favorite things: summer school edition.

If I had a regular readership, I may feel obligated to apologize for my absence of late. As it is, I’m still sorry although I’m confident that no one’s week was less fulfilling due to my eerie silence. By way of excuse, I feel compelled to explain that I’m back in school, low on sleep, overdone on socializing, behind on reading, and neck-deep in work. That being said, there is still plenty making me smile when I have a spare moment.

Simple weddings.

The Frugal Traveler does Paris.

 

Strawberries and homemade bread from the market. Duck sandwich at The Reef. Di mare pizza from Ella’s. Mouth-watering recipes for whole wheat crepes (from hogwash). And need I remind you of the wedding…

Friends. From those returning to the Middle East to those moving to Miami.

Promotions.

And finally, an embarassingly easy pattern for knitting a baby blanket (from the purl bee). Hoping for another baby in the family soon…

my secret talent.

My father slung an affection arm around me. “Would you look at that,” he said. The pride in his voice almost palpable. “The girl can pack.”

And it’s true. I really can pack (not a trace of humility in that statement). Whether I’m gone two days or nine days, I always try to use the same carry-on sized bag. While my roommates were infamous for packing a month’s worth of clothes for a weekend, I would throw a gym bag over my shoulder and be waiting for them downstairs, ready for the adventure ahead. I have an oversized suitcase that I use once a year for transporting Christmas presents.

On my most recent trip abroad, I was actually interrogated thoroughly coming back into the country as the customs officer refused to believe I had five days worth of clothes in my duffle bag. Turns out, I had five day’s worth of clothes, several boxes of Cadbury chocolates, assorted gifts from the Middle East, and a couple of vintage Parisian prints.

I’m often asked how I do it. And I’m not sure there is one sure-fire trick, per se. But it’s Memorial Day Weekend, aka, the genesis of all summer travel, and so I feel obligated to attempt to impart at least an overview of my technique.

1. Know your destination. I know I can get away with funkier outfits in New York than I can in St. Louis. And if I’m going to the beach, I’m not going to bother with anything other than knit dresses and swim suits.
2. Know what you like. I tend to pick my favorite outfits du jour when I travel. I don’t mind not having options if I like everything I have.
3. Wrinkle-free is your friend. Not only do you not have to make sure your hotel room has an iron, but wrinkle-free fabrics always seems to pack smaller and lighter.
4. You only need one pair of jeans. Two if it’s cool and you’re gone for over four days. Pick your faves and be done.
5. Remember the last time you had to wait at the baggage claim for 30 minutes. This will be a good source of inspiration.
6. Pack things that can be mixed and matched. My Gap solids (t-shirts and tanks) and always a good bet.
7. Simplify. This can be applied to more than just packing.
8. Chances are that someone will not be toting your bag around for you. Go easy on yourself.

This is common sense. I know! Believe me. But there are very few areas of my life that I practice much common sense, so I take great pride in the these rare occasions… and in the fact that I’ve never had a bag lost by an airline because I carry on.

can you tell i have a bigger kitchen now?

My pie tastes run along the lines of apple and french silk and… does cheesecake count as a pie? That sounds counter-intuitive, doesn’t it? Anyway. I’ve been easing into pie for the past few years. I still draw the line at pumpkin (let the protests begin!), but I’m willing to dabble with other fillings.

Enter A. His absolute favorite is Key Lime Pie. And when a man builds you a bed frame custom made to fit your not-so-queen-sized room, good manners and tradition hold that you make him his favorite pie. Key lime pie made its first appearance on my palette a few months ago when we came across a dessert special at… oh how I wish one of us could remember where we were! Dessert usually isn’t part of the deal when we eat out, but at $2/slice, how could we say no? And I liked it. I really liked it. And once I realized that no, no there aren’t slices of lime baked in there, I started trying to figure out how to make it. I probably would never have come up with lime juice, egg yolk, condensed milk, and lime zest, but that is why god gave us the Internet, right?

I put A in charge of picking a recipe as this was His Pie. He clicked on the first result from Google: The Reluctant Gourmet (who gives a very nice little summary on the difference between key limes and lime limes and then assures you that key limes are not necessary to your happiness). The ingredients were so minimal, I even decided to make the graham cracker crust myself. This was a special pie after all.

