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the friend with food
Molly went crabbing on Christmas eve, accompanied by her friend Renee. Renee sounds like exactly the kind of friend I want, and the kind of friend I want to be.
I like how she captures it here, split by the photo:
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simmering chai
a friend gave me homemade modern chai for Christmas, in a weck jar. isn’t it pretty? It’s my first weck jar, and I pause to admire it while I wait for my oatmeal to boil every morning. This is my second hand-mixed chai to receive as a gift. It’s the best looking thing to have in your drawers for cold afternoons. Simmering milk, water, black tea and bits of other things is totally my style.
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advice from a stranger’s derm.
I liked Rebecca’s swift tips post about her dermatologist’s advice for the great winter dry out. My sister bought me a pot of creamy-pink-super-moisturizing-Clinique-substance for Christmas. in an attempt to not turn out like Nora Ephron, I’ve been slathering it on nightly.
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best brunch forward
I made the orange scented olive oil sticky buns you’ve all been eyeing over at Food52. They were chewy like good dinner rolls with a sticky citrus filling rolled on the inside, seeping out of the bottom and caramelizing in the corners where it had the chance.
But my friend, the other half of the brunch, made Savory Bread Pudding from Tartine and it was all I noticed on my plate. Every bite seemed to be a different mix of eggs and cream-soaked bread, or sauteed mushrooms and thyme, or grated gruyere and chopped ham.
The babies watched and tossed toys at one another, like six month olds know how to do.
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a voiceover seduction
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/34564370]
my friend Kellyn sent me this and I thought it had that just-so touch.
she’s into him; but she’d rather go shopping with her hot french friends, you know…
not safe for work, or most home life: lots of undie shots.
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Catalog stacks
Every few weeks I stack up the ten most recent catalogs we’ve found stuffed in our tiny mailbox, look up their 1-800 numbers, get some nice young one on the phone and say “pleeeze take me off the list.” And they readily agree.
But like a blessed jar of oil, they keep flowing in.
However, while looking at this behind the scenes post by Free People, I was struck by the enormous amount of work some companies put into their catalogs (this one featured was shot in Greece). I can’t resist paging through them, just to see the new colors, the countries they visited, the lovely paper they’re printed on.
Sometimes I wonder where our culture’s master artisans are hiding out. They aren’t all at the craft fairs or on the graphic design blogs as indie business owners. Some of them are surely working away at these commercial monthly frescoes.
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when eating alone
Aleksandra also makes grilled cheese sandwiches with Gruyere and a sprinkling of white wine (before broiling), sliced comice pears sauteed in butter and sugar, coconut sticky rice, pasta with ‘just a little butter, Parmesan and black peper,’ and before bed a mug of hot milk sprinkled with freshly grated nutmeg….
In the winter, I have made hearty salads of smoked mackerel and red-skinned potatoes and accompanied them with braised leeks. I like to saute sausages and eat them with a mound of broccoli rabe, a lemon wedge and olive oil; and assemble platters of prosciutto, mortadella and duck liver pate with a tuft of parsley and caper salad. I might roast carrots and beets, and dip them into ricotta seasoned with olive oil and sea salt.
-Amanda Hesser, Cooking for Mr. Latte (currently reading)
This book is in the guise of a dizzy girl memoir, but it’s actually a beautiful pitch for savoring all the food you eat, and relishing the treats you allow yourself.
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Adieu to Cloth Diapering
Depending on who you’re talking to and how old their kids are, there are conversation trends among new parents.
First, of course, it’s how much sleep you managed to get. Then there are delighted crows when you’ve slept well for a week. Then there are concerned conversations about “sleep regressions,” regressions being bad changes from what just started happening a few weeks ago. When you meet someone new, you find out how old their baby is and pick an appropriate topic. Just got your immunizations? Dreading teething? Rolling over? Smiling all the time?
It’s like the collage days when you had a least three questions ready for anyone you met–major, dorm, professors, sports. I like it. It’s nice to have easy things to talk about with new friends again.
Anyway, you mark off very short periods of time with large markers. This week, after five months, we’ll mark off “cloth diapering.” We used a cloth diapering service because I don’t have my own washer and dryer. I paid them $20 a week, and they picked up our bag of dirty diapers (and cloth wipes!) and dropped off a fresh set. I loved the idea of not throwing anything in the landfill, and it was nice that Lux never got any diaper rash. We’re stopping because we’ll be traveling, and mostly because in our small apartment the stink of seventy wet diapers after a week, is bit intrusive. Especially now that it’s cold and we don’t keep our windows open.
My favorite part was this big fresh stack diapers that came every Tuesday, seventy of them. I’ll miss this pile of newly washed, green-trimmed linens.
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Socks from the Surf Shop
How about this great selection of mens’ socks over at Saturdays? $12 each.
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Cinnamon Sugar Puffs
It was my turn to host some friends and their little babies. Two weeks ago we went first to Ellie’s, who is from England, and she made scones full of chocolate chips. Then we went to Lena’s, from Germany, and she made a tea cake coated in chocolate. Finally it was my turn and I made these cinnamon sugar puffs because Amanda Hesser said they would taste like doughnuts. The hardest part of the whole recipe was remembering to pull the egg and milk out early so they would be room temperature. Over at Food52, they even had a slideshow to entice you into making it.