A Reprise

I went on two excursions to Parks Mall last week: a solo walk, and a venture with my husband. On my solo walk, I noticed that Regis Salon had closed down. I had not had any plans to return; however, seeing the shuttered building felt like another sign of the end of an era. I spent many hours in Regis, got some of my best looks from their stylists, and found some of my signature nail polish colors (in particular, O.P.I.'s "Suzi Sells Sushi by the Seashore"). Sears was going out of business and as such, they were selling all mannequins and fixtures. On my second excursion with my husband, I bought some deeply discounted clothing at Sears. Afterward, we had dinner at Piranha Ramen on the patio. It was beautiful, but windy. Apparently, we are having a massive haze from an unusually large Saharan dust cloud this summer. I can't believe I've lived here so long and never knew that Saharan dust covered the east coast. However, after eating outside, I found particles in my...

Henry's wound is healing nicely. He has adopted an air of pensive melancholy since the incident.   Things I made. Rye bread, and two cloth bread bags. Yellow cupcakes and a cake stand liner. I'm trying to decorate. I never finished decorating for Easter, but these are some vintage cards.   I tried something different for the bathroom curtain. I tried making an oven mitt from my own pattern, but it didn't work. I'm going to try again though. Birds building a nest outside the sewing room. And the biddies. Left to right: Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty (possibly Prince Charming), Beauty, Snow White. Look at those feathers. They are getting plump now too.

  Last weekend I made the Herb Bread from Betty Crocker’s classic cookbook. The main differences were using milk instead of water and a copious quantity of herbs to season the bread. Despite a shorter rising time, it became gigantic in the oven, making for very large sandwiches.   I also made ginger cookies throughout the last couple of weeks with some dough I kept in the refrigerator. I cut my last batch with larger cutters and frosted them. They were softer and much tastier.

  Nathan made this delicious dish, pureed and spiced chicken fried in mustard oil with green peppers. It was very good and spicy. We had it at about 10:30 on Saturday night. So much fun. The chicken is supposed to “blossom” when it fries. You can sort of see it cracking open.

  The thought of going out after work felt hollow, but I desired a treat so much. This is my new Folger’s Vanilla Biscotti coffee topped with cream whipped with powdered sugar. I once had a quantity of leftover heavy cream and so whipped it for our hot drinks. Once I tasted it I couldn’t go back to half-and-half or flavored creamers. Today on impulse I dumped a healthy quantity of powdered sugar while I was whipping. Mmmm… I’m so glad I didn’t go out for coffee after work but came home, did the right thing and put some laundry in, then this… We find it turns out better if you sing “You must whip it” while you whip your cream. In the shadows are my “thrift cookies,” my first cookie salvage recipe. I am definitely putting this one into my recipe journal. I made some chocolate chip cookies after we came home from vacation, still don’t know quite what went wrong there! The dough looked delicious, but they spread like wildfire all over the cookie sheet once baked and tasted… off...

  Nathan has been inventing and making his own contraptions frequently lately. Here, his thermometer-holder over the kettle of heating milk.

    A couple of weeks ago we went to our friend’s house to make crepes. The first time we did it the old-fashioned way, spreading the batter inside the pan. His crepe-maker, however, made perfect crepes. It looks like an upside-down pan. Once it is heated, you dip it in the pan of batter and turn it upright. When the crepe is cooked, you turn the maker over and the crepe falls into the pile. We had these with various honeys, berries, and a homemade pecan sauce.

"He had decided to save fifty centavos to fulfill a dream he had cherished ever since he was a child: to have a cup of Viennese coffee. Through the windows of the Hotel Frances he had seen the waiters pass with trays held high above their heads on which lay these treasures: tall glass goblets crowned with towers of whipped cream and adorned with beautiful glazed maraschino cherries. The day of his first paycheck, he had crossed back and forth outside the establishment before getting up the courage to go through the door. Finally, beret in hand, he had stepped timidly across the threshold and entered the luxurious dining room, with its teardrop chandeliers and stylish furniture, convinced that everyone was staring at him, that their thousand eyes found his suit too tight and his shoes old. He sat down on the edge of the chair, his ears burning, and gave his order to the waiter with a mere thread of a voice. He waited impatiently, watching people come and go in the tall mirro...

On Christmas morning, we woke up around six in the morning and built a fire.   I set the table in red placemats and runner that we received as a wedding gift. The three boots belonged to my grandparents. I don't know why there are only three, but my guess is there is one for each of their three children. My Christmas bouquet from Nathan. I still have it here at the table, and it is still beautiful. My Christmas roast was too large for my crock pot. I was very upset and tied some plastic over the pot until the roast thawed enough for me to push it down and put the lid on. It was good, really good. Dinner time was some twelve hours later, and I forgot to take a picture of the finished roast. Later that day I finished the tree skirt I had started on Christmas Eve (obviously I intended to sew this some weeks before :/ ).   (That means I will have to leave up the tree for another month so we can look at it.)

An inventive method of melting chocolate. The completed boudino. Matt made all parts except the meringue cookies. Nathan and I made those together. The dessert consisted of a thick chocolate mousse covered with home-whipped cream, meringue cookies and chocolate shavings. We piled this concoction on the sugar-covered biscotti to eat.