The Cute Little Shop Girl

A wee cup o' cocoa

2012-01-23T19:57:00.000-08:00

This tiny cup of hot cocoa may not look very important, but she actually represents something much bigger, at least much bigger to me. She is the very first Amigurumi(tiny crocheted creature) that I've made entirely on my own and been perfectly happy with the end result.

Like baking homemade bread, making Amigurumi was one of those life goals that I simply never thought I'd be able to achieve, but, once again, my mother came to the rescue. This year, she gave me a book on making Amigurumi for Christmas, and after my initial reaction of deep despair and sighing over the fact that I'd never be able to create such adorable, sweet creatures, she showed me just how very easy it is to crochet these tiny friends.

Thomas Keller's ultra chocolately, but ever so slightly salty cookies. Just perfect to eat with a wee cup of hot cocoa.

The truth is that, unbeknownst to my mother, I've had Amigurumi on my mind for several years now. My initial introduction to the concept came from one of my all time favorite food blogs (odd, I know), Chocolate and Zucchini. Some time after that, Matthew gave me two darling books on the subject as Christmas gifts, but I quietly put them aside after drooling through them. They were just too hard for me to tackle and, honestly, I had completely forgotten how to properly crochet and certainly wasn't going to begin to learn knitting.

In the end, my mother sat me down and helped me make my first little friend, a cheerful snake(I knew Matthew would love a wee snake for his friend). Once I finished the snake, I felt brave enough to try making a little mouse on my very own, alas, but I needed her assistance for my second little project.

yum, a carrot!

It doesn't seem as though it will hurt me?

Oh, yes! This was a delicious idea!

Once I came home after the holidays, my mother wasn't around to help me through the more difficult parts of crocheting these little cuties, but she had already given me the confidence that I needed to continue on my own.

At last! I succeeded. Maybe my baby Elephant wasn't the best that I felt I could do, but she was my very first on-my-own Amigurumi. Finally, with the little Cocoa Cup, I happily finished crocheting her and felt that at last I'd overcome another of those insurmountable accomplishments that those of us with small, quiet lives tend to aspire to. So, I've tucked bread baking and Amigurumi under my little pink belt; who knows what else I may learn to do next year!

Images of a happy Christmas

2012-01-09T21:42:00.000-08:00

Below are a few Images from my cheerful Christmas. Yes, I actually did enjoy Christmas this year! So weird, I know!

Mistletoe reflecting in a silver dish. Sadly, this bunch of mistletoe wasn't hanging in a doorway, therefore, no cheerful Christmas kiss. Maybe next year!

A basket of Christmas crackers. So much fun from such a small and silly toy.

A delicious, juicy pear crostata - My Grandmother and I baked it together. It reminded me of all the amazing things she taught me when we would make cookies, pies and cakes together when I was a child.

The Little disapproving owl - I found him on the window sill and he made my entire day better. I couldn't find him anywhere a few days later; I guess he just came for a Christmas day visit. A much more preferable visitor than Santa (in my opinion).

A Tiny Christmas Girl

2011-12-08T09:06:00.000-08:00

This tiny, Momiji Christmas girl was given to me by a very sweet and thoughtful friend who knows how absolutely much I adore teeny little cute things. Every year, Christy manages to find the most perfect and adorable gifts for both my birthday and Christmas. Someday I should post a round-up of all the amazing and sweet gifts she has given me! It would be a really long post! That's how sweet she is =)

So, this year, this tiny Christmas girl will be my reminder that not everything about Christmas is annoying and that, in fact, I have such wonderful and kind friends who love to give me cute things. What could possibly be better!

2nd Europe 2011 post

2011-11-29T21:09:00.000-08:00

While in Brighton, Matthew and I discovered that all of the youngsters of Southern England were descending upon Brighton for a Zombie parade/festival/event. We mostly stayed out of the way but just going out and about we discovered the entire town was full of the gruesome creatures. We were quite impressed with some of the creative costuming that they came up with and did enjoy the humor of seeing random zombie attacks in a beautiful, usually quiet coastal town. It seemed straight out of a horror movie. Matthew was actually attacked once but managed to escape the entangling arms of two very silly, giggling zombies.

I found this blood pouch at Selfridges in London and suspect that the only kind of blood the zombies in Brighton were feeding off of would be very similar to this: candy blood. It sounds like it might be delicious on Pancakes. hmmm...I can see why they would want to be Zombies, if that's the sort of thing they are eating!

Also at Selfridges, I found so many darling Christmas goodies. I knew I wouldn't be able to get them home safe and sound so I took a few photos. Also, the price for one tiny cookie was 5 pounds or more and I'm really not that big a fan of cookies!

Tiny veggies made of marzipan. It's fortunate that I hate Marzipan, otherwise these may have had to come home with me, despite the crazily expensive price tag.

After spending most of a day at the British Museum, Matthew and I were fuzzy headed and cold so we popped into a darling little shop selling mini open faced sandwiches. They were all very unusual flavor combinations and all extremely tasty! Also, their coffee and hot chocolate was perfect and, most importantly, warming.

One of the things that Matthew and I really wanted to see was Borough Market in London. We partially planned our trip to make sure that we would be in London on the days that the Market would be in session and so on our last full day of the trip we spent our time wandering the Market and the Streets of London. It was the only truly sunny, perfect day we had in London and it really reminded us of why we'd wanted to go back for a visit that was longer than 24 hours.

My Full Brunch Butty (Please excuse Matthew's hand in the background! I was too lazy to try to crop or photoshop it out.)

Breakfast at Joe's Kitchen and Coffee House around the corner from Borough Market. We were lucky to see good reviews for a place that was so close to were we wanted to be that morning and also that such a place serves up amazing English Breakfasts among other things. I actually had the Full Brunch Butty which is essentially most of an English Breakfast in sandwich form. It was delicious and lots of fun to eat.

Matthew's Full English Breakfast

Just across the street from the Market, is an outpost of Neal's Yard Dairy which is attached to their Monmouth coffee shop. Both shops serve up the very best versions of whatever it is they sell. Neal's Yard Dairy sells amazing cheeses and Monmouth Coffee shop sells really well brewed coffee and espresso drinks. The Cheese shop is calm and cool inside while the coffee shop is packed with customers and dizzyingly busy with a long line trailing out the front door. Both places are fantastic and totally worth a visit, if only to experience their idea of perfectly selected and prepared cheese and coffee.

As with most places in Europe, and London in particular, history is around every corner!! We were just leaving the Market to find our way to The Tower when we passed by a beautiful and very old church.

We didn't think much of it until we walked by this sign and realized just how old it is; once we noticed that, then we just had to take a few photos.

This wall was directly behind us as we were peering down at the church's gardens. Everything is built so close together; no space is wasted!

I am sure that people who grown up with that sort of history just outside the back door or around the corner don't think much of something like that, but for Matthew and I it is still such a surprise to see the truly ancient mixed in with the modern and new in such a nonchalant way.

This trip to Europe was a wonderful experience! I would say that because it was our second time to visit both England and a large, french speaking city(Paris this time, Brussels last time), we didn't approach every single thing we saw and did with the eyes of children. We didn't spend every moment of our time in London simply in awe that the things we'd read and heard about actually existed, but instead we enjoyed feeling that sense of delight at being back in London. This time around, I think we were confident enough in our traveling abilities to know that we could indeed venture forth to see what we wanted to see without being dazzled by the simple concept of traveling.

1st Europe 2011 post

2011-11-28T20:58:00.000-08:00

I'm finally getting around to posting some of the very few photos I took while on vacation in England (with a two day side trip to Paris). For whatever reason, I took far fewer photos than I should have on this trip, 206 in total, and of the photos I took few of them show anything other than to prove that I am silly - silly as a goose! Most of the photos are not of landmarks or even of the amazing dinners we had. Honestly, I'm not really sure why I took my camera with me. I'm such a lazy tourist! I'm glad I took Matthew and his big camera along with me, otherwise, I'd have no way to prove I ever even went on a trip abroad.

So, I have selected only from the photos that I took to post on this blog. Maybe if I ever clear up enough space on my hard drive to transfer the photos that Matthew took, I'll be able to post some of those lovely photos! All this to say, the photos are a really weird and strange mish mash of photos and none of them really seem to go together. They are bound only by the fact that they seem to represent, fairly strongly, the most compelling images and events from our trip(judging by the fact that I actually bothered to pull out my camera for them), at least they are the things I felt were significant to me.

Okay...you can laugh a little, but no out-right mocking me! Matthew and I ate Ramen in Paris. Yes, I know, what were we thinking??? Well, I wasn't thinking, my head was stuffed so full of head-cold fuzziness and the freezing cold and rain had driven anything from my head other than the need for comfort food. I can't think of anything more comforting than a really hot bowl of Ramen. This was particularly gingery and Matthew says it is a version of Ramen that is served in Japan although we didn't have the super gingery style when we were in Tokyo. I will say, absolutely Nothing would have made for a better meal at that moment for me, with my recently acquired cold. Anyway, despite being slightly blurry in the brain, I managed to notice that Parisian Japanese Restaurants are rather different than American Japanese Restaurants, naturally, but it was still very interesting to see the striking difference and just how much the French way of doing things really shaped the Japanese Ramen restaurant that we visited.

Beautiful Canterbury, I really felt that this scene looks quintessentially English and just had to snap a photo of it.

Along our walk through Canterbury, we saw this funny little house with a window frame on top of the roof. I am still wondering exactly what purpose it serves, other than to amuse the tourists! =) (By the way, I'd love to have a window frame siting atop my roof, if ever I have a house.)

So, other than the delicious food, the main reason I visit Europe, is for the tiny doors. I love, love, love tiny doorways. I think they must make me feel very tall and imposing in a way that nothing else can, since I am actually rather short compared to anything except these tiny, cute doors!

Speaking of good food, England also has very good drink. And this cider, The Blushing Old Wife, is the strangest and most mind blowing beverage I've ever consumed. I loved it at the same time that it made me wonder why I was drinking something that made my entire body sort of pucker up. Amazing but delicious!

These lovely beers were very good, British Ales with an American slant. Matthew and I loved The Foundry and all of their beers brewed on premise.

The Canterbury Canal tour. This was probably one of my favorite activities on the trip. It was a beautiful, short ride through the town with just enough interesting information to make it seem educational.

Our boatman/tour guide who was not only well-spoken and informative, but handsome besides(a big plus in my opinion).

Canterbury clearly is a very old town in a country of very old towns, but it has a real charm and quaintness that made it a place I would love to return to again!

More Fall Produce

2011-11-22T16:42:00.000-08:00

Like last week, I am posting about produce that I've purchased. These have all been seasonal fruits and so are very interesting to me since I tend to get very excited by Autumnal fruits and veggies, but I do think I should try to post something a little less fruit related very soon. I promise!

While doing my weekly shopping today I came across Pink lemons. I just had to buy them! I couldn't resist such a fun find. So, now I'm stuck with two pink lemons that I want to make something delicious with because they are so special but, as usual, I don't know what exactly qualifies as special enough to justify using the lemons.

The little yellow and striped fruit at the foreground of the picture is a Pink Lemon. It looks like a bumpy, funny colored Lime and is about the size of a lime, rather than the size of a lemon.

My first thought is that I should make a fun and pretty cocktail with them. Since they are pink inside they would make an ordinary looking drink much more attractive(pink being the very best color in all the world). I could also use them to make a lemon tart or lemon cookies, but I do wonder if the color would stay if I baked the juice? So, if you have any suggestions for using the pink lemons before they shrivel up, I'd love to hear them!

A Fancy Fall: Fairy Tale Pumpkins and Little Miss Brown Squirrel

2011-11-15T15:55:00.000-08:00

On a recent trip to the farmer's market, Matthew and I picked up a giant, gorgeous Fairy Tale Pumpkin. I love the exaggerated ridges and deep grooves that make it just scream "I'm a fancy pumpkin!" This particular variety of pumpkin is an older variety and seems to be well regarded in general for cooking and appearance.

I've read about these pumpkins and I've probably even seen them before, but had never considered buying one all for my very own until we were on our way out of the market and had almost started the long trek to the car without purchasing a single heavy thing. But, when I spotted a table of $5 pumpkins, I quickly remedied the situation by buying the largest of the Fairy Tale Pumpkins that I could find on the table, not because I actually wanted to torture Matthew by making him lug it to the car, but because it truly was a perfect pumpkin.

I'm not sure what I'll turn it into: pie, soup, pudding, bread? it all sounds delicious and because this pumpkin is so large, I'll probably make a little bit of everything out of it. Yum!

I suspect I'll have to share a nibble or two of whatever I end up making with this tiny new friend.

Little Miss Fancy Squirrel was a Birthday gift from Aimee who sells these tiny pins in her new Brownsville shop. The little pin was originally made by our Cousin Rumi; what a talented family I married into!

