Polka Love

I love polka dots.  Always have, always will.  I'm not sure if I'm glad that fashion has decided to agree with me on this for the time being, but it does make getting great polka dot items easier...Like these rain boots which are available for a pittance at Payless.

a 19 hour day...

Saturday turned out to be a 19 hour day in the Clark household.  After an early morning 6 mile run, we started prepping to have friends over for a movie night on the lawn.  I did a super simple menu (green salad, potato salad, corn on the grill), and we ask friends to bring their main to grill.  Much easier than trying to cater to the vegetarian, lacto intolerant, gluten intolerant friends that we have!  For the movie, we made a bunch of popcorn, and I bought a ton of "movie candy" (the movie size individual boxes) at the grocery store on sale.  Went off without a hitch and I think all in all, a great day!

In amongst the prep, I decided to pull together a few jars of refrigerator pickles from Smitten Kitchen's recipes.  New to me, spicy sugar snap peas.  Can't wait to try them when they're ready in a few weeks!

Lately

Have been having fantastic weekends recently with lots of fun (clambakes, wine tasting, herding lessons - oh my!) which hasn't left a ton of time for cooking and crafting, but I had seen a recipe for strawberry biscuits that looked too good to pass up, especially since we practically live in a strawberry field.  Ok... not really, but they grow a lot of strawberries around here!

I'm pretty sure that my baking powder is defunct, and I think I kneaded too much, but they're still pretty yummy and especially cute nestled in the vintage hanky I use to transport my breakfast/toast each morning in the car.

'Maters

We have a far-from ideal spot in our yard for a garden.  It doesn't get enough sun, but we make do and try to grow some stuff anyway. After last summer, Rush composted the old tomato vines/plants, and low and behold, a bunch of tomato plants popped up around the compost bin. We let them grow in the side yard and just harvested our first compost 'maters!

 

What the what?

You're probably wondering (probably not, actually) what in the world I've been up to for the last 100 years of non-blogging.  I wish I could tell you that I had the adventure of a lifetime, but it's actually some fairly mundane stuff.

The best of the best of the last 7 weeks:

1) A three week work trip (11 cities, 14 days)

2) A dastardly sales meeting

3) The best "mother's day" gift a girl could ask for!

4) Food poisoning

Ok, number three deserves explanation and NO!!! I am not pregnant; It really was food poisoning, not morning sickness.

Olive, our pup, is our kid.  Our first born.  The love of our lives (besides each other, of course). I know, I know - if we have kids, we'll look back on these statements like crazy talk, but I don't actually believe that for us. She is an EXCEPTIONALLY high energy dog (half Border Collie, half Labrador), so we spend a lot of time getting her enough exercise.  Weekends consist of a visit to the dog park for at least an hour, taking her to farmer's marketing, and afternoon of ball throwing and swimming at the beach or a 5 - 6 mile trail run and then a bath.  It's a lot, so we're very invested, and we spend a lot of time with her, making sure she has everything (the fun, adventure, exercise, and at the end of the day, snuggles) she needs.

Rush knows I'm totally gaga for our girl, so he and Olive decided to give me/her an "instinct test" for mother's day?  What's an instinct test?  She's half Border Collie, so the point is to find out how much she might inherently know about herding. We took her to a ranch down in Malibu and sent her into the ring with 6 sheep! You would never believe how much fun I had just watching; and boy, the girl can herd!

Since then, we signed her up for a set of herding classes, and she and Rush are doing so well!  Last weekend, they had a kind of breakthrough and started really herding and working on commands. I tell ya, it is the darndest thing!

West of Elm

After a sofa debacle with our friends at West Elm, I was somewhat dubious to make another big purchase, but I was lured by a 15% off area rug sale.  After someone had a little accident on our natural fiber (hence uncleanable) bedroom rug, we had to find a replacement.  We bought an Ikea rug, but it's not big enough, so I've been hoping to find a new one on the cheap.  Not free, but on sale, we picked out a light grey jute rug for only $237 for the 8'x10' size. Not bad.

I was also in their Portland store and found a delightful little plant display.  Why not sell cute pots and the plants to go in them.  Evil genius!  Looks like they're also doing small pop-up shop events.  Alas, I live in Southern California so I couldn't attend, but it sounded worthwhile...

In a NY state of mind...

Had a great weekend with my husband and his family only to have to say goodbye to him at 3:30am as he flew back to the west coast, and I stayed on in NYC for work. I'll see him on Friday, so it's no big thing, but it's kind of sad to say goodbye just the same. After we had been dating a while, I said to him, "I feel kind of bad for everyone. I like you more than anyone else". I guess that's what marriage is...

Encountered in my bathroom at the Ace NY

My, my what big brisket you have...

Passover began on Friday, so I hosted world's least Jewish Passover seder.  I was the only Jew in attendance which brought on some hilarity.  Trying to explain everything from the roots of antisemitism to the contents of a proper matzah ball. Had I known how I would get grilled, I may have drunk less wine (or maybe more!). 

