domicile

New Bag Love

In our house we've reached a point where we have almost too many reusable shopping bags. In this day and age when one acquires a new cloth shopping bag with every conference and gift with purchase promo it feels like reusable bags are in danger of becoming their own environmental menace. That said, of all the reusable bags we had, I didn't have any of the nice fold-up-really-small fit in your purse kind of variety. For ages now I've been meaning to make one, but when I saw the Flip and Tumble bags on Crunchy Chicken's website I folded and ordered two (one in pretty blue for me one manly black for Martin).

They arrived a few weeks ago and I'm totally smitten. I'll admit I'm totally suckered by the whole K-Way pocket approach (see a Quicktime video of the pocket in action here!) and my design snob self loves the monochromatic palette of the bag/handle combo. And, because it is as promised nice and small I've been keeping it in my bag since it arrived and using it all the time. I kept it in my purse in New York and it got plenty of use there, allowing me to not really need a bag for any purchases (until I went to Park Slope and blew my entire summer clothing budget in one afternoon, as those purchases would not fit in my lovely Flip and Tumble bag). Martin's also a fan of his svelt black/grey combo bag and has been putting it to regular use.

While I'm on the topic of Martin and reusable bags I do have to give one quick shout out to local reusable bag makers BYOB. Martin is a huge fan of their organic cotton deer bag, which he has termed "the stag bag". We use ours all the time for grocery trips, though it doesn't squash up small enough for me to carry it around all the time.

Veggie in New York

We have done some truly awesome veggie/vegan eating since we arrived in New York on Sunday night. Much of that has been thanks to the recommendations of friends (Felicia is a rock star in more ways than one), as well as general internet researching.We're still here for a few more days and I've got a few places on my list I'm hoping to get to, but so far here's my run down on veggie recommendations in New York, for those who are so inclined:

• Peep: (Soho, 177 Prince Street) We ended up at Peep thanks to our lovely hosts for the first part of our trip. Chris and Sara very kindly put us up in their Soho flat for three nights, and helped us find good food when we first arrived. Peep doesn't honestly have the scope of veggie thai options that many places I've been to have offered, but really that's just splitting hairs. The entire back half of their menu can be made with tofu and really I always order green curry with eggplant anyway, so why am I complaining? Peep also managed to fit our request for "good thai food, and flattering lighting". After a day of airports and planes lighting felt like it mattered. The tasty cocktails were a bonus too.
• Bread: (Nolita, 20 Spring Street) Felicia brought us to Bread, so I knew it would be a winner. Bread is not a veggie specific place (neither is Peep) but there were plenty of options to choose from. Predictably, Bread has awesome bread. They also have wickedly tasty tomato soup and a to die for mushroom polenta dish that Felicia implored me to ordered (and rightly so). This is the kind of place with very tasty gourmet paninis (on awesome bread) made with gourmet cheeses and tasty bits. There were plenty of meaty options at bread too, but as a veggie I definitely didn't feel left out. It's a very cute little room too, though Felicia warns of occasional drunk eurotrash. This would be the perfect spot to stop for a lunch break while shopping Soho or Nolita, and made for an excellent Monday night dinner.
• Candle 79: (154 East 79th @ Lexington) We ducked into Candle 79 (they also have a second locations called the Candle Cafe) after spending the morning at the Met. It was a recommendation from our client, who we met with the day before. I say ducked in as this was the day of the rain. All the food at both Candle Cafe's is entirely vegan and absolutely delicious. Truly stunning. Apparently seitan is their speciality. It was really hard not to order dessert.
• Brown: (Lower East Side, 61 Hester Street) Another recommendation from Felicia, though she couldn't join us, so we took our gracious hosts Chris and Sara with us. Brown is also not a veggie exclusive place (and if memory serves may be a bit tricky for vegans as they had a lot of local cheese in things), but was definitely tasty and offered several veggie choices. Their schtick is local food (most of it coming from the Hudson Valley) and organic beers and wines. Brown is a pretty tiny room (I'd say it seats 20) that reminded me very much of being in Europe. Simple decor, excellent light fixtures, high ceilings, white walls. The food was excellent and again turning down dessert was a bit painful.

Tonight we're off to Angelica's Kitchen, which a friend back home literally took my hands in hers while emploring me to visit. Fortunately I only had a small bowl of soup for lunch at Union station in DC this afternoon, so I may be able to squeeze in dessert tonight!

Busy, busy, busy

It turns out all this publishing a book business is rather enough to keep one occupied for days/weeks on end. Between various book related things, and book blog posting I feel like I've barely had time for domestic life, let alone time to blog about it.