Until I make some pumpkin treats, Little Miss Fancy can enjoy munching on this tiny felt Mushroom that I picked up at a Farmer's Market in Rhode Island last fall.

I think it's just her size!

A Fancy Sunday Breakfast

2011-11-13T17:16:00.000-08:00

Today, as on many Sunday mornings, Matthew made us a tasty breakfast. Often times our Fancy Sunday breakfasts consist of Omlettes or Egg scrambles that are delicious and perfectly cooked. Today, however, we felt like changing things up a little bit. We had all the ingredients to make very fancy muffin egg sandwiches, and they turned out to be very tasty, but also they were attractive enough to take a couple of photos.

The sandwiches were very easy to make, broil the inner sides of an english muffin. Pile onto the muffin a fried egg, a slice of havarti cheese, a sprinkle of fresh dill and a lightly browned slice of smoked ham. Very rich and tasty!

Um...can they pass as pumpernickle?

2011-11-01T13:30:00.000-07:00

I rarely make my own croutons; they always turn out very disappointing but a few weeks ago I was at my friend Jessica's house and she had freshly made croutons cooling on a baking sheet. I found myself, in another person's house!, picking them off the sheet and eating them. They were so good and rich with buttery edges so today I tried making some croutons with left over bread and I've got to say, they really didn't turn out so well.

So, I was inspired to re-try my hand at homemade croutons and I've, once again, convinced myself to not try them again for a little while yet.

I am wondering if we can just tell ourselves that they are Pumpernickel croutons?

And because there isn't much color in this post, I'll post another photo of my super fabulous shoes!!!

Yay for lots of color!

2011-10-30T17:06:00.000-07:00

I unpacked my souvenirs today, upon returning from England and found that most of the things I purchased are very colorful and fun. This just makes me happy!

Matthew and I didn't buy quite as many souvenirs on this trip to England, which is a good thing considering the size of our apartment, but I also figured that I'd just pick out a few things to post instead of posting a barrage of souvenir photos like I did a couple of years ago. It was kind of terrible and annoying =)

Macarons from Pierre Herme. I tried these in Japan and they were very good. So, when I saw them at Selfridges, I had to buy a few. And, they miraculously survived the trip back in one of the Dr. Who mugs. Yes, more mugs. arg!

Okay, well this isn't very colorful but I'm really, really excited to try it out. I love! chestnuts. What to do with it? I am taking any suggestions since squeezing it directly into my mouth might seem a bit boorish.

The craziest and brightest shoes I've ever owned. How will I ever manage to match these to an outfit? I can barely put together a decent outfit when I'm working with all black and grey. This might be a screaming disaster!

Since there was no way I'd be able to afford an actual dress from Fair, I bought this darling bag with a dress on it. It's just so pretty and fun!

fall flavors, fall colors

2011-10-11T21:23:00.000-07:00

Today, I felt like finally admitting the fact that Fall has come and summer is gone. I've replaced my nectarines and canning with rich, warming German dishes; never mind the fact that it will be 90 degrees tomorrow and the next day!

So, in celebration of fall I made Sweet and Sour Red Cabbage to pair with Kongisberger Klopse and Spatzle. I used the recipes from Horst Mager's cookbook "My Favorite Recipes," because everything I've made from his cookbook turns out perfectly every time.

Sweet and Sour Red Cabbage

Copied from My Favorite Recipes by Horst Mager

This is Horst Mager's Mother's recipe and he suggests eating it with sauerbraten, roast pork, duck or goose, or potato pancakes.

2 pound head of red cabbage

4 small onions

4 tablespoons bacon fat or butter

¼ cup red wine vinegar

¼ cup red wine

¼ cup beef or chicken stock

¼ cup sugar

1/8 teaspoon ground clove

1 bay leaf

1 large Granny Smith type apple, peeled, cored and coarsely chopped

2 tablespoons red currant jelly

salt and black pepper to taste

Remove outside(damaged) leaves of red cabbage and cut cabbage into quarters. Cut stem out and discard. Cut cabbage into matchstick sized strips. Cut the onions paper-thin. Heat butter or bacon fat in a heavy-bottomed pan and saute apples and onions until golden brown. Add vinegar, stock, red wine, red currant jelly, bay leaf, salt, pepper, ground cloves and sugar to this mixture. Loosely place red cabbage into mixture and cover with a lid. Braise for about one hour over low heat, stirring occasionally to make sure the cabbage does not scorch on the bottom of the pan. Remove lid and allow to cook for another 10-15 minutes to allow liquid to evaporate.

In addition to making tasty warming foods, I purchased an adorable fall towel at the hardware store because I couldn't bear to leave with only some boring batteries for the kitchen scale. So, this hopped into my hand and only my towel rack and now I love it!

deliciously improper nectarine jam

2011-10-01T08:54:00.000-07:00

As a commenter (thanks Kirk!!) to my last post pointed out, I have indeed been jammin.'

While the end of the growing season never fully stops here in San Diego, a lot of the really good stuff disappears right around now, all the fruits with the flavors that remind us of summer and warm days, the foods that we want to enjoy during the cold months in the form of jams and canned goods. Admittedly, these sorts of preparations are not in any way necessary here in San Diego with our 65-70 degree weather year round, but it's still fun to get into the spirit of preserving; it invokes the feeling of the end of summer and the beginning of a new season, and I find it to be a perfect mental clue for my Southern California sun addled brain that Fall is on it's way!

So, contrary to some of the ideas that I've, over the years, absorbed from the jam making/canning purists in my family, I can make a perfectly edible jam using gelatin(the stuff that's usually used for making jello). I know! using gelatin to make jam seems completely crazy, but is actually kind of fun. Now, this does not produce a jam that can be processed and saved for years, in fact, it's intended to be eaten rather quickly, like within a month or two if it isn't frozen.

My favorite aspect of jammin' with gelatin, instead of pectin, stems from the fact that sugar isn't an important factor for it to jell and turn the fruit into jam. I used just a sprinkle of sugar for the nectarine jam that I made, which cut down on calories and will enable me to really pile on the jam, thus enabling Matthew to say "are you having a little toast with your jam?" So, as you can see, making jam with gelatin is just a lot more fun all around!

I thought that I would have trouble finding a recipe for making jam with gelatin because of the fact that most jam purists would never sully the good name of jam by using gelatin as the thickening agent, but it wasn't really a problem. In fact, I found a great recipe from a long trusted source, the OSU Extension Service; I remember my mother calling the OSU Extension office several times during the summer months when I was growing up. The Extension office always had an answer, even to the most unusual or difficult of food science questions.

I'm sure it is no surprise that I used the recipe more as a guide line than an exact recipe, since I rarely, if ever, follow a recipe to the letter:

I used nectarines for the recipe; I also used about 4 cups of fruit so increased the amount of gelatin to 2 tsp(also, the packet contained 2 tsp of gelatin and I really didn't want to save a 1/2 tsp of gelatin to use later and of course, I would never throw out such a rare and expensive ingredient as gelatin). Unfortunately, the nectarines that I used didn't have as much flavor as I would have liked; to compensate for the lack of flavor, I added some spices to the mixture: two whole cloves, a pinch of allspice, a smidge of cinnamon and a dash of ginger.

Can you see the spices in the jam?

My ability to play with the recipe so much makes a good case for using gelatin when making small batches of jam, since it doesn't require the exacting precision that using pectin does and, therefore, appeals to my love of imprecise cooking!

fresh figgy jam

2011-09-27T12:30:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, I had the incredible fortune to purchase way more figs than I had intended at the Hillcrest farmer's market. Matthew and I often buy limes from Farmer Steve, who grows truly delicious and juicy limes, and two Sundays ago, in addition to limes, he had basket fulls of fresh, extra-ripe, juicy figs. When I asked for one basket he gave me the entire cardboard container containing three baskets of figs, though I tried in vain to insist that I only needed one basket; he was only selling figs in large quantities but for very, very cheaply.

Considering what a delicious, but potentially food wasting, fiasco this was, I knew I had only two options: made a fig tart or make fig jam. Well, I know Matthew's and my ability to eat a full sized, large fruit tart, we haven't got such a valuable talent. A large tart would surely go to waste. Instead of trying to force friends to help consume a large tart, I just made a few mini tarts with about a quarter of the figs so that we could enjoy them fresh and then used the remaining figs for fig jam.

Figs soaking in hot water - preparation to become jam- this photo makes even the humble little fig look slightly sinister.

Honestly, my father and I are the only people in my family who love figs, so I never grew up eating them and certainly had never made jam out of figs. This was totally new territory but the jam proved very easy to make, even without pectin.

I simply followed the recipe for fig jam out of the Ball Blue Book of preserving. The Ball Blue Book has always been the canning, jamming, preserving bible for my mother and grandmother. I can't remember if I bought my copy or if my mother gave it to me(I suspect the latter), but I have consistently used recipes from it over the years and often consult it as a reference guide for all sorts of cooking projects.

Ball Blue Book has rarely, if ever, let me down and once again it's recipe for fig jam made a perfect product: sticky and sweet but with plenty of natural fig flavor to make it completely addictive.

So far, my favorite application for this fig jam has been to spoon it over a log of goat cheese, sprinkle with toasty pecans and then slather onto sliced baguette. Delicious to the point that after running out of bread, we dipped corn chips into it just to have a vehicle with which eat the figgy, cheesy treat.

As usual, an over abundance of fruit turned into a delicious, new cooking experience.

a wee tea duckie

2011-09-18T16:35:00.000-07:00

While shopping around the local hardware store last Sunday, I found a tiny tea duckie; he promises to adorable-ify the tea making process but so far all I've managed to do is taking a few pictures of the little guy.

I think he's actually too cute to use for steeping tea leaves and would in fact get a little stained from the tannins.

Perhaps I should make sure only to use the little tea ducky for light, herbal teas.

Little duckie sitting on his fancy blue stand

Hey Duckie, that's the wrong end of the mug. Silly little fellow!

Oh dear! now you're hiding in the mug!

There you are! Hello Duckie, you are so bright and cheerful!

my new light box

2011-09-13T16:06:00.000-07:00

Sweet, sweet Matthew wanted to buy me a light box for our anniversary but due to the exorbitant cost for what really amounted to a bit of white material and some bright lamps, we decided to put one together as a happy anniversary project, instead of buying one.

We found a plain, white box at Ikea and used a couple of old desk lamps and one new lamp(the green one) from target with an extra bright flood light. It's all a bit slap-dashed together and could catch on fire at any moment! the flood light gets frighteningly hot, but so far the photos from our first testing have come out alright. We'll probably make some further adjustments, but for the time being I'm fairly happy with it and am looking forward to taking photos for the blog with the light box as back drop.

My hope is that the light box will help my photos turn out better during the dark winter months. With more and better photos, I'll have more to blog about. After all, nobody wants to see a grainy photo of a cupcake lurking in the yellow shadows of the tiny hovel that Matthew and I call home =)

The Grass is a cute backdrop, but as I mentioned above, adjustments will need to be made. The grass curls up on the sides because it is too wide for the box, perhaps some extra large scissors will be enlisted to correct the problem.

A Big thanks to The tiramisu custard, decorated with Daim candy bar shards and Ikea biscuits, for modeling the new light box for this post!! It was our anniversary treat!

free flowers

2011-09-13T15:46:00.000-07:00

At The Shop we have planters in front of the store window, three with ivy topiaries growing in them and one with a tall, slender ficus tree struggling to survive. People tend to sit on the Ficus planter and leave various things in the dirt surrounding the tree's trunk; here are examples of items I find in the planters regularly: cigarettes, gum, toothpicks, coffee cups, straws, jewelry, candy and candy wrappers.

But, one day last week was my lucky day; instead of something disgusting, I found a lovely bouquet of flowers in the planter. They were still in the plastic wrapping but starting to wilt due to the unusually hot day(well, unusual for San Diego). After leaving them in the planter for several hours, I finally decided they needed a little drink so I put them in water and took them inside. They really perked up and once I took them home, and put them in a proper vase, they have proven to be a truly gorgeous arrangement of flowers.

For the first time ever I was delighted at what someone left in the planter!

little green fairy treats

2011-08-28T11:06:00.000-07:00

On a recent visit to the local cheese shop, Matthew and I picked up a ball of Burrata. When Matthew asked, "what is burrata?" I just said, "oh, it's this ridiculously hip mozzarella cheese ball that all the foodies are excited about." The truth is, we just wanted to see what all the excitement was about, and to judge for ourselves if Burrata is worth all the hype and the 5 dollar price tag for one little ball of cheese (hardly as big as a tennis ball). It was delicious and fun to try something new, but, to be honest I'd be just as happy with a slice of fresh, plain old mozzarella.

