Category Archives: Home

City Life, General, Home

Blog Action Day

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Today is Blog Action Day and thousands of bloggers are talking about how to make a positive impact on the environment… I’m sorry to say that we aren’t single-handedly saving the world–our recycling habits, especially, need help. But we both commute on public transportation, our building doesn’t have an elevator (heh), I try to buy local veggies and fruits 99% of the time, and I’ve been getting better and better about skipping the plastic bags. Today at Whole Foods I finally picked up one of their $1 bags, since the ones I’ve been using are a little small for any normal amount of food. I got the grape pattern, which I find charming.

Here’s a photo from an eBay auction where they’re selling the bag at a jacked up price (!?):

It has nice purple sides, very handsome.

The one thing I am pedantic about is staying away from water bottles. It’s easy and it makes sense–just use a reusable bottle, or a cup. I got a nice big cup for my desk at work, a bright and cheerful one from Target, and I fill it many times a day. A nice surprise when we got our new fridge was the clever little filtered water spout inside! I didn’t think we’d get filtered water, since we weren’t getting it in the door. It’s great–no more Brita to re-fill.

Home, The Apartment

The Kitchen: Nearly there

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By the way, we are two cabinet doors (and some baseboards, and cabinet pulls, and more coats of oil on the counter) away from finished in the kitchen. I need stainless steel cleaner; that stuff gets fingerprints like crazy. I don’t understand why they haven’t worked that out yet–our SimpleHuman trash can is fingerprint resistant and always looks great. Well, dented (thanks, construction guys!) but print-free.

Can you guess where the missing doors go? Isn’t Ben’s solution subtle?

Food, General, Home

Baking with Bridge

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Ah….. Just had the most delightful weekend with Bridge and E., who journeyed many, many hours on the Fung-wah bus to visit. We revived them with Redbones ribs on Friday after their nightmare trip up from NYC, then walked all over Boston on Saturday and came home to cook and relax by the fire. Mostly the guys relaxed by the fire while Bridge and I cooked, starting with a pumpkin crumb cake that AT: The Kitchen printed last week. While we cooked the boys munched on some lovely snacks:

That’s bread and amazing olive oil from NYC, brought by B&E. (It’s a Puglian olive oil from Murray’s, incredibly flavorful and bright green!) Prosciutto and marcona olives picked up in the North End, and some pepitas for seasonal flair.

So, the cake. Basically this is a pumpkin pie that has mated with a coffee cake. And it is delicious.

You start with a dry mix that is then turned into the crumb topping and the cake layer. You also make pumpkin pie filling to pour in between. It’s simple but not exactly quick, and I was really glad we had the dishwasher up and running since you end up with lots of dirty bowls! So fun to cook with Bridge, though, and I was glad her cat Joe wasn’t there to sit on the cake once it was done. He seems to resent her baking at home!

Bridge whips up the pumpkin filling:

Layer one (cake batter), spread in place:

I pour in layer two, the pumpkin (Bridge is a better action photog than I am!):

Layer three, the topping lovingly hand mixed by Bridge (isn’t crumb topping always the best part? Mm, butter and sugar…):

Cross-section:

The next morning, ready for breakfast:

I have eaten approximately my body weight in cake in the last two days, since I really can’t refuse things with pumpkin pie in them. I’d like to experiment, though, with a crumb cake that is just pumpkin CAKE and topping, rather than the layer of pie filling. The cake part is great with the filling but would be dry on its own…I wonder if I could sub in pumpkin for sour cream in my mom’s coffee cake recipe and play with that? Good thing I have months of fall left!

Home, The Apartment

Renovation pics

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Ok, here are some photos of the in-progress kitchen… The cabinets and counters have arrived (courtesy of an incredibly rude and insulting outsourced delivery guy) and are in the dining room, along with the old fridge. (Anyone need a fridge?)

I added pictures to the Before and After photo set on Flickr, though I need to update that now that our living room looks totally different.

Meanwhile, here what it looked like until Wednesday morning if you looked into the kitchen through the butler’s pantry (well, the fridge wasn’t usually pulled out like that…):

Here it is now:

The sink (sporting a stylish map of where the electrician needs to install outlets):

R.I.P., gorgeous but enormous and impractical sink. Someday maybe I can have one like you again. If only you weren’t four feet wide. (Anyone need a huge cast iron double-bowl sink, with drain board?):

I’m now waiting for the new fridge to arrive, which is very exciting.

