domicile

Gingersnaps, Round Two

  Gingersnaps 
  Originally uploaded by emira

Last Sunday, with great excitement, I made several things with my stunning new KitchenAid. All tasty treats were successful -- including foccacia made with the dough hook -- with one exception: ginger cookies. I love ginger cookies. Be they gingerbread, gingersnaps or molasses ginger cookies. I love'em all. A few years back a very thoughtful and much adored client Fedexed us a box of homemade molasses ginger cookies when we finished her website (how awesome is that?) and included the recipe. They were awesome cookies and I've meant to make them many times. This weekend, with my trusty new mixer I finally got around to it to unfortunately discover that she must have included some wrong measurement as my cookies turned into cookie puddle. Sad.

Tonight I gave it another shot, using a different recipe from the Tassajara Cookbook, which was also a birthday gift. And I have two things to report:

Thing one: Yum.

Thing two: Damn, I love this KitchenAid. It's not like making cookies was a big chore pre-mixer, but now: it's just so darn easy. The whole, "you put the ingredients in, then walk away" is so totally on the money. The easy and elegant power of this little gadget tickle my multi-tasking heart to its core. I can't wait to make xmas treats this year.

The Artful Vegan

One of the other birthday delights I was treated with was a copy of the second Millennium Cookbook, The Artful Vegan. For those who don't know the Millennium Restaurant, it is a vegan gourmet restaurant in San Fran and when it comes to gourmet veggie cuisine they can not be beat. Not in my books anyway. I've had my share of very beautiful, lip-licking tasty vegan/veggie meals made by pros and with the love of darling friends and family, but Millennium is food on a whole new level. Flavours reduced, layered and carefully selected to tantalize your tastebuds and cause those of us veggie foodies to swoon from the toes up with delight. These are meals so flavourful, artful and damn delicious that I defy anyone to feel they are in anyway limited by their lack of animal bits. Seriously.

Their cookbooks do an amazing job of translating the intensity, creativity and art of gourmet veggie cooking. That said, they're not cookbooks for hurried evening, after work cooking or things you want to try out on a day when your self-esteem is feeling a little touch and go. They are recipes for a day when you have all the time in the world to spend in the kitchen preparing, simmering, sneaking tastes and planning for a truly beautiful meal. Conveniently, they're the kind of meals you might feel inspired to make when you have recently acquired some seriously rockin' new kitchen accoutrements like, oh-say a KitchenAid and a Le Creuset pot... For example. (Yes the birthday fairy was very good to me this year).

So now the only task that remains is choosing a recipe... I'm eying up the Gnocchi with roasted beets and walnuts and wondering if throwing some homemade foccacia and german chocolate cake (all requiring the use of the KitchenAid you see) is overdoing it entirely. My dinner guests may need a little help getting out of their chairs after that kind of a carb fest. Still, I'm sure it would be yummy.

Birthday Blessings

Kitchen Aid Birthday Bliss
Originally uploaded by emira

The middle of November brings a whole slew of birthdays into my world. Friends, my sister and mid-month my own. My birthday also marks Mr. Pluto and my anniversary. He's the very special birthday gift that has kept on giving for twelve years now. And, while I find myself overwhelmed with the awesome thoughtful gifts each year brings, I have to say he kind of takes the cake. This year, however, he's got some really strong competition. My darling business partner, co-author and excellent all-round friend-extraordinaire, Ms. Lauren Bacon, orchestrated a mass-gift buying splurge to acquire a KitchenAid stand mixer, in red of course. Oh and isn't she a beauty?! I've not been shy about my lust for one of these babies, which has been long building but heavily fueled by my friend Melanie who continues the constant refrain of "and then you just put the ingredients for the cookies/bread/icing/etc in and just walk away" like she's casting a spell before my eyes. If the joy of a shiny red KitchenAid wasn't enough to cause a girl to swoon, the joy in knowing how many of her darling friends pooled together to make it happen is practically knocking me out with happiness. You'd think that Pluto might be a bit jealous with all this inanimate object lust going on around here, but fortunately he got one of his favourite things in the world out of the deal: a box. Of his very own. Which Martin has decorated, put catnip in, and generally spent far too much time letting Pluto attack his hands/legs/feet from within the box. So he's getting over it. Besides he knows that when bedtime rolls around and he's snuggled up in the crook of my knees, he'll purr his way back into the top of my affections.

Is that a credit card in your freezer?

My mom has a dear longtime friend who, over the years, has been known to go into a bit of credit card debt here and there. Often paying off her Visa with her Mastercard, she would let these things run away from her for a while and then take drastic measures to pull it all back under control. Tried and true strategies like freezing your credit card in a glass of water, or having other people "babysit" it for a while until the bills are paid off. These days that kind of strategy doesn't work so well. I rarely pull out my credit card when making impulse purchases, as I make most of those online and I know the numbers off by heart. Danger Bay.

My latest transgression: fabric on Ebay. Who knew!? I had hear rumours of course, but last Sunday night I went on a hunt for a particular colourway of an older Amy Butler print that I wanted to make some of the holiday gifts on my list. I started with the usual online retailers -- ReproDepot and Purl Soho -- but when they didn't turn up what I was looking for I thought "what the heck, why not try Ebay". OMFG. Seriously. The fabric! The options! The colourways I thought were gone! And. Right now the Canadian dollar is kind of trouncing the US buck and that meant a potential wealth of savings. The more I bought, the more I could potentially save! So compelling. I held back to only 4 yards (with combined shipping of $3 no less), but I'll admit I'm starting to get a bit itchy for more. Then, I go and read at Hilary's blog this week that she's been buying Japanese fabrics from Etsy and now I think I may need to see if the bank will change my credit card number so I can bury it in the garden until next spring and safely refrain from getting in over my head.

