Thursday, November 30, 2006 The Urban Craft Uprising is this Saturday and Sunday in Seattle, see here for more details. If you're headed to it here are some things to look out for: At 2:30 pm on Saturday there will be a fashion show Look for the sparkly goods of Glamscience, I especially like the new