As always, I’d like to say that a simple recipe made for a relaxing afternoon in the kitchen, but my greenhorn ways often shine through, which is more than I can say for the green in the pie. While this is a delicious recipe and even gave me an excuse to break out the food processor, DO NOT FEEL OBLIGATED to whisk until it turns light green. I assume you have a life or maybe just a good book you’re hoping to read at some point. Save yourself the headache. Or do what I did and use a blue bowl. The blue bowl combined with the yellow egg yolk will deceive the eye just enough to make you believe you are seeing light green. You probably are not.

Additional tips:

• Practice your egg yolking skills if you are new to the game or even watch a youtube how to video before attempting such culinary acrobatics. You will think it sounds easy. People will tell you it’s easy. You might discover they lied.
• Invest in a juicer.
• If you want to eat it that day, start baking before 9 pm. It does have to chill for 2 hours.

A still has not gotten to eat his thank you pie, but a taste test on the deck this afternoon assures me that green or no green, this pie was made sunshine and blue sky days.

les fraises.

Strawberry season always sneaks up on me. Maybe because supermarkets carry strawberries year round, and, as they were my brother’s favorite growing up, they were often in the house. Some people have strawberries with their ice cream. My brother has ice cream with his strawberries.

I, on the other hand, ate my ice cream plain.

Which makes this strawberry season all the more exciting. This is the first year I’ve ever just been can’t-sit-still-excited about a berry of any sort. It started with jam. At first it was just a mention here and there, but the seed had been planted. And the watering can of the information deluge we live in helped it grow. Suddenly the idea of strawberry jam began to consume me. Visions of baguettes and jam on the porch on a sunny day dance in my head. I find myself inexplicably drawn to the novel Strawberry Fields by Marina Lewycka while browsing Kramers (Au. Note: One of my best impulse buys in quite some time). I even begin to lust after mason jars.

And so, I’m reading everything that comes across my path. My current plan is to ease into this age old tradition in a very new age way–Refrigerated Jam–before working my way up to the more timeless method of canning shared by Bon Appetite and The District Domestic.

But for the time being I’m holding out on jam until I have a chance to pick my own strawberries. Picking the berries myself is an integral part of this process in my mind. Call it my inner-Laura Ingalls Wilder, I suppose. That first weekend in June is looking mighty fine from here…

In the meantime, I have to get my fix in other ways. And I’m quite certain that the only way to pass time waiting for homemade strawberry jam is to make homemade strawberry ice cream. And that’s just what I did. Right down to squeezing the lemon juice myself.

I’d like to say I pulled off my first my first batch of ice cream like a seasoned pro, but this blog is a place for stories not tall tales. There may have been one or two panicky phone calls wondering why it looked more like strawberry drink than strawberry ice cream. And no number of assurances from A that it was the best strawberry drink he had ever tasted were making me feel any better. I grabbed blindly into the cabinet for a tupperware container that looked ice cream-friendly, slapped a lid on it, said a prayer, and shoved it in the freezer.

Twenty four hours later, my roommate and I sat down after a night of summer school (*shudder*) for the moment of truth. Spoons in hand, we dug into the now VERY frozen ice cream. There will be no bragging as all the strawberries had found their way to the top of the mixture and the tupperware killed much of the aesthetic effect, but I will say that I saw said roommate dive back into the freezer for seconds. And I think that sight, along with my book, will get me through until we be jammin’.

Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream

As a first-time ice cream maker, I opted to go with a recipe that came with the appliance. I figured it was in their best interest as a manufacturer to not steer me wrong. Here is the recipe from the Cuisinart recipe index.

