the Julie/Julia project

I just read Russ Parsons NY times article about why Julia Child was not a fan of Julie Powell - and I feel stirred to share my thoughts with someone other than T...

First off, I have to say that I LOVED both books for very different reasons. A few years ago, I picked up the Julie/Julia book on a whim, and immediately connected with Julie Powell. And I do mean immediately - from page one I was hooked!

Like Julie, I am at a point in my life where I am not sure what "it" is all about. I work really hard for not a ton of money. Granted, I really enjoy my work so its not like I dread getting up in the morning, but 6 days a week does take its toll on a person. Also like Julie, I take public transportation to work. (And for all of you who have never had the joy of seeing your tax dollars at work - I will share this little gem from yesterdays commute: a man with special needs sat down next to me, smiled, told me I was pretty, and then relieved himself.) So you can see how at the end of the day, sometimes the last question I want to answer is "whats for dinner."

I love to cook, and I love to try new things (see the previous few posts about my new pickling/canning obsession for proof), unfortunately, my time at home is limited, as are my resources. I do the best I can, but sometimes its so frustrating to have these desires that are not realized.

Now, before you start saying that I am just as "whiny" as Mr Parsons says Julie is - let me say that I know first hand just how much creativity is spurred by limitations. Some of our best meals have come from me just looking through the cupboards and scrapping something together. The same goes for my work life... as an Interior Designer I am constantly being challenged with budget, taste, and time limitations! But that doesn't mean that I don't sometimes wish I could have carte blanch to do whatever it is that I want!

Anyway, back to the books...

My Life in France was an equally pleasurable read, but for very different reasons. I did not connect with Julia Child on a personal level, but rather found myself putting her up on a pedestal of sorts. She was a woman who displayed amazing character and tenacity - and is definitely a woman to emulate. I loved how she not only had a zeal for the good life, but was also wiling to work very hard for her dream - it took her ten years to perfect her masterpiece!

And yet, in the back of my head there is the nagging thought that to her, cooking was something she did in order to occupy her time - she didn't want to be bored while living in France. And yes Mom, I will admit it - I am jealous. I would LOVE to be able to go to work every day and not have my take home pay matter. I would love to be able to walk to the market and have my pick of the freshest produce to turn into a wonderful dinner that will nourish and sustain my family.

Which brings me back to Julie... and so many other women of my generation who have inherited the aftermath of feminism. We are a group of women who are immensely grateful for the freedom and liberties we have been given , yet are still nostalgic for the comforting routine of domesticity.

A co-worker an I have started recounting our domestic accomplishments, and failures, every Monday morning in an effort to encourage each other's quest for domestic bliss. She is on a mission to roast a whole chicken once a week, using all the bits and pieces for various meals throughout the week. I am on a mission to eat more healthful, which means buying fewer processed products, and instead making my own (so far that means pickles, canned tomatoes, and bread).

We are both on a mission to come to the place of finding a sort of Zen in washing the dishes.





And so, here is to two amazing women who lived in very different times, and faced very different challenges.

I raise my glass to their individual accomplishments...

a pickle update - and more on tomatoes!

So the pickles were good.

Really-really, super-duper, and I mean amazingly good!

And I am astounded that it took me so long to discover the super crunchy deliciousness. T and I ended up eating a whole jar for dinner. We had plans of making sandwiches and eating outside in the sun, picnic style. Instead we stood around in the kitchen, marveling at how yummy the pickles were, and before we knew it they were all gone! (We never even got around to making sandwiches). The pickled green tomatoes were also good. Not nearly as good as the pickles themselves, but wonderful in their own less crunchy, more meaty way.

**********

And now on to a tomato update.

So far the summer has been really wonderful to our little garden. The weather has been cooperating, and as a result we already have joyfully consumed more tomatoes in one week than we had all last year! I think we can also credit the raised bed T made for me out of $10 worth of reclaimed cedar planks we found at the ReBuilding center.





We try to plant our starts by Mothers Day. It is sort of an arbitrary date, but seeing as we both live far away from our mothers we like to do something that celebrates home and family.



This year we planted a Cherry, a Celebrity, a San Marzano, and a Siletz, all from Vicki's Sun Gold Farm here in Oregon.




Look at the difference - 2008 vs 2009! (photos taken mid July)

Buoyed by my pickle success, and my bumper crop, I decided to get a jump on the canning process. After all, I did not want a repeat of last year!

This morning's harvest:

...yielded 5 jars, all before 10 in the morning!

And I still have so many gorgeous green ones...

Saw this on sale at Anthropologie today...

Unfortunately it is still way out of my price range...
And even more unfortunate, seeing it in person only made me fall more in love with it. Too bad because it would look SO perfect in my house...

I can't seem to find it online anymore.... so any fairy godmothers out there need to go to the Bridgeport Village store... ;)

pickles!

I have ambitions of becoming a domestic goddess, but the reality is that I am pretty challenged in that area. My dishes sometimes go unwashed, and my floors could use a more regular sweep... luckily I married a man who is more concerned with spending quality time with me, than having an impeccable house!

And so today, on a rare day off from work, instead of dusting, ironing, or de-cluttering, I delved into this wonderful book, and made my first ever batch of pickles!

I was really surprised at how easy the whole process was, and I do have to pat myself on the back for not biting off more than I can chew. I only purchased a few cucumbers (rather than the 20lb bag that looked so inviting at my local growers outlet), and I made sure to inventory my spice cupboard before I went shopping - I only had to end up buy fresh dill and mustard seeds. (on a side note - I LOVE my growers outlet... they are actually cheaper than the uber trendy farmer's markets, are so local that many of the farms are in my neighborhood, and I can go 6 days a week if I want to!!)