I made some proper Passover favorites including a sweet brisket and matzah ball soup.  The brisket recipe is long standing family tradition.  In my little recipe book, I re-wrote the recipe from my Mom.  I have NO IDEA who Marie Hardert is, but I salute you wherever you are.  Thanks for the brisket recipe!

Marie Hardert's Beef Brisket:

4+lb cut of brisket relatively well trimmed

Lawry's season salt

Onion and/or garlic powder

Salt

Pepper

Ketchup

Cola

Instructions (and boy are they vague!):

Season brisket with Lawry's, onion/garlic powder, salt, pepper.  Place flat side (non-fat) up and cook at 425 for 45 minutes without lid.  Remove brisket from pan and add 1 cup of ketchup and a bottle of Coke.  Place brisket and accumulated juices back in the pan.  Cover and cook for 2 hours.  Remove from oven and let cool.  Skim fat off liquid and cook for another 1.5 hours.  Cool and reheat to serve.  Should be made ahead!

I changed the locks on ya!

The husb went on a mini surf trip with his buddies this weekend and left me and Olive home alone.  As usual, I went a little nuts with the projects.  

This one was PARTICULARLY satisfying.  Since we bought the house, we've had these ridiculously cheesy gold tone doorknobs in front and back. They were chintzy and gaudy and the key didn't really even work for the back door which was particularly annoying. For some reason, I got it in my head at about 2pm Sunday that it was time to make a change.  Once on Lowes.com, I picked out new hardware that could be set to use the same key and then headed to the store.  Once I found the sets for the front door with deadbolt and backdoor with keyed entry, I took them to the key desk where the customer service guy helped me set up 'em up to use the same key. What a novel idea! Being able to open all our doors with a key! The same key!

Back at home, it took me no more than 45 minutes to install the new knobs and deadbolt. I think I may have a future as a locksmith...  Anyway, the result is so satisfying that I cannot figure out why it took me three years of living with the ugly ones to figure out a solution.  Now, I can't stop staring at the doorknobs.  Seriously.  

BAD

GOOD

I'm that guy...

You know the guy in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the dad who sprays Windex on everything because he thinks it fixes everything?  I'm that guy.  Except in my world, it's vinegar.  Plain old white vinegar.

Our water is exceptionally hard.  The water heater lives outside in a special metal cabinet, and we have no place to put a water softener without building a new cabinet --- not something we feel like taking on.  Along the way, I discovered what an incredible cleaner white vinegar is, so I buy it by the gallon+ (thanks Costco!) to descale shower doors, the crud around faucets, windows even. Its uses seemed endless...

I dropped off my Mom's sewing machine at the repair shop and am relying on my old machine as back up for the sewing class I'm taking.  As it happens, I use the same bobbin case in both machines, so I had to pull out a back up.  I put it in the old Brother and it started SQUEEEEEELING.  I practically took the machine apart looking for the source only to decide that it was the bobbin case.  A little rusty, it looked pretty much perfect, but I decided to give it a cleaning.  Spray, spray with the vinegar and a little bit of scrubbing and whaddya know?  No more squeeling.  

Vinegar fixes everything.

Brewing

I have a project brewing that involves a cheapy flush mount light, a jar, food coloring and some modge podge. 

I like this West Elm fixture:

And I like this DIY tutorial to make new canning jars look old school...

So with a little elbow grease, I think I can fake it. I may give it a go over the weekend.  Stay tuned...

Prezident's Weekend

What a difference a weekend makes.  There is something just incredible about staying home while most everyone else is traveling.  We had a lovely weekend filled with the bike rides, the beach, puppy time, cooking, and crafting.  So much fun that I want a do-over!

First thing's first.  For anyone who may stumble upon this, you have to check out the Ventura Meat Company in Ventura, CA.  We've been a couple times now, including this weekend when we picked up some rib eye and some bacon - both of which were the best I've had.  Serious.  Like a heart attack.  Which I'll probably have because I consumed both this weekend.

Next up, we celebrated a friend's 40th.  I made her a bit of a gag gift (a serious gift with the root being a joke) of a black and white gingham apron.  Rush wanted to make her a loaf of bread, so I sewed up a matching bag for the bread...thanks to Say Yes to Hoboken for the tutorial!

Bread and home-sewn bread bag

Madames et Monsiuers...

The French have arrived!  Or rather, one ex-pat and her friends: the grand madame Julia Child.  My sweet husband gave me the original Mastering the Art of French Cooking box set for valentine's day.  Last night, we experimented with some stuffed tomatoes and steak with anchovy butter.  And finally, I made banana tartes tatin.  The recipe has to be the EASIEST dessert ever, and it looks and tastes impressive. 

This morning, Rush left for a local work trip very early, and I decided to test out a little oeuf mollets.  It's basically a soft boiled egg, but the directions are flawless.

I'm paraphrasing here:

Gently lower an egg into boiling water

Boil for 7 minutes (for a large egg, about 1 minute more for each addition size up)

Drain off water and let sit in cold water until ready to eat

Peel off shell under faucet

When I cut into my egg to put it on toast, it was perfection...

Valentine's day ftw...

Valentine's day with my sweet husband...