Time for a refresh

Photo by Alexandra Grablewski, via 100 Layer Cake.

I'm finding toddlerhood a tough transition. And not for the obvious reasons. Yes, Emerson's emotions are epic and her meltdowns are exhausting, but I can deal with those. I'm fighting potty training and big girl beds. It's all happening so fast and I miss my little baby. I know, I know, she'll always be my baby, but now she has a head full of hair and visible wrists and I can't help it - I'm a little shmoopy about the whole thing.

It is my ultimate goal to embrace her growth and I'm thinking her room may need a slight (actually massive) refresh to usher in her "big girl" years. I'm loving this color palette. Turquoise, red, lavender and yellow. Does it work?

Score

Found these treasures at the Alameda Flea earlier this month. I have not one clue as to what to do with any of it, but I simply could not leave them languishing. For now, I'm happy to let them brighten my sewing table.

Not pictured: Vintage Yves Saint Laurent buttons, just waiting to fancy up some sleeves.

All sorts of random

Magazine clip from Elegant Bride, Winter 2004.

While flipping through wedding magazines one afternoon in a bookstore (more than a year after my wedding, please don't judge me) I stumbled upon this slightly freaky picture of, wait for it, me! Apparently, moments after our wedding ceremony, I was gripping a glass of champagne with my mouth frozen wide open.

Mind you, I had no idea this photo had been submitted by my photographer and no idea the magazine had plans to use it, although, they had featured a few images from our wedding earlier in the year. This was totally unexpected. So there you have it: random fact #26. My wedding photos were used in a bridal magazine. For a few more obscure oddities about moi, check out Ellinad Spir. She's running my list today. I wrote it a couple years ago but stand by the randomness of all 25.

Would you tell me one random fact about yourself?

Crazy color love

Dreamy cocktail napkins via Purl Soho.

Just when I was feeling all focused around my creative life, Purl had to go and throw fabric paint into the mix. Hell yeah, I want some hand-painted cocktail napkins. Who wouldn't? This project is first up on a Fall Punch List. They will be the perfect addition to my ice cream social. My head is spinning.

Check three: homemade ice cream

I made a Ben and Jerry's base recipe (recommended by Danielle) and added a chopped up organic dark chocoloate bar, chunks of ripe cherries and slivers of toasted almonds. It was easy and the result was crazy spectacular, if I do say so myself. I'm thinking an ice cream social is in order because I do believe I'm hooked on the churned cream and sugar.

Maybe I'll add that to a Fall Punch List, which is about as appropriate as chrocheting a wool blanket in the dead of summer, but weird is just the way I am wired. Friends, I am high on accomplishment here.

Still standing

It's been an especially long week. Just wanted to say hello and wish you a happy summery weekend. I'm looking forward to some special time with friends and my little family and hopefully, some progress on the punch list. Think: more fun with wool yarn and homemade ice cream.

Blanket love: a happy ending

Do you remember my hardcore crush on this blanket back in May? I've been designing a room in my mind around it for many months. It's an imaginary room that lives in my make-believe lake cabin. It's a fantasy built mostly around this. Well, last week the universe rewarded me for all my salacious daydreaming.

Not two minutes into a browse at my favorite antique store and this blanket popped up. She was to be my new picnic throw until the lady at the counter told me it most likely dates back to the late '30s or early '40s and should be treated with great care. I can deal with that.

Check two: picnic lunch (sort of) and an update

Just a quick hello this Monday morning. We managed a little picnic at a favorite location that is currently going through a bit of a renaissance. The enormous stretch of lawn at Villa Montalvo was freshly watered so we ate on a stone bench. Emerson chased a family of orange dragonflies and we took in some temporary sculptures, installed throughout the property. It was a lovely start to our Sunday but since we didn't get to spread out a blanket I sort of didn't consider it a real picnic. I'm only checking this one halfway off the list.

And below is a progress report on my crocheted blanket. (Mine is on the right and Megan's is on the left - she got me started on this whole endeavor) I'm officially halfway done and hoping to finish within the week.

Are you making any strides in your summer projects? I'd love to hear about it.