What I loved, more than the Burrata itself, was the pretty little look of the green heirloom tomatoes atop leaves of fresh basil, with the milky white cheese on top. It really looked like fairy food with all those shades of green; the alternating stripes of dark and light green on the tomatoes along with the brightness of the basil were all very unusual and fun.

I would normally have used bright red or purple tomatoes for the color contrast against basil, which is the classic look that we are all used to and love to see, but I have discovered a new favorite tomato treat. And this one is fit for the greenest of woodland fairies.

New Hello Kitty paper punch and a teeny garden update

2011-08-13T15:13:00.000-07:00

I recently bought a Hello Kitty paper punch. I've used it once to Hello Kittyify stationary that I used to write a letter to a friend but other than that, I haven't had much chance to use it for anything. I have grand visions of using it to making cute decorations for Valentine's Day; we'll see if I ever get around to such an ambitious project. Also, I am hoping it will work on nori because it would be fun to make a Hello Kitty bento box or to send Matthew to work with Hello Kitty faces on his Onigiri(I'm sure he just can hardly wait).

The bottom of the paper punch has a small door that keeps the little paper bits contained. It makes it easier to collect them to use in decorating.

Also, just open the door to remove any stuck pieces of paper that can clog up the paper punch.

Hello Kitty cut-outs on Hello Kitty Sticky notes. I think it's appropriate and in no way going over board =)

Since the Hello Kitty paper punch doesn't make for the most exciting post, I thought I'd pad it out with an update on my teeny, tiny, sad garden.

The Basil has sprouted up beautifully. I guess the little "water me" spoon is working better than I expected.

The micro greens are not so micro, they have grown too big and must now be referred to as mini greens. As I was waiting for more of them to shoot up, and to therefore be useful in a salad, these little guys got out of hand. Now I suspect they will be very tough.

Maybe my little garden isn't quite as sad as it has been in the past. Of course, most of the seeds did not sprout but I'll just focus on the fact that a few of them did manage to show their shining faces.

Little Ice Bat

2011-08-08T23:44:00.000-07:00

We found this little fellow at an adorable children's toy store in McMinnville, Oregon while we were there to attend my cousin's wedding (back in 2007). As soon as we got into our hotel room in Portland, he decided to take a little nap. He's pretty cute all snuggled up in a giant bed, and he insisted he needed all that room to get a good rest; we believed him.

If you ever feel too nerdy...just follow me to Comic-Con

2011-08-08T22:43:00.000-07:00

So, on Sunday(July 24th), the last day of Comic-Con, Matthew and I were able to attend Comic-Con. We didn't pay for the tickets but they were very sweetly made available to us and we happily went to see what all the commotion was about. Every year we sort of shake our heads and think "wow, what a fuss. I wonder if it's fun?" This year we were able to take a few hours out of our weekend to see exactly what the fuss was about and to see that it is actually pretty fun. Maybe next year we'll even pay for our own tickets, at least for one day; more than one day might be too much!

We didn't take a lot of photos, since much of the time we didn't have breathing room and taking our camera out to pose for a photo was out of the question, it was just that crowded, but we did get a few fun pictures. Here they are:

Matthew standing next to some cute little yellow fellow.

A much larger version of the little ice bat that Matthew and I have sitting on our shelf.*

This was probably my favorite costume, just because it was so fun and adorable.

I know these funny looking guns aren't really my style but the names were just so funny. I hope the darling little, overly enthusiastic Australian fellow who was telling us all about these guns and the company didn't mind my uncontrollable giggling.

And those are about all the photos we got. Maybe next year we'll get a few more!

*I just realized that I never posted photos of the little ice bat and so will post a few photos of him in a post directly following this one, since he's adorable!!

The Ideal Belgian Waffle

2011-08-07T13:57:00.000-07:00

I'll just preface this post by saying that, technically, this post has been in the works since last tuesday. I took the "ingredients" photos on tuesday afternoon because I'd planned to make the waffle for dessert that evening but dinner was too big and it just wasn't possible.

It wasn't until thursday night that I took a photo of the finished product and my goodness was this one of the best desserts I've ever put together (Yes, I know it's hard to tell from the bad angle and yellow lighting of the photos). I didn't even need to make or bake anything; it was just a matter of composing various fantastic ingredients.

These belgian waffles are the most authentic tasting Belgian-style waffles that I've had outside Belgium. I was, naturally, skeptical about their claim to authenticity when I bought them, even though they looked fairly close to the real thing with visible crystals of sugar embedded in the waffle. I knew they would need to have that perfect slightly chewy texture, with the toasty taste of caramelized crust to really bring back the memories of standing on the cobblestone street in front of Manneken Pis, with my freshly made Belgian waffle.

We tried the first of the waffles in it's plain state with only a little scoop of dark chocolate ice cream on the side to balance out the sweetness, but the second time around I really went all out decorating the little waffle. I had found this really fun dessert topping at Trader Joes on Tuesday afternoon and I desperately wanted to try it out.

I will say, the coffee bean, chocolate and sugar topping goes perfectly over most anything; I even sprinkled some of it over hot buttered toast with excellent results, so I was in no way surprised by how delicious it was over the hot, toasted Belgian waffle topped with dark chocolate ice cream and whipped cream. But, basically, the coffee/chocolate/sugar grind took this humble waffle to a whole new level of gourmet. It's a fun and extremely easy way to fancify any dessert.

bits of cheer from our central coast trip

2011-07-26T12:25:00.000-07:00

I don't have much to post from our trip to Ventura/Santa Barbara but the few things I do have are very cute and fun. We weren't in the area for more than one full day so we really didn't take many photos. I will say, that Ventura is a great little beach town and I found lots of fun clothes there. Also, we liked Santa Barbara once the sun came out and we'd consumed enough coffee.

Little Cupcakes- these were served with the bill for breakfast at Cafe Nouveau in Ventura. Really great Breakfast and astonishingly tasty cupcakes.

Beautiful little red cups at a cafe in Santa Barbara. I had tea and Matthew had coffee. And of course, I couldn't resist buying the wee bar of locally made chocolate. I'm such a sucker for pretty labels.

A little bag of taffy to cheer us up while waiting for the sun to come out in Santa Barbara.

summeryness

2011-07-19T21:29:00.000-07:00

Fun summer images and themes keep popping up today and, in fact, have been showing their bright little faces all week. Matthew and I took a little trip up the coast last week and I've got lots of fun photos that I'll post from that at a later date, but for now I'll just post a few photos that I took today.

The weather was a little bit warm(for San Diego) today so I made Hiyashi Ramen. This is a Japanese warm weather dish and is one of my all time favorite things to eat. I spent the whole day thinking about how deliciously cool and refreshing dinner would be, and it was exactly that!

The dish usually has cooked egg, cucumber and some sort of pork(ham or chashu) over noodles doused in a soy based sauce. I like to add other things to it like corn and tofu to try to "healthy it up."

One of my favorite additions is tomato. And these were particularly tasty little heirloom tomatoes from Trader Joes.

Finally it's cheap cherry season!! And for the first time in several years I found Rainier cherries for less than five dollars a pound which is the usual price for them in San Diego. These were actually 2 dollars a pound and while lovely and delicious, they might be a bit truck worn, hence the better price.

I mixed in a few of the twice-the-price and twice-the-size Bings that I picked up as well. I hope the rainiers don't feel dowdy next to their much more handsome friends.

Cherry Mug shots. Cute.

Ever the hopeful gardener, I've planted some micro greens and several herbs. Perhaps if we have some sun this summer, unlike last year, my plants will finally grow.

Of course, nothing will grow if I don't water them. Hopefully this funny little flattened spoon will remind me to give them a drink more often than once a week.

Triple Chocolately Yummy Bread

2011-06-24T12:25:00.001-07:00

I realized a few posts back that I was obsessively posting on my home baked bread loaves because I was still so fascinated by the fact that they turned out perfectly every time. Well, I took a break from baking bread and posting about it, but I just have to post another one because once again, I'm delighted and shocked that this batch of bread turned out perfectly, and, in fact, came out far better than I expected.

I've grown to really trust the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes book but when I decided to take on the task of making the author's recipe for an intensely chocolately and rich bread, I felt a little unsure. The recipe contains four eggs and over half a pound of chocolate along with almost a full cup of honey, so is by no means an inexpensive recipe.

Of course, as with every other recipe from this book, the bread is some of the best I've ever eaten. I was worried about giving a few loaves away but this bread is something I'll be proud to share with others. I will add that these recipes are so perfect for a casual (read: unwilling to measure precisely) baker who produces a lot of flops (read: terrible baked goods).

This recipe did take a few starting attempts before I was able to pull it all together. I started the first step of melting the butter and chocolate before I realized that 5 more oz of chocolate were necessary so I put off making it until the next evening. Then, I was several steps into the recipe before I realized that I only had half the amount of flour called for, so Matthew and I made an emergency run to Whole Foods and arrived with 15 min to spare before they closed. The dough seemed just fine, despite having sat as a soupy mess while we made our flour run and not rising as much as I'd expected. Perhaps I'll have even better results next time I make this bread, but, in all honestly, this didn't need to turn out any better to make me a happy little baker girl!

Cherry Jelly and colorful fishies

2011-06-14T15:12:00.000-07:00

Not much to post recently, though not for lack of trying. I have just found that most of my recently taken food photos look terrible. I partly blame the grey skies which never provide for attractive lighting but also, most of the food I've made comes out looking kinda weird.

These are the only exceptions and even then, this all may be a little bit silly:

So, the two mugs at the top look like they contain liquid in them but it's actually Sour Cherry Jello!! which they call jelly in the UK. I like Jelly better than Jello! It's much cuter. You can see the jelled juice in the photo taken from above. I bought this delicious sour cherry juice from the Russian beverage section at North Park Produce about a month ago and just finally got around to trying it out. It's really yummy.

This darling little jar of crackers just caught my fancy and I had to take a photo. I served these along side a chicken and salami meatball soup that, as Matthew said, mostly contained beans and spinach. I have to admit the meatballs were a little odd as well, a little dusty tasting. hmmm...maybe the cracker crumbs contained dust?

So, I'll try to make more attractive foods in the next month in hopes that I'll be able to post a bit more often.

Little Things

2011-05-31T16:19:00.000-07:00

Originally, I was planning to save these cute pictures to post later in the week, but my dear, sweet neighbor is moving out today and it just felt fitting to post them today. He has only been our neighbor for a full year (to the day), but I've realized during the past week of his move out process that he is one of the best neighbors that I've ever had.

Growing up we did have some good neighbors but this man has been such a wonderful and enriching part of our lives for the last year, in a way that I don't remember any neighbor ever being before. From the moment our neighbor moved in he has consistently shown his kindness and thoughtfulness in little ways, always remembering my love of all things little, and finding the time to set aside a small version of something for me, such as apples or avocados, anything he comes across.

I have enjoyed so much of the delicious foods that he buys and shares with us, such as dried cherries and figs, or his favorite chocolate cake and coconut macaroons. He loves juicing and shares the new flavor concoctions he makes because he knows they are tasty and good for us. So often, he says, "get a plate" "get a bowl" "hold out your hand; I have something to share with you" and he proceeds to share a portion of whatever he has, no matter if he only has very little of it in the first place.

His enthusiasm for our interests and our well-being really made an impression on me, and last night as we were sipping our farewell brandy with him(just one more example of how he loves sharing with others) I felt at a bit of a loss, knowing that I'd miss his generosity and thoughtfulness in our lives.

It was a very strange and funny parting gift, but it was all I had, two tiny deviled eggs. He loved them and thought they were tiny and cute.

They look like normal sized eggs without any reference. The green plate is actually the saucer for an espresso cup.

This photo gives you a better idea of how small the eggs are, unless my hand is exceptionally large!

A very small easter basket: Maybe this is the sort of eggs the easter bunny should deliver?

Don't ask what got into my crazy head! I really wanted the contrast between the pale yellow and the blue. Sadly, this looks more like merry-go-round the citrus juicer rather than a cool interesting photograph, but I guess it made me chuckle.

Treats at Opera Cafe

2011-05-29T14:24:00.000-07:00

Anybody who reads my blog has probably picked up the fact that I really like treats. After all, my two main reasons for going to Japan were eating Cake and buying cute clothes. So, I'm clearly a fan of going out of my way for delicious nibbles. Thus, after hearing/reading several recommendations for The Opera Cafe in Mira Mesa, I finally realized that this was a situation where I needed to make a little effort to go out of my way for some seriously nummy treats.

Last Friday Matthew and I finally had a totally open day together, so naturally I forced him cakeward to The Opera Cafe. I think even he agreed that it was worth the 20 minute drive; everything we ate was truly amazing and expertly made. In all honestly, the fact that it's a little out of our way will be an advantage in the end and it should keep me out of too much cake-induced trouble.

