i was at trader joe’s last weekend and picked up a jar of trader joe’s korma simmer sauce. it has been warm and i haven’t wanted to engage in any serious cooking and this seemed like a perfect easy delicious solution. i sauted an onion and some zucchini then set them aside. i added some cubed chicken breast to the pan and cooked it through. then i added the veggies back and poured the sauce on. i added some frozen peas and let it all warm up together for a couple of minutes.

serve over some brown rice and enjoy! so good!

the menu from the hot weather dinner party

manchego, quince paste, baguette, and grapes

caprese salad

butter leaf salad with breakfast radishes and a balsamic vinaigrette

spaghetti carbonara

homemade strawberry ice cream

homemade raspberry lambic sorbet

it was very successful! i was worried that the pasta would be too heavy, but no one seemed to care about that. i think that everyone secretly always wants bacon and pasta, or as my husband refers to it ‘bacony pasta.’

it is really hot today and i wish i still had some of the sorbet or ice cream left…

i guess i’ll have to make do with this instead:

two of my favorite things coming together! stephen colbert AND ice cream!! once the colbert report comes back with new episodes next week my life will be complete.

i was going through some of my old magazines and found one of my favorite issues of Vogue, July 2004. kirsten dunst is on the cover and is featured in a wonderful spread. it still kills me four years later. i want to look like this all of the time.

(don’t you love how i just took photos of the magazine instead of scanning the pages?)

i love the spirit of the photos, the clothes, and her hair. i have taken this issue to the hairdresser so many times as an example of what i want. which leads me to my next conundrum: to cut or not to cut?

here’s what i look like right now (i took this with the camera on my computer):

here’s what it looked like not too long after i got it cut in this bob-shape:

here are a couple of examples of what i looked like with various versions of the ‘kirsten’:

i also was growing out the remainder of my platinum hair, which is a whole other discussion: to lighten or not… i’m leaning toward the shorter cut, but i do maybe just need a trim on this bob? the bangs are too long to wear with a center part. ugh. i don’t know. maybe the secret is just to look down all of the time, like i am in the short hair photos. that’s my favorite pose for photos. it’s surprisingly flattering.

i woke up at 6:30 sunday morning and couldn’t go back to sleep. it wasn’t really my favorite thing, waking up that early, but i decided to roll with it instead of fighting it. i went downstairs, made some tea, and opened my laptop. last night we were at the most amazing house i’ve ever been in. i had no idea how amazing it was going to be or i would have brought my camera. so alas, no photos. it was my mid century modern dream house. it was like i had died and gone to heaven and my ghost was wandering around the fantastic house. ugh. our friends bought it from the original owner, who also happened to be the architect that designed it. he left them with the blueprints and a book of notes he had taken about the house over the years. it still has the original cork floors and fixtures. it also doesn’t hurt that it is on a bluff overlooking a valley, with amazing picture windows framing the beautiful view. so i had to visit my favorite mid century modern real estate site to see what was for sale in portland. we’re not exactly in the market for a house right now, but it’s nice to keep tabs on what is out there. if we were actively shopping for a house we’d be driving over to see this place right now. so much potential and character!

anyway, after drooling over the houses and almost getting sad that we can’t go buy one today i started checking into some of my favorite design blogs. there’s always an idea or two that i run across that i think i might be able to incorporate into our place, which usually makes me feel better. i found this great site, door sixteen, and i think it might be my new favorite blog. it is written by anna and is primarily, i think, about her cool old house and its’ ongoing renovation. she also writes about other things she likes from time to time. i probably read through 8 pages of her blog this morning. it is so great! on one of her posts she blogged about getting a new iMac. she posted a photo of it which had orla kiely wallpaper on the desktop, i mean this in the computer sense, not actual wallpaper glued to the top of her desk. anyway i read further and found out she created it herself. so of course as soon as vincent was up, 2 hours later, and had a cup of coffee in his hand, i asked if he could help me make one too, and here it is:

i love it! it makes the whole upstairs happier. my laptop downstairs is happier too! i’ve been spending this day cleaning the apartment. if i can’t live in my dream house today i’ll at least try to make this place as wonderful as possible, and that starts with it being nice and clean. i’m still working on organizing my sewing studio. it’s basically ready except for finding a good cork board. once it is finished i’ll post some photos. i might even post some photos of the grey silk dress i’m working on…

french potato salad with shallots and fava beans tossed in a balsamic vinaigrette. perfect.

i have to brag a bit here… last night my husband got second place in a shoe design competition for a new company RYZ. those are his mr. giraffe shoes! so cute! check out his blog for his perspective on the event, it’s an interesting read.

i’m so proud!!

as i mentioned earlier this week i wanted to try making this delicious-sounding sour-cherry lambic sorbet. naturally i couldn’t find sour cherries anywhere, not even frozen or canned. apparently the world only wants sweet cherries, and to be fair i usually fall into that category too. i was lamenting this fact to my friend rebecca yesterday and she suggested using raspberries instead, ‘you know, they make raspberry lambic,’ she said. of course they do!!! so i bought some local frozen raspberries, it’s not raspberry season yet, and set about doing a sorbet freestyle of sorts. you see, i have a great williams-sonoma book called Frozen Desserts that has a tasty raspberry sorbet recipe. i made it last year for the fourth of july. anyway, making sorbet can be a tricky thing. it really all comes down to science. if you don’t add in the right amount of sugar or if you don’t pour it in the mixer the right way or if it isn’t allowed to chill properly, it won’t freeze. when i first received this ice cream maker, a gift from my mom on my 27th b day, i had many frustrating sorbet freestyling attempts. fyi: just because the recipe is on the internet does not mean it will work… i’m still trying to find a jasmine green tea sorbet recipe that is to my liking. so this recipe is a combination of the sour-cherry recipe and the williams-sonoma recipe.

