Barrettes

While home for the holidays I uncovered a bunch of my childhood barrettes:

Barrettes of my younger years
Although I can't picture them, I bet there are a few missing from this photo. Some may have been broken from wear.

It's so crazy to see these. There's this hazy, cloudy meaning in each one, and none of it means anything to anyone but me. These barrettes stuck around.

To think how meaningless these little things would be to anyone else, like when tossed around in a bin at a garage sale, it tickles my mind.

Holiday gift guide 2012

The idea of making a holiday gift guide is kinda ridiculous. How do I know your recipients? Should I tell you all the things I'd love? Should I tell you everything I've chosen for others, and why? Should I make guesses at your situation?

No. 

Instead I can share my gift giving philosophy and give you some examples. 

Who should give gifts? Whoever wants to. I'm a firm believer in gift-giving being totally optional and not very expected. Let people who HATE buying gifts off the damn hook. Don't do it if you don't want to! There's probably some other way you prefer to demonstrate your love and appreciation.

Lately I've been trying to hone some homemaking skills that I can rely on and share with others. I'll be gifting some of my canned jelly and chutney this year. There's love in every jar. Maybe next year I'll get some beeswax candles going....

Left. Something tells me I might not get beeswax candles gift-worthy on my first try. Maybe I should make a beautiful mess anyway. Right. Chutney.

You're thinking, how the fuck do you expect me to have spent time making homemade gifts for people? A ha. Good point. If you need something easy to buy for an adult woman and you don't really know what this person wants or needs, go with a silk scarf (assuming non-veganhood). Everyone will love touching a silk scarf and they pack away to nothing. 

Polka dots, represent! These are so easy to find on Etsy. Left, Middle, Right.

Another thing I like to gift are cookbooks. I, and many others, love to read cookbooks. I like the ones with stories, with history, with anecdotes, with heart. If you know someone else who reads cookbooks and loves to cook (and eat), anything by Nigella Lawson is really nice. This is a real treat too. There are many, many good cookbooks out there. Whatever you do, don't buy "Cookies" from a Home Goods clearance aisle and then give that to someone who likes cookies. You can do better than that.

Assuming you don't know what to get someone, let's go over what NOT to get them:

(1) Artwork and things expected to be left out in the house. Unless you're really informed about someone's desires, don't force something on them that they are expected to hang and use or look at. [I totally disregard this rule with my herb wreath, below.] It's too much pressure. A person should feel free to surround themselves with whatever appeals to them. 

(2) Things for the hands. Nonadjustable rings and gloves are very tricky. I avoid them. 

(3) Gift certificates to random places. I do not want 40 dollars to Macaroni Grill. In my experience, GC's can work as long as you (a) know the recipient frequents that place, and (b) pair them with something of that nature (like a Lush product, catalog, and GC, or some packable lightweight grocery bags with a GC to Trader Joe's). This shows thoughtfulness. 

(4) Anything big. If it may be a mistake, don't make it a big one. Make it something easy to hide. Earrings are nice and small.

In general I like to give people things they probably won't buy themselves because it's a little extravagant. It's not expensive, like that 16 dollar bottle of heavenly wine, but it's more than we're able to spend on ourselves regularly. So it's a treat. It's above and beyond but still highly affordable. It's that 4 dollar bar of phenomenal chocolate. It's that amazingly fragrant and gorgeous herb wreath. Gifts from this category, gifts of treats, make great host/hostess gifts.

Wreath - hmmmm, how about a homemade herb wreath? Wine - last time I had Estancia (a Duo) my mouth was very happy. They sell some at my TJ's. Chocolate, the really really really good kind.

I should add a disclaimer here that I'm not an expert gift giver. I've given some bad gifts in my time.. mostly due to overthinking instead of underthinking, I think. One time I actually gave a loved one Tupperware. Seriously. 

Regardless of food storage mishaps, I do know what the best gifts are. The best gifts showed you were listening 5 months ago. When your friend complained that this wallpaper was giving her lust-mares, and how her organic cotton flour sack tea towels were the bomb, you were listening. When he said, "There's no good vermouth you can buy!" and "I think we could fit a deep fryer right here," you were listening.