Servings

Makes about fourteen 1/2-cup servings

Ingredients

3 cups fresh ripe strawberries, stemmed and sliced 4 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice 1-1/2 cup sugar, divided 1-1/4 cups whole milk 2-3/4 cups heavy cream 1-1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Instructions

In a small bowl, combine the strawberries with the lemon juice and 1/2 cup of the sugar. Stir gently and allow the strawberries to macerate in the juices for 2 hours. Strain the berries, reserving juices. Mash or purée half the berries. In a medium mixing bowl, use a hand mixer on low speed to combine the milk and remaining granulated sugar until the sugar is dissolved, about 1 to 2 minutes. Stir in the heavy cream, reserved strawberry juice, mashed strawberries, and vanilla. Turn the machine on; pour the mixture into freezer bowl, and let mix until thickened, about 20 to 25 minutes. Five minutes before mixing is completed, add the reserved sliced strawberries and let mix in completely. The ice cream will have a soft, creamy texture. If a firmer consistency is desired, transfer the ice cream to an airtight container and place in freezer for about 2 hours. Remove from freezer about 15 minutes before serving.

making new friends.

Growing up, some of my best friends were stuffed animals. And I don’t mean that in a sad, friendless sort of way. They were playmates, stand ins for pretending, and comforters. It was my stuffed animals who protected me from thunder storms. It was my stuffed koala I wanted to make sure would be in heaven with me one day. It was the animals who listened to my lesson plans when I wanted to play teacher, they let me and my brother cut their fur when we pretended to be veterinarians, and they hid amongst the couch cushions when we recreated the st. louis zoo in our living room. I loved them all: Heart-to-Heart Bear, my veritable kennel of Pound Puppies, the aforementioned koala, the beloved panda puppet, Winnie-the-Pooh… the list goes on and on. Even as a teenager, it was Pooh who I held when I needed a hug and a good cry.

So I suppose it was only a matter of time before I started my own stuffed animal sweatshop. And by sweatshop, I mean I’ve made two. Meet Peanut and Mooney.

I mentioned Peanut, the wee elephant, a few weeks ago. I thought he would be a fun non-quilt project from the book Last-Minute Patchwork & Quilted Gifts. I temporarily had forgotten that the reason I quilt as opposed to say sew my own clothes is that I can only sew a straight seam with a machine. Elephants as a rule are not straight. So when I say Peanut was handmade with love, I mean each crooked stitch was made with the hands of yours truly with a solemn promise to learn to sew on a curve very, very, very soon.

Yes, he does look a bit like he got in a scuffle with another elephant on the playground, but he emerged victorious and now has the love of a gorgeous one-year-old lady. What more could a wee elephant desire?

The decidedly more photogenic of my recent creations would have to be Mooney T. Bunny (last name pronounced Boo-nee for giggles), so named for his rather large face and widely spaced eyes. He is the reason I learned to crochet (Camilla Engman’s pattern from The Happy Hooker)–not an easy feat for a knitter who likes her needles in both hands! But I must say after spiraling slip stitches through three televised Cardinal baseball games, it was a skill worth learning as he has quickly become one of my new friends. So without further ado:

He’s already kept me safe through one thunderstorm.

b.y.o.l. (bring your own lunch)

I was cold. Every morning without fail. Even in August. Even on pizza day. The teacher would take attendance and ask hot or cold. If we were hot, we were buying our lunch. If we were cold, then you could bet we had a lunch box stuffed in our locker. I was nothing if not consistent in those days. Not only did I always bring my lunch, but I always brought the same lunch.

• Peanut butter sandwich. No jelly, thank you.
• Fruit Roll-Up or Fruit-by-the-Foot. See? Fruit? How healthy.
• Raisinettes. I like my raisins chocolate covered.
• Hostess snack du jour. 
• And 35 cents for a chocolate milk carton.

No joke.

These days, I buy my lunch every day. And at $5-$7 a pop, it’s no longer the grade school special. Nor is it much healthier than my lunches of yesteryear. So as the sunny days begin to roll in and the temperatures rise, I’m looking for healthy b.y.o.l. options that can be enjoyed with a book while enjoying those few stolen moments of sunshine in the middle of the day. Tasty and healthy (and simple!!) suggestions can be left in the comment box below. Note: I’m still working on the veggie thing, so think more fruits, grains, cheese (lots of cheese!) with the occasional veggie thrown in for purposes of enlightenment and horizon broadening. And I’d prefer not to have to nuke my lunch as this only detracts from the time I spend in aforementioned sun with said book.