Martin, on the other hand, is up to all kinds of housey stuff lately, but sadly he's hopeless at documenting it, and even worse at typing. So some of that will go unrecorded until I find the time to put it together.

Between making my living at the computer and all the book related computer time, I've been trying to spend most of my down time away from the computer. Martin and I have in fact recently taken up a semi-regular habit (say 2-3 times a week) of going to the community centre gym. I'm enjoying it more than I've enjoyed gym-like exercise in the past (I'm typically more of a dance class/yoga kind of exercise girl) and in a further twist of strangeness am actually really enjoying the treadmill. I was always the girl left out running around the track long after everyone else had gone back into the changeroom in P.E. class, so enjoying running is truly novel to me. There's just something about the total contrast between all the sitting and thinking of my normal life and clocking miles on the treadmill that is making me rather happy these days. I've also found that I most enjoy my time at the gym when I've got either comedy (hello hello David Cross!), audio books or language podcasts on my iPod. Today Lauren turned me on to the Stephen Fry podcast (or podgram as he calls them) and I can not recommend a better accompaniment for exercise if you, like me, enjoy a little wit and esoteric commentary with your treadmill time. (Having actually just typed that, I'm going to assume I may be among the very few who do in fact enjoy comedic musings on Victorian era aestheticism on the treadmill, but if you're one of the other few I dare say you'll thank me as you chuckle through cardio).

We're off to Seattle, New York and DC next week on a mini book tour of sorts. If anyone has ideas for recommending things to do, see and eat in New York in particular I'd love to hear it (we're in Seattle very briefly and in DC for not much longer). So far I've been taken by the hand and instructed to eat at Angelica's Kitchen and I've discovered a Seville connected vendor of handmade flamenco shoes that I must stop in on. All other recommendations for beautiful foods, lovely shops and must see locations are most welcome.

Strawberry Kiwi "Mousse"

A few years ago, while visiting my dear friend Kate in Montreal, I stayed in a little B&B that specialized in vegetarian/vegan cuisine. The proprietor was a lovely man and an excellent chef. I was one of the only guests at the time and so I'd often have breakfast with the proprietor and talk gourmet vegetarian cooking and eating over my very tasty breakfasts. One morning my breakfast included a small bowl of kiwi "mouse" which, Philippe explained, was simple chopped kiwis blended with a little bit of sweetener (I believe he used maple syrup) and ice. The result is a very delicately textured whipped kiwi well mousse of sorts that is delightfully refreshing and tasty, and makes a great accompaniment to breakfast (or would in fact be a lovely and simple, light dessert).

When we had our nasty virus last week friends dropped off some kiwis on request, and another friend brought over a box of organic strawberries. When we finally reached the point of being able to stomach food, we were still a little hesitant about solids, so I decided to try whipping up a variation on Philippe's mousse. The result was pretty decent and I imagine would be a great way to get kids to eat more fruit, as well as an excellent accompaniment to a bowl of oatmeal (for us), or would as I say make a nice light summer dessert. And really, the "recipe" (if you can call it that) is just so darn simple.

Strawberry/Kiwi Mousse in the style of Chez Philippe
Serves 2

Peel and roughly chop 3 kiwis
Remove the stems from approx 6-8 largish strawberries, chop in half

Add to a blender with 2 ice cubes and a generous squeeze of agave syrup (I'd say maybe a scant tbsp). Blend.

That's it. The ice is really just to cool everything down and add a bit of liquid, you don't want to add so much that there's actually ice in the mousse (you're not making a margarita). You could drink this, though it's just a bit thick for that and it's positively wonderful to eat from little bowls with a little spoon. If you don't have agave, maple syrup will do, or if it's the height of summer and your berries are very sweet you can probably do without sweetener at all.

Unscheduled Spring Cleaning

While I like a good Spring clean as much as the next person, I really hadn't planned on spending last weekend scrubbing my house out with bleach. I had especially not planned on being locked in said house, dependent on the kindness of very kind friends to drop of care packages of movies, gingerale and saltines while we withered  indoors during Vancouver's first beautiful sunny weekend. We got Norwalk, also known as the nasty, nasty stomach bug that just won't quit. And if being up all night expelling the contents of your entire guts isn't enough fun for you, Norwalk seems to  leave you basically wasted for about 48-72 hours afterwards, which is helpful since unless you hate the human race -- particularly the ones who inhabit your community -- you really ought to quarantine yourself. And so we did.