Left, tea towel of my dreams. I love you, towel. Middle, two of many options for organic flour sack tea towels. Right, useful and unique kitchen apron.

And that's my overall gift giving philosophy.

I ask you

I want to wallpaper a small wall in my apartment, but I can't. So I want to wallpaper a big flat piece of cheap something that I can hang/tape to the wall.

What is that big flat piece of cheap something?

UPDATE: I've talked to a professional framer and some friends about this and the consensus is to use a foam board, which you can get in large sheets from framing stores or smaller sheets from chain craft stores.

Can we take a moment

And appreciate this spectacular wallpaper?

It takes a lot of mental slapping to not buy a roll of this "for later".

I bow to you, gray waves.

Now back to my regularly scheduled vacation...

Favorite lazy meal

Back to Trader Joe's for my favorite lazy meal - Reduced Guilt Mac & Cheese:

You'll be scraping the cheese out of the groves in the plastic tray in no time.

I'm not a big fan of microwave lunches or meals in general. They tend to be overly salty and underly satisfying. But this simple meal has managed to make me a fan. It's got 22% of my "daily value" of sodium, which is about 1/5, which is about just fine. The fat is not out of control. Not quite enough calories to stand alone as "dinner", but I'll forgive that. The 15 grams of protein are very welcome, and with just 4 g of sugar, I'm happy with this nutritional profile. I also like that I'm not asked do a 2-step microwaving operation. I'm way too lazy for that.

Serving suggestion: Once I was dog/house sitting and I had made some stovetop mac and cheese. These people had a dried garlic grinder... so I added some of this garlic and some black pepper. OMFGGGFG this was good. I have yet to have a dried garlic grinder fall in my lap so I just add some garlic powder and fresh black pepper after microwaving before mixing.

The lazies

Every workday morning I wake up and think 2 things: (1) I can't wait to get home and come back to bed, and (2) If I could only stay home today I'd get SO MUCH DONE around the apartment. That laundry I didn't do last night I'd do right away. I'd clean off the kitchen counter AND make coffee. TWO cups. I'd vacuum and then do a work-out video. I'd organize my closet. Fuck, I'd dust.

Then I get to work. I think, gosh, I can't wait to go home and be productive. Then I read the news online while I take small breaks from work emails and meetings and printing things. I put off a thing or two because I should really start them tomorrow nice and early when I get to work, not now, heck it's almost 10:30.

Lunch at 11:30 because I didn't eat breakfast. Then some more work. Hopefully I'll stay on my feet and the time will fly. If I'm at my desk I get the yawns. I should get some afternoon coffee.

I should go home early since I'm gonna work on this poster/paper/whatever tonight with a glass of wine after dinner. I'll concentrate better without all these interruptions from work people anyway.

I get home. Dinner devolves into salsa and chips or a glass of milk with chocolate malt Ovaltine. Maybe a frozen pizza if I'm really hungry. I snack on olives and gummy vitamins. Sometimes I'm actually too lazy to uncork a bottle of wine. Let me repeat that, sometimes I'm too lazy to uncork a bottle of wine. I could vacuum and do that work-out video but it's after dark and my downstairs neighbor's peace should be respected. I could do laundry but it's dark out and it's safer if I do it when the sun comes up. I should go to bed early so that I can wake up early. That work I was going to catch up on can wait till tomorrow since it's not due till the day after. Maybe I'll catch up on Nashville instead, and Mad Men season 3 won't rewatch itself. I stay up too late because I really really don't want to wash my face and brush my teeth.

Wake up and snooze and snooze and snooze. Take a shower and wash my hair but don't have an extra 3 minutes for conditioner or 4 minutes to dry it or 1 minute to brush it.

Thus goes a depressive period, in the lazy sense. In doing.

I have mental energy. I have curiosity. I have angst. I have love. I have passion. But I also have the lazies. You ever feel like you exhausted all your energy achieving achieving achieving so that you could get this job and live in this apartment? Occasionally someone with kids will tell me to relish the laziness I can afford. They say they'd kill to take a 4 hour nap every Saturday. Sometimes I think they're right, and sometimes I think I'd be a more productive person all around if I had to take care of someone other than myself.