A little warning: the picture quality of these photos is deplorable and I apologize for them. Some of the photos are so blurry that they may hurt your eyes. I really should have taken a camera with me but instead I just had to use my dinky little phone camera.

Duck Confit salad with dried apricots and candied walnuts. This half order was huge!

Matthew ordered the Croque Monsieur (crunchy mister) and love, love, loved it. He said that, although he hasn't ordered a lot of them in his lifetime, he felt this was the best one he's ever had. The fries were very good as well, and so adorably presented.

The pistachio, strawberry, pomegranate cake with lovely little decorations. The tiny balls on the top of the cake seemed to be candied pistachio praline balls.

The layers were so pretty. This cake was incredibly light in texture and taste with all the flavors perfectly balanced.

Teeny french pastries. We weren't exactly clear on the flavors of the two round pastries but the eclairish creatures were coffee and chocolate.

Naturally I adored this little peach colored flower pastry but it was so mildly flavored that I'm still not sure if or how it was flavored. Possibly apricot?

This was a darling and elegant cafe and a perfect place to go for a little afternoon outing.

teeny pink piggy tissues

2011-05-27T14:29:00.000-07:00

So, I know that everybody can find these cute boxes of tissues at Target and in all likelihood I'm the last person in the world to find out about them, but I just love them and had to post a couple photos of the adorable pink piggy. I find that using cute tissue boxes makes the misery of colds and allergies significantly lessened. How much happier is it to reach for a tissue and through one's blurred vision see a tiny smiling face or pretty bright flowers?

Front and back- of course, you can't see the tiny piggy's backside but it's probably very cute.

mini "canned" apple crisp

2011-05-25T21:52:00.000-07:00

Remember last spring when I posted the sad story of the limequat curd? And the cute little jars that never got to fulfill their duties as vessels for limequat curd? Well, at last their day has come!

Several days ago, my friend Jessica mentioned a crazy, adorable fad that is sweepin' cross the nation: baked goods in canning jars. People are baking up all sorts of treats in these jars, such as baby pies and teeny cakes. Now, thanks to her brilliant thinking and suggestion there exists mini canned apple crisp. I just couldn't resist such an adorable project.

Want to make your own mini "canned" crisps?

Step One:

Pack freshly cut apples(or other yummy fruits) into adorable jars. I mixed the apples with a sprinkle of sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.

Step Two:

Top apples with a crumble topping. I just smooshed together a knob of butter, a sprinkle of flour, some oats, a splash of vanilla and a little more nutmeg.

Step Three:

Bake the crisps in a moderate oven for 30 min, or so.

Step Four:

Serve in a very elegant setting with a wee little fork so as to savor the crisp for a long as possible.

Green, Green: Kitchen Sink Salad and a Grasshopper

2011-05-19T20:54:00.000-07:00

My healthy cooking magazine continually says to eat more greens and, particularly to include a variety of greens in the diet. Tonight, I took their excellent advice and along with my salad had several grasshopper cocktails. They are delicious and so very pretty.

Grasshopper Cocktail: 1 part creme de menthe, 1 part creme de cacao, 1 part cream. I always make it with 1/2 part cream and it's much more minty which I prefer.

Look at the lovely new martini glass. I think it looks very vintage.

A silly salad with more toppings than lettuce. That's the way to make a salad!

Little Tokyo Pals

2011-05-17T21:13:00.000-07:00

I've realized fairly recently that I never posted photos of the little souvenirs that Matthew and I brought back from our trip to Japan. I know that I have had about 6 months to do a series of cute little souvenir posts like I did after our trip to England but I guess it just hadn't occurred to me until now. We didn't really bring back as many fun, cutie tchotchkes from Japan; it sounds crazy considering that Japan is the land of cute plastic toys(Hello Kitty, San-x, lucky cats) but we can find so much of that for sale in the US as well.

Here are a few photos of my favorite little pals that hitched a ride in our suitcases.

This little octo is from the Tokyo Sealife park. He is very cute and not so useful. But very sweet to look at and soft to squeeze.

Hello! he says. Please don't eat me!

This little turtle is functional as well as cute. See the little hole in the middle of his shell? a stick of incense fits in there perfectly. I use him to hold the wonderful coffee scented incense that a friend sent to me for my birthday. It makes the whole apartment smell like roasting coffee.

I think this turtle wants to go on a little walk. This is the first time I've let him outside to go exploring.

Walkin' along, walkin' along. tum dee dum, dee dum...

Don't hurt your self little turtle, that mossy spot looks slippery and remember that it rained today!

Oh little turtle! you made it safely past the mossy bit only to get stuck in a potted cactus, oh dear! I think I'd better carry you the rest of the way.

Where do you want to go?

A ha! on top of the post, to catch the last rays of sun before it sets. What a nice way to end the day.

simple, cheerful kabobs

2011-05-03T09:55:00.000-07:00

Due to having bought a giant, two and a half pound beef tenderloin for a recipe, I had a few funny bits of beef turning grey in the fridge. These were the pieces from the end and the "oopsie" cuts from trimming(hacking, really) away the silver skin (any butcher would have cried to see my incompetence). The tenderloin is such a tender and highly prized cut that I didn't want to keep it around until it finally went bad and then throw it away, as I do with so much of the food that I buy. But, for the same reason, it's hard to just use it in any old recipe like stir fry or stew because it's so very tender and doesn't need to have the life cooked out of it like most of the beef I buy. So, I made Kabobs!

In my little heart of hearts, I adore really tender kabobs and it's something that I never seem able to make with the extra cheap stew meat that I usually buy.

Once I'd decided to make beef kabobs I needed to find some vegetables to string on the skewers with the beef. I desperately needed to use up the little cherry tomatoes that were wrinkling up like raisins in the fridge and, honestly, once refrigerated, tomatoes should always be cooked. I added a few canned artichoke hearts for color and flavor, and thought the little kabobs looked ridiculously cheerful. Cheerful enough for a picture.

Easter critters

2011-04-26T23:29:00.000-07:00

Just a few little easter critters that I encountered during the past week. I meant to post these before easter but I kept forgetting about them unless I was very much not in a situation to write a blog post, at work, lying in bed trying to fall asleep, drinking...the list goes on.

I know that I've posted photos of moonstruck truffles before, but I don't think I've posted the Easter variety before. They are squealingly cute:

A wee brown bunny with a heart shaped nose and sweet whiskers.

Little pink piggy. His look tells me he knows he's destined to be eaten.

It's like a truffle version of Shaun the Sheep(none of my customers knew what I was talking about)

The petite chocolate easter egg. So delicately decorated.

Bonus Picture!

A baby squirrel who likes to crawl around in the pocket of the gentleman who rescued him from the chomping crow. This baby squirrel was very soft with tiny feet. I got to hold and pet him and he was one of the sweetest little creatures I've ever met. So fun!

yes, more bread. I know i'm crazy.

2011-04-19T20:13:00.001-07:00

Honestly, I do things other than baking bread; in fact, I haven't made much in the way of bread for the past month (I wonder if that's why I haven't posted much in the past month, as well? Huh.). This newly acquired ability to easily bake fresh bread is still just so fun and exciting for me, exciting enough that I primarily post photos of the finished product, loaves that magically work perfectly every time. It's still so astounding.

This loaf is made of olive oil dough and because Matthew's favorite type of bread is artisan style olive bread, I tossed in a few shriveling olives that we needed to use up. I supplemented two unrecognizably old castelvetrano olives and five sun-dried, herbed olives with pimento stuffed cocktail olives. Perhaps this was an odd combination, but I liked it and could have eaten the entire loaf of bread for dinner, if not for the vegetarian chili that I made to go with the bread.

Close up of the juicy olives and nice crumb

I really liked the extra moist, fine crumb from this particular bread and assume that the olive oil helps provide the extra moisture. This bread holds up very well to slicing and because of that fact, along with the addition of olives, this is great sandwich bread. Or, at least I hope so, since Matthew has a ham and smoked gouda sandwich on freshly baked olive bread for lunch tomorrow.

And, I promise I'll take a good long break from posting bread photos.

tiny felt roses

2011-04-10T14:15:00.000-07:00

A selection of darling little hand-crafted felt and pearl bead roses that my friend Clare made for a baby shower. She gave me a couple handfuls of them and I just adore them. What shall I do with them? I don't know. Tumble them atop old books and take photos of them? sounds good!

Visiting Friends

2011-04-05T19:53:00.000-07:00

Matthew and I took a short little trip to Las Vegas this weekend and, I have to say, it's kind of funny that when ever I tell people "I'm going to Las Vegas this weekend," they get that little gleam in their eyes and say "oh, wow, have fun!" Of course, the closest we got to partying was eating giant bowls of Chocolate Mousse with friends and hanging out with some of the cutest kids I've ever met.

Lynnea on the hike at Red Rock.

We thought it was the children's discovery trail but it turned out to be quite a strenuous hike. The Kids did amazingly on a much longer than expected hike.

We had such an easy, relaxing time; my friend Clare cooked amazing meals and her husband, Ray, was so kind to drive us up to Red Rock for a beautiful hike. They just took such great care of us during our stay.

It was like a cozy little hotel. Clare had a whole selection of toiletries for us. So cute!

they were delicious

2011-03-29T19:58:00.001-07:00

And they were delicious. Very juicy little sausages in a perfectly baked roll with just a tiny crispness to the crust. Just to add on a few more calories, we dipped them in a sour cream mustard dip.

bitty sausage rolls

2011-03-29T18:06:00.000-07:00

Recently Matthew and I were lured into purchasing teeny, plump sausages from the Japanese market. They were so short, and irresistibly sausagy and cute. Now, before you say "what? Japanese sausage? are you crazy?" All the sausages we've bought from the Japanese grocery store have been really good and made of very high quality meat. These particular sausages are made of beef and look a bit darker because of that.

With bread dough in the fridge and these little guys just waiting to be eaten, it seemed perfectly logical to think of making sausage rolls. I'm honestly not entirely sure that this will work, but I've got to try it because the whole concept is just too yummy and cute. They might fall apart while baking but if nothing else, we can pull out the sausages and eat them all on their own. I'm sure they will be delicious!

past due cupcake post

2011-03-20T16:16:00.000-07:00

A valentine gift from my sweet and slightly crazy neighbor. It made my day when he knocked on the door and presented me with this little treat all packaged in an individual cupcake carrier. It was all just too cute.

I know it's been over a month since valentine's day but I still wanted to post this darling little treat(Please know that I did in fact eat it a timely manner, the posting just took a bit longer than it should have. But one never knows with me; I do love to save food).

And below is a photo of the cake we split on valentine's day. Yes we did actually split it and therefore just the two of us ate the entire thing. why? how? it was from the sheer force of our cake-eating will!

pretty in pink and red bows

2011-03-08T12:09:00.000-08:00

Just a pretty little picture of some homemade caramels all wrapped up in pretty bows. These sea salt and coaco nib caramels were a gift from my employer for valentine's day. They are incredibly rich and delicious, hence the reason I still have a handfull left three full weeks after valentine's day.

silly little pipe cleaner creatures

2011-02-27T18:16:00.000-08:00

My friend Jessica likes making crafts and has a large enough house/table for such activities so I was delighted to visit her and her darling new home for a little pipe cleaner pencil topper fun. These tiny creatures are very easy to make but are incredibly silly due to their wrapped/mummy look and giant poofy heads. So cute!

Everybody says the whiskers really look like a funny mustache but either way, kitty is silly and cute.

yet another bread post

2011-02-22T21:16:00.001-08:00

I double, triple swear I'm not turning this into a bread/baking blog. It may seem that way to anybody who has read my last few posts but in all honesty I'm still just really, super duper excited about the fact that I can make lovely little loaves with little to no effort. It's truly grand!

So, today I finally tried my hand at making a different size loaf of bread than whatever the one size ball o' dough usually makes. I wanted to make a few little loaves to use for Matthew's sandwiches and so I split the one pound ball o' dough into half and then split one of the halves into half again to make three pieces, one larger and two smaller. I had promised my neighbor a loaf of freshly baked bread and the larger of the three was intended for him. He, of course, took one of the smaller ones but I don't think Matthew will complain if he gets an extra large sandwich at some point this week. I, of course, had hoped to keep both the teensy loaves because they are just too tiny and cute.

For the most part, this was a very successful batch of bitty bread but I did learn something from this experience; when I want to make and bake more than one loaf at a time I need to put them on the baking stone one at a time. The largest loaf got a bit hung up on his way into the oven and I almost lost him. All worked out in the end, but for a couple seconds there we had a mini crisis in Lynnea's Little Kitchen.

My new recipe book: it doesn't contain any recipes yet

2011-02-20T12:46:00.000-08:00

For the past month or so, I've been working on putting together a recipe book. A book that contains only the recipes that I use and love on a regular basis. The recipes that I love because either, I make them all the time, or because they were special recipes from my childhood.