Check one: chocolate cake

I had a feeling that putting my goals out for the universe to see might result in some much needed motivation and kick in the pants. Sure enough, not 24 hours after posting my summer punch list, did I get several recipes and a friend who was more than happy to volunteer my baking challenge for a backyard pot luck. (Thanks, Melanie.) As I've mentioned, I'm good with a goal but I'm better with a deadline.

And I should just say that I am also a fortunate blogger because the very generous Melissa offered to share one of her highly coveted Simply MMM recipes for chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream icing. Oh, friends. It was better than I could have imagined. So worth every bit of the effort and every last organic ingredient.

Check one off the summer punch list. Up next? Progress on the wool blanket and (hopefully) a picnic lunch.

A giving tree

Wedding season is in full gear and although I have none to attend this summer, I feel it necessary to make a pitch to venture off the bridal registration. One of my best friends and her husband gifted us with a potted kumquat tree for our wedding (along with some goodies from a favorite NYC store.)

I was a bit intimidated by the gift as my brown thumb had already decimated much of our backyard flower bed. But it's been almost seven years and this lovey continues to gift us with sweet blooms and beautiful fruit. And for the first time ever, I put its product to proper use. I made a simple syrup of thinly sliced kumquats, pressed it through a fine sieve and reserved the sweet goodness for champagne cocktails at a friends pool party. They were a huge hit. Highly recommended.

Summer lovin'

The weekend was packed with summer fun. Starting with a few hours at the beach that Emerson made particularly challenging, since she still refuses to allow her feet to touch sand. She much prefers an expanse of grass or a field of flowers.


Three days full of the best kinds of exhaustion. Sunshine, friends, ocean air, pool time, playgrounds until dusk, flower picking, farmer's market food and loads of champagne. Too much goodness. How was your weekend? Did you have too much of something good?

Try this at home

Again, because I promised and Megan agreed, we have a couple recipes from the baby shower. Meg (above holding gorgeous daughter Genevieve - aka Gigi) is guest blogging today about a bit of the shower menu she treated us to a few weeks back. You may remember her from the Pavlova recipe I went on and on about here. Thanks, Megan.

Petits pots au chocolat with the most refreshing flavored water in the background.
Putting the finishing touches on the fig crostinis.

In Megan's words:

We gathered on a sweltering hot summer’s day, 13 old (not old but you know what I mean) friends from high school, in the backyard of my parents' house in the Los Gatos foothills to celebrate the impending birth of a son to our dear friend Marla. I have known her since we were about 6 years old. As soon as I heard she was pregnant after a long difficult period of “trying to conceive”, I knew I had to be the one to host her shower.

Actually because I live in New Zealand and the logistics of planning a shower during my family holiday to California would be challenging (especially with 2 young children), the girls all rallied around and took on specific duties to get the party plans sorted. Estelle, of course, with her eye for detail took charge of the décor, favors, keepsakes and general ambiance. Mel was the master flower arranger. As a chef, I took pleasure in creating a menu that would delight the guest of honor.

My first thought was that I must include something from my new homeland. Ah… honeycomb, the most sweet, floral and aromatic goodness that has ever been created by nature. Just down the road from where I work is an old woman with a heap of hives that produce the most beautiful amber colored honeycomb. Immediately, I thought back to last summer’s visit to Napa with the girls when we devoured a truffle goat’s cheese spread on walnut bread and topped with honeycomb. This summer’s version included perfectly ripe purple figs from Whole Foods, a simple fresh French goats cheese, Carran Road honeycomb all assembled just so on crunchy salty baked crostini.

Estelle suggested using her cute little demitasse cups for something, so petits pots au chocolat was the first thing on our minds. Any excuse to have some form of dark chocolate, right? Is it even ok for pregnant ladies to have super dark caffeine loaded chocolate? This recipe proved not to be for the faint hearted…..so thick, rich, velvety and decadent. I used a mixture of 70% and 90% cocoa chocolate and topped them with lashings of lightly whipped unsweetened cream.