-mix 3/4 c water with 3/4 c sugar, boil over med high 1-2 min. add 20oz raspberries, bring back to boil, simmer 1-2 min until berries are very soft.

-press berry mixture through a fine mesh sieve. you have to be a little patient with this.

-just keep slowly squishing the goo with a spoon or spatula until there’s nothing left but seeds and a little pulp. discard the pulp and refrigerate the the raspberry mixture until cold, at least 3 hours.

- remove from refrigerator. add 1c of raspberry lambic, mix.

-pour into your ice cream machine and churn according to your manufacturer’s instructions. mine churned for about 30 minutes. then transfer to an air tight container and freeze.

it tastes very strongly of raspberries, with a hint of the lambic. i love it! we’re serving this at our dinner party tonight, so i’ll take some photos of the finished product and post them later.

we’re hosting smallish dinner party tomorrow night, six people total, and i don’t know what to make, other than a bigger version of this caprese salad. you see, i had a nice menu all planned out. i was going to make four different pizzas, a couple of salads, an ice cream and a sorbet, with of course some wine and cocktails. and while that all sounds delicious, i just checked the weather and it is supposed to be 89 tomorrow. our apartment is quite warm when it is in the 70s, so there’s no way i can heat the oven up for pizzas on a really hot day.

so, what should i make? it’s not like i refuse to use the stove or oven at all, i just don’t want to heat it to 500 for 45 minutes for pizzas. what’s some good hot weather food, other than just salads? i’m totally stuck. everything that i’m ‘good’ at making involves the oven, such as lasagna.

any input would be appreciated!

i just finished my very first batch of homemade ice cream! i was nervous that i would accidentally scramble the eggs when making the custard, but i didn’t! i had picked up two pints of strawberries from groundworks organics at the farmers’ market and they just seemed made for this ice cream.

i think tomorrow i’ll try making this sour-cherry lambic sorbet. i found the link on the kitchn today. it sounds like the perfect tart accompaniment to the sweet strawberries. hopefully i can find sour cherries…

for the past year or so i have really been wanting to buy a house. i’m sure it is related to getting married and being in my early thirties and all of that stuff. it also doesn’t help that domino is my favorite magazine. after complaining to my husband that i don’t like our apartment, which is crazy because it is an amazing apartment, i decided to try to figure out what is was about buying a house that i feel i would gain. or, what am i missing in our apartment? obviously some things can’t be changed, but i wanted to think about what i could do to improve our space. here are the things that i am missing:

-a creative space of my own (a sewing studio with a door to lock out the cats and lock in the mess)

-an outdoor area that is ours. we have a lovely restaurant and bar on the corner of our building, gilt club, that has sidewalk seating in the summer. we refer to that as our patio. while it is wonderful, ideally i’d like to be able to sit outside and eat and not have to pay for it. i’d also really like to bbq. many of my cookbooks have whole chapters dedicated to grilling that i haven’t been able to properly utilize.

-a space to garden. i have a jade plant, a basil plant, and a couple of terrariums, but they’re all houseplants. i’d love to have some raised beds that i can grow vegetables in. or even a fire escape that i could do some container gardening on. there’s just nothing like eating tomatoes straight off the vine…

-rooms. we live in a loft. on the bottom level we have two rooms with doors: the bathroom and the laundry room. also downstairs is the kitchen, living room, dining ‘area’, and vincent’s office. upstairs is where we sleep. there’s a desk and two closets too. in total we have about 960 sq ft. it’s not a tiny apartment or anything, but it’s really amazing how different a space can feel when it’s totally open and doesn’t have defined areas. it’s really bright and airy, which we love. we couldn’t have a baby here, which we’d like to do at some point. the two cats are almost too much. they harass us in the morning and we have no way of locking them out of the upstairs, short of locking them in the laundry room all night, which just seems mean. the upstairs only has a half wall, so you can bend over it and see what’s happening below. we both spend a lot of time working on our various projects with headphones on. living here it is a really good thing we get a long so well!

-i want to be able to implement some of the interior design ideas i get from magazines, ie painting walls, wallpaper, refinishing floors, picking out new cabinets etc. i have lived in rentals since i was six and i think i really want to be able to make a space my own, however corny that sounds.

the solutions:

-after i complained to vincent about all of this he devised a plan to set up a sewing studio for me upstairs. it’s fantastic! obviously it doesn’t have a door, but i’m going to make a curtain that will hide the mess. i’ll just have to deal with the cats. i’m still organizing it, but when it’s ready i’ll post some photos.

-we painted a wall! there’s a wall in our kitchen that holds our nice china. the wall was white and the china is cream.

see, it’s not like it looks bad or anything, but the dishes do kind of blend in.

now they pop! the paint is called chocolate sprinkle. so funny! it was between that one and chocolate sparkle. i love color names. when i was young i used to love looking through my mom’s jcrew catalog and listing off all of their color names. but i digress… it was great to do this tiny project. it feels like our living room/kitchen is finished now. and it only took an afternoon!

-i’m going to check with our local nursery to see what/if i can grow in my window sills. the building is brick, so i can’t do outdoor window boxes, but maybe something indoor?

here are the window sills in question:

they are pretty good sized. maybe i can grow some lettuce or something in them. we get morning sun, not the hot afternoon sun. this is an old photo, but you get the idea, right?

-clearly there are things that we just cannot address, like having our own outdoor space and a room for a baby. i guess that is what patience is for. and really, now that i’ve got my sewing studio on it’s way, my new brown wall, and possibly some vegetables to grow, i feel like i can live here quite happily for awhile longer.