Martin and I have never been sick together. Not really. There was that time in Costa Rica when he was sick on the way down, and I was sick a few days later and we've had the odd overlapping cold where one starts to get sick as the other is pulling out, but this was different. We were both in bed, flat out useless from Thursday night until sometime Sunday evening. The end. Even moving to the couch to watch movies together was more than we could handle. So, we didn't. We actually lay in beds having conversations like this:

"I can't get comfortable."
"Me Neither."
"Do you mind if I just kind of roll around and moan for a while? I think that might be more comfortable."
"Sure, I did that this morning. It helped."

We had the conversation more than once. I don't tell you all this to get pity. We have enough for ourselves. But rather to note that while I'd never, ever want to have Norwalk again (ever), there was something strangely lovely about having it with Martin. We always comment on how little time off we have together. Save our vacations away, we only have one common day off (Sundays) and we're almost always doing chores/running errands/tearing the house apart or putting it back together/etc. It was kind of nice to just lay around, even if it was in agony. And to know that we can lay around in agony together and actually laugh every once in awhile. Almost makes up for missing bike rides through the Spring weather and cherry blossoms. Almost.

The Boss of You is now shipping from Amazon.com

This book thing just gets more and more surreal all the time. Get your copy now, if you're so inclined.

One Cupcake at a Time

These vegan cupcakes are about to take over the world
Originally uploaded by emira

I'll admit it: I've been bit by the cupcake bug. They're just so darn cute and well delicious that I can't resist. And, while there's truly nothing wrong with a whole cake, cupcakes are just so very transportable and easily shared amongst friends and houses, whereas we can rarely make a decent dent in a whole cake in our wee house.

Last year for my birthday, my darling Lauren made me some truly incredible and awfully fancy cupcakes from the Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World cookbook (specifically the lemon blueberry ones on page 135) and they were stunning. This year for her birthday I decided to get the cookbook out of the library to give it a test run myself. I'll admit I kind of wimped out on her and just made the basic chocolate cupcakes with chocolate buttercream, but it was a particularly taxing week and I needed to keep it simple. And really, there's nothing wrong with a chocolate cupcake at all, especially with pink sprinkles on top. The recipe was super-duper easy (particularly with the aid of my fabulous KitchenAid) and it was definitely a success. n fact, such a success that I've just thrown together a second batch to be enjoyed this evening over board games with a friend and Miss P (there was leftover icing, what was I to do?).

The book is due back at the library this week, so I'll definitely be picking up my own copy for future cupcakes needs/emergencies. The recipes range from simple but satisfying (see chocolate cupcakes above) to truly awesome and gourmet cupcake treats. I'm already thinking that the Rosewater & Pistachio cupcakes would be perfect for a garden party/afternoon tea. There's also a gluten free cupcake recipe, which is a great thing to have on hand for treating one's beloved gluten-avoiding friends.

The Boss of You: For Real

Excited boss ladies holding their pride and joy!
Originally uploaded by arianek

The real live box of author copies arrived on Thursday and boy howdy were we excited. (As the photo indicates). As I posted on the Boss of You website, I've fallen back in love with this project. Head over heels you might say. I left town early the next morning to speak at a conference and I had to bring the book along with me in my bag, just so I could keep looking at it. I'm still feeling a little stunned.

We got another awesome couple of reviews too. Someone pinch me, I must be dreaming.

Soon to be released titles

Two upcoming books I've got my eye on (other than the one I'm on pins and needles about of course):

• Lotta Prints: How to Print with Anything, from Potatoes to Linoleum. Of course I'd like this to come with enough time for me to play around with printing everything from papers to textiles to patterns on my walls. Nevertheless, looks like fun times.
• Sew U Home Stretch: The Built by Wendy Guide to Sewing Knit Fabrics Anyone know if the patterns in this one will require a serger? While I'd like to have one, it's not the likely future purchases.

Babushka Madness

Beata, the woman behind Rose Hip Designs, has got to be one of the loveliest gals I know. I've had the great pleasure of meeting her in person at my local farmer's market, and often run into her at my favourite local crafty events. In addition to being an all around delightful person, she's also as talented as all get-out. I always pour over her table trying to restrain myself from buying my darling god-daughter one of each of her gorgeous dresses, skirts and general kids clothes, and telling myself that I really don't need another bag/pillow/what-have you. This Christmas, however, when I saw her babushka dolls I could not resist. Could you? Really? (This photo here is very similar to the little gal I now have hanging by my desk). Beata has finally opened herself up an Etsy store today (I've been wishing she would do this for ages so others not able to make our East Van Farmer's Market could partake in her lovelies) and it looks like I'm not her only fan. I just checked and 49 of her 60 babushkas are already gone, so get yours quick! I'm trying to decide between these two friends for my gal.