Petits pots au chocolat
Serves 4

Ingredients
• 284ml carton single cream
• 100g dark chocolate (at least 70% solids), roughly chopped
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 tbsp caster sugar
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• Heat the oven to 140C/285F. Heat the cream until almost boiling, then take off the heat. Stir the chocolate into the cream until it melts.
• Beat the egg yolks, sugar and vanilla extract in a bowl, then pour over the chocolate cream, mixing well. Taste and add a little more sugar if it isn't sweet enough for you. Pour the mixture through a sieve into a jug. Divide the mixture between 4 small heatproof glasses, ramekins or espresso cups and put them in a deep ovenproof dish. Pour enough boiling water into the dish to come halfway up the sides of the glasses. Carefully lift into the oven and cook for 1 hour.
• Remove from the bain-marie, cool then chill for at least 3 hours and up to 3 days. Serve as they are or with a little whipped cream piped on to the top.

To wash down our feast and to keep the heat at bay, we served a cucumber limeade. I made a simple syrup by pouring about a cup of boiling water onto ½ cup of sugar. I also chucked in some freshly picked lavender flowers. Once it was cool I strained the syrup and added a splash of it to a pitcher of water, about a half cup of freshly squeezed lime juice, 10 slices of cucumber and loads of ice. We must’ve drunk 5 pitchers of this throughout the day, it was seriously refreshing. As was the abundance of champagne and white wine that was also consumed!

The shower was a success and ended with all the girls gathered around the edge of the swimming pool with our feet cooling off in the water, reminiscing about high school days. Not a single person had really changed that much in looks or in personality. It was just like old times.

Summer punch list

This weekend has felt a bit like New Years to me. A little extra time to reflect and I get a wee crazy with the potential to improve stuff. My life, my attitude, my upper body strength. It probably has something to do with the fact that I am incapable of truly relaxing unless I am in a state of REM. I try real hard but my brain, it does not slow down, save for sleep. And even then, I could write a graphic novel based on my nightly dreams.

Soooo, thanks to manic planning, here are my goals for the summer. Some are just for fun and others are for facing fears. Two of my strongest obsessions.

Photo from here.

1. Go berry picking with Emerson
2. Bake a chocolate cake from scratch (recipe recommendations, please)
3. Have a picnic lunch
4. Submit an essay for publication
5. Make homemade ice cream
6. Crochet a blanket (because nothing says summer like a pile of wool on my lap)
7. Wear something unnecessary and decorative in my hair
8. Visit a county fair
9. Sell something I have made
10. Make a dress I want to wear. Wear it.

Bonus: Take a new class (photography, painting or dance)

Sound a bit ambitious? Probably. But I am seriously motivated by a challenge. Do you have any big plans this summer? I'd love to hear about them.

Because I promised

Mama's pretty tired. Hubby returns home in a few short hours and co-parenting and adult conversation had better come with him. It's been a long few weeks my friends.

And just because I opened my big mouth, here's a recipe from the baby shower. Really easy lemon cookies from Giada. So shake your Meyer's from the tree and try these out. They are pretty much fool proof, made evident by my pulling them off while entertaining a tyrant, I mean, toddler. Happy Independence Weekend!

P.S. More recipes from the shower to follow next week. And, fingers crossed, a guest post from the chef responsible for the menu.

Baby party bliss

I helped host a baby shower last weekend with several of my closest friends. We'd been trading ideas for decorations, flowers and food by email for several months. It came together beautifully in our hometown - the place where we all met and first dared to imagine our future selves. Those little girls could not have dreamed they would someday have to travel from New Zealand, New York and from every corner of California to reconnect. Cue a continuous loop of Carla Bruni and the Amelie soundrack - it's exactly what was playing all afternoon on my iPhone.

Ribbon banner inspired by Alexis.

The baby-to-be's wishing tree, a combined inspiration of Jordan's birthday tree and this baby shower game.
Another take on the edibles. More to come tomorrow in the way of a couple recipes.
Just one of the spectacular views from the pool. It was 95 degrees in the shade. We were melting, with toes in the ice cold pool, catching up on lifetimes lived since the early 90s when our lives revolved around each other's drama. Today we happily trade keg cups for champagne flutes and boy trouble for baby lust.