It's almost like I need a bigger challenge. I know I could excel at work and keep a cleaner home and get in better shape. I could. But why? I know I'll meet the work deadlines somehow and keep my cholesterol down and clean up in time for company. It might suck but I can do it. What would I do if I was on top of things all the time? Be a better blogger? Make more chutney? Achieve fitness goals? Volunteer somewhere? Learn to make bread? Have less guilt about my laziness and learn to truly enjoy downtime? Hey wait, this is beginning to sound... damn it.

I may want a bigger challenge, but I certainly don't need one.

Introducing handsome

My male cat was a little jealous that his sister was getting all the internet fame (ha).

Introducing handsomeness:

I swear, he almost always looks like he's posing for a glamour shot. 

He may be part Russian Blue... I don't really know since he was adopted from a shelter. Do Russian Blue's puke a lot? If so, he's a ringer. Strangely I used to daydream about my first cat being all gray, and then when it came time to get one he was the only option! I was set on getting a non-obese adult cat from the local shelter. Enter this handsome man. My first feline love.

Chutney for all

This year I had access to lots of unripe tomatoes. Our late summer was unfavorable for tomatoes, but favorable for my new favorite condiment, tomato chutney.

I based my recipe on that of the only celebrity I've ever met, Mollie Katzen. She was in the best supermarket in existence, The Berkeley Bowl, dishing out some of her new heat & eat soups. Not being prepared for this sighting, I'm sure I was a total dork. (Who am I kidding - I'd have been a dork regardless.) I mustered the courage to approach her and thank her for the The New Moosewood Cookbook, home of my hummus, home of my samosas, home of my more vegetarian fantasies. This recipe stems from there as well.

I'm not going to spell out her recipe because I don't have permission to do so, but I can surely say that mine was a simmered combination of unripe green tomatoes, ginger, spices (heavy on the cumin, coriander, and mustard), garlic, a bit of sugar, spicy peppers, and some apple cider vinegar to bring it all together. Then I canned it. In one variation I split the tomatoes with some pears.

You'd think I was trying to take shitty pictures.

Appetizers are served.

What do I eat this with? Oh, about everything. Above you can see it dressing up cheese and crackers. I've also mixed it with rice and chicken. I've put it on sandwiches - even egg sandwiches. I've eaten it with naan and spinach. I've mixed it with whatever is in the crockpot for some added depth of flavor. I'm clearly diggin this stuff.

When I give it as a gift this Christmas I'll want to add a card with some recipe suggestions, so what I'm doing is technically research. Research, people. Not gorging.

Politics later, yellow skirt now

I've been spending a strange amount of time learning about American politics. I'm attempting drastic open-mindedness. I'd like to write about it sometime, but I'm still working things out. So far I've recognized that the Republican party has a big thing for God. They also seem to think "pro-life" and being in favor of the death penalty are mutually exclusive. My head hurts. More later.

For now, let's enjoy this pleated yellow skirt.

Hello little pleats. Thanks for the sunshine.

Carrie wears this in the 2nd season while she's pondering if all unmarried men her age are freaks. One bad date after another has her worrying that all the good ones are taken. But then she finds a nice guy... Ben. Then she wears this outfit on a double date (and the morning after the date). I love the slight preppiness and yellow cheeriness. I love the holey knit scarf (stay tuned for its blue sister). I love the grassy green and yellow combo. The coat has a 90's collar but other than that it's not so bad. Kinda surprisingly, this is the first outfit that turns my head (in a good way) in the entire series up to this episode.

Listen up, blondies -- layer your yellows like no other gal can.

Mod Dots

I somehow expected ModCloth would have lots of stylish items with polka dots. They had a few. What caught my eye mostly was this blouse on the left. I like it. Makes me want to study hard on a bench under a tree with glasses on. I also love this dress on the right, although it's probably too short for my comfort. No thanks. Cool shape and color though.

Somehow I'd like to find items like these, but not imported and made with higher quality materials. Oh, and affordable. File this under *impossible*.

Possession of good brandy and martini skills required.