Jazz at the Mount

For the last few years, we've been trying to scoot over to the Mount around our anniversary. This year we walked through those lush woods on the way to the big house, and there were all sorts of crazy sculptures tucked into the landscaping.

At first I wasn't sold on them - the space is so gorgeous in its unadorned state - but then I found out they were done by students at a local high school. Pretty impressive, right? And how neat for them to have their work featured here!

We went for one of their music after hours events, which is such a neat way to see the property. You don't have to pay the usual admission fee, and you get to hear fun jazz on the terrace! The first floor of the house is open so you can explore a little bit (not as much as if you were going during their regular hours, of course, but still!). And you can stroll through the gardens and grab a drink from their terrace bar. We even saw some families with little kiddos camped out on the lawn with blankets and toys (you can see them below).

It's every Friday night through August 31, if you're interested! I'm totally biased, but I think the Mount is just the prettiest.

Children's Literature Favorites, Part Two

As promised, here are a few final children's literature favorites. With the exception of The Giver and Part-Time Indian, these were all new to me. And I loved them so! Even Coraline, which I thought I would hate :)

And now I have a few blissful weeks of grown-up reading ahead. I'm going to read this and maybe this. Have you read anything good lately?! Please share!

10 New Albums on the iPod

We've found a lot of new music to add to our iPod! Yay for following through on manifesto goals. These selections were heavily influenced by the NPR listener picks for 2012 list.

However! You may notice that I only have nine albums listed above. Do you have any suggestions for that elusive tenth c.d.? I'm tapped out! (Though this is a gaping hole in our current musical collection...)

What's the best thing you've listened to lately?

West Elm-Inspired Pillow Covers

I walk by West Elm on my way to and from work - a very dangerous route. I am loving all the abstract silk pillows they started displaying in the windows these last few weeks - so fresh and pretty!

Last weekend I went to Freddy Farkel's in search of some new fabric for Euro shams (more on that later!), and I found a fantastic pink silk fabric in their remnants section. I bought a yard for only $4! These are just simple envelope covers - super easy to whip up. I may add a button in the back since the silk is a little slippery.

I'm so happy with the mini-refresh! This time of year, when all the holiday sparkle and cheer are being put away, I love to have a few new things in the mix at home.

P.S. Yes, that is the Christmas tree standing in the corner. I just took it down last night. The shame! But I miss the lights already.

Sweet June

(Photo courtesy of my sister)

This month has been glorious, filled with beach days, grilled burgers, oodles of homemade ice cream, dinners out with friends, delicious cheese, cheering for the Red Sox*, swaying to the Beach Boys, fried seafood, a favorite new book, an improved golf swing, welcoming cold press coffee back into our lives, and a very happy first two weeks of summer vacation. 

We are ending this delightful string of fun with a bang - Garrison Keillor and Arlo Guthrie at Tanglewood tomorrow night. Yay!

I hope you have an absolutely wonderful June finale weekend!

*I know some (Peter!) think this blasphemous, but I consider myself to be a duel citizen of Red Sox Nation and Yankee fan-dom. We can still be friends, right?

Summer Sunday Dinner: Smokin' Bones

Throughout the summer, I am sharing a peak at our Sunday dinners. That is when our most pretty, fun cooking takes place, and this is a record of all that good stuff. I hope you enjoy! 

Eeks! This was a good one, you guys.

I gave Peter a smoker for Christmas, and with the exception of one crazy winter afternoon spent lovingly tending ribs, it languished in our basement. Until Sunday!

On Saturday night, Peter covered a rack of ribs with a dry rub recipe from this book (a must-buy if you have a smoker!). On Sunday around noon, he fired up the smoker and waited for it to come up to 225 degrees. Then those ribs hit the grill! We live in an apartment, and I was worried about filling up the neighborhood (and our landlords apartment above us) with a strong, smoky scent for hours on end. But after the initial lighting of the charcoal, it was pretty contained. 


The best thing about this meal is that I really don't love ribs. But I love these ribs. Lightly smokey, lightly spicy, and amazingly tender.

Sunday Summer Dinner: Smoked Ribs

• Dry-rubbed smoked ribs
• Kale, broccoli and carrot slaw (like this one)
• Cheesy feta pasta bake with radish greens and ramp pesto
• Roasted sour cherry and dark chocolate ice cream (more on this to come!!!)

Loving Lately

An amazing mash-up of 100 years of whistling in pop songs! Truly amazing, no? I brag a lot about my whistling skills (What? I'm good.) -- but this guy is unreal.

I always wish I knew more about art, and visiting all those museums in Paris really reignited that desire. We started watching The Impressionists with Tim Marlow this week. Are your eyes skimming over this?! It's really good, I swear! I love being able to say things like, "Look at the progression of his brush strokes throughout his career!" (In my head only.)

(Sunnyslope Dress)

A girlfriend pinned a bunch of cute stuff the other day, and I assumed it was Anthro. I clicked anyway because sometimes you just want to lust after some Anthro, you know? But it wasn't! It was Spool72. Have you heard of it? Super cute and reasonable to boot. To boot! Let's use that more.

Weekend things:

• The perfect margarita.
• Placing bets! I think I'm going with Dullaham. You?
• Museums on Us weekend if you're with BofA. We might hit up the MFA!

Lastly, thank you for your very kind comments and emails about my last post. I was nervous about hitting publish (as excited as I am, I am also sort of embarrassed?). Anyways, you are lovely readers, and I am very lucky indeed.

Polka Dot Easter Tree

Sometime in December, I found a shoe box filled with all my old, decorated eggs for my Easter tree. Now that it's the correct holiday season for them, of course I can't find them anywhere!