While you puzzle over that, I figured I would share the fruits of my reusable lunch bag search, because I need all the motivation I can get. My only requirement in my search was that it must roll up after use and fit nicely in my purse, so there is a definite canvas/cotton theme.

Family Market Lunch Bag [From The Craft Pantry, Etsy]

For the Francophile. [Available at Paris Chic Boutique, Etsy]

For plain janes or those who prefer to add their own creative touch see here. [Available at EcoBags]

Or just choose some fabric and make your own. Fantastic tutorial can be found here. [Tumbling Blocks]

Then again, Lotta’s small hand tote is on sale right now and looks to be about the right size for a summer lunch. [Available at Lotta Jansdotter]

 

etsy purchase: happy hump day.

A Wednesday morning present. To: Me. From: Me.

[From Accesori Etsy shop.]

garden to kitchen.

I own a food processor for one reason and one reason only: to make my own pesto. Yes, it serves other purposes, but those all fall into the Added Bonus category. It’s really about the pesto.

I’ve made one jar of pesto in my whole life. And it wasn’t with my food processor. In fact, it wasn’t even in my own kitchen. It was done under the watchful eye of an old friend. She left me alone with the basil to clean it. Just me and the basil, not a sensible soul around who knew a thing about what I was actually doing (washing and pulling off the good leaves or puzzling over which ones constituted “good”). The feeling of being a little girl in my mother’s garden came over me. I remembered those warm spring days she let me take the impatients, flox, and petunias from their carriers and plant them in the ground–to be entrusted with so much power! so much responsibility! When my friend returned, she made herself a gin and tonic and talked me through the ingredient preparation and steps of creating pesto. I was told when to pulse the food processor and asked to taste it along the way. It was one of the first times that I found myself thinking: This thing called cooking? I really want to figure it out.

Aside from now owning a food processor, I’m not that much closer to kitchen glory. I still find myself reading menus more than recipes. And I still flip through the food magazines to find the travel articles not ideas for dinner. I subscribe to several food blogs, but most often find myself more interested in the stories the bloggers tell than the recipes themselves.

So I decided additional motivation was in order. This summer, not only would I make my own pesto solo, I would make it using my own basil, grown right in my own backyard. And because I have a penchant for making my own life more difficult, I opted to grow the basil from seeds. Despite childhood memories of helping my mom in the garden, I don’t consider myself a gardener by any means, especially not when it comes to edible plants. I took one look at these seeds–a tiny fraction of the size of a sunflower seed–and nearly gave up the whole idea. But sunny spring days are made for hope, optimism, and new beginnings and so into the soil those seeds went.

Today, as the rain relentlessly beats down on DC, I’m trying to squelch the fear that my brave little basil seeds have been washed away and also chase off a nasty case of the rainy day blues by browsing the ever-dependable Epicurious.com for further basil-inspired recipes to anticipate making in the upcoming months. In addition to basil pesto, one can make:

Basil Flatbread with Roasted Tomatoes and Basil Oil

Basil Ice Cream 

Tomatoes Stuffed with Fresh Mozarella and Basil

Oh, and there will be pizza topped with basil, too. Never fear. 

I could go on and on. There are 1363 recipes calling for basil on Epicurious alone. It’s going to be a busy summer. I may need a few more seeds.

postal service reward program.

I didn’t plan it like this. It probably wouldn’t have worked out as well if I had. I had no way of knowing when I made these purchases over the last few weeks that they would happen to arrive on my doorstep on the last day of the semester–the Amazon box all smiles even–only after all my assignments were turned in and my brain happily turned off for a few weeks.

It’s like my own personal (re: unintentional) reward system.

Wee Wonderful patterns from Reprodepot:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And to commence my forray into the one-needled world of crochet: The Happy Hooker. Soon I hope to be churning out these little fellows for the 5-and-under demographic of my family.

Who says hard work is its own reward? Anyone? Even so, mail-order rewards are nice, too.

filling the void.

for that harry potter shaped hole in our lives, the gods gave us percy jackson.

Oh, to be sprawled out on a grassy city knoll in the sunhine soaked world right now…

By Rick Riordan. Book 4 in the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series. Young adult fiction.