I know that both my mother and my grandmother have their own personal recipe books that they turn to for those basic favorites that they would be lost without and I recently realized that I really needed to start the process of creating my own personal recipe book. My binder o' magazine clippings and mysterious ingredient lists written on sticky notes* was just getting to be more of a nuisance than a useful resource for cooking. I also came to the conclusion that I need to start weeding through all the information that I've saved; I need to throw out the recipes that either I or Matthew wouldn't even touch with a ten foot pole and then attempt to make the ones that I still think sound appetizing.

So, after almost two months, off and on with this project and one full week of weird dinners (Matthew only protested mildly), I desperately need to put pen to paper and write the first recipe in my new, precious book. The problem is that so far I haven't written a single recipe in this book. Now that I've finally started to compile the recipes that I want to include in the book, I'm second and triple guessing each recipe and whether or not it is actually worthy of inclusion. Is it truly important to me? Is it something that I'll regret putting in later? Would it be better to just keep the fragile little magazine clipping that I've kept for years at this point?

Now, I have a personal recipe book that's full of blank pages. Not a thing written in it yet and the longer I wait the harder it is to start. I suppose that one of these days I'll just give in and put the first recipe into my book but until then I just keep sifting through my pile of clippings and half written recipes on sticky notes and sighing because, as usual, I can't make up my mind.

* Many of these mystery sticky notes had to be tossed due to the fact that I wrote the ingredients down and assumed I'd somehow remember the name of the recipe, the type of recipe and the process for turning those ingredients into something meaningful. Rather silly of me!

The perfect baby rye loaf

2011-02-19T19:52:00.000-08:00

I finally did it! I made the most ideal looking little loaf of bread. He's perfect.

I actually baked this little loaf a couple days ago to pair with a tasty lentil soup that I'd made. It was a wonderful pairing, fresh, hot rye bread with sausage and lentil soup. Matthew really enjoys rye bread and was very excited at the possibility of eating it straight from the oven. I also promised him ham and swiss sandwiches on rye for this week's little batch of lunches to which he gleefully replied, "yum!" We'll see if I'm actually able to keep up the bread production over the course of the entire week; it seems doubtful.

This evening we were planning to finish up the left-over lentil soup but, naturally, the bread had gone a bit stale so I turned to a very tasty, if rather unhealthy, opportunity to make welsh rarebit. I used a different recipe than I usually do, simply because I can't remember what or where my usual recipe is; I suppose that means that my "usual" recipe isn't really all that usual. I've made a sauce in the past but this welsh rarebit recipe from "Angela Ewing's Pub Grub and Posh British Fare " is much easier.

Welsh Rarebit
3 cups grated cheddar cheese
1/4 cup butter
1 egg
2 tablespoons beer or milk
1 tablespoon dijon mustard (or grainy mustard, is what I prefer)
4 slices bread
oven on broil

Blend cheese with mustard, egg, beer(or milk) and half of butter (I admit, I added a sprinkling of paprika and a dash of cayenne to the mixture). Toast the bread and spread with the remaining butter and cheese mixture. Place on a cookie sheet and broil for 4 min (I could only broil for 3 before the tops got really dark).

We ate these along-side lentil soup, but they are yummery on their own for snacks.

a funny little loaf of bread

2011-02-08T20:45:00.000-08:00

Today, I finally managed to bake a darling little loaf of bread from my new bread book - my first loaf out of this book and, without a doubt, my most successful loaf of bread ever baked. I've made various breads before but this one was really, truly worth all the effort or, to be honest, lack of effort. It was so very easy.

I did take a few before-baking pictures, just in case the bread didn't turn out or was simply unphotogenic. (Turns out, my fears were a touch silly, but it's always best to be prepared.)

Fortunately, the lil' guy turned out all right, if a bit lopsided. But lopsidedness never changes the fabulous flavor. This freshly baked bread really did taste delicious with our borscht.

And, because the photos on this particular blog post are fairly dull and colorless, I'll include some extremely bright and cheerful Bonus photos of my green papaya salad from the Vietnamese Tet festival, which Matthew and I attended a couple weeks ago.

What a tasty and pretty little treat! yum!

The new year

2011-01-30T21:29:00.000-08:00

Now that January is almost over, I guess I'll take the time to post about my new year's eve. It's kind of a now or never kind of thing. If I don't post this before the end of January then it will seem a little silly (never mind the fact that it's already a teensy bit late already).

This year, we made tamales; this was my very first time to help make tamales and I really enjoyed the process. Despite the fact that I constantly stomp around declaring that I hate fussy cooking projects and only like to make easy dishes that don't require complex measuring and such (my baking often doesn't turn out very well due to lazy measuring), the truth is, I adore such things, when I have the time, inclination and participation of various favorite persons.

So, here are some photos of the process; I can promise you that these show just a sampling of the many steps required for this project:

I started cooking the chicken at 9:00 am after waking up to a list of instructions and a packet of semi frozen chicken that my mother left on the counter for me, while she went off gallivanting around the countryside.

We cut the chiles, zucchini and potatoes into strips, crumbled the queso, mixed the masa by hand and soaked the husks.

Assembling the tamales was very tedious. I actually adore tedious tasks. Filing, gluing small things together, coloring in the lines, all the things I secretly love to do but can't admit to loving because it isn't normal.

The tamales looked quite lovely with all the goodies assembled. The olive and raisins really made these taste exceptional.

We finally had the tamales steamed and ready to eat by 7pm. They were truly amazing and worth the extra effort.

Thank you, Elizabeth for giving me the opportunity to help you make tamales. It was great fun! =)

new things! granola and a camera

2011-01-19T21:14:00.000-08:00

I knew it was very, very bad when I signed onto my little blog behind-the-scenes and said "that was my last post? wow, I thought I'd put up at least one post since then." Oh well, I'm finally posting, small and silly though this post will be.

For Christmas, my dear, sweet mother gave me a five minutes a day bread baking book. I know lots of people who love this book and I was delighted to finally have my own copy from which to bake delicious bread, which will, in turn, make me a rather plump little blogger. But, other than making me trade in my size smalls for mediums, this book finally, after years of reading other people's happy success stories, forced me to make my own granola. This is something my mother has always done, from the time I was little but I've always thought it seemed a fairly fussy process for granola that rarely tastes better than what can be purchased out of the bulk bins at the natural foods store.

While skimming the recipes in this book, I came across the recipe that my mother and my brother's girlfriend, Elizabeth, have been raving about for the past year. They love this granola and make and eat it all the time to the point that Elizabeth gave lovely little tins of it to people for Christmas. Luckily for Matthew and I, we were included in the granola crowd and received our very own tin, full to the brim with the luscious stuff. It is really, truly the best granola I've eaten and the only way to have any is to make it. For once, I can't buy a better granola in the store. (And, honestly, I know I'm years behind on "discovering" this book and all of it's much beloved recipes. That's what happens when one lives in a dark, dank little bat cave such as Matthew and I do.)

I will say this for my first batch, I may have over cooked it. In fact, I'm sure I over cooked it; the truth is, I'm forever over cooking things because I often forget that many things are in fact better when slightly undercooked than when over cooked. In addition to over cooking the granola, I, in my usual fashion, forgot what I'd read (I did read the recipe through. twice!), and added the dried fruit at the beginning before cooking everything when in fact I was supposed to add them to the already cooked and cooled granola. The fruit is still edible, but I will say that this was a slight tragedy because some of the fruit I used were incredibly scrumptious, little, tart, dried cherries that my crazy(in the very best of ways), but kind neighbor foisted upon me. It didn't take much cajoling to get me to take as many of the little treasures as he was willing to give me. Fortunately for me, I still have lots of dried cherries left and will make a much better batch of granola in the near future.

By the way, you may notice that the photos of the granola are of a slightly higher quality than I usually post on my blog, or you may not. I, in fact, have a terrible eye for such things and can't tell at all that they are better. But be that as it may, we still purchased a new, fancy-dan camera that takes, supposedly, incredibly better photos for only many hundreds of dollars more than the one I usually use. My main complaint about the new camera(which I secretly love and adore) is that it isn't pink! so sad! pink should be a standard color for all cameras. But this last paragraph just shows what a little philistine I really am.

The front and back. It's rather small for a dslr.

The cutest holiday season of all

2010-12-30T17:15:00.000-08:00

Even during the worst Holiday of the year, cuteness rears it's tiny, sweet head. Despite the fact that I spend most of December stomping around scowling at every bit of cheer that comes my way, I did manage to find a bit of cuteness and fun during the holiday madness. As is fairly typical of me and my version of cuteness, all of these cute things happen to be deliciously edible.

My new silver serving spoon - serving up a sweet, juicy, little tangerine.

My extra easy, extra darling appetizers - wantons filled with nummy things. They look so petite and classy.

I bought the chocolate bar for the wrapper, thank goodness I know Theo Chocolate is a good company but honestly, I would have bought it even if it was from Hershey. I just can't resist a picture of a little blond German girl collecting cocoa nibs in Peru with llamas. So cute and fun!

Well, since I was getting one bar I had to get the other bar, besides it has kitties on it.

Well, Since I was getting two bars I had to get a third bar, despite the very strange picture on the third bar. Actually, I liked it once I realized that the picture was of personified Hazelnuts. Now every time I eat a Hazelnut, I'll think "oh no! the poor little things."

My favorite picture of the holiday season is this little Marzipan Snowman sitting atop a salted caramel tart, surrounded by hand-rolled peppermint truffles. I never ever eat Marzipan because it is disgusting but I adore all the cute little creatures that people make out of it. The tart and truffles are not particularly picturesque but they really were stunningly good, probably the best thing I ate the entire Christmas week.

happy treat

2010-12-02T09:05:00.000-08:00

There has been an obvious lack of posts about bentos and all things related to bentos in the last few months. Basically, I left most of my supplies with my mother and have yet to replenish, simply because I've truly realized just how much work it is to make them. And, this isn't a bento blog! it's just a cute-stuff-in-Lynnea's-life blog. This isn't to say I'm not still totally enamoured with the little cutie lunches and in fact, I purchased some very cute hole punches while in Tokyo.

This is the result:

Now this was made in just five minutes last night and I know that Mabo-don isn't the most photogenic substance but those cute little faces just make the whole bento so much more appetizing.

my salad cravings

2010-11-30T14:01:00.000-08:00

Ever since coming back from Japan, I've been craving salads non-stop. It may seem odd since one of my main posts on food we ate in Tokyo was very salad centric, but honestly, we didn't eat all that many vegetables and more often than not ate rich, fatty meat centric meals. So, despite having consumed a number of tasty salads since returning home, I haven't quite scratched that salad itch. Of course, it doesn't help that Matthew hates, hates, hates salad.

This afternoon I had many random items to use up, half an apple from our ham and apple scramble, chestnuts from making chestnut cream puffs for thanksgiving, and a sad, little bruised pear that had to come home with me from work due to his imperfections. Basically I realized that this was a slightly extra fancy waldorf salad in the making and it was pretty good despite it's celeryless existence(the poor celery, on thanksgiving day I had to throw away the little puddle that had once been a beautiful bunch of celery. I guess celery doesn't last 6+ months, even in the fridge!)

So, lucky me, I got to eat an entire bowl of sort-of-but-not-entirely waldorf salad and lucky Matthew didn't have to eat any of it =)

pommies on a shoe...

2010-11-28T22:23:00.000-08:00

...because, why not? It seems that's the questions with this year's fashion(or perhaps every year's fashions). Why not cover a boot entirely in thick fur? why not cover items in pom poms? My main problem here is that I'm a total sucker for Pom Poms, just like everybody else. So, as part of my birthday clothes shopping in Tokyo I did pick up a pair of really cheap pom pom shoes. They are so crazily silly and It took several tries before I talked myself into buying them.

Anyway, I totally adore them and really can't wear them because I fall down in even the tiniest of heels and since I work standing on my feet all day they really aren't practical for everyday wear. At least I can play dress-up with them.

Horizontal stripes make my feet look fat. Japan, on the other hand, made my everything look fat =)

Japan, at least with really cheap shoes, seems to have four basic sizes, S, M, L and LL. I seem to wear a M very tightly and an L rather loosely. They don't seem to have the best fit for my feet. that's why I didn't bother with looking for shoes that I would wear all the time, maybe next time. For the time being, I'll just scoot around in my slightly too big Ls feeling very much like I did when I used to find high heels in the Free Box and think they were the best treasure in the world.