No matter. I saw this cute idea for glitter eggs and decided to try some myself. Cute, no? And much easier than dying. I am loving the little polka dot theme going this year, with my pom pom garland in the mix!

Crafty February: Homemade Ricotta

I mentioned earlier this week that my first attempt at homemade ricotta was a total bust. I followed Smitten Kitchen's recipe, and it just didn't curdle properly. It was sort of lightly turned milk (gross). I used Meyer lemon juice, and maybe it wasn't acidic enough? 

After I bit of research, I came across this food lab article by Serious Eats. I tried again with vinegar and only whole milk (not a combination of milk and cream). After I added the vinegar, I kept the pan on the stove, with the heat off, for five minutes. As you can see, it worked! When I placed the mixture over the cheese cloth, the whey drained off really quickly. I only let it strain for five minutes (instead of over two hours the first time!). It came off of the cheese cloth like a nice, fresh blop of cheese. Success!

I was so proud. It was almost better because of the first failure, you know? This week we ate it in a pasta dish with cauliflower, and also mixed it with pesto for an artichoke pizza. So good!

You will need: 

4 cups whole milk (not ultra pasteurized - it's science!)
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons vinegar (white or apple cider)

Using a candy thermometer, heat milk and salt in a pan to 180-200 degrees F, stirring occasionally. With the heat still on, add in 3 tablespoons of vinegar. Turn the heat off, and stir gently once or twice. Let the mixture sit undisturbed for five minutes. It should be very curdled and look like the second picture, above.

While letting the vinegar and milk mixture sit, place a fine mesh colander over a bowl. Line with cheese cloth or a few layers of paper towels. Pour the mixture over the cheese cloth. Let sit for one to five minutes, depending on how "loose" you'd like your cheese to be. Place ricotta into an air tight container and refrigerate. It can be stored for up to four days.

I dumped the whey out (it looked like...lemonade, to be polite), but some people find good ways to use it!

Crafty February

After I gave up my arts and crafts column in the Examiner, I basically stopped doing little projects (outside of the odd sewing job). I've gotten in the habit of coming home, cleaning a little, doing laundry, reading, making dinner. You know, normal stuff. But I'm happier when there are extra little projects mixed in with all that jazz.

For the next month, I'm going to try to share one new project each week. I'm hoping this will help get me back in the saddle. Making things is so fun!

I have three of the projects already figured out, but still need to settle on the last one. Have you made anything awesome lately?! Please share - I'd love to hear!

New Years Resolutions

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." 

- Robert Heinlein

Christmas tree skirt

I fell in love with a striped Christmas tree skirt from this darling shop, and thought I might be able to do something similar with the stacks of fabric I've collected over the years.

I presented my idea to make a circle tree skirt to Peter (resident math-doer) and he suggested I just make a square one. I reminded him that he was not really living up to his high school mathelete title, so he stepped up and did some tricky math for me to make my template. 

To make a skirt that is 50 inches across with a nine inch hole in the center (for the stand), have the bottom of your template be 9 3/4 inches, the top be 1 3/4 inches, and make it 20 1/2 inches long. You'll need 16 fabric pieces. 

I usually say that a project is so easy at this point, but I'll be honest. Sewing in a circle is surprisingly challenging! I sewed all the strips together first, then hemmed the bottom and top, and then sewed off the edges for the opening. You have to leave an opening between two of the strips and hem them (instead of sewing it into a complete circle) so that you can get it around the tree. Make sense, jelly beans?

Hope you all had a lovely weekend!

Chair reveal!

The chairs are finally done!

This project was a big undertaking involving lots of research and prep work. I didn't love the upholstery books I read. I'm sure there are other wonderful books out there, but the emphasis in these seemed to be "hand big stuff over to a professional," which seemed especially odd for a DIY book.

Instead, I relied heavily on Jenny's tutorials on her blog, and this series of you tube videos (bonus that he is a Tom Arnold look-alike!). There are thirteen chapters to that you tube series, and it's incredibly thorough.

If you're comfortable enough to sew a pillow or simple curtain, and like to figure out how things are made and work together, then you can totally do this yourself. This project doesn't involve a lot of sewing - mostly stapling and hammering, but you should feel confident working with fabric and making cuts and folds.

Just for fun, here's a side-by-side comparison so we can all remember how ugly they were:

P.S. Here are the earlier posts on this project:

• Free chairs + the inspiration images
• Stripped chairs
• Fabric and paint

Stripped

I took a bunch of upholstery books out of the library to study up. They made me more and more anxious to do this project, and not in a good way. There are so many tools the authors say you need, so many "easy" projects you're supposed to tackle first.

Last night I decided to just dive in with tools I had at home and see how it went. First I pulled off the back piece by hand (it was just attached with upholstery tacks, so it came off pretty easily). There was piping tubing trim all the way around the chair, so that came off next. I could grip it with basic pliers to do the job.

Next I made a mistake and started attacking the staples on the seat. I should have done the front back of the chair instead since the seat fabric was applied last when it was upholstered. Anyways, I just sort of did them simultaneously, using pliers and a flat head screw drivers to get under the staples.

I won't say the process was easy, but it was rewarding. It took about an hour and half. I'm super pleased that the insides are in great shape -- smooth springs, nice lining, webbing is in tact. I was nervous about what I'd find under there! Luckily, these were the only scary things that came out of the chair:

• Straw wrapper
• Penny circa 1997
• Folded up frog sticker
• Safety pin
• Hole punch remains

I'm going to go to the fabric store this weekend and see what I find, then I'll pick out the paint. I'm going to leave the other chair in tact for now so I have a model to use when upholstering the first chair. Fingers crossed this makes it easier!