It took about 5 minutes total, and the hardest part had to be slicing the cucumbers! I even got crazy and tried pickling some of my green tomatoes.

I can hardly wait the three days until they are ready!

And look who I found enjoying the garden.

Beautiful no?

We just returned from an un-planned trip back east, and while the reason for the trip was somber, it became such a celebration of life, living, and family!

yup... still obsessing over this

swoon

these gorgeous leather sandals...

...are just about perfect aren't they?

sometimes you just need a cupcake....

...and tonight was one of those times!



I don't usually bake, and when I do its from a box (sorry mom!) , so I can't claim that these cupcakes are anything special.



However, their bright colors and chocolaty goodness is just what the Robinson's needed.





And on a side note, I dropped in on the Bend the Rules Sewing Swap blog, just to see whats going on, and I was pleasantly surprised to see my Napkin/Placemat set featured! See it there on the header? So exciting! It almost makes me want to join another swap!!

in love!

These amazing collages by Jenna Robertson - made from recycled wool sweaters - have me swooning.

You can find them locally at Noun - one of my absolute favorite places to spend money!

Have you seen this?

I know it made the rounds in blog-land a few months ago, but I just spent a few minutes playing with my poladroid and I am so in love! Its a super simple, free, application that turns any old digital photo into a mini work of art.

Now I can pretend I am half as talented as the lovely Jen of My Polaroid Blog.

Good Reads!

Thanks for all the great book suggestions! I am so looking forward to this summer and all those wonderful days of sitting on the back patio, enjoying the late sun, and a few pages before dinner!

What does it say about me when I buy more books than clothes?

The Big Read Top 100 Meme

I found this on QuestTwentyEight, and felt the need to post… if only as a reminder of all the great literature I would love to have time to read!

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE (or highlight in pink if you can't underline...)
4) Reprint this list in your own blog.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible (I have read a good portion… probably more than half, but I would feel really lousy claiming it!)
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres (this was on my list… until I saw the trailers for the movie version and I lost all interest! I will definitely accept recommendations of anyone out there LOVES it and thinks its worth it!)
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The DaVinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (the whole series was/is a favorite of mine!!)
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold (HATED this book!)
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac (I actually have this in iTunes but am waiting for the right road trip or long flight!)
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville (started… but never finished!)
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

51 out of 100 is not at all shabby, especially considering that “The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed.”

Any recommendations? I am always looking for a good read!

my little snow angel

T grew up on the east coast, and so for him, snow is a much loved friend. To him, snow means days off from school, mugs of hot cocoa, tromping around, and soup. He gets super excited whenever the forecast predicts freezing temperatures (which is hardly ever here on the west coast!) and he has decided that one day we "have" to live somewhere cold so I can experience a real winter. (uh huh, sure babe, someday we'll do that....)

And so, last week when the weatherman started predicted snow, T spent every spare second chopping firewood, stocking the pantry (with popcorn and hot cocoa) and talking about all the fun things we could do on our "snow day."

This morning, as the flakes started to fall you could actually see T's excitement growing. He would race over to window every few minutes to give us an update on the flake size, consistency, and sticking ratio. And finally, after begging all morning, he finally got me to go outside for a little tromp...

(thanks for letting me wear your new boots honey!)


Of course, since i ventured out in the snow for him, he had to do a little something for me....





T looked like he was having so much fun that the neighbors had to come out and play too!

seeing red

i think i might have a black thumb.

no, seriously.

I somehow managed to kill a rosemary plant. You should have seen the horrified look on the face of the garden guy at our farmers market when I explained to him why I needed to know very specific instructions on caring for the new one. And I am pretty sure I saw him watching me while I browsed the strawberry starts, probably making sure I wasn't harming them by getting to close. Although, I am not too sure how he thought I could hurt those darling little plants. I mean, it's not as though I carry a bottle of weed-be-gone in my purse, whipping it out whenever I am threatened by a stray basil bush.

Thankfully I have an accomplice in T. Together we wage war on the chlorophyll that surrounds us by systematically imposing periods of drought followed by massive floods. I think the technical terms are "forgetting to water,"and "over-watering." Its actually quite sad, seeing as how both of our families have turned out more than one card carrying, green thumbing, garden genius type. Case in point - my brother runs an Organic Farm which manages to not only yield enough produce to feed his family, but then he sells the excess, for profit, at a farmers market! It is truly mind boggling that we share the same genes.

And yet every spring finds me filled with fresh hope that perhaps this is the year my gardening skills will kick in. I make the Saturday morning farmers market pilgrimage carefully choosing the plants that look the healthiest. I get lured in by those Early Girl tomatoes, whose yellow buds whisper promises of summertime salsas and salads. And the handsome heirloom varieties that hint at a scrappy will to live. They all get chosen. And when the garden guy isn't watching, I nonchalantly slip a strawberry start into my tray, hoping that this year it will live.

And so, you can imagine the epic failure we experienced this year when our natural ineptitude combined with an extremely wet and chilly summer. Our entire harvest consisted of about 8 tomatoes, 1 strawberry, 2 jalapeños (that never got hot), and a couple of sprigs each of dill and sage. It was a dismal failure.

So instead of feasting on the glorious fruits of our own hard work, we did what any self-respecting urbanite would do: we hightailed it back to the market, bought 20 dollars worth of organic tomatoes, and proceeded to can them, fully willing to pass them off as "ours" come winter.





My pantry shelf is now stocked and ready.

And there is always next year...