Birthday surprises

2010-11-28T21:51:00.000-08:00

Before flying off to Japan, I had a birthday and, as often happens, it was another birthday full of sweet and fantastic surprises that remind me over and over again of how much all the people in my life mean to me. I loved all the fun treats that they sent my way, but even more than the fun things, I loved the thoughts and care which I know is sent with each darling item. I will just post a few pictures of the fun things I recieved in the mail, just the things that photograph well. I can't include a photo of the darling sweater that I have secretly been wanting for months, or the little grey scarf that I wore all over Tokyo, or the tiny green notepads set that was so adorable that it actually made me tear up from the utter cuteness of the characters on the little booklets. I'm just not good enough at photographing things to include these things, but I love them all the same.

A little owl towel. Because my mother knows I love dish towels

A whole flock of little owls

One little owl on a green cocktail napkin. Rather cute, I must admit.

A little owl creature. He looks so cute with a candle to light his fat little body.

An extra cutie note book. Hmmm...this birthday, everybody seems to be pushing me to start journaling again.

The best sticky notes ever. And They're Pink!

It's pink! how can I possibly dislike it? but, for the same reason, how can I use it? It's too cute.

I love this pouch. I can not tell you the number of times I've actually reached for these scissors, only to discover that they aren't what they seem. I love the element of shock, every time it happens!

It really was a sweet and wonderful birthday.

Baird Beer Taproom

2010-11-18T04:57:00.000-08:00

So while shopping on one of the main Harajuku streets, Matthew and I went searching for our pre lunch crepes. The long line of of girls waiting to order at Angel Crepes forced us to pop down a side street looking for a little distraction until the line died down. We found a quiet, comfortable little pub with amazing food and Baird Beers, which Matthew and I have had a couple times before and really enjoyed. All the food dishes were extremely high quality and prepared with care.

This beer roasted pork was amazing, some of the best pork I've eaten

We ordered these little crunchy snacks to go with the pork as an appetizer. They were delicious, filled with roasted chicken and gorgonzola cheese. A bit underwhelming after the incredible pork but still perfectly prepared and balanced.

The little green pickles were house made(as was everything) and tasted delicious. They came with the meal as an extra treat. I always adore any pickle, but these were exceptionally good.

This Beer Curry with chicken was our main dish and despite eating a large quantity of curry on this trip, I enjoyed the unusually spicy(for japanese curry), bitter beer flavors in this curry sauce more than any other curry I've eaten before.

We washed down all of these tasty treats with delicious beer. This beer from the tap was, naturally, better than the couple bottles we'd come across before.

Honestly, the entire experience was delightful and surprising because it was all so unexpected. The entire staff was amazing. Our waitress was so sweet and thoughtful about everything, even speaking a little bit of English to make ordering easier. The most incredible surprise in the whole experience was finding out that the gentleman who ran the pub had just come back from Portland, Oregon where he'd spent days drinking his way around the city. He was really excited to find out that Matthew and I are from Oregon. We enjoyed talking beer with him and finding out about his trip to our home state.

The simple decor gave the entire pub a comfortable atmosphere.

Even the bathroom decor was amazingly simple but attractive. It made me smile.

Truly a great place, good food and friendly people.

Crazy Tokyo Fashion

2010-11-15T04:23:00.000-08:00

On one of our many walks through Harajuku(yes, we've been through quite a few times just because it's so fun) I just had to snap a few photos of some of my favorite crazy bits of fashion. Stuff that is just so insanely fun but that I could never pull off, even if I was a little fashionista.

With a name like Candy Strippers you would think that the shop would have some more unusual outfits. In reality, they just have lots of really expensive and silly clothes. These extremely puffy, polka dot boots are a fine example of Candy Stripper's wares.

This is the rather unassuming, very old fashioned Harajuku train station which is directly across from a series of jumping, bright streets filled with clothing shops and big displays. Kind of a fun contrast.

Love! these! boots! Could never wear them but I adore them.

And a hat to go with the boots. Once again, I probably would have a little trouble pulling this off =)

A very odd and slightly disturbing display outside Sevens, a shop which, primarily, sells items for 700 yen.

Really silly pocket in this pair of pants.

My favorite photo. Such sad little cuties at their cannibalistic meal.

our recent nibbles around tokyo

2010-11-14T05:05:00.000-08:00

Over the course of the last week Matthew and I have, for meals, randomly popped into places around Tokyo that look promising. We didn't purchase a meal guide before coming here and I have to admit that the thought of doing a lot of research for our meals sounded like work, along with the fact that most recommended places are expensive. Matthew and I tend to like the very down home, cheap establishments both back home and abroad. To say we've been eating very, very well here in Tokyo (without really trying to) would be an understatement. Finding meals can be frustrating at times because we get rather hungry while wandering the street looking for just the right thing, but it's been a series of wonderful discoveries. I'll post some of the meals in this post and then do a longer post on one of our favorite places separately. Of course, we still have five more days to happily eat our way around the city.

Looks like a plain old salad, doesn't it? But it was amazing and yummy, with very ripe, flavorful tomatoes and a perfect dressing. Very fresh! This was my half salad which I got in The Ladies Lunch Special because I got Strawberry Cake with it. Strawberry Cake!!!

This was Matthew's entree, a Bolognese sandwich. Really strange concept but Matthew said it was actually quite good, if a bit odd. I didn't try it because I kept raving about my salad.

These were the shining star in an already impressive lunch. We loved, loved, loved these fries. They were super skinny and crispy just the way I love fries.

Does this look familiar? can you tell I am slightly obsessed? Just another example of the attention to detail at The Zip Zap cafe on a side street in Harajuku.

This was the beautiful presentation of my strawberry and cream cake. I really loved this cake and, if you know me, you know that half the appeal was the darling little strawberry with his excited, happy face. I think it matched the excitement in my face when I ate the yummery little thing. It was delicious.

Just an example of how presentation and customer service are so impeccable in Tokyo.

I've always adored crepes. Imagine my delight when I found crepe stands all over the city. And these are really good! This was an autumn special of Chesnut creme with whole chestnuts and mille feuille topped with ice cream wrapped in a crepe. Just over the top but so perfect. Not too sweet and so yummy.

On the way to visit a temple and a shrine the other day we stopped for taiyaki. I got the chestnut and Matthew got the sweet potato. I love Japan's fall flavors!

Amazing Ramen from a tiny shop in Akihabara. I Loved this. This was the first time I have had Ramen with really thin noodles and I really did like them. Of course, the real tipping point for me was the fact that I got 1 1/2 eggies in my ramen so it's an automatic win.

Matthew got the same as me but with some extra pork and roasted garlic oil all over the top of the broth. The garlic oil changed the entire ramen but was an really good addition. Matthew couldn't get over how amazing this ramen was and has declared it the best ramen so far.

First images from Tokyo

2010-11-09T14:39:00.000-08:00

I only took a few photos yesterday on our walk through Shinjuku, Harajuku and Shibuya. We saw a lot of amazing places but I must admit, I just didn't get a lot of photos taken.

Hachiko the faithful dog.

I always seem to find my mother's name on trips abroad. In Brussels I sought out the Lunette cafe, but here I just happened upon this glasses shop.

Out of the hundreds of crazy outfits I saw yesterday, this couple won the crazy costume contest. He is wearing fleece pants and had on a fleece stole which he is now carrying and she is wearing a skirt made entirely of patches of sweater and trimmed with blue fur. Wow!

Our first takoyaki(also known as searing mouth pain) in Japan. These were delicious.

All gone!

Last night's dinner and my very first bowl of ramen in Japan. Shredded, leeks on top of this miso ramen made it very good but a bit strong in flavor. One of the tastiest bowls of ramen I've ever had.

hello! fall cheer

2010-10-24T15:17:00.001-07:00

Just adding to my collection of cheery autumnal images for this year:

Apples? again? yes! you see, my extremely thoughtful and sweet neighbor brought these two little cuties down from Julian especially for me. He knows I love cute, little things.

Matthew's favorite halloween plate, since he loves crows. I use it for serving tiny snacks and such.

Seems as though it's the year for fall baskets. These are my very own darling gourds. I really did miss the last ones after I gave them away.

Last Halloween I made this little ghost fellow out of a sake bottle covering and some paper. Just a couple pieces of felt and some glue rounded out the entire project. He's pretty cute blowing around in the wind.

gorgeous gourds and pumpkins

2010-10-10T12:01:00.000-07:00

Picked up a few beautiful fall decorations at the market the other day. I always get really excited about pumpkins but honestly, I never buy gourds, simply because they are not edible. I rarely buy food items that can't technically be eaten, just like I rarely grow things that aren't edible. Not to say that I don't end up tossing a good deal of the food I buy, or don't spend half the summer killing off my dear little herb plants, but I like the idea that everything I put my time or money towards serves a practical purpose.**

To justify my purchase of the darling gourds in the photo, I bought them as a hostess gift for a friend and noticed that immediately all my qualms about buying something useless and impractical vanished. And now that I've held in my possession such darling little creatures, though so brief was their visit, I'm beginning to think I should buy a few of them for myself. Maybe the second time around I'll have an easier time convincing myself that they are necessary.

Naturally, little eggyplant wanted to be photographed along with his new friends. What he doesn't know is that he's actually pretty small next to all of them. It's okay, they think he's pretty cute.

**applies only to grocery store items. please see numerous examples of useless and impractical purchases.

Lynnea vs. The Atlantic

2010-09-28T15:04:00.000-07:00

Naturally, my first trip to the east coast must include my first encounter with the Atlantic ocean. Let me say this, it was a very short meeting and doesn't have me entirely convinced. I still like the Pacific ocean best, so far, I'm still a west coast girl. Now, admittedly, I was only in the water for 10 seconds or so and the pitiful little beach we found was, by no means a nice representation of what the Atlantic ocean beaches have to offer (I'm guessing/hoping).

Have to admit - we kind of picked a gross beach, but there weren't a lot of public beaches. We still aren't entirely sure this one was.

I pinky swear that we didn't photoshop Matthew into the photo but it sure looks that way.

Ready for a new experience.

Gently approaching my target.

Oh dear! it got me.

Done. Get me off this grody little beach.

I'll just say, the Atlantic won this time, but next time I'll be better prepared.

our quick trip to new england

2010-09-28T14:32:00.000-07:00

Slidin' in just under a month with this post! =)

It isn't much but I thought I'd post a few of my favorite images from Matthew's and my trip to Rhode Island. This was the first time I've seen any part of The US that's east of Las Vegas. I must admit, I liked it.

In front of the Mayflower II -which was built in the 1950s - kind of silly but still gives a good idea of the incredibly cramped conditions people endured.

On the porch of Emily Dickinson's family home - I was beyond delighted to visit her home.

I picked up a lot of goodies at the Providence Farmer's Market. Such darling little veggies. Apparently, in Rhode Island they grow the friendliest, sweetest veggies, and their coffee cups all smile up at you when you're drinking out of them.

This little fellow might be delicious fried in butter until golden.

These two just begged me to take them home with me and I couldn't say no. Maybe it was the cuteness overload high or perhaps it was the beyond-perfect weather that made me want to buy everything I saw at the Rhode island farmer's market. I must say, Matthew and I were stunned by the incredible looking produce that the local farmers presented at this farmer's market. Everything was just huge and glowingly beautiful which made it very hard for a veggie crazed little thing like me to resist.

Now, this cup may not look as though it's smiling up at me, but the contents sure tasted like pure happiness in a mug, that is, if happiness is incredible hot chocolate that I am craving even now. I will admit, this isn't the only cup of the stuff that I consumed on our ridiculously short trip. The girls at this shop must have thought I was a chocolate addict or something but I didn't worry about that when I ordered a hot chocolate to chase my morning tea on our last morning in Rhode Island.

A few photos from our trip home in July

2010-08-29T16:20:00.000-07:00

Matthew and I did so little on our most recent trip home, other than hang out in the sweltering heat with our darling families. One of the few activities we actually did muster up enough energy for was a visit to the Lavender Farm. I didn't expect much from the Lavender farm but ended up finding it very peaceful and relaxing(probably due to the affect of the lavender). I'm usually not one for relaxing but prefer to keep very busy because I like a sense of accomplishment, but this was a great time just sitting, sipping lavender lemonade with Matthew and his dear, sweet mom.

A labyrinth designed out of lavender - it was used primarily by great swarms of bees =)

The views were, of course, stunning as well.

See how Relaxed I am?

itty bitty glass fishy

2010-08-27T21:16:00.000-07:00

On a recent(well, a bit less recently than I think*) trip to Crate and Barrel, I picked up a little bag of fishies. I could resist neither their bright colors and little swirls, nor their little fishy pleas to give them a good home. They were simply adorable! Of course, the next question, after the initial question of whether to purchase them or not was answered, was "what to do with the little cuties." You may notice that I encounter this question a lot, far too often, in fact. But that stems from my "ability" to happily pay money for items that I have no need for and never will find a use for.

I thought they were just too pretty in the little fish bowl, so took a few photos to share. I'm sure I'll find other uses for them but until then they are swimming merrily around in the fishy bowl which I have on my living room table. It's fun!