Design/Living, Home

Opinions, please

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A quick poll. We need fireplace tools, stat, and I’m torn between two sets:

Choice 1
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Choice 2
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Downside to #2, which I prefer, is that the tip of the poker screws on instead of being one piece, as far as I can tell. Ben has expressed a strong preference for 1-piece tools so the poker tip doesn’t fall off into the fire. Heh. But does the practicality of #1 outweigh the prettiness of #2?

EDITED: Ok, that seemed like a pretty strong consensus. #1 is on its way; I’ll post pictures when it arrives. Thanks, guys!

Family, Food, Home, Travel

High Summer in the Great Northwest

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So I spent almost a week visiting my parents in Oregon… First of all, people who haven’t been there tend to think of the entire Pacific Northwest as a rainy, foggy bog. I’m from Eugene, which is smack in the middle of the Willamette Valley (pinot noir country), and we are actually protected from Seattle-style weather by the coast range. The winter is wet, sure, but I think it’s the same number of grey days as we get out here on the East Coast, but without the sleet and ice. And in the summer…Oh, the summer. Normal summers are almost completely dry, June through October hot and sunny with no humidity. Usually it’s in the 80s during the day (at the height of summer, though there are heat waves) and then drops to the 50s at night. Without humidity there aren’t bugs unless you’re near a river or swamp. At my parents’ house, that means we can eat on the patio and not swat a single mosquito away.

Here is a view of the Valley as I flew into Eugene:

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I took a series of photos of the Cascade foothills (the Coburg Hills) dropping abruptly into the valley, posted at Flickr.

I had gotten up at 4:15 for a 6:50 flight, then ended up bumped to an 8 something flight, then my flight from Denver was delayed because the computer on the plane couldn’t tell that the door was closed. So I got in about 4 hours late, and was quite low-energy. My mom had rented Mostly Martha, the wonderful german film that was remade as No Reservations, and we made nice big salads with tuna for dinner to eat while watching it.

Trimmings:
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Kalamata olives, Sungold cherry tomatoes from the garden, red onion, red pepper, basil from the garden, feta.

All mixed together, with the tuna (the wonderful spanish kind from an oval red and yellow tin, packed in olive oil):
sala

Bad photo of my salad (left) and my mom’s (right)–she doesn’t snack between meals!
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BTW, I haven’t seen No Reservations, but Mostly Martha was really, really good. Very quiet and low-key, but all excellent actors and a really beautiful food movie.

Family, Food, Home

Teaser

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I have to upload tons of photos and write up tons of dinners, but here’s a teaser to hold you until I’m back in Boston tomorrow. (Red-eye tonight, and I have a middle seat. PLEASE DEAR GOD let me get another seat on this supposedly-packed flight.

Anyway.

One of the many things we ate last night:

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Yes, that is a fig wrapped in prosciutto and grilled. Yep. Is that food porn or what??

City Life, Design/Living, Home, The Apartment

On the road

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I’m in NYC for a while, and hopefully will be able to cook soon–our accommodations do have a kitchen and internet access!

Meanwhile here are some before and not-quite-after pictures of the apartment. I haven’t even started to hang art, really arrange the furniture, etc. I’m struggling with how to balance out all of Ben’s very traditional furniture, along with the formal and traditional style of the apartment, with my more transitional style. I’m thinking once I get to lighting fixtures and rugs I will go sleek.

rmClick for the Flickr set!

City Life, Home

The bell tolls for Boerum Hill

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This article in the NYTimes Style section today made me very sad for my beloved Brooklyn Neighborhood, which was rapidly gentrifying when I left last August. Apparently the ball really got rolling, though, and there’s now a Starbucks on Smith Street and Lucky Jeans where one of my favorite bars used to be. RIP, Vegas, home of free pizza on Sundays and a mediocre-but-usually-available pool table.

bh
(Photos from the NYTimes)

Cooking techniques, Food, Home, The Apartment

Moved…

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Well, we moved. And now it looks like this:

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Actually that was on Thursday, and things are slightly better now, but the painter hadn’t finished when we arrived, so we have everything piled in the middle of the living and dining rooms. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to, say, unpack a few pots and pans. We’ve been eating a lot of bread (with peanut butter or butter and honey), but last night Ben grilled sausages (the ones from Whole Foods aren’t as great as the Coop ones, we’ll need to find a new supplier) and corn. The corn was delicious, incredibly sweet and a little smokey.

Peel back the husk and remove the silk.
corn

Spread the ears with butter and pulls the husks back up.
corn2

Grill…until done. Sorry, this seems really imprecise and recipes online didn’t help. The first time I did this, with Tom and friends, we undercooked it. This time I had Ben cook it with the sausages for about the same amount of time.
dinner

Yum. And I had it with a glass of Lambic!