Reversible Apron Completed

  sunday dinner 
  Originally uploaded by emira

This isn't exactly a detailed view of the completed apron, but rather an apron in use kind of shot. I finished it this morning before noon (thanks to the "fall back" of the clocks giving me an extra hour this morning). Then, after a trip to the grocery store and some time cleaning up in the garden, I put it on to make dinner, prep some food for the rest of the week and generally get down to the rest of the weekend's household chores. As far as aprons go, this one is a winner. I like the fact that the top is pretty full coverage (handy when cooking stainy things like tomato sauce and some beets I steamed tonight) and it's long enough to wipe my hands on as I switch from cutting something to stirring something else.

I think I'll try making some matching pot holders, though I may be brave and try the slightly more complicated Amy Butler version that comes with her Cafe Apron pattern as they seem a bit sturdier than the ones in the Lotta book.

Perfectly Impractical

I have a thing for clogs. I love them. They're comfy. I love the look of them, the sound of them on wood floor and I adore the many variations on the basic form. Like this one here. How great is this? I was looking for a new pair of clogs as a possible birthday treat and stumbled upon these. I am now fixated. Sadly, they do not ship to Canada, and buying shoes on line is risky enough without introducing additional shipping nuttiness. But still. So pretty! Also, it's November. In Vancouver. These are not Vancouver November shoes. They are, however, great shoes to day dream about on rainy days.

The Apron Progresses

  stitchin' 
  Originally uploaded by emira

On Sunday night, I had the chance to cut out and start on the reversible apron from Lotta's book. I picked up the fabric at Fabricana on the weekend, so I was all ready to go. It's a pretty simple pattern to cut out and it leaves plenty of room for personal embellishment. Before you can sew the two apron sides together you need to  decide how you're going to customize/decorate it. I started with my solid side, put on a pocket using the reverse side's fabric and then decided to add some embroidery. I've been itchin' to embroider since having the joy of being on a panel with Jenny Hart last Spring. (As a side note I ordered some patterns from Sublime Stitching a few weeks ago in hopes that I might be able to use a bit of embroidery on xmas gifts this year). I bought myself an embroidery hoop this week and where I can carve out time in my 10-12 hour work days I've been plugging away at it. It's not turning out too badly. I'm hoping to have a bit more time this weekend and if not, then next week. Currently, my goal is to finish the apron (which is truly a very simple pattern, I'm just waaay too busy lately) for my birthday. That's two weeks.

Calendar Season

  Diana Fayt Calendar 
  Originally uploaded by emira

Time to order calendars for next year, and like most years I'm overwhelmed with the awesome choices the interweb offers. (I don't even bother looking at calendars in real life any more, knowing that I'll have a hard enough time choosing online). So far I've already ordered a Camilla Engman one (for the office) and I may need to have the Diana Fayt one again is looks so very charming in the kitchen. (Plus since I can't afford a Diana Fayt bowl this is my second runner up).  Port to Port Press is putting out a calendar soon, and a quick search on Esty shows so many awesome options.

Mmmm books

A few years ago, I found myself not reading as much as I wanted to. I think this had much to do with moving into our new home and all the time, energy and drywall dust that created, but still I wasn't too happy about it. Then a dear friend started up a bookclub, which I gleefully joined and that got things rolling again as far as reading was concerned. Now, if I don't have a book on my bedside table that I'm engrossed in, I feel at a loss.

While I was in Victoria recently I had a chance to visit my absolute favourite bookstore Munro's. If you've never been and you're ever in Victoria you must go. The end. It is, to me anyway, what a bookstore should be. That is: filled with books. No tchotchkes, no cds, no in store Starbucks, just mainly books on dark wooden bookshelves with gorgeous high ceilings. If I ever have the time, I'll spend a few hours with a stack of books in a chair in Munro's weighing my options. And, sadly, I always need to put some back. Last time I was there, I reluctantly put back Peter Reinhart's new Whole Grain Breads cookbook, mostly because it was too heavy to bring home in my one small suitcase on the ferry, but I've kind of regretted it ever since.

As I mentioned a while back now, I've been experimenting with making bread, and I'm happy to report I'm getting somewhere. Still, bread is a bit of a mystery to me. I'm not sure where I can play with recipes and where I can improvise, and frankly it kinda scares me to contemplate. Reinhart's book however, provides all kinds of theory, history and technique to each recipe. And photos! Photos of what it should look like, photos of what you don't want and really photo, after glorious photo, which for the newbie bread maker like me seems like a brilliant idea. That, and as the name implies, it's all about whole grains. I first heard about the Whole Grains Bread cookbook over at Heidi's site, so I wasn't surprised it was such a great resource.

Speaking of 101Cookbooks and recipes, she's got a recipe up from the new How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, Mark Bittman book. I'm pretty curious about this cookbook too, as I've always felt pretty left out of the How to Cook Everything love.

On Aprons. Again.

  gardening apron 
  Originally uploaded by emira

I promised plenty of apron talk this month, and I have to warn you we're a month out from month's end and I'm still in the thinking/planning stage and not the actually doing stage.

So here's the thing. I have a chance to be near my favourite fabric store this week and the two books containing apron patterns that I ordered have yet to arrive. I'm pretty sure I want to make the Lotta apron (as seen here, but I need to know how much fabric to buy. Does anyone have Simply Sewing? Can you send me the fabric requirements? I'd so appreciate it.