* By the way, yes, it has been a month exactly since I last posted. Really, really naughty of me. I've been extremely lazy lately. No idea why, but I'm sure I'll find something to blame =)

octo-mania

2010-07-27T19:52:00.000-07:00

It just seemed natural to top our dinner of beanie weanies with octo-babies. I had left-over homemade baked beans from last week and they really needed to be used up so I thought making beanie weanies might be a good way to turn them into something "new."

Since I'd never made or consumed beanie weanies, I looked up a recipe; turns out that was pretty silly of me since they are just baked beans and cut up hot dogs. Well that didn't seem very difficult so I decided that, at the least, I could take an extra minute to make a little hot dog octopus topping.

* As a side note: today i organized my categories and re-labeled some posts. As a result, my biggest category is now the cuteness category! hip, hip, hurray for cuteness!

More bento madness

2010-07-24T20:38:00.000-07:00

One of the big activities that I had planned for the trip home involved making bentos. Since it was my dear mother who set me on this bento craze, I thought we would have fun making them together. As it turns out, we didn't make bentos in little lunch boxes liked I had planned for, but instead we made all the components for the bentos and then just placed them on beds of lettuce and sprouts. Part of the change in plans stemmed from the fact that the temperature was nearing 100 degrees and we just ran out of steam. We had thought it would be fun to have the bentos for dinner but realized that we'd actually prefer to eat pizza and drink beer in an air conditioned restaurant, so that's what we did!

The next day we set all the little bento goodies out for appetizers and everyone enjoyed the adorable snacks. I will admit though, egg creatures don't really save as well as I thought they would. the nori eyes ran and the cheese features drooped. Only a few of the photos are even worth showing, but please believe me when I say, "the egg bee and piggies and chickies and mice were utterly, unbearably cute." I loved everyone of them and only wish I'd taken proper photos of them the day we made them.

A tiny crab

Since the egg molds wouldn't work for hard boiled eggs we used them to make shaped onigiri.

hot dog octopus- cute!!

Appreciating rural-life

2010-07-24T18:46:00.000-07:00

When Matthew and I traveled home for the teensiest, tinsiest visit(only four full days) I spent the entire time just soaking in all the joys of rural life with plants and pets and delicious, home grown treats: Home grown strawberries, lettuce, herbs, zucchini and snow peas. The back yard chickens laying eggs. A little organic dairy farm that produces gorgeous, cream laden milk. A lavender farm grown in full view of Mt. Shasta.

I just took a few photos of it all to remind myself of why I can hardly wait to move back to Oregon.

Onions blossoming

Snow peas in blossom and fully grown. They were delicious.

Peeping through the lattice - my mother-in-law's garden is really thriving.

And though I was extremely disappointed with the photos I took of the hops, I've included a couple for the annual hop update - they are certainly bigger than they were last year and have significantly more hop flowers on them. Maybe there will be enough to do something with next year.

Not a bento, but still cheerful

2010-07-02T23:21:00.000-07:00

Instead of using two bowls to hold the different salad toppings, I simply placed the little bit of grass between the two ingredients to keep them separated. It just looked so adorable that I had to take a photo.

I think I'll try to use the cute grass separator in the future (for other non-bento uses), as it seems like a very fun and cheerful idea.

yummy plummy

2010-07-01T20:09:00.000-07:00

Dinner was incredibly easy tonight (avocado sandwiches and pasta salad left over from wednesday), so I figured I could muster up a couple more drops of energy to make something delicious from the three lovely, and very ripe pluots that I bought yesterday. I mean, we could have eaten them plain and it would have been a nice treat, but then I just figured, why not warm them up with a little sugar, a dash of rose water, a smidgen of allspice and some potato starch to make an ice cream topping.

At the very least, dessert will look lovely =)

mini strawberries and funny little radish flowers

2010-06-27T15:11:00.001-07:00

Bentos aren't the only cute things around here. Today, we went to the Farmer's Market and I bought some outrageously expensive strawberries. Matthew thinks I'm crazy for buying them but they looked just like the magnificent and heavenly little strawberries that we use to bring in to Farmer's Market(the natural grocery store I used to work at, not to be confused with A Farmer's Market) for a couple of short weeks in June. We used to have people sign up for waiting lists and such, just so that they could buy flats of the sweet creatures.

Turns out, these strawberries are very, very good, although not quite as good as the ones I remember from Oregon(but then, as a true Oregonian, I think everything is better in Oregon).

So, now my only question: what do I do with them? Eat them straight? or turn them into something magnificent? my "magnificent something" could turn into a real flop, but eating them just straight seems like a very expensive snack.

In other news, my radish seeds sprouted two very sad little creatures and one incredible, giant radish "tree" that has since flowered. It isn't often that I see such a magnificent radish flower and so, I took a picture.

It really is lovely!

Please Note: I apologize for all the strawberry photos looking the same. As it turns out, the particular strawberry that I selected for photographing was not the best looking strawberry in the basket. It really only had one attractive side, hence, all the photos of the exact same side/angle. Next time I'll make my selections more carefully, and possibly (but not likely) be less lazy about going back inside to find a better specimen. At least he was the tastiest strawberry =)

Bento Practice: The wee mousey

2010-06-27T14:48:00.000-07:00

This little fellow turned out pretty well; in fact, he was the only successful aspect of my hurried, before-work bento practice. I realized that my bento making skills really need some practice, and so, on Friday I tried to make a bento with just vegetables, a few cheese flowers and a little honey roasted ham flower. Well, it made me realize that rice is essential for bentos; it props up all the goodies and creates a clean palate for color. My bento was just a jumble of little, cute treats that rattled around in their box. Matthew was very encouraging and suggested that I could easily redeem my silly mess by calling it Mouse in the Underbrush, therefore explaining why the little mouse was almost hidden by all the veggies and such. the whole scene was actually kind of cute in a way, but certainly not worth photographing. The little mouse, on the other hand, was just too cute not to show. Admittedly, his mouth is rather large and looks more like a moustache (mouse stash) but that's still cute!

Little mouse amongst the flowers.

He really is pretty cute.

Little mouse atop a flower.

cutie bento: first attempt

2010-06-22T16:31:00.000-07:00

For the last few nights, I've struggled to get to sleep. I've felt restless, lying in bed thinking about tiny scraps of nori or bits of cheese, even itty bitty quail eggs and all the fun things I could make with them. Of course, I blame my dear sweet little mother. Yes, it all goes back to her! She is the one who sent me one of the cutest little bento making books I've ever seen, one that makes adorable-bento-creation an attainable goal. Never before have I felt that it was possible to do anything more than envy the talents of those who make clever little bento boxes. Now that I know better, I can't stop thinking about how very, very much I want to make my own cute lunches.

This afternoon, I finally had a chance to try my hand at this rather laborious task. I will come right out and say it, my bentos look nothing like I wish they did. They in no way look professional, and for right now, in my learning stage, I'm just copying the work of the darling ladies who wrote the book. Who knows, perhaps I'll never get to the point of coming up with my own ideas and ways to make them happen, but until then I'll enjoy the crudely copied creatures that I make and eat. It's times like these when I really wish I'd been given just a little bit of my dear mother's creativity and talents.

This was my bento. I didn't give my tiny chick feet, but she was still cute.

This was Matthew's bento. His little chick has feet which I think makes him cuter. I dyed the tiny quail eggs with turmeric and I must not have left them in the dye for long enough because they came out a little bit blotchy. The eyes are made of a bit of cheese and a mustard seed.

The stir fry left over from yesterday with a side of fresh veggies and a close up of that lopsided little chickie. The blue star squeezie bottle has soy sauce in it to freshen up the stir fry.

After I ate my bento and delivered Matthew's to him at work, I decided to make a little test Eggie. This little Eggie is copied directly from the book. Of course, mine isn't perfect but I still liked it. I will say, even after the little Eggie took a mighty tumble from atop his bowl, he still looked okay and I took the pictures anyway so there are some funny little bits stuck to him, but I'll probably eat him later and just ignore the funny bits =)

Here you can see the sad little lint on the side of his head.

Eggie's eyes aren't perfect but I hope to buy a tiny hole punch to make eyes instead of cutting them out of nori with toenail scissors.

Obviously, my bento creations need some work, but, like the title says, this was a first attempt and I had so much fun making them.

babiest lettuce

2010-05-26T23:57:00.000-07:00

Today, my employer gave me two baby lettuce pots that she bought at the farmer's market. I've been talking non stop about my silly little lettuce grown from seed that I was just sure would die a terrible buggy death, and I guess she just wanted my original baby lettuce* to have the cheerful company of even littler lettuce plants.

Here they are with a mini wheelbarrow, just the right size for tiny lettuce plants.

*Now that I look back at old posts, I realize that I never posted a photo of my lettuce grown from seed. It's lovely and very healthy. I made a salad out of it and it was extremely tender.

my teeny tiny friend

2010-05-18T16:49:00.000-07:00

Hello! I'm not entirely sure if I've posted a photo of my little pink computer owl in the past, but I think a photo or two of her would certainly cuteify my blog. The weather today was just so lovely that I thought I'd take her out for a little exercise and some sunshine. Usually this wee owl sits atop my computer and nods her head and blinks her little eyes adorably, but in these photos she happily perches on my finger.

My sweet little Mother's Gifts

2010-05-09T12:41:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post to show off how talented and sweet my mother is to me. I received a darling package in the mail a couple of weeks ago; it was covered with little fairy stickers which had darling little quotes around them, written, of course, in my dear mother's handwriting. Upon opening the box, I discovered several darling little creatures peeking out of the tissue paper. Initially, I thought "Oh how very sweet of my mother to send me these things. She must have bought them from a very talented artisan, perhaps a friend of hers." Imagine my surprise when she told me she made them herself! She is incredible. I still feel a sense of complete amazement every time I examine the tiny detail work on the little fairy or the sweet little owl pouch. It is the same feeling that I had as a child when my mother would come along and help me with a project that I had been struggling to make work; she always was able to draw, write, craft so perfectly and here, I find, now that I'm older and more capable than I was as a child, she still seems to do everything perfectly. It's lovely having such a talented mother.

Here are a few pictures of her tiny creations:

Fairy friends

Little fairy leaning over the wishing well, I mean wishing tea cup

A tiny pirate sailing around in the mate gourd that he picked up in Argentina. He is quite the world traveler, but my mother says he isn't particularly fond of seagulls, due to a rather frightening incident and he doesn't like to talk about. He prefers everyone to think he is very brave.

Tiny owl pouch. I love it.

pretty little tea party

2010-04-25T22:15:00.000-07:00

It's been years since I've attended a proper tea party, but today I've remedied that sad state as I had the opportunity to join four utterly sweet and adorable girls for a tea party. Honestly, I enjoyed this cheerful little tea party so much that it makes me wonder to myself why these sorts of things don't happen as often as they should.

For the tea party, I made a batch of my favorite, but extremely fattening (naturally), cookies: Lemon and poppy seed cookies. Of course, I altered the recipe this time, but in my defense I made the recipe exactly as it is written, a few years ago; this time, I just added a pinch of ultra finely ground lavender to the batter and sprinkled whole flowers on the top for decoration. I must admit, I really like my alteration. And I know that the Lemon Lavender combination is beyond passe, but I haven't really had the chance to use it yet. This is probably the first time I've made anything with those two ingredients as the main flavor profiles and I'd happily make the same change to these cookies in the future.

Along with the cookies, I threw together a silly little tartish treat. Store bought tart shells with a dab of clotted cream spread on the bottom and a few blackberries squished into the cream. I really enjoyed these tiny creatures; they were just so petite and fun to eat.

I wasn't able to get any pictures of the extra nummy sandwiches that Jessica made, but that was mostly because I couldn't stop wolfing them down in time to get a nice photo of them. I'd wager I ate more tiny sandwiches than anyone, except the dog(who loves to nick food).

My favorite goodies at the tea party were Jessica's lovely lemon lavender scones(yes, you'd think it was pre planned, but we aren't organized enough for that) with dollops of clotted cream and freshly defrosted* limequat curd.

The best part of the whole tea party was getting to wear a corsage and I must say, it is probably one of the most elegant corsages I've ever worn. Thank you Julie!

*Note: My failed canning of the curd meant that I had to freeze it, against my own silly wishes. Of course, Ball Blue of canning and everyone else in the world recommends freezing Lemon curd and they are correct that it unfreezes beautifully, but for my part, I think I'll attempt canning it once more before I allow myself to become a die hard citrus curd freezer (it was just an itty bitty touch watery).

a darling little springtime gift

2010-04-13T15:30:00.000-07:00

I know this beautiful Lily of the Valley won't last long. In fact, I'm surprised that it actually bloomed for me, since most plants refuse to grow flowers once I touch them with my grubby little grey thumbs.

