasn't the one grating all the Romano. The pasta turned out great, the sauce was peppery and creamy and simple, and I dismissed my Julia Child-inspired rule (as I usually do) and went back for seconds.

Another lovely Pasta Sunday.

Itsy bitsy

2011-08-11T20:34:00.000-07:00

Some mornings I get up just before 5 a.m. and go to the gym.

I come home around 6:15 a.m. and feel pretty great about myself. If there were anyone awake at that hour to boast to, I would. "Look at my sweaty face! I just burned 600 calories!"

I take my multivitamin, specially formulated for women, with a full glass of water, make my coffee, and eat a sensible oatmeal breakfast. Sometimes I'll turn on Healthy Appetite on the food channel and listen to Ellie Krieger talk warmly about all the antioxidants and vitamins found in the meal she's creating, with her cute short hair and healthy, color-enhanced-for-TV glow. Sometimes I actually get ideas for that evening's meal: a healthy stir-fry, a salad, grilled fruits and vegetables, perhaps. I've even made energy bars because of this woman.

Some other mornings, I hit "dismiss" on my alarm at 5 a.m. and don't bother to do anything about resetting it until I wake up in a panic 2 hours later. Sometimes it happens 4 days in a row. Sometimes all I want to eat all day is a really good chocolate chip cookie.

So, I came home from work the other evening, determined to find a cookie recipe that wouldn't make me feel like all my hard work (from 4 days ago) was undone. Thank goodness I found a recipe on Heidi Swanson's website for an itsy bitsy chocolate chip cookie made with healthier ingredients. I love how tiny they are. I mean, what's 1/2 c. butter and 5 ounces of dark chocolate when it's divided into 80 cookies? Basically nothing, right?

Aaaaaand, some evenings I happen have a nice little container of honey and cinnamon frozen custard in my freezer and decide that a teaspoon of that between two lighter-than-air cookies couldn't be bad at all, either.

You can fit two of them nicely on a teacup saucer. They are so delicious.

Spikeball

2011-07-23T10:23:00.000-07:00

Have you heard of this backyard phenomenon?

We had a birthday gathering last weekend and little did we know that an entire afternoon and evening would be taken over by this little ball and its trampoline. Incredible. Google it.

Little girl blue

2011-07-10T09:29:00.000-07:00

Now that I've successfully made a sweater, there's no stopping me now!

I won't say this was easy. Boy, did I have quite the time with this thing. This was my in-flight and on-train project during my European vacation this spring, and if it wasn't for long hours with nothing else to do, I might never have ripped it out and started over as many times as I did (at least 3 from the very beginning, and a couple more times when I started the lace pattern).

My favorite moment with this sweater was on our train back to Paris from Cologne. I was finally getting the lace pattern down but I was pretty certain that I was short one stitch. I was so sick of counting stitches at that point. Not only was it a conversation killer (I still feel a little bad for all the times I told Joel, "Don't talk/Hold on/Just a sec/Shhht.") but also a tedious task when you have over 200 stitches on the needles. But I had to do it, because you can't fudge on this kind of thing. So, in the midst of counting my stitches, the food cart came by. The nice man bent down toward me and asked me in German, then French, then English, in rapid succession, if I wanted breakfast. My brain just about exploded. "Uh..." was all I could utter as my German language brain-file competed with the French one, and English suddenly seemed like a foreign language, and I was trying to keep the number of the last stitch in my head. I was also trying to figure out if I was supposed to take the tray if I wanted it, or if I was supposed to wait for him to give it to me. As a result, my brain completely shut down. I froze. "What language do you speak?" he finally asked (the emphasis is Joel's - I have a different recollection of his question, but to further illustrate the level of embarrassment I was feeling, I'll go with it). I responded, vaguely, "English, French, German, I don't know..." "Deutsch?" "Ein bisschen." Finally the synapses were beginning to fire again. By the time he moved on to the next passengers, I was feeling pretty dumb. It's funny now, of course, but I was ready to cry because I had to start counting all over again and in the end, I was indeed short one stitch. And I was hungry but was too embarrassed to order food.

"Little Girl Blue" popped into my head a few times while making this sweater - most obviously because it's a little blue sweater for a baby girl. I first learned the song when I was young and frequently watched the movie "Billy Rose's Jumbo," which featured Doris Day singing the song to a circus elephant. Weird, I know, but it's a pretty little sad song. And after my own sad little incident on the train, parts of the lyrics really worked for my situation when I switched out the word "fingers" for "stitches": "Sit there and count your stitches/ What can you do?/Little girl you're through (yup, I was ready to quit)/Sit there and count your little stitches (again)..."

Having finished the darling little thing, I am glad I kept at it. I had lots of fun finding cute little buttons to attach to it, too. If you are interested in the pattern, it's called "Lucille," designed by Courtney Kelley. It's a free download on Ravelry. Because I ran out of yarn (and learned that it's discontinued!), I shortened the sleeves and didn't get to the hat.

Let me call you tartlet

2011-06-28T17:28:00.000-07:00

Occasion: Champagne party

Month: June

What this most obviously calls for: Strawberry Tartlets

These were one of those things that made me look like I spent a lot of time on them, when really it was a very quick assembly process.

Fresh from the oven

Just putting the wontons in the muffin pans made them look pretty already. What I didn’t realize was the genius of the butter and brown sugar on the inside (brush one side with butter, coat with brown sugar, place that side up in the muffin pan) – it cascades down and makes a bubbly, caramelized pool in the bottom of the cup. And then it hardens a bit to create a stable base for your dollop of mascarpone (mixed with a little honey). And oh was it ever good.

And then there was the strawberry part: Wash and slice. Place them artfully inside. Eat one of the mutant ones (not all of my shells look this good) to consider how it would taste both before the champagne and after the champagne. (So, so good on both counts.)

And after the champagne you won’t feel bad about eating one or two more. Strange how that works.

Reasons to look up

2011-06-23T13:33:00.000-07:00

I awoke this morning to thunder. Coupled with a rain-scented breeze flowing through the window, few things are nicer to wake up to. One of those few things, though, is a significantly smaller aforementioned kankle. I’m so thrilled about this; now I can use the remaining girth as extra cushion for the returning spring in my step!

Today is turning into one of those happy Spokane days where guys ill-advisedly take their shirts off (don't worry, it's a harmless link) and walk around downtown, the girls work on their sunburns (base tans, whatever), and if I drive with my windows down and music off, I am sure to hear “Is This Love” coming from someone’s car or backyard. I’m craving frozen yogurt, a lounge chair on the river and a crime novel.

For now, I’ll just share a little playlist that is getting me to 4:30, and the view outside my window:

Greetings from my couch

2011-06-21T19:57:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, like many other days in recent memory, a black fly bit me. This time, it was on my ankle.

No big deal.

Except that black flies are evil and now I have an extra half inch of girth around my ankle and it hurts to walk. In a way, though, it's not so bad. Joel's at a baseball game and I'm at home with my Townshend Table Red and House Hunters International.

Something we've noticed in the many episodes we've watched of this show is how, if it is a male/female couple who's house-hunting, the woman almost always comments on the double sinks, or lack thereof, in the master bathroom. I understand the allure of not having to deal with a man's sink space, but the frequency of these comments is a little annoying, especially considering the fact that the women are the ones making them. Where are the men who are ecstatic about the fact that they don't have to deal with spilled powder in the sink and long, stringy hair going down the drain? I know they're out there.

Well, my bag of ice has melted and my wine glass could use a little top-off. My next post will feature more summery things and less kankle. That's a promise.

"You're gonna like this one, it's better than last week's, more romantic."

2011-06-18T10:30:00.000-07:00

Back when I was merely swooning over his crazy-long eyelashes, I went to my first Joel Smith show. It was an April evening at 2^nd Look Books, a pearl of a used bookstore in Spokane. Luke, Joel’s roommate and coworker and new friend of mine, had nudged me to attend on the premise that he (Luke) would be reading some Portuguese poetry alongside Joel's music. It sounded too bohemian to resist. Besides, it was right next-door to JoAnn’s Fabrics, and I needed to buy some supplies. Surely I could think of something I needed - embroidery thread, maybe? It was the perfect guise, though, as I knew that walking in the bookstore with my rustling JoAnn’s bag would make it very clear that I was just in the neighborhood. I didn’t really know Joel all that well as most of our interactions had been work-related, albeit a little less than professional. I was actually rather nervous about the whole thing, not knowing what kind of crowd I'd find there, or if he'd see me walk in and if so, what he would think of my making an effort to see him play, and, let's face it, who among the adorably dressed, ogling women could be his girlfriend.

I tiptoed around to the very back of the store and half-heartedly looked at the books as though I was looking for a specific section, and once I was safely behind the entire crowd, I settled in. I didn’t commit myself to a chair and instead stood for the next 30 minutes in the juvenile fiction area. I felt like a spy. It was kind of fun, listening to music and looking at beloved titles I hadn’t seen in years, like The Face on the Milk Carton and Summer of My German Soldier.

As tempting as it was to revisit those old favorites, the stuff happening in front of me was much more captivating. Joel started whistling a melody mid-song, then put it on a loop and whistled on top of it. Suddenly he was whistling in three-part harmony with himself and playing the guitar. Then he’d put the guitar down and pick up a glockenspiel. And then a toy accordion. He didn’t even look nervous about it, coordinating all this looping. I’d daresay it was a spectacle. It made me a little on edge at first as I was waiting for him to make the mistake that would smear this carefully layered rainbow of beats and sounds into a murky brown mess. But he kept it going and made it look effortless. Before I knew it I was feeling this sense of pride in the fact that this guy e-mailed me sometimes.

And then he would sing. Holy cow. His voice was warm, barely weathered, and wholeheartedly sincere. His lyrics were rhythmic and clever and vivid. Luke got up and read the poetry but I could have cared less about it at that point (sorry, Luke). I wanted more from the mustachioed songster. At the end of the show, I worked my way out of the world of preteen literature and may as well have headed straight to that section called Romance! Kidding. But after the show I walked over to Joel and told him hello, great job, really, glad I could make it, I was, you know, just down the street and, well, I'll probably be out later at a James Pants show, if you're interested...okay, bye! I walked out the door with my JoAnn’s bag and a full-blown crush.

It took a couple months, but finally, June 18 would prove to be my own sort of Purple Rose of Cairo day, when this dreamy fellow I'd been pining for from the back of a bookstore was standing there in front of me at my apartment door, holding a bottle of wine and asking sweetly, "What are you doing tonight?"

Gimme summer

2011-06-09T11:04:00.001-07:00

Just a few things I've been wishing for, to go with nice long stretch of nice warm weather. Please!

Fritzy

2011-06-08T11:38:00.000-07:00

We don't have a cat. But we do have several furry neighborhood friends.

We'll sit out on the back deck or the front porch, and eventually one of them is bound to walk up to say hello and stay for a lap sit or a pet-and-purr. We have no idea how sanitary this is, but we enjoy it because it gives us our cat fix, tiding me over until the day we decide we can manage the responsibility of our own (but mostly, I'm just waiting for Joel to cave).

We've taken to naming these kitties with mostly uninspired titles, like Blacky or Heathcliff, but I think our favorite - both name and cat - is Fritzy.

Fritzy is basically the Don Corleone of 11th Ave. You never quite know what he's up to, and though he can be quite tender and loving, I know he's probably up to something sinister which undoubtedly plays out in the occasional growl/scream fests we've heard in the middle of the night. In the last year or so, I think he's scared away most of the other cats from visiting us. He also pees on things without the usual modesty of covering it up, probably just to show who's boss or mark territory like a dog would. (He peed on our deck a couple years ago, right in front of me! I furiously shooed him away and didn't see him for the rest of the summer.) He's also very sneaky. On Sunday I was weeding around a bush in the front yard for about 5 minutes when suddenly he pounced out of it. How had I not seen him?

But most of the time, he's sweet and we look forward to seeing him.

On Friday morning, Joel found a little bird, dead at the bottom of the porch steps. This spring a bunch of birds nested on top of the porch posts and, we think, under the eaves. We should have known it would only be a matter of time before they would meet their fate at the paws of one of our friends. We suspected this was Fritzy's doing but weren't completely sure.

Then yesterday afternoon, I was sitting on the couch, reading, when suddenly I heard a light thud, followed by some rustling leaves just outside the window. I looked and saw Fritzy shimmying up the wisteria, working his way to the top of the porch post. I knocked on the window to get his attention, which was about all I got. He looked at me with as much of a "so what?" look as a cat could give, continued up and disappeared. I came outside to see where he went and pointlessly scolded, "FRITZ-y!" as I watched his tail whip out of sight under the eaves. Then he turned around and he looked at me with an evil gaze.

Fritzy-kitty don't care. He just sits around and waits for more birds to kill. Joel exhibited an inappropriate level of admiration of Fritzy's craftiness while I just watched as the birds landed on the wisteria. They seemed to catch on quickly that a feline terrorist had crawled into their home. I hoped they were calling out to the others in warning.

Who knows how long he waited.

His and hers

2011-06-02T10:54:00.000-07:00

We've been feasting lately.

The first thing Joel ever made me was whiskey pasta, and since then, I've been more than happy to relinquish all pasta and sauce duties to him. His patience is much better than mine in letting flavors develop and simmer on the stove for a long time. With the pesto, he didn't waste a single basil leaf and waited to finish the sauce just as the pasta was drained to maintain that pretty shade of green. We fixed up some chicken to accompany it, which added a little something special, but the pesto alone sent me. So, so delicious.

Besides, there's nothing better than the smell of basil to make you hopeful for the coming of summer.

I spent Memorial Day morning in kitchen, steeping anise seeds in custard for ice cream and cooking apples for this Polish apple tart. I would love to go page by page through the Classic Home Desserts cookbook and make everything in there (almost), but usually I just look through it to find recipes using ingredients I mostly have already.

I must admit I'm not a huge fan of the crust. I prefer a much tenderer tart crust, and this dough only uses 2 T of butter which you melt and work in to the flour mixture with an egg and some milk. Fewer calories, I guess, but a little tough when all is said and done. Still, the apples are the winners here. Three Braeburns and three Granny Smiths, cooked until tender and mashed with sugar and spices. The lattice was sooo not my best work (at that point I was ready to be out of the kitchen and into the shower...at 2 p.m.), but I'm glad it kind of turned out. I've been sneaking slivers of it for breakfast for the past week. It looked even nicer when I took it out of the spring-form, but it was night time and I didn't want to take another picture of food.

As for the anise ice cream...I think that was my favorite part. The recipe came from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop. He suggests adding some boozy raisins and toasted almonds for a biscotti-style version. Of course he did; he's a genius.

These are a couple reasons why I set my alarm for 5 a.m. to visit the gym.

Good advice from Julia

2011-05-27T11:55:00.000-07:00

I don't believe in twisting yourself into knots of excuses and explanation over the food you make. When one's hostess starts in with self-deprecations such as "Oh, I don't know how to cook . . .," or "Poor little me . . .," or "This may taste awful . . .," it is so dreadful to have to reassure her that everything is delicious and fine, whether it is or not. Besides, such admissions only draw attention to one's shortcomings (or self-perceived shortcomings), and make the other person think, "Yes, you're right, this really is an awful meal!" maybe the cat has fallen into the stew, or the lettuce has frozen, or the cake has collapsed -- eh bien, tant pis!

(Julia Child, My Life in France)

Julia's recipe for Reine de Saba, which turned out marvelously, and port

Things on the lawn, or "Slaughter on 11th Ave."

2011-05-18T22:21:00.000-07:00

After a weekend of ho-hum weather, last week was pretty much gorgeous. I mowed the lawn for the second time this year and began to find my rhythm in working outside again. I love coming home each day to a lush green lawn, blooming tulips and budding trees.

But then, last Tuesday I came home to find this, a cruel dump of a joke, nay, a ruthless murder on the front lawn!

This photo does not do it justice. It was an incredibly massive tangle of large branches and ill-fated buds. We knew the tree guy was coming at some point, but we didn't know this was a normal part of the process, to leave a gift behind like this. And it would be two days - TWO - before the guy came back to take it all away. In the meantime, birds began nesting in it. The leaves continued to grow out of it.

But it's gone now and we're ready for lawn games. Last weekend at a friend's BBQ, we got back into Cornhole mode. Our bean-bag-toss muscles were a little rusty, but I am able to boast that my team won the final match with very little daylight left. Thank you.

Starting early

2011-05-02T13:39:00.000-07:00

I think we're finally off our jet-lagged schedule, which means no more going to bed around 9:30 p.m., and no more waking up, bright eyed and bushy tailed at, oh, 5 or 6 a.m. Actually, I was trying to keep that schedule going for as long as possible (without having kids). I've become more of a morning person with age, relishing the quiet of the early hours and the way I feel so productive by 8 a.m. without as much as a word to anyone else. And then on one jet-lagged Friday morning I was in the kitchen kneading bread this man walked in wearing pajamas and glasses and asked, “What on earth is going on in here?” I feel like asking him the same thing. Good old jet lag. Good times.

But, in response to his question, cinnamon raisin swirl bread was what was going on that Friday morning. I had the day off, which made for a nice opportunity to try the recipe from my Best Recipe cookbook. The raisins were my addition, and despite my inclination to pare back the amount of cinnamon (5 tsp!) in the sugared filling, I went for it. No regrets.

It was dense but still tender and delicious, particularly when toasted. It was also the first time I ever saw Joel resist putting peanut butter on toast (some compliments do not require words). It was the main feature of my birthday brunch, accompanied by some mimosas, fluffy eggs and jerky-like bacon (will someone please tell me how to buy bacon?! I always buy the worst kind). Age 29 started off swimmingly.

Waking up, again

2011-04-22T12:05:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, there was a young woman who was about to enter the final year of her twentieth decade (though her dad would correct her and say she was technically entering the first year of her thirtieth. Well, whichever way you’d like to look at it.). But before that all would happen, she decided she would go somewhere new.

So one day, she got up hours before the sun and boarded a plane and crossed the ocean. She got off the plane and onto a bus, then onto a train, then onto a metro. The metro stopped and she stepped off. She climbed up some stairs from below the ground. When she got to the top, she found herself on a bustling sidewalk lined with green trees and bright old buildings, and everything was covered in brilliant sunshine.

She was in Paris. It was a city of boulevards and boulangeries. Time moved quickly there. One moment she was savoring a lemon crepe, the next she was on a boat on the Seine, and the next she was standing across the room from a Monet painting.

Occasionally she found herself on a train that took her to new places with other languages and different ways to count on one’s fingers. But the train always brought her back to Paris. And each time she returned, it felt more familiar. She knew that the shop keepers would always greet her with “Bonjour!” or “Bonsoir!” and that the baguettes would always show up for dinner.

Like old friends, the wicker chairs on the café terraces seemed to call out to her in a chorus as she walked by, “Voulez-vous encore un verre de vin?” And the macarons whispered to her, reassuringly, “We contain no calories.” Even the graves in the cemeteries seemed to say, “Better enjoy it now.”

****

And then her alarm clock went off one morning. She was in her own bed. The sky was gray. It was snowing. Clearly this could only have been a dream, these last couple weeks.

Waking up

2011-03-30T12:30:00.000-07:00

Over the last week, I've been getting into journal mode. I have a horrible track record of maintaining a regular diary or journal. I start writing and then I wonder why I'm doing it. After a couple sentences I'm already bored with the details of my own life, weighed down by "and then I's" and "so after that's." Not that it's truly boring, it's just that I haven't found a successful way to write about my life in a way that reads like good fiction - or, at least, a way that will make me want to read it when I'm 80. But lists? I can do lists. They are focused and manageable, like "great things that happened to me today" or "two things I learned today," "places I walked," etc. Lists can be reflective or superficial depending on my mood. Most important, though, they remind me of the details without bearing too many - just small glimpses into my life at that moment. And I know that in the next few weeks, I'll want to remember all the wonderful things a person can feel and experience when traveling around Europe, so I better get some practice in now so I'm somewhat in the habit and gung-ho for writing and documenting when I'm there.

(Buying a cute new journal helps, too, especially the kind with un-ruled pages and plenty of open space for other friends to write in, as well as for your own doodles and souvenirs and impromptu lists. [Thanks to my college roommate Laura for showing me the beauty of this kind of journaling.])

Last week I kept track of the songs I woke up with in my head. I'm not sure if it's supposed to mean anything, but it's kind of fun. Does it have to do with what I was dreaming about, or my general mood, or is it an omen for the rest of the day? If you're looking for new ways to analyze yourself, try it if you dare. Here's what I came up with, in order from Monday to Friday:

(One thing to note here is that the Maroon 5 version of "If I Fell" is a substitute for the unavailable and much sweeter Beatles version.) I feel that it was a particularly good week for ear worms. Oftentimes I'll trudge off to the bathroom to get ready with a variation on a theme of my alarm clock ringing through my head. I'm impressed with the variety displayed here; old, new, optimistic, lethargic, romantic, scandalous. Lovely!

If you drew any conclusions about me based on this, let me know because I've already given up.

Time for lunch

2011-03-15T18:43:00.000-07:00

Food photography: sometimes it seems as though I’ve figured it out, other times I’m pretty sure that my camera actually chews the meal, spits it out and places the contents onto my memory card. And sometimes I'm just the victim of insufficient natural light. So instead of dealing with a potentially unappealing photo, I present to you a collection of the things that comprised my lunchtime salad. The plate, cup, utensils and pretty napkin are just to provide a lovely ambience. In reality, they’re just replacements for my real-life Tupperware, plastic fork and paper towel from the office break room. Anthropologie has these plates right now that look like they were painted by a 10-year-old Francophile. I can’t decide if it’s adorable, or if it’s just one of those things I really want to like because it’s Anthropologie and I generally trust their style. This Eiffel Tower plate does seem appropriate here because Joel and I have been steadfastly packing our lunches, cutting down on our number of frivolous purchases and using up everything in our fridge (good everyday habits, really), all in the name of Paris.

Lately I've made it my weekly challenge to fix myself something that I'm certain would make the Lean Cuisine ladies in the office swoon, not only from its colorful culinary beauty, but also from the comparable amount of dollars it takes to create. Two weeks ago it was chicken wraps. Last week, it was a spicy bulgur and kale soup. I've done it again with this one, I think. A big box of greens, a can of green olives, a can of kidney beans, a log of goat cheese, carrots, and sometimes I’ll add in a hard-boiled egg or beets (never the two together so as to avoid hot pink egg whites – ew).

Through this whole process I'm coming to realize that frugality is about thoughtfulness. When I buy things, I'm getting better about thinking of what other things I can do with ingredients beyond a one-time meal. And sometimes it's just a matter of giving myself more time to think about what to pack for lunch than the crunched minutes at the end of my morning routine. "Food prep" is one of those activities that I've avoided for its lack of spontaneity, for the way it screams "soccer mom," and even for the Rachel Ray style abbreviation. But for whatever spontaneity in eating I feared I'd lose, I'm finding all these new pockets of free time because the food part is already taken care of. More than anything, I'm actually feeling a lot more creative because I've got to figure out what the heck else I can put kale in. (A couple weekends ago we heartily enjoyed banana-blueberry-yogurt-kale smoothies. Crazy, I know!)

Okay, moms, you're onto something here.

Out of the woods

2011-03-01T12:34:00.000-08:00

It is in the air. Why else would I have lain in bed in the early Saturday morning hours, composing a mental to-do list that included “Clean oven; reassess my wardrobe; clear cobwebs”? And why else would a foot of snow and sub-freezing temperatures not make me want to retreat like it would in, say, November? And what on earth would cause my boyfriend get out the vacuum cleaner and put it to work around the fireplace and under the furniture?

By “it,” of course, I mean spring. Hallelujah. So go ahead, giant snowflakes, get good and dizzy on your decent to meet your liquid brothers and sisters on the pavement. Keep an eye on my French press, kitchen window robins. Sock it to me, you obscenely romantic 6 o'clock sunsets.

Sunday night

I can only hope that teenage girls are out buying the Prom Issue of Seventeen, and that sweet scenes like these between bobby soxers still happen somewhere, as young men’s fancies turn to thoughts of love.

I'm dying for a brighter wardrobe, a lighter hair color (appointment this week!) and a pinker blush. This vernal equinox scarf I’m making is purely a fashion accessory and not intended to provide warmth whatsoever, and has been appropriately named as I expect to be finished with it by then.

From a pattern I made up with yarn from a failed sweater project

Good to see you, March 1.

Hearts and Hugo

2011-02-16T18:13:00.000-08:00

I really wanted to post something for Valentine's Day. I planned to write about how my friend Jessi and I used to give each other pep talks in the 8th grade about how guys would eventually fall in love with us.

I thought about writing about some of my failed romantic pursuits in high school, like the time I asked a boy who I thought was a safe bet to the Valentine's Day girl-ask-guy dance, only to be turned down with a lie about going out of town. And about how the aforementioned Jessi started getting asked out by (cute!) guys while I was still waiting on the other end of that junior high pep talk. And about how many of my Saturday nights were spent watching old movies with my parents and eating take-n-bake pizza and serenading them at the piano with show tunes.

And before you started feeling sorry for me, I wanted to write something about how I survived and how I remained resilient and went on to greater things. But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed silly and irrelevant and almost misleading. In high school, I never felt like I was merely surviving or that I was a victim failed romance. Honestly , I miss those Saturday nights with my parents and pizza and having a piano on which to play the entire "Mame" songbook. Reading through my old diaries (which I did the other night - whoa), I find pages filled with optimism and enthusiasm and way too many exclamation points.

I know what's behind it. Victor Hugo has been quoted as saying that the greatest happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved - "loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves." This past Friday night when I got home, there was a package at the door from my parents for Valentine's Day. And on Feb. 14, I was presented with a wonderful meal, flowers, chocolate, and a special episode of Jeopardy (go, Watson!). Both instances were perfect reminders that on each day of my life, from birth to high school to my grown-up self, I have been loved.

So now that it's not Valentine's Day anymore, I don't feel the need to post any of that earlier stuff, but I do feel the need - or just the urge - to express how lucky I feel.

Cheer-up skirt

2011-02-10T11:43:00.000-08:00

New Look Pattern #6872

I awoke to rain that Monday. It was a holiday, but I pretended it was a regular workday and got up at 7 a.m. (which is later than I should get up on a work day, admittedly). The morning was spent in The Kraft Zimmer, in my pajamas. I plugged in the sewing machine, the stereo and all the bright lights I had. After about 2 hours, the gray skies had given way to intense sunshine, and the fabric pieces I was working on had shed their tissue paper patterns and had begun to look like an actual skirt. Like, a really cute one.

I allowed myself a bathroom break and realized the state of affairs with my appearance was quite inconsistent with the general feeling of well-being and optimism. Prescription: shower and fresh air.

The fresh air was truly a treat. With a Paris guide in my bag and a coffee shop within walking distance, I set out to nearly ruin the effect of my shower by overdressing myself in winter accessories. On my walk, I took special note of houses in the neighborhood that I don’t often see or look at, wondered what it’s like to live in those places, envied the sunlight many of them get on their summer gardens, and felt a nice hint of sweat forming under my hat and on my upper lip, almost as though it were summer. Somehow, a hot cup of coffee was still appealing by the time I got up to the shop. I settled in by the window and read through Rick Steves’ recommended walking tours. I wondered if the people around me thought I was nerdy, lucky, or both.

Properly buzzed and filled with a better sense of both Paris and my own neighborhood, I returned home and finished my skirt.

I’m not about to tell you I used all the right techniques here, or that it exemplifies a good deal of skill, but here’s what I’m most excited about: this is the first skirt I’ve made that truly fits me! And it has pockets, and it’s the perfect length, and it holds its shape, and it just looks like summertime.

On not being Mary Poppins

2011-01-29T21:52:00.000-08:00

The wind did not blow me here. I cannot make rooms clean up themselves. I do not own a carpet bag. And Lord knows my singing does not put children to sleep.

I am not Mary Poppins, but somehow, this house is clean. The children are asleep. I have no energy, but right now I have wine, and that'll do.

I am in the midst of a 10-day "super aunt" situation. Today is Day 6.

And my "spoonful of sugar" was to let my nieces and nephew choose something fun they wanted to do while I was here. William wanted to watch Indiana Jones. Rachel wanted to bake a red velvet cake. Rebecca wanted to make cut-out cookies in the shapes of sea creatures.

Having been an aunt for more than half of my life, I have had a lot of time to think about the kind of aunt I want to be. Those early years of aunthood proved to me that I couldn't be the kind who gave the really cool birthday gifts, or even the money card. I was in college by the time some of them started to notice, and though I wanted to give cool gifts, I didn't really have that kind of cash laying around. That's why I quickly worked to establish myself as the Baking Aunt. I think it was a good move on my part. Sure, sometimes they'll ask me if I brought them something when I come over, but I can say, "Yes! I did! I brought my cookie cutters!" And they're just as delighted as if I brought them Calico Critters or Transformers.

That's why my nieces' baking requests were ones that I wholeheartedly agreed to grant during my stay. And today was our day for the cookies. (And also the day for William to watch Indiana Jones so I could enjoy some early morning solace.) After the Saturday chores were done, Rebecca and I cut out sea creature cookies, and added a few of Rachel and William's requested shapes. We used my mom's recipe for the dough, and we ate a few of the stray pieces. While the cookies baked, Rachel phoned a couple neighborhood friends and asked them to come at 2:30 for a decorating extravaganza.

Every time I mix the powered sugar, milk and food coloring for the icing, I think of the time Rebecca asked me, at age five, if I was making "angel cereal."

Over the years, the cookie decorating has gotten more efficient and neat. I do kind of miss the days of the dumped sprinkles and patchy icing, but this never ceases to be one of my favorite activities with them. Toys come and go, but these are the things we will always share.

10 days. Fun. Exhausting. Almost over.

A feeling no one can ever reprise

2011-01-14T13:00:00.000-08:00

The feeling I get from eating exquisite food on a Saturday evening, sharing with friends, in celebration of friends – it’s a feeling of thankfulness for being able to afford said food and, most of all, for having dear people in my life. I feel quite blessed.

"Is this my birthday?" he asked.

And the feeling of accomplishment that comes from baking Julia Child’s gâteau a l’orange et aux amandes, or just from smelling the combination of butter, almond and orange intensifying during its 30 minutes in the oven, or from being praised by foodie friends for having made such a confection: I could live off those good feelings (and frankly, the cake itself) for days.

Featuring apricot glaze with pulverized almonds.

But clicking “Confirm” to book our tickets to Paris: THAT was a feeling that produced goosebumps, nervous energy and excitement. Our hearts beat happily, our feet danced jumpily, and our Pernod-scented mouths sing-songily exclaimed, “We’re going to Paris!”

French toast!

The song “April in Paris” asserts that a person never really knows the charm of spring or the warmth of an embrace until they’ve visited the city during that month. That’s a pretty mighty claim. But I am more than delighted to report back as to whether this is true, since that’s when we’ll be there.

As of now, though, I already feel different. One of my new year’s resolutions was to only allow myself one day per month to be grumpy (this is especially key during the winter months). But now I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever need to use my G-days. Even this morning, as I dragged our garbage can through the mud and nestled it in a pile of stale snow on the side of the road, I didn’t stomp off to the car in disgust over the mid-January forecast. When I eat a 40-cent baked potato for dinner or peanut butter on stale bread for lunch, I dine happily, knowing it’s only temporary as I save up for the meals I will eat in the land of wine and cheese. Paris is already making a Pollyanna out of me.

Knitting in the round

2010-12-26T17:45:00.000-08:00

I would like to belatedly wish you a Merry Christmas.

Just a quick little post to share a quick little project I started last month and completed in time for a Christmas package.

I had never thought about the practicality of baby legwarmers until Joel got back from visiting some friends in California who have a several-month-old baby. Outings in the Baby Bjorn can leave those soft, chubby legs vulnerable to the elements without the proper precautions, so rather than take off the onesie, why not just add some cozy coverings? Genius! Here I was, thinking legwarmers were purely a retro fashion statement. Now I am a believer (speaking of which, I recently discovered a "new" song I'd like to never hear again).

As soon as Joel mentioned that I might like to make some to send to his new little friend, in a matter of days we were back on a plane to California for a memorial service for my dear uncle. I think many knitters would agree that knitting is therapeutic. It's an activity that, when it doesn't require checking the pattern, when you can just knit in the round over and over, allows you to just dedicate all your thoughts toward one thing. This was indeed a nice way for me to spend a few hours on a plane, thinking about memories with Uncle Tim, about the lives that he touched beyond our family lines, about the void we all now feel. And then I would think about the little person for whom I was knitting - a 4-month-old who is bringing so much joy to his parents and the people around him.

Besides that, I find it rather entertaining to bring a knitting project on a plane. On more than one occasion I've caught passengers sitting opposite me in a trance over my needles. Or people will say something like, "They let that through security?"

The hat just worked out as part of the package. I had some leftover yarn and a hankering to try out ear flaps, and it came out kind of huge, i.e., it almost fit my head. But these are the things babies can grow into.

Total turn-off

2010-12-18T13:41:00.000-08:00

Maybe you've got "Hotel California," "Devil Went Down to Georgia," "Don't Stop Believin'," and "Total Eclipse of the Heart" on your list of songs you'd like to never hear again. The general public knows these have been played (and sung) far too much.

But for this post, I'd like to share with you songs that much of the general public doesn't mind. For me, though, these are songs that I would love to turn off for the rest of my life, songs that have actually caused me to leave a room. When they get stuck in my head, they absolutely ruin my day. They are the reason I get a little anxious any time I walk into a karaoke bar. Call me melodramatic, neurotic, whatever, but I've given this quite a bit of thought, and though the list is small, it is powerful.

Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd: For some, it's just a feel-good tribute to the South. For me, though, just the thought of this song creates so much stress in my body that I find it difficult to write about. Why? I'll admit, I can't pinpoint my exact repulsion, but I could begin by pointing out that this song consists of three chords, over and over, in case you've never noticed that before. This aids in its earwormability. It's also the musical equivalent to the middle finger, directed at Neil Young by L.S., in response to a couple of his songs that offended these boys. Musical conversations in a historical context can be intriguing, but I feel like Lynyrd Skynyrd (even their name bothers me) adds passive aggression with an extra layer of arrogance. Combine that with just the right amount of ambiguity, which they do, and they've got themselves a lot of listeners misinterpreting the lyrics and missing the point. I think that's just lame songwriting. The song's one redeeming quality: the opening guitar line. I can recognize it within one note and turn it off before it gets stuck in my head.

Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffett: The concept could have been fun. A guy on the beach with his parrot (likely his only friend), singing about taking it easy in a postcard-perfect location. But from the moment Jimmy starts "nibblin' on spongecake," I am completely grossed out. Jimmy Buffett is not someone I would ever want to walk in front of, regardless of whether I'm a tourist "covered with oil" or covered with every piece of clothing I own. I just know he's going to undress me with his drunken eyes one way or another to escape his problems, which, judging by this song, could range from high cholesterol to low standards.

My Way by Frank Sinatra: So this isn't a bad song, per se, but geez! When else is this song appropriate except for at a funeral? I remember the first time I heard it I was about 10 years old. I got a gigantic lump in my throat that I was too embarrassed to release into sobs, though I could have, easily. The thought of Frank dying and of him saying goodbye to the world like this was just too much for me to bear, though it would be two, maybe three decades after recording this song that he actually died. And you know what song was featured on all the tributes? Bingo. And you know who cried? This emotional old soul who, to this day, has never stopped being sad about this song.

We've Only Just Begun by the Carpenters: There's a specific brand of "sad" that exists in music from the 1970s and 80s. I'm pretty sure the piano is the common denominator, as well as any mention of a "theme," usually. Think of The Theme from the Ice Castles, Nadia's Theme, even the theme from Cheers. Then we have The Carpenters. They didn't need a theme - this was simply their style. They nailed this sound with pretty much every ballad. Even their upbeat songs had an air of melancholy to it. "Close to You" is about falling in love, but the piano intro could confuse you into thinking the romance was in the past. But the absolute saddest "song of celebration" from The Carpenters was "We've Only Just Begun." I'm certain this song was played at lots of weddings, not funerals, but every time I hear it, I can only think of the tragedy of dying young. For whatever reason, when I heard about what happened to Karen Carpenter when I was a child, it really bothered me. She was beautiful, her alto voice was comforting to so many, she had "so much of life ahead," but she died from complications of anorexia. Cue the seriously sad piano and clarinet intro: she'd only just begun. For my tender heart's sake, please spare me this irony.

The Joker by the Steve Miller Band: I actually do like Steve Miller's voice. And I might have liked this song if I hadn't first heard it in junior high, when the guys in my class were starting to really appreciate the line, "Really love your peaches, wanna shake your tree." Oh man, they loved it. They repeated that line and then would follow it up by vocalizing the guitar's wolf whistle gimmick. That bothered me, too, because that's not even how the song goes (the whistle occurs one line later in the song). Now whenever I hear that catchy bass line, I can still hear some of their raspy voices singing it in history class. Maybe the only reason I detest this song is because it reminds me of the year my romantic notions about nice boys, like the ones I read about in Anne of Green Gables and Little Women, began to change. Do the Gilbert Blythe types actually exist? I wondered. Not in 8th grade, it turned out. In my eyes, they had already become perverts at the precious age 14.

Perhaps you detect a theme here. Songs that make me think of death or dirty old men are indeed the bane of my music listening experience. I'm sure there are more. In the last few weeks I've remembered to avoid "Santa Baby" at all costs.

Lest you think I'm a music snob, be assured that there are a number of overplayed songs that I really do love. Even Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" is up there. And despite the resurgence in popularity of Hall & Oates and the overuse of "You Make My Dreams Come True" in movie previews, I'm still happily singing along to it.

Extravagence

2010-12-10T13:28:00.000-08:00

Earlier this fall, I bought a baking stone. Much like my desire to have a dress form, my decision to buy a baking stone had to do with my desire to feel like I'm doing things right. I also wanted new motivation to keep me practicing. The things I don't always have, though, is time and foresight, two things that really help when baking bread. But one weekend in November, I found myself home alone with all the time in the world. And I was a little lonely, too, so I decided that baking bread would provide me with a constant companion that I could later devour as part of a nice meal. So I began on Saturday night with the starter, got up Sunday morning and continued with the proofing, and by around 4 p.m., I was pulling this thing out of the oven.

(Rustic Country Loaf, found in The Best Recipe Cookbook)

Cooking with another person in mind can sometimes mean that some of your favorite ingredients get used less often. In my case, I haven't touched many of my tried-and-true dinner recipes involving dijon, balsamic vinegar, capers, olives or portabellas. So when I'm cooking for just myself, I try to get a few of them in. One of my favorite people to consult in times like these is Lynne Rosetto Kasper of The Splendid Table. She has a beautiful recipe for Chicken Cacciatore that I've been hanging onto, and my solo Sunday night was begging for it.

This was so rich. And it made so much. The chicken became so tender, the olives burst through with their mild tanginess, and I was just in heaven before I even served it up on a plate with rice. I stood at the stove and swooned. These were the kinds of aromas that knock people off their feet when they walk into your house and I was inhaling them directly.

When the rice was done, I lit some candles, turned on my prettiest-sounding record, and arranged everything for a photo.

Maybe this should have felt ridiculous.

But I sat there, happy, drinking my wine, buttering my bread, listening to myself chew, and feeling pretty extravagant.

Oma's dinner rolls

2010-11-29T18:44:00.000-08:00

Many of today's cookbooks and cooking shows are popular because of their hand-holding instructions regarding what the internal temperature should be, how thick to slice or what the consistency should look like. I love Cook's Illustrated (and their various spin-offs) for that very reason. Plus, they tell you the "why" behind everything you're doing, and that can help with other recipes. Sometimes, though, I come across recipes that are so wordy and detailed that I easily lose my place and get bogged down by the verbosity.

But I know I've found myself a good old-fashioned recipe when I read short phrases like "roll like jelly roll" or "bake until done." That's what I got with Oma's recipe for dinner rolls, so I had to call my mom just to go over the game plan, lest I ruin my one contribution to the family Thanksgiving feast. Mom assured me that it's pretty hard to mess these up.

The more I thought about these simple old recipes, the more I realized what they said about the times. These recipes were written for seasoned home cooks and bakers who were familiar with their ovens and didn't need time tables or thermometers. Cooking and baking were part of a daily routine. I also thought about children in the kitchen and the things they would just learn from their parents, things that were never spelled out in recipes. I know my own mom learned a lot that way, too. And then I was thinking how my dad has asked me, "Where did you become such a good cook?" and, after crediting my mother with inspiring me, of course, I've said, "I just follow the recipe," and how my answer could still astonish him, perhaps because he doesn't know how explicit recipes have become in recent years. Perhaps he figures the recipes I read are like the one I'm about to share with you, from the old family cookbook.

Oma's Dinner Rolls
(with my notes in parentheses)

Preheat oven to 375

1 c milk (I used 2%)
1/2 c Crisco
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c sugar
1 c warm water
2 tsp yeast
5 1/2 cups of flour (though I didn't use quite this much, and my mom never does, either)

Bring milk to boil; dissolve Crisco, add salt and sugar; add warm water and yeast; add flour (I started with 3 1/2 and worked my way up). Stir well, refrigerate (put sprinkle of flour on top and cover). (I chilled it overnight.)

Make 3 balls. Roll; spread with melted butter (rolled out to 7"x12-13" rectangle). Roll like jelly roll (length-wise). Cut and put in muffin pan. (Each ball should make 8 individual rolls, though I got a few extra.) Bake until done (started checking at 10 minutes, took them out when they were turning golden).

Hootenannies

2010-11-18T15:48:00.000-08:00

In recent years, owls have become all the rage. I don't care if I'm just following a trend here, because these are just so darn cute. And pretty easy. I just followed the free pattern here. You know what's not easy? Taking a picture of yourself wearing mittens.

These were a gift for my friend Sara, whose birthday party was one for the books. We played a game in the style of Balderdash, but instead of word definitions, we wrote wine label descriptions, guessed which ones were correct, scored points for cleverness, and sipped for about 3 hours straight (there were 12 of us, but still...a lot of wine). After 11 bottles, lots of cheese, crackers and other snacks, the wee small hours featured Steely Dan on the hi-fi, fireside pantomiming and Perrier drinking to help burn off intoxication and over-stuffedness. Nevertheless, Sunday morning featured headaches, as well as a camera filled with photos like this one:

I'd say it was worth it.

"On a much lighter note..."

2010-11-03T07:13:00.000-07:00

After turning my alarm off for the third and final time, it was a quiet morning. Perhaps my only motivation to emerge from the cozy flannel of my bed was the promise of a grapefruit I bought the day before. It was an impulse buy, but I knew its bright smell and mouth-cleansing tartness would be what I needed to get over my post-weekend, “Seriously? I’m getting up for work again?” incredulity. I also thought that by throwing something out of my regular weekday morning routine, like turning off the Today Show and leaving the cereal box in the pantry, the day might seem more exciting.

I wouldn’t say it was more exciting, but it was pretty darn nice. Al Roker’s forecast and Meredith Viera’s completely inappropriate story segues weren't punctuated by my loud cereal chomps. Nope, the early morning television news and political ads were left to be found by other viewers. Instead, I took pictures of my breakfast and enjoyed the sounds of the heater kicking in. I read the Dining & Wine section of the NYT, 21st-century-style, on my phone. Joel joined me at the table and read Time. I drank all my coffee. Then I squeezed all the juice out of my grapefruit and drank it, and wished I hadn't been drinking so much coffee (horribly acidic combo). Even so, it was just the brightest way to begin a cloudy Monday morning.

The elements are coming together, sir.

2010-11-02T12:44:00.000-07:00

Do you know how exhausting it is to make your hobbies fit you just right? I recently claimed the front bedroom as my own so that I could keep all my machinery, yarn, guns (the harmless kind that aid in adhering) and scraps in one place. What started as pure joy in having a Kraft Zimmer (I'll explain the name later) quickly progressed to practical paralysis. I suddenly needed more stuff to make the room work, and thinking about it took a lot of energy. I knew that the first step was to downsize and categorize my stuff, and figure out how to make cute boxes and baskets from Target fit all the essentials. Well, I skipped the first part and just headed straight to Target and bought some cute stuff. Lucky for me, though, I was home sick one day and got so bored that I cleaned out the closet and figured out a way to rearrange the entire room in a way that left a nice big hole for a sewing table. I even vacuumed and dusted the window sills.

So, step two was to type "desk" into Craigslist for a week straight and to e-mail strangers in the greater Spokane area. I knew exactly how high I needed my sewing table to be, and how much leg room I needed in order to work the machine without cramping. I needed it to be a certain length, too, or else my fabric would be falling all over the place. So I bought a desk (with cedar drawers!) that seemed to fit all my criteria from an estate sale. (Creepy/sad line from the guy who sold it to me, as I handed him the cheque: "The estate thanks you.")

I could have stopped there and started on my sewing projects. But when I get an idea in my head of what I think will make my craft-life easier, I really go after it. Even if it means enlisting my boyfriend to wrap me in three layers of duct tape to get it.

I wanted a dress form THIS badly.

After two-and-a-half hours, three-and-a-half rolls of duct tape, a chocolate soda, tender fingers and a stiff neck, I had a custom-made dress form that accurately depicts my broad shoulders and disproportionate waist. I got the instructions from my Custom Knits book. But we had to scoff at the text that refers to the person taping you as the "helper." Your incredibly patient and good-natured boyfriend "helper" actually does the whole thing while you stand still and try to help him cut strips of duct tape until your shoulders are too bound up. By the time he was finishing up the second layer, I was becoming cold and sweaty and uncharacteristically claustrophobic. I also hadn't even considered the fact that I may need to use the bathroom at some point.

Fortunately, I didn't faint, and Joel still has fingerprints. After marking the waistline and then extracting myself from the form (by cutting down the back), we taped it back up and filled the thing with a big package of polyfill. And now I have a duct tape replica of myself to help make the Kraft Zimmer complete.

I call it the Kraft Zimmer because a.) having a "craft room" makes me feel like I should be bedazzling some denim outfits, and b.) "Kraft Zimmer" means "Power Room" in German, and having a room like this does give me a good deal of power and control over what I wear and what I make, doesn't it?

But then there's the wallpaper. Don't get me started.

Colors! Inspired by colors!

2010-10-28T11:42:00.000-07:00

When I lived in Browne's Addition, my favorite walk was from my apartment on Poplar Street up to 1st Ave. by the art museum. It's not a long walk, but it's magical. In the winter, the turn of the century houses along that stretch look like they came straight out of your mantle's light-up winter village. In the spring, the budding trees and tulips always look the happiest of anywhere. The trees in summer make for lush and shady strolls, but you really can't beat the complementary colors of autumn that show up everywhere you look. Red and orange are warm and dusty, but this particular color of yellow gets me every time. On clear days, the leaves filter sunlight much like melted crayons on wax paper do. And on cloudy days, the contrast is like lemons on a gray tablecloth.

I'd like to think the spirit-of-the-season baking equivalent to a scene like this is like spicy, molasses-rich gingerbread with a dollop of zing. Voila.

East-West Ginger Cake with Lemon Cream
from David Lebovitz of Chez Panisse

This recipe uses a whole cup of molasses, a quarter cup of freshly minced ginger, and black pepper. The flavors are somehow still subtle in their spiciness. It's best while still warm with a dollop of lemon cream (make a lemon curd, cool, and fold in some plain whipped cream). I got the recipe for both cake and cream from the Classic Home Desserts cookbook, but you can find the recipe for the cake at Epicurious here.

Big city envy

2010-10-25T13:25:00.000-07:00

I love my first few hours in a big city. Even after deciding on an area to park and walk around, I am overwhelmed by options. Whereas a Wednesday night in Spokane will often find me eating burritos and watching Hell’s Kitchen (I am not ashamed), in Seattle, there’s just…so…much. This last Wednesday night, we were right in the heart of it, eating at an African restaurant just off of Pike’s Place, paging through Seattle Weekly and The Stranger. Every page seemed to feature more than 10 things to do or places to go to – a class to attend, a new restaurant to try, a bunch of great shows you’d have to choose between on any given night. Looking out the window, people were on their way to somewhere, catching busses, hopping on bikes, walking briskly in their leggings and boots. We were about to go somewhere, too - to see Belle & Sebastian, the reason for our trip.

But the first place we went to after dinner was not to the show. We needed to try a cocktail called The Last Word. Oh, look! We can get one of those by just walking down the block. Aaaahh, big city. I love this convenience.

I wanted to go up to people in the bar and tell them how lucky they were. I wanted to say, “At this bar, you can ask for an old fashioned without worrying about the bartender screwing up the proportions!” or “Betcha didn’t even think about adding Red Bull to your cocktail, did you?” (When will people realize that Red Bull tastes like phlegm?) As we were sitting at the Zig Zag Café, drinking slowly to relish the special bevs we just never get in our town, I felt a bit like a country bumpkin, enamored with the glitz and magic of, say, electric lights.

It’s not that we live out in the country or don’t have access to anything, it just takes so much more effort. Driving four hours to see a show is just one example. If we want to drink another Last Word, we will be spending $100 on alcohol because we’ll have to make it ourselves, or come with a recipe and crossed fingers to one of the better-stocked bars (of which we do have a couple, thank goodness). The wonderful things we have, like co-ops, boutiques, and independent movie theaters, are often on the brink of closing (if not already closed), so we do what we can while we can.

But I have often thought that the reason I don’t eat dark chocolate every day is so that I have something to look forward to and appreciate all the more (and also so I don’t get fat). I’d like to think the same rule applies here. Sure, I realize that big city dwellers often love their big cities (please review the opening scene of Woody Allen’s Manhattan), and they probably won’t come to mine and think, “I wish we had this.” That is, until they check out how much I pay each month in rent. HA. So there, big city dwellers.

For those of you interested in requesting The Last Word at your next Seattle night on the town, or in spending a quarter of your monthly rent payment to make several of your own (the Chartreuse alone is nearly $40), here's how it goes:

1/2 oz. gin
1/2 oz. green Chartreuse
1/2 oz. maraschino liqueur
1/2 oz. fresh lime juice

Shake with ice; strain into chilled cocktail glass.

Toddy time

2010-10-17T18:56:00.000-07:00

It's the cure for all colds, temperature-wise or symptom-wise. I don't come from a family of teetotalers, but growing up, it nevertheless felt strange that my parents and grandmother were such promoters of the hot toddy. Hot water, honey, lemon and a jigger of whiskey: nothing could make you feel finer. Now, in my adulthood, a phone call to my mom or dad on a sick day still comes with the typical get-plenty-of list, ending with a toddy prescription. These are the times I can actually hear a twinkle in someone's eye.

Salvatore Calabrese has since been my go-to man when it comes to recipes for after-work tonics and night caps, and his recipe for the hot toddy lends a teeny tiny bit of spice with the addition of a few cloves and a cinnamon stick. I definitely did not wait for my first cold of the season to break out my toddy mug. With a stuffy nose I may have missed these subtle flavor notes (non-stuffy noses often lead to stuffy-sounding food and beverage writing, don't they?).

Welcome to my world

2010-10-13T15:22:00.000-07:00

It's getting cold here. My work building was 59 degrees for most of the morning since they haven't figured out how to heat an old elementary school with any sort of reliability. We're wearing snuggies and pulling out space heaters, standing at the bathroom sink with the water running hot. And yes, eating lunch and reading reports in the warm and cozy capsules that are our cars.

But I don't mean to complain. Nope, just check out that lunch I made for myself. It's hard to see because the sun was shining so brightly on the decadence of my tuna and white bean salad enveloped in homemade, whole wheat pita bread, and I was dealing with a camera phone. Capers, onions, rosemary, lemon juice, celery. I know. My boyfriend's nightmare, but my lunchtime dream come true.

And the pita - oh, the pita. Here's a good lesson: don't listen to Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me when you're making bread. I blame Peter Segal and Carl Kasell for my inattentiveness to the recipe. I had to scrap my first bowl of foamy yeast after I added too much flour. Then I somehow underestimated the length of time it would take to complete the process, though all the waiting times were clearly listed on my recipe. Oh, well. By 9 p.m. on Sunday night, I had 8 beautiful rounds.

Neck comfort

2010-10-07T19:55:00.000-07:00

The Pacific Northwest breeds a certain kind of bundle-upper. People like me love the look of warm scarves, which is great because for half the year, we have an actual reason to wear them. And not just when we're wearing our coats, either. We will keep them on all day. Even the draftiest room can be bearable when you've got a scarf coiling up your neck. And when you're holding out until your house has reached a consistent temperature of 58 degrees before reactivating your furnace, sometimes a girl just needs her knitted goods to get through.

I think a cowl neck is kind of like a dickie for cold weather. It looks like a gorgeous sweater coming out of your coat, but when you take the coat off, you've just got a big sweater necklace. Unlike the dickie, however, a cowl neck looks nice as an outer layer as well. (And that's why dickies are the butt of fashion jokes - the thought of someone wearing only the dickie is not just comical but horrifying. With cowl necks, no one screams when you take off your coat. Usually.)

The designer of this easy pattern took her inspiration from a $700 Burberry cowl neck. That's the blessing of being a knitter - you know better than to spend that much on something you could make yourself, in any color or material you want. This is just a series of big cable chunks, so it doesn't look so much cabled as it does twisted, which lets it overlap nicely on your neck.

My neighbors probably saw me taking this self-portrait. Couldn't pass up the rainy day light.

September the 9th

2010-09-10T22:46:00.000-07:00

For the past several years on Oma's birthday, I've made a recipe of hers that I love. It's my favorite way to remember her. Who knows how many hours she spent with me (not to mention her other grandchildren) at her kitchen counter, letting me spread butter over sweet dough or mix up streusel with my fingers. Decades later, doing those same things in my own kitchen bring me into a sort of sensory nostalgia, and bring her right back.

Knowing that I had a P.E.O. meeting that fell right on Sept. 9, and being that this was a women's organization to which Oma belonged for years and held close to her heart, I knew that bringing a few plates of Kuchen - in this case, Streusel, Apfel and Pflaum Kuchen- would be the most appropriate things share with the women there on what would have been Oma's 106th birthday.

When I arrived at the meeting, a woman I hardly recognized walked up to me and said, "I'm Barbara! Remember me? From Chicago? Wheaton?" Suddenly I remembered this woman, whom I had met 3 years ago at one of our Christmas parties. At the time she had just moved to Spokane from Wheaton, Illionois, and I happened to be planning my own trip to nearby Chicago and was even considering the prospect of moving there. She had given me a list of recommendations of places to visit, even the name of a friend should I need a place to stay. Since my family lived in the area shortly before she moved to Wheaton in the 1970s, we had much to discuss. So here she was again, visiting our chapter for the first time since that party, and she said she had finally started settling in after a couple years of traveling with her husband on business.

Part of the reason I've loved making Kaffee Kuchen so much is because it reminds me, as I've even mentioned before on this blog, of how Oma used it to get out of her slump and get out to meet her neighbors in the first weeks after moving from Chicago to Boise. As I continued talking to Barbara that evening at the meeting, she specifically told the difficulty it is to meet her neighbors here. "They all keep to themselves," she said. "It was so different - and so much easier - in Wheaton."

It was as though Barbara was specifically planted at that meeting so that I could share a great story about Oma, who was once in nearly the exact same situation. Before leaving that evening, we exchanged e-mails, and I promised to send her the recipes to use for her own neighborhood meet and greet.

Nice to know that Oma's Kaffee Kuchen are still bringing people together, isn't it?

Workers' benefits

2010-09-06T11:20:00.000-07:00

Why it's good to work on Labor Day

1. It just seems appropriate, doesn't it?
2. My 20 minute commute becomes 15.
3. Labor Day TV is the worst.
4. I bring in a plate of muffins and I'm a hero.
5. Then everyone says, "Let's get pizza for lunch!" as a reward for working.
6. There's no post-3-day-weekend let-down.

So, I'm relishing my day in the office. But if you're one of the lucky ones who gets the day off, I hope you're relishing it, too.

About the muffins above, they are the homey oatmeal raisin ones you can find on thekitchn.com. Even on a work day, it's a quick little recipe that uses stuff I would have used in my breakfast, anyway. And they disappeared pretty quickly in a nearly empty office.

Last weekend

2010-09-03T16:07:00.000-07:00

There was still just the faintest hint of summer in the air. After a gnarly windstorm, it seemed as though the warm weather was blown south and out of my life for the next I-don't-want-to-think-about-how-many months. But there were still things to remind me the season was not quite over.

I'm still waiting for YOU, Cherokee Purples.

And days like today, when I take off my cardigan after getting in the car, are days that give me hope.

But I must admit, the last few days of wearing slippers and long sleeves, eating chili and knitting cowl necks, also gave me hope that I might not complain when the cooler days come, after all (in case you couldn't tell by where my mind was in the last post).

Still, I think I need a few more plates like these, and maybe just one more dip in the river, and two ore three last bare-legged days, and I promise I'll be in a good mood this fall and winter.

Christmas is coming

2010-08-30T10:23:00.000-07:00

Monday morning, 6 a.m.

2010-08-16T12:05:00.000-07:00

You know these kinds of things are meant to be when you're shopping at a store you usually don't go to and you see King Arthur whole wheat flour on sale, and your boyfriend asks you that same afternoon, "What are these for?" referring to a bag of raisins that's been sitting in the pantry for months, slowly dwindling down with each bowl of oatmeal (which was my answer, though I firmly believe that everyone should just have a bag of raisins on hand).

It was all leading up to my early morning foray into the world of English muffins. I saw this post on The Kitchn and thought, why wouldn't I? Though I had to get up a whole hour earlier than usual, I miraculously woke up without an alarm. Also, I must say that kneading a ball for 5 minutes is a great way to wake up. You can just kind of lean over with sleepiness onto that mass of dough, over and over. It's mindless and therapeutic. Kind of like a kitten who's got its eyes mostly closed and is purring and kneading on a pillow (the kind of thing I think about when I'm sleepy, obviously). I also did myself a favor by putting the dry ingredients together before bed last night. I did myself an extra favor by doing my pilates mat workout while waiting for the dough to rise this morning. I even had time for a quick shower before cutting out the muffins. I was feeling on top of the world before I even put them in pan.

And while they were cooking, I went out to check the weather and water my garden. When I came back inside, my coffee was ready and I had time to drink most of it without putting it in a travel mug. This is always a key element to a good day.

I made mine a little smaller than I think most people expect to see them, but I like them this way because either you feel good for just having one, or don't feel that bad for having one more.

As recommended, these are delicious straight out of the pan, but I toasted mine for extra crunch (though they're a little tricky to get out of a pop-up toaster) and put a small bit of butter and honey on it. Goooood morning.

Zucchini meltdown

2010-08-11T09:55:00.000-07:00

Everyone has zucchini to share these days. Well, except for me. But I gladly accept any squash a person would care to off-load. The other day, I entered the office breakroom to find a table full of long green and yellow goods from someone's garden with a note that said "Enjoy!" I grabbed a few on my way out that day and started thinking about what to do with them. Zucchini bread is always my first thought. But then Smitten Kitchen had nice little recipe for a zucchini pasta dish, so I decided to try that first. I added a little bacon and sauteed scallions, and it was quite good.

Later, I was ready to begin my next quest: this delicious and somewhat strange recipe for Zucchini Bread on 101 Cookbooks. I was sold on the crystallized ginger and curry powder additions. I readied the ingredients and began grating the leftover yellow summer squash from dinner. Then I grabbed the zucchini. Grate, grate, grate. Instantly I began smelling a rather cool aroma and noticed an exceptionally wet grate box.

I have never been more angry at the sight of a cucumber than I was at that moment.

How did I not realize this ahead of time, I will never know. Feeling foolish for searching for the ultimate way to use up my free zucchini only to find I should have been looking up recipes for Pimm's Cup, I quickly grabbed my purse and went to the store at 10 p.m. to BUY zucchini.

But it was worth it. This is the absolute best late-night zucchini bread I have ever made.

And worth the wait, all the way to breakfast time.

My color palette

2010-07-28T18:22:00.000-07:00

I swear I had no idea that I was perfectly matched with this bag until I took the picture.

It's a little ridiculous. You'll be hard-pressed to find colors in my wardrobe that aren't blue, green, brown, yellow or cream. Kind of murky, really. I bought a red and white striped shirt not long ago and, as cute as it is, it never feels quite right on me. The mother of one of my high school friends is one of those people who tells you what season you are, what neckline you should wear, and what shape your jewelry should be. I remember her telling me that I was "spring," and that I should wear V-necks and oval jewelry. I'm not sure how closely I've followed her advice, but at least I know what I like.

In any case, this bag is a gift, so I won't be adorably matching with it beyond this photo. It only took me about a week of half-hearted knitting sessions to make it (i.e., watching a foreign film with subtitles while knitting only results in both losing the plot line and losing my place in the pattern. Not a good combo.), so perhaps I'll make more. I even did my own math to figure out the spacing for the handles, becuase I made mine a little smaller than the pattern. I'm a little bit proud of myself for that part.

The pattern, if you're interested: Fantasy Naturale Market Bag

And the yarn I used: Knit One Crochet Too Ty-Dy Cotton in Gold Rush

Multiple choice for hot summer nights

2010-07-12T11:00:00.000-07:00

These two things...

a. were an impulse buy.
b. make quite the pretentious pairing.
c. are delicious, each on their own.
d. become simply magical when combined.

Answer: all of the above, of course, but for this particular post...

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

D, all the way.

There's a meetin' here tonight

2010-07-05T10:06:00.000-07:00

All of us kids have heard the beloved family legend that Dad was one of the Brothers Four (with his three brothers), a popular folk quartet from the 1950s and 60s.

Photos of Dad from those years were not much different from the album covers. For example:
(I think he was about to sing "Michael, Row the Boat Ashore" right here on Lake Michigan.)

It was easy to imagine him holding a bass or a banjo and singing "Greenfields," and it was especially fun to pretend that I was the daughter of a faded celebrity who have up his fame to be a dad. Even though Dad knew we knew he was joking, he always did a good job of bringing up the glory days of the Brothers Four from time to time.

This explains what led me to create this embroidered t-shirt for him this year for Father's Day.

I felt that if the Brothers Four ever did have a reunion tour, they would have embroidered mementos like this. And I figure, if Dad ever wears this, people might ask him who the Brothers Four are, and he can continue the legend.
While stitching, I had a heck of a good time listening to these old folk songs, some by The Brothers Four, others by the Kingston Trio, the Limeliters and the New Christy Minstrels. If you've seen A Mighty Wind, you'll realize they got this genre spot-on after listening to these groups. They sang about Tijuana jails, quaint little taverns, sailing on the Sloop John B, what you'd find at the end of a rainbow, and how to say goodbye in Jamaica - sometimes in simple three-part harmony and instrumentation, or, like in the case of the New Christy Minstrels, in robust, hootenanny-like groups. They often prefaced the singing with spoken tales, and repeated the choruses enough times to induce sing-alongs.

After an hour or so of listening to this stuff, I was convinced that if a Brothers Four reunion tour existed, I very well may go.

See if you can pick out my dad in this clip:

Hairpins: Heaven Sent

2010-07-02T13:08:00.000-07:00

Fresh from the gym on a hot day - can you blame me for wanting to deck myself out in polyester? Well, you should. While this may have screamed "summer" a few decades ago, these days it screams "craft project!"

I found this flouncy little number at Goodwill after reading about this project in Readymade that practically requires loud polyester in order to create adorable hairpins. I know, like anyone needs hairpins. But it's summer, and while you won't find me in polyester (never say never, right?), you will often find me with my hair up. Why not throw a little synthetic flair to it?

This project was so easy that I didn't even bother to clear off the table to do it. I started things off recklessly by working right over my laptop.

You start by cutting out three circles in descending size. The biggest one was about 1.5". After I had 3 sets of 3 circles, I lit a tea candle and grabbed Joel's needle-nose pliers, which happened to be sitting conveniently nearby. As instructed, I had a bowl of water next to me in case the 4th of July came a few days early in my living room.

All you have to do is to hold each circle near the flame (using the pliers) to get the edges to curl and ruffle a bit. As the fabric got hot, I began to smell the fragrances of the 70s fuming out of it. Specifically "Heaven Sent."

So last night I finished it. Bought some Amazing Goop and a cylinder of beads at closing time at Joann's Fabric, stopped for a root beer float on the way, then found a needle and thread that was also lying around the house (sometimes it pays to not put things away).

And here they are, ready for my next up-do:

Seen in the yard

2010-06-25T12:02:00.000-07:00

This is what I get to see as I walk toward my front door.

And this is what I get to see when I walk out my back door.

This, too. (Remember when they were babies? My, how time does fly.)

It's hard to wait when you see a tiny little strawberry begin to ripen.
But I'm waiting until there are a few more.

Pear Galette

2010-06-22T14:32:00.000-07:00

"J’aime la galette, savez-vous comment ? Quand elle est bien faite, avec du beurre dedans." (I like galette, do you know how? When it is made well, with butter inside.)

How many rainy weekend mornings have inspired me to make pastry dough? Like, lots. I close the kitchen door so as not to disturb the one who prefers to sleep in (yes, I have a kitchen door; I think it's weird yet surprisingly useful, in our case) and page through a couple of my favorite books. A recent go-to of mine is a heritage baking book that Joel's sister-in-law sent back with me after our last visit. It's got some lovely old-fashioned recipes for such things as shoo-fly pies, brown betties, crumbles, and bee-sting cakes, all of which are right up my alley. This free-form pear galette was my latest sampling from that book.

Though the dough was not the easiest for me to work with initially, it held together in the end. I think I underused the food processor, for once. But as I said, it still worked. So all in all, a success, at least for French children who have penchants for butter. There were five tablespoons of the stuff inside this 9-inch round, with an extra two drizzled on top of the pears for good measure (with a sprinkle of sugar on top of that, of course). The crust stayed crisp and flaky, and even after sitting overnight, it never became soggy.

New booties

2010-06-15T12:39:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gentlemen, we have entered an era of just the cutest children ever. I'm not joking. I usually expect to use my "How darling!" line with about 1 out of 5 or so babies I meet, because it's vague enough to allow the mother to think I'm complimenting the baby's looks, when really I'm referring to the pom-pom buttons on the baby sweater. She never needs to know, right? But in the last year, I've practically retired that phrase, and now most of my exclamatory baby statements are along the lines of "He's/she's so...cute!" or "Wow, this is actually a pretty baby!" No fudging the truth, no vague niceties; just utter astonishment of these adorable little wonders.
I'm excited to see what the next batch of babies holds, as I have a few friends who are due in the next few months. For the sake of the world, I hope this precious-little-pea trend continues.

In the meantime, this pair of booties was the perfect thing to knit up on the long Memorial Day weekend, mostly because, after finishing them, I still had some weekend left.

This yarn is soft as baby feet, though I can't tell you what kind (of yarn, that is), because it was in my scrap stash. I couldn't stop touching these things, twirling them around my finger, admiring how easily they shaped up - and held their shape - without much trying. I also couldn't stop thinking about baby feet, and how they are so short and thick, while still appearing as incredibly dainty versions of their future size 9 dogs. How feet could possibly fit into such little booties is simply beyond my understanding. But they do.

My only regret is that I couldn't do the same project in my size (the aforementioned "size 9 dogs") in so little time.

I found the pattern on Ravelry, but you can get it here.

Armchair travel

2010-05-24T21:54:00.001-07:00

My 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Mink, is to blame, or to be credited, for many things that would develop in my life past age 8. It was in her class that I wrote some of my most creative writing about the state of Rhode Island (which led to an uncommon knowledge of Roger Williams and Cliff Walk), painted some beautiful watercolor sunsets (complete with a wolf silhouette in the foreground), and developed a love for letter writing and postcard collecting. Needless to say, she was one of my favorite teachers and I wanted to be just like her. That was the year I wrote to one of my children's magazines for a penpal and was assigned to correspond with a girl from Indiana, with whom I would exchange letters well into my high school years.
But one of the most tangible things I got from my year in 3rd grade was the start of what would be my own sizable postcard collection.

I was cleaning out some drawers recently and wasn't sure what to do with this shoebox full of my postcards. Some of them were written personally to me. Some of them were given to me by people who knew I collected, with no note or postage. Others were from the times I would periodically raid my parents' or Oma's mail for the colorful cards from their missionary or jet-setting friends, marked with strange stamps and lovely cursive handwriting.

From my father I get my love for sentiment, but from my mother I get my desire to be free of clutter, so with those opposing traits I came up with a compromise for dealing with this collection. These are the reasons a blog comes in handy. I can document this collection before disposing of it or dropping it off to my local postcard peddler.

To begin, a postcard from my brother, Rich, and his wife Sally, written somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, where he notes that it is 9 p.m. Chicago time, but 4 a.m. German time. He also notes that this is NOT the actual plane they are sitting on. Promises to send more postcards when they arrive.

More than anyone else in my family, they fostered my postcard collection. They were probably also the most well traveled. I was 11 years old when Rich wrote this. He was 29. This was undoubtedly a unique way for an eldest child to correspond with his youngest sibling.

This one was from Mrs. Mink herself. She and her husband had an enjoyable weekend in Northern Idaho, which was a place that this southern Idahoan kid viewed as a different state entirely. Little did I know it would take me 15 years before I ever visited Lake Pend Oreille myself.

This postcard, sent from Great Falls, did not really dispel my belief as a 7-year-old that the state of Montana was purely comprised of cowboys and wildlife. I was sure that when my godparents and their daughters (one of whom wrote me this card) moved there that the only means of transportation was on horseback. This only made me think that perhaps mule deer buck were another option. Also not helping: "I saw a moose. I am camping in a camp. Love, Abby."

A note from my sister, who spent a summer here with Campus Crusade. She has heard that Mom and Dad are letting me stay HOME ALONE and has concluded that I must be feeling pretty grown up. She also notes that the beach water is like bath water...warmer and saltier than our pool. I remember when she sent this to me and how much I loved the colors. Purples and pinks with twinkling lights contributed to its high ranking, and it was one of my favorites for years. I don't think I ever noticed until now that it was basically hotels, highways and parking lots. Not much beach.

My dad climbed to the summit of Pike's Peak on October 24, 1992, and had this postcard stamped for me when he got there. "I made it, 4301 m - 14.110 ft." it says.

One of my most prized possessions. An autographed Sesame Street postcard from Bob. Remember him, the piano player/singer/all-around lovable guy? Another gem from my eldest brother, who met him while in New York.

"Hamburg is the Chicago of Germany! Exciting, prosperous," writes my Uncle Art, who was there to make a big speech at a conference.

To this day, this is the image that first comes to mind when someone mentions Kenya. It was sent to my family by a missionary. She'd had an extremely difficult year in Tanzania where she experienced severe health problems, none of which were specifically mentioned. She thus moved to Kenya to live and work in the slums of Nairobi, and her health returned. It would be many years later before I realized that Nairobi was actually a big city with a metropolitan skyline. The curse of postcards, I guess - using a single image to sum up a place gives people serious misconceptions.

"I miss you lots. And we just arrived!" wrote Laura, my best childhood friend. The rest of her message was about her cousins' cats.

That Mrs. Mink. She had no idea.

Many many more of these are posted on my Flickr account, complete with messages as I can decipher them.

The Socialite

2010-05-13T09:07:00.000-07:00

Every summer for the last 3, I have been making summer lists. The first time I made one, nothing was accomplished on it because I was bummed out that friends were leaving and everything had a hint of melancholy to it. I called it my "Summer Bummer" list as many items were prefaced with the phrase "one last" or "last ever."

You might say the following summer was the complete opposite as I built the list with someone who was as excited about summer as I was. Also, I think think the pupils in my eyes were heart-shaped. "Summer Bummer" became "Best Summer Ever" - it pretty much was.

Now whenever May rolls around, I start thinking about my list, trying to top the "best-ness" of the prior year. Road trips, day trips, festivals, concerts, seasonal food celebrations, and lake swimming always make their way on there. So does "make a dress."

This year, though, I jumped the gun a little. On May 8, I made my first full dress.

The pattern is called "The Socialite Dress" by Anna Maria Horner. She is a genius. Reading her patterns is like reading regular English. It's like my mom telling me what I need to do and why. Maybe too simplistic for some, but for a beginner like me, it's fantastic.

Another nice thing is that this really was just a simple dress. I literally finished it in the better part of an afternoon. I wear a belt with it for a little extra definition.

I also have huge issues with using the self-timer. Hope you've enjoyed these action shots.

When you feel like felting

2010-05-11T17:10:00.000-07:00

Once you've knit and sewn it all together, it's almost the size of a lap blanket. (Where's a quarter for size comparison when you need one?)

Then, you take a trip to the washing machine. When it comes to washing machines, I am 28 years old and still in the dark as to how these things work. I was extra nervous about this particular machine because I'd never felted with a front load washer before. People talk about "spin cycles," but there is nothing on my machine that says it in those terms. It also was not clear how to stop the cycle and open the door at any point. It is crucial that you are fully aware of both of these things before you start, because if you get to the spin cycle and you don't stop it, you will ruin your work. Ugly creases become permanent, totally screwing up your shaping. I studied the front of the machine for about 15 minutes, trying to understand its mysterious system of dials and knobs. After I figured out enough of what I needed to know, I went for it, turning the dial to "hot wash" for the first time in my life.

It seems fitting to mention here that this was a gift to my mom for Mother's Day, because the whole time I watched this thing flop around inside the machine, I think I might have felt the way a mother feels when she lets her child walk to the bus stop alone for the first time. There was comfort in knowing that I could monitor it from a safe distance through the machine door window, but I knew that I just needed to let it do its thing, and it would all be okay.

Here is the slightly shrunken version - no wrinkles, no color bleeds, no weird spots that didn't felt properly. Felting felt like magic. The only thing I don't like about felting is the constant whiffs of wet dog smell that sticks around for the first few days, due to the soggy wool.

Once it dried, I added on these happy circular bamboo handles, kept in place with thicker embroidery thread. It's called an "overnighter" because you probably shouldn't put anything heavier than pyjamas, a toothbrush and a paperback in it. You could also safely and easily fit a towel, sunscreen and a beach read. Whatever suits my mom's fancy.

Revisiting my closet

2010-05-07T16:50:00.000-07:00

My bedroom closet is a mausoleum for dead craft projects. Shoebox coffins contain half-knit sweaters, partially-sewn dresses, and dish towels left to rot without their anticipated embroidered embellishment, resting on top of glittery ashes. Crepe paper and floral wire lie suffocated in a Ziploc bag, never to reach their botanical entelechy. Skeins of yarn, once bright and enticing in the warm light of a yarn store, are carefully preserved in plastic tombs, far from the light of day.

I guess the death metaphor is overly dramatic. These things don't die, of course - they are just left waiting for the moment I have time and inspiration to revisit them. But it's still kind of sad.

About a week ago, I finished a bigger craft project that I swore I would keep working on before starting anything new (lest it meet its fate in the Craft Cemetery), so suddenly I was freed up to do something easy and comparatively quick.

So, I returned to those dish towels I mentioned.

This was mostly completed in a couple hours, late on a Tuesday afternoon, around the time the sun hits a nice spot coming through the window.

It must be dish towel season, because for my birthday, my mom sent me a lovely bundle of dish towels that she, my Oma, and even my great-grandmother made years ago. They put mine to shame, but it's clear where I get my love of needle and thread.

Campaigning

2010-05-05T16:20:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I'm just clever enough to incorporate "cutting parties" (not that kind) at work.

With a departing president and a senior class that (smartly) decided to raise money for a scholarship in his honor, a new kind of craft was suddenly on the horizon: stickers! These could have been made into fantastic buttons, but these were cheaper and faster to make, and I needed cheap and fast in order to get the seniors to wear them at various events last weekend (at which said president would be present).
Sticker creation is not part of my job description per se, but it is implied when it comes to generating excitement for student giving. I got REALLY excited about this sticker, especially because, being the low-tech employee I am, I had nothing but MS Publisher and Paint - yes, Paint - to create these. Bring it, WordArt! And, once printed, I found this to be a perfect opportunity to purchase a circle cutter.

As you can see, I went with a political campaign look, because there's no easier way to make someone look iconic than to remove his/her neck and/or body to leave a simple floating head, along with some key text above and below.

See the inspiration?

Fleischmann's Yeast Hour

2010-04-04T22:53:00.000-07:00

There are certain types of music I prefer to listen to while working in the kitchen, specifically when it comes to baking. You may not believe me, but I'm perfectly willing to swear that I get better results when I surround myself in as much sweetness as possible. For instance, folding chocolate chips into dough requires a voice that's sweet and smooth, even a little smoky, like Jo Stafford, or a wistful clarinet solo like the ones you'll get from Benny Goodman. Listening to the old stuff also reminds me that it's good to take my time and to put a little extra care and tenderness into the process. I start thinking of old kitchens and the ladies who wore curlers and flour-dusted chiffon aprons and listened to their radios and didn't think about calories.

It's especially true when I play the Mills Brothers. Three- and four-part harmony, and lyrics about lazy rivers and rockin' chairs are the perfect companions to my Sunday morning baking, and during the hours of waiting for dough to rise. And apparently more appropriate than I realized, since I just learned from Wikipedia that they used to costar with Rudy Vallee on a radio show called the Fleischmann's Yeast Hour. What a name.

Then the aromas begin to waft from the oven into the room where I'm lounging like a grandma, prompting me to put down my knitting needles and check on these little puppies.

(Sticky Lemon Rolls with Lemon Glaze, rather than the cream cheese frosting it calls for)

Here they come!

2010-04-02T18:18:00.000-07:00

"This book is about a quiet town that is turned upside-down when a parade of adorable, fluffy rabbits roll in. On roller skates! I loved seeing all the different places these rabbits could go on wheels. This book really makes you think about how different your life would be if you didn't have to hop around everywhere on your big floppy feet. But don't take my word for it!"
-The pink rabbit's Reading Rainbow style review of Rabbits on Roller Skates, written by Jan Wahl and illustrated by David Allender

Book and bunny are now nestled together in a package, on their way to a small friend of mine in Colorado.

e e cummings

2010-03-23T20:32:00.000-07:00

(all the merry little birds are
flying in the floating in the
very spirits singing in
are winging in the blossoming)

lovers go and lovers come
awandering awondering
but any two are perfectly
alone there's nobody else alive

(such a sky and such a sun
i never knew and neither did you
and everybody never breathed
quite so many kinds of yes)

not a tree can count his leaves
each herself by opening
but shining who by thousands mean
only one amazing thing

(secretly adoring shyly
tiny winging darting floating
merry in the blossoming
always joyful selves are singing)

"sweet spring is your
time is my time is our
time for springtime is lovetime
and viva sweet love"

Bundt I don't want to be grumpy

2010-03-19T11:41:00.000-07:00

I learned from my Oma that if you complain or feel sorry for yourself, you should be spanked or bake something for someone (and ideally get out of the house for a personal delivery), respectively. I bring this up because I was a world-class grump the other night - hungry and tired, achy muscles, burning eyes, and feeling stuck in my routine with nothing to eat but a boring baked potato dinner. I stayed home and sulked pretty much all night until I just couldn't handle it anymore. I knew nothing about my attitude was productive, nor was it pleasant for another person to be around. I decided to visit FoodGawker and put Oma's words to good use.

The baking part, that is.

Presenting: the Brown Butter Banana Bundt Cake with Chocolate Chips.

This is not to say I didn't continue to sulk a little bit (it takes me a little while to get over myself), but it definitely helped to share a cake and pot of tea over a game of cards, with a patient, handsome fellow telling me how delicious this cake was.

And it really was at its best fresh out of the oven with gooey bits of banana and chocolate, and a nice subtle taste of butterscotch from the brown butter. I've been in a good mood ever since.

This thing I've begun...

2010-03-16T19:13:00.000-07:00

Why is it that everyone else seems to have this gardening thing down as though it's second nature? I can't tell you how many times I've visited Google, searching phrases like "how to start tomatoes," "zone 5," "how long does it take for [anything] to happen," and "what kind of soil to use."

To summarize my previous attempts at this sort of thing, the first was spoiled by insufficient warmth, the second by insufficient light. For my third attempt, I made sure there was plenty of both, though it did cost me $45 to make it so by purchasing a heating mat and grow light.

So far, so good.

Every day I come home and see how these happy little living (!) seedlings are doing. It's been about 3 weeks now. Tomatoes, peppers, basil and rosemary. There might be some sage in there somewhere.

On a barely related note, a couple nights ago, I found myself watching a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie, "Shall We Dance," by no means for the first time in my life. The strangest thing about Fred and Ginger is that their romance rarely progresses through dialogue, but rather through movement and unexplained mind-changing (mostly on Ginger's part). They begin a dance with Ginger giving Fred the cold shoulder, and by their final dip, Ginger's smiling and they're in love. They go behind a door as friends, and when the door opens again, they're blushing and giddy. This movie was no exception. There is nothing Fred can say in the first 30 minutes to impress Ginger. Then he finds her walking her dog on a ship, decides borrows some dogs to walk alongside her, and boom, Ginger warms up to him due to his persistence in getting in her line of sight - or was it because her little dog knew better than to resist such a debonair man?

To sing a song like "Beginner's Luck" after a whole 30 minutes of failed attempts to get someone to fall in love with you seems a little boastful and, hello, untrue. But when it comes to gardening, maybe I should take a tip from Fred in being persistent, then acting like it was fate all along when it finally works. Then maybe I'll join the ranks of the know-it-all gardeners. But we'll have to wait and see.

Scene from the laziest Saturday ever

2010-03-01T09:26:00.000-08:00

Here we are, 2 weeks since Valentine's Day, and I'm here to prove that everyday can really be Valentine's Day. All you need is a heart-shaped egg mold and some Cholula sauce.

I also made some granola bars the night before from the recipe on Smitten Kitchen. You really only need an inch by inch square per serving when you add as many chocolate chips as I did. It's rich and rapturous. And totally worth the guff I got from friends for retiring early from Friday night festivities to make them.

Blame Chaucer

2010-02-12T11:11:00.001-08:00

Yes, as a matter of fact, I DO love Valentine's Day. You'd think that having lived 23 of my 28 February Fourteenths without a real sweetheart, I'd loathe the day. But I don't. Sure, at a low point in college I made a Valentine's mixtape featuring Roy Orbison's "Only the Lonely" and Frank Sinatra's "Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry," but even then, I was enjoying the misery of unrequited love. (Looking back, the guy I was pining for wasn't even that cute or interesting. The coolest thing about him was that he made a Guenter Grass t-shirt and wore it nearly every day, at least to German class, which was the only place we ever talked.)

But the point is that this holiday, which could be viewed of decades full of disappointment, is one that I simply don't mind. Nope. I revel in all it has to offer. Like these things:

1. Conversation hearts. Sweet, chalky, stale, nearly indecipherable. Still, yummy and fun.

2. Red and pink. Valentine's Day makes it okay to put those two colors together. In my old apartment, I broke my lease agreement because I so badly wanted a Valentine's Day kitchen (inspired in part by Annie's kitchen in Sleepless in Seattle). The cupboards were pink and white, and everything else was red - red tea kettle, red towels, red clock. When people came over, I knew they doubted the wisdom of my color scheme, but to me, it was just perfect.

3. Mail. Among my favorite days in elementary school was Valentine's Day, when I felt like the most popular kid in school because I had, like, 50 envelopes to open. Before I got to the age when I started reading into the messages from the ones I got from boys, I mostly was excited about the candy inside (see point 1).

4. Roses are always overpriced for Valentine's Day, but tulips are usually making their first appearance in the grocery store this time of year, and they're under $5. And I like them better.

5. A handwritten "I love you" is the nicest thing to read. And if a Hallmark holiday helps you remember to write it on a cold day in February, I'm all for it.

Things my mom taught me

2010-02-09T12:33:00.000-08:00

In honor of her birthday today, an incomplete list: that "boring" is a bad word; the names of birds and flowers; to never go to bed with a sink of dirty dishes; that singing can combat grumpiness; to call a friend for no reason except that you've been thinking about her; how to properly measure flour; the difference between trendy and classy; how to play "Has Anybody Seen My Gal?" on the ukulele; to assume that rude people are just having an off day; the true meaning of JOY.

Happy Birthday, Mom.

Peenk it.

2010-02-05T10:25:00.000-08:00

I'm realizing the items on my birthday and Christmas wishlists are a far cry from the exciting, colorful ones that graced those lists from childhood. These may not be Roller Racers or 10-speed bikes, but man, I'd really like these without having to pay for them myself.

A good pair of pinking shears is, like, $30-50! Is it worth it for fray-free edges? Or for those moments when you want to create charming little mouse pillows like this for Valentine's Day? (from purlbee)

You think those are sweet? Please pass me that tall glass of lemonade for the sweet toothache of an album for all my cutting capers.

Could this be one of my most favorite album covers? I mean, just look at that typeface. This proves that Doris Day is the hunky-doriest for escapists. The look on her face bears no trace of worry for the uprising in Tibet or Castro's march into Havana in 1959. Dor just kicks off her shoes, picks up a streamer and starts skipping. Coincidentally, this album was released on the exact same day the Barbie doll was unveiled to the public. What a world.

Love the process

2010-01-25T13:38:00.000-08:00

This Cuisinart food processor has changed my culinary life. (And doesn't it ever look sinister?)

I love putting things in here and saying to my machine friend, "Okay, just do your thing now."

And by "thing," here's what I usually mean.
1. Cut butter into flour. I do enjoy the laborious process of doing these kinds of things by hand, but I really, really like watching things happen quickly. Watching the dough transform from oatmeal consistency to pea-size clumps, and later to roughly held-together large clumps is hugely satisfying.
2. Emulsify. Perfect consistency for salad dressings and sauces.
3. Puree. As much as I like my blender, there are many things I would never trust it to do. Like mutilating an entire lemon with a bunch of sugar for this Whole Lemon Tart.

Other things I could do, but don't really:
1. Salsas. I prefer chunkier varieties, which I wouldn't recommend undertaking with a food processor, but I bet a salsa verde recipe could inspire me.
2. Slice. Come to think of it, I have never used this feature. Probably because I don't like the fact that you are still left with a large hunk of onion (or whatever you're slicing) at the end because you couldn't push it through the blade. I think a mandolin slicer is a safer bet.
3. Grate. Because I never need THAT much cheese that I couldn't just grate it by hand. But I'm available for parties. I have attempted hash browns with sad results. They shredded perfectly, but cooked up horribly. But blame that on my recipe and lack of patience for letting them fry up in the pan to the proper crispness.

Everything that's wonderful

2010-01-20T09:26:00.000-08:00

Martin Luther King day found me skipping around town in 55-degree sunshine and buying a rainbow's worth of yarn for my next project. On days like that, I can't help but feel a little like Lesley Gore in "Ski Party." Get a load of this sweater!

I've never seen "Ski Party," but now I kind of want to. I'd love to know what the story is with that guy who at times looks repulsed by Lesley (starting at 17 seconds in) but ends up joining in with everyone in singing the chorus at the end. And yes, that's Frankie Avalon sitting next to him, probably trying to give him tips on how to pick up chicks like Annette Funicello. Boy is he going to be surprised when he realizes Annette stayed home on her beach blanket and is nowhere to be found in this movie. Maybe he'll get over it when he finds out James Brown and the Famous Flames perform "I Got You (I Feel Good)" at the lodge!! Unbelievable. Not even joking.

I fear that the days of smart taglines like this may be over.

What is the modern day equivalent of this? Have we not seen anything remotely like it since From Justin to Kelly? And would that even count? I'm waiting for a resurgence of musicals that feature a cavalcade of inappropriately attired women riding on the backs of their boyfriends' skis toward the warmth of implied love-making at the lodge, only to find Lady Gaga singing "Paparazzi."

But back to my original point, this "Sunshine" song is sticky as bouffant hairstyles sprayed in bubblegum AquaNet. It's been in my head for two days. And I betcha every time I look at the yarn I just bought, it will return.

Unfortunately, this knitting project must be kept a secret for now. It's a birthday present. I'll show you after I know it has been received and opened by Mom.

In the meantime, on my list which I can post soon are my embroidery escapades. It's much more fun when you pretend it's scandalous, when really it's just a couple tea towels with adorable stitching. You'll see.

Ready to wear

2010-01-12T19:33:00.000-08:00

My first completed project of the year comes via Ravelry. If you knit or crochet, I highly recommend this place. I haven’t utilized all the features it offers its users, but there are great ways to organize your stash, needles and hooks, and it’s easy to keep track of patterns you like, those you are working on and any you have completed. It is also one of those sites that make you realize you could be doing so much more in your evening craft comas, and that thousands of people have loads more patience than you do. Nevertheless, a wonderful resource for free patterns.

This project was described as “all the rage in Sweden last winter.” Scandinavian endorsement is powerful, let me tell you. That simple phrase inspired a rather vivid mental picture of me frying potatoes in duck fat on a boat with Andreas Viestad in preparation for an outdoor dinner party on the isle of Gotland – both of us wearing whatever was all the rage in Sweden last winter.

Believing a simple kerchief could help me get through another Spokane winter in its ability to give me that native Nordic look, I made it in record time. (For me.) And probably because all I had to do was knit a triangle.

Drab winter wardrobe: meet your festive new friend.

Spring will be here soon. I know, because I just got a sneak peak at the latest Scand-fashion from Huset. So much to look forward to.

(Odd Molly Duvet Rose Dress)

(Stockholm Umbrella Stand)

(Just adorable.)

Here's a little something to accompany your own Scandinavian dreamscape:

Gobbledigook - Sigur Rós

Happy Up Here - Röyksopp

Waterloo - ABBA

Here we are again

2010-01-05T15:23:00.000-08:00

New blog. New year. New decade. New era. It's all so overwhelming.

In times like these when I feel big changes are afoot, I tend to latch on to things that are comforting, old and bright. Like harpsichords.

(Think about it: have you ever heard a sad harpsichord song?)
***update 1/13: I just remembered "Because" by the Beatles. A little depressing, but still very ethereal and wonderful.

There probably will be no posts about the zippery clinky-clang of the harpsichord after this one, but I do want to take a moment to explain why "harpsichordian" is an appropriate word creation to use as my blog title. I'd like to think it describes a person who loves the ways of old and appreciates how they can be re-invigorated in the ways of now. It celebrates how we can use ourselves differently and refine our purpose, while retaining our distinct identity. Just like the harpsichord. See for yourself.

Consider the baroque folks, from forever ago:

Years and years later, electricity brought it back to life.

And then at the beginning of the 21st century, college kids like me were drooling over this song:

In each of these cases, you can't deny that these songs would be useless without the harpsichord.

So, if this be my only celebration of this magical instrument, let it also be my launching pad for discovering things to create, to write about and to listen to, searching for the shiny coin in my pocket that says "new and relevant," while never totally emptying out all the old lint that keeps it warm. (Partially stolen metaphor - thanks, Michael Chabon.)

Finally, I can't resist the urge to make sure I stay focused for once and explain this blog's purpose. With a mission statement. Is that cheesy?

Yes?

Perfect.

Mission Statement: This blog is for creative accountability, for myself and potentially others. I want to share with you the things I have made and am making, documenting a beginning and a date of completion, doing what I can at the moment to fulfill my creative entelechy, with a little music commentary (term used quite loosely) to keep things moving along when I'm otherwise stuck.

And therefore becoming one of the millions of craft and music blogs in the world. Oh, well. Mine's called Harpsichordian.

Even better, a goal.

Goal: To never craft quietly.

After all, harpsichords don't come with soft pedals.