The first individual blossom opened on Easter Sunday, but only one seemed very small, so I waited to photograph the stalks until more flowers had blossomed.

It seems like each day a few more individual flowers open up.

I just adore the petite look of the flowers.

Thank you Mother for such a sweet gift.

cutest dinner

2010-04-10T20:28:00.000-07:00

Yes, yes, I fully realize that everybody got over their slider/baby burger phase about 6 months ago, but I still can't help but adore these tiny creatures. They are just so lovably small and fun to eat.

I couldn't resist posting a photo of them since they looked(and tasted) so much better than the tofu burger sliders that I made a couple months ago.

This is just what we had for dinner tonight: Baby lamb burgers with Alexis crinkle cut fries. Nummy, yummy!

The sad story of the limequat curd

2010-04-06T16:30:00.000-07:00

It's Limequat season again in Southern California and I have dutifully bought my season's worth of these wee yellow creatures from Farmer Steve at the Farmer's market. These precious little babies really make the best curd, as I discovered last year.

I decided to show off this year. Not sure who I would be showing off to, myself? But, my plan was to make the curd and can it in darling little jars that I'd purchased on impulse many months ago. Well, I gave it a really good effort, really I did, but due to my absentmindedness I had to settle for a less than perfect product: uncanned limequat curd.

So pretty in the small jar

The happy little curd looked so beautiful, unusually yellow and bright, as I packed it in jars and gently placed it in a pot of boiling water. I cheerfully set the timer for 15 minutes, thinking about what a splendid and resourceful girl I am, when suddenly I looked down at the massive chunk of butter than still needed to be worked into the curd. I had just placed jars of butterless curd into that hot water bath. Oh dear! up came the jars, off came the lids, out came the curd and in went the butter. Once I had finally managed to stir in most of the butter(it wouldn't all fit) I decided that I just didn't want to chance poisoning myself and everyone I know by canning limequat curd with partially used lids. I am not comfortable enough with canning anymore to know what I can and can't get away with, so I decided to just eat the gorgeous curd fresh. No saving it for years on end, waiting for that special enough opportunity to open the jar and use it. I will just have to give some away and eat the rest of it every single day for the next week.

I suspect that the curd will taste very good on hot cross buns left over from my Easter snack fest.

Note: The curd will actually save beautifully in the freezer but this completely negates the use of the darling little jars which are not freezer safe. Perhaps, after a week of eating limequat curd, when I still have so much left to eat, I'll put it in a tupperware and freeze it.

A little easter mistake

2010-03-18T23:23:00.000-07:00

I was frying up some delicious, peach flavored eggies the other day:

Three for Matthew:

And three...for me:

Oh no! this doesn't look quite right:

These three eggs must have sat in the nest for too long:

That's okay. Fried Chicken tastes good too:

My new little hoot

2010-03-02T15:38:00.001-08:00

My very last Christmas present of the season finally arrived about a week ago. She was delayed several times on her bumpy journey from Fong's Studio in Malaysia but determinedly she flew on until she made her way to her new home, my home. This sweet and darling little Hoot pillow was a Christmas gift from good friends, Matt and Christy. I just can't squeeze the dear thing tight enough. I love it and think that it really brightens up my chair, adds a bit of color. I assure you, five pillow on my little chair just aren't enough. I won't be satisfied until I'm only able to sit on the very tippity edge of the chair because the rest of the seat is covered with adorable pillows.

I will admit, I'm rather tempted to purchase another one of these baby Hoot pillows so that my little hoot doesn't get lonely. Of course, she has so very many owls to keep her company that perhaps it would be a bit redundant to add another to the flock. I'll just be satisfied with my one little pink owl pillow.

tiny pink love bugs

2010-02-14T16:20:00.000-08:00

These little sweet love bugs crossed my path the other day and I just thought I'd post them for all to enjoy! Just in time for Valentine's Day! =)

It's a beautiful day for single love bugs to go out and about for a walk.

"Hey, Cutie! I'd like to meet you."

"You seem Nice"

"It's okay, I'm a love bug, not a bed bug. I don't Bite!"

"Well, you are awfully sweet"

"Let's be little valentines!"

Just a silly little valentine story.

And, a big thanks to the props!

Cutie Robot Pillow

2010-02-06T23:11:00.000-08:00

During my visit home in November, I found a darling Robot print fabric at a tiny quilting store in Ashland. I just knew I had to have this fabric; I would worry about what to make with it later. The problem of what to do with it was, of course, quickly solved when I remembered that the only things I can sew are aprons and pillows. I knew Matthew wouldn't be too likely to wear an Apron(at least not the style I'd sew with ruffles and RicRac), so I chose the only other option.

As usual, with any of my sewing projects(I should be honest and just call them like they are - messes), I had grand and fantastic visions for this humble little pillow, and not a one of them came to fruition. By the finish, I ended up with an extremely basic and simple pillow, despite several restarts and too many hours of planning(the most misguided of my sewing "career").

Someday, perhaps I'll take the entire thing apart and turn it into a truly worthy pillow, but until then, we'll just feel cheered by the tiny Robots and Robot doggies in the pattern. So Cute!

Gardening-my nemesis

2010-02-02T17:38:00.000-08:00

Everyday, upon leaving and returning home, I cringe and turn a blind eye to my tiny, potted garden. My little plants, in all their myriad colors (grey, two-toned grey and green, brown and green) lay the thickest guilt trip anybody could ever endure.

My one shining success is actually no success of mine, but rather just a very hardy little pepper plant who, after being dried up into a sad little stalk, eventually pulled out and thrown away, must have left behind a little seed, something to carry on his legacy. I mixed in the old pepper plant's soil with some other soils and used it to replant my recent string of tragic little plant creatures. The little seed just magically started to grow(I say magically because the thyme that it shares a pot with, can hardly keep himself alive). Now I have a full pepper plant on my hands with real, live peppers growing on it. Now the real trick is to see if they will turn red or just shrivel up and die, like most of my other plants.

Note: and yes, I know the photos look identical, but they aren't. If one looks very closely, variations are noticeable =)

Burn's Night Celebration

2010-01-26T14:44:00.000-08:00

Last night was Burns Night, an evening to celebrate by consuming large quantities of Scotch along with a dinner of Haggis and Tatties and Neeps. We invited a few friends over to drink with us, read Robert Burns' poetry and toast to his memory. It was a lot of fun. Admittedly, we didn't manage to drink the entire bottle of scotch(which we'd expected to do), but we did get a pretty good handle on it, considering that the bottle was untouched before the start of our Burns Supper.

After traveling to Scotland and eating several versions of Haggis, Matthew and I developed a real appreciation for this hearty dish. We had hoped to find a really good Haggis to share with our friends; alas, we only found a mediocre one which adequately served it's symbolic purpose. Actually, we ate most of the Haggis and I'll eat the rest of it with the left over Tatties and Neeps for lunch tomorrow. Yum!

All in all, Burns Night was great fun!

A little fresh snow

2010-01-02T08:56:00.000-08:00

As Matthew and I were preparing to drive to Sacramento, this is what we looked out of the window and saw, beautiful, new snow. I couldn't help but snap a few photos before we took off down the freeway in this lovely little blizzard.

Pretty little creatures

merryish christmas

2009-12-25T17:16:00.000-08:00

Hope everyone is having a lovely Christmas.

My Christmas Bami Ballen

2009-12-20T16:00:00.000-08:00

My Friend, Anesha, sent me a very old Bami Ballen that she made when she was a girl. Now she wants to know what I found inside.

So, Anesha, this is what was inside:

First a pen and a small crystal heart

Then a hair barrette

Followed by a second hair barrette with only half the clasp still present

Then a half an egg of putty that was stuck to the crepe,
after that, I found a little viking game

In the very middle, there was a pack of cards and a little bear puzzle wrapped back to back.

It was really fun to unwrap the bami ballen. So fun, that I think I might make them for Christmas.

Playing in the snow

2009-12-20T15:33:00.000-08:00

He's a very small kitten, surrounded by snowballs.

These are the steps that a small black kitten goes through when he gets pummeled with snowballs:

Confusion

Fright

Sadness

These little poses might not look different, but they are.

Thank you, Anesha! For such a cute gift.

Not a total grinch!

2009-12-20T15:15:00.000-08:00

Despite Matthew's insistence, I'm not entirely a little green grinch. Admittedly, I spend most of November and December growling and harumphing as Christmas approaches, but that's just because it always feels terribly unsuccessful.

This year, I didn't leave my Halloween decorations up until Valentine's day. In fact I took them down before the end of November(unheard of in our household) and replaced them with Christmas decorations.

As proof of my ungrinchlyness, here's a couple photos of my wee pink tree. I never put the baby tree up last year and I've regretted it for the past 11 months. It certainly helped spur me to set up the tree when my dear friend May sent me some darling Hello Kitty Ornaments in the mail.

I even made tiny presents to go under the tree.

How to cuten up a plain white door

2009-12-06T14:37:00.000-08:00

This is a tutorial on how to Cuten up a plain white door.

Steps to follow:

1. Have a 28th Birthday
2. Receive the sweetest vinyl birthday owl from best friend
3. Wait a month trying to figure out where to put the vinyl owl (it mustn't be wasted on an unworthy spot)
4. Finally have a stroke of adorable genius and apply it to the plain white bedroom door that looks a bit depressing, when you really think about it (which isn't very often)
5. Notice how incredibly cheerful the new owl vinyl looks on the door
6. Wonder how it took a whole month to figure out where to put the owl

See, doesn't the door look so cute?

Cuteness abounds!

I can still pretend it's fall

2009-12-01T16:20:00.001-08:00

Despite what the calendar says, Matthew and I are having a tiny thanksgiving dinner tonight. We had a fantastic thanksgiving dinner with friends on Thursday, but we still have to use up the free ham(from work) and the little pumpkin I bought for decorative purposes. I am still stuck in fall motif. Perhaps today will be my last stand for fall and the loveliness of my favorite season. (I actually already decorated for Christmas and will post photos of the darling Hello kitty tree and the darling Ghibli tree at a later date.) After today it will be all Christmas, all the time.

I was just enchanted by the delicate color and feel of the pumpkin puree. Not sure why it is so different than usual but I really liked this year's pumpkin. It was delicious with just a touch of salt and agave syrup on it for a snack.

This year, I did not make the Moosewood Cookbook pumpkin pie recipe. Instead, I made the pie with sweetened condensed milk. I've never made a pumpkin pie with SCM but since I've had a can of it in the cupboard for quite some time, I figured it was long past time to use it. I actually didn't realize how popular this type of pumpkin pie is and was surprised at the number of recipes that call for SCM.

Of course, I over cooked the pie but It still looks very good. The sweet little maple leaf and apple edging is particularly appealing. So Cute!

adorable, little, thanksgiving owls

2009-11-26T15:24:00.000-08:00

With the increased popularity of owls over the past year, almost to the point of saturation, I've acquired dozens of little specimens. They are all incredibly cute and impossible to resist. Many of them are gifts and then others are purchased by guilty little me. Guilty, because I am spending a fortune on these unnecessary, but fun, little owl creatures.

A recent Birthday gift from my employers included a wee nest of Japanese-made cloth owls. They found this itty bitty owl family at a lovely store in New York and brought it back for me to enjoy. How lucky, lucky, lucky I am!

The little family all snug in their nest

Baby owl all alone in the nest.
Did mother and father owl go look for food?

Baby owl, out looking for his parents.
Oh dear! Baby owl, don't get lost!

Now, mother owl says, "stay in the nest!"

Just last week, I took a trip to my local hardware store and spotted a sweet little owl mug. Despite my cupboard overflowing with mugs, I brought him home. When I finally pulled it out to use it for my tea, I noticed a startling resemblance between the mug and the little paper clay owl that Matthew had just created the week before.

Hmmm...we suspect that they may have been separated at birth, although one is clearly the runt of the nest.

All-in-all, I'm thoroughly enjoying all these sweet little owls.

And Before I Forget, Happy Thanksgiving!

Images from an autumnal Birthday weekend

2009-11-15T15:33:00.000-08:00

For the first time in four years, I spent my Birthday at home in Oregon amongst my family and the fall colors that I always expect to see around my Birthday. It still surprises me every year when November rolls around the San Diegan trees are still green or simply shriveled and brown, no bright color at all. This year I enjoyed having a true fall birthday at home.

My birthday cake- one of the best I've ever eaten

A stroll through the park after birthday shopping and lunch

A birthday Mother on the bridge

A sampling of the lovely trees in Ashland

Images from Pat's Autumn garden

Pretty little flowers

The Hawthorne berries before they darken for winter and lose their leaves

The Hops-still pretty, despite no longer being green

A strange little Orange berry tree that I've never noticed before

Not a garden picture, but still, very pretty little utensils. I should have posted it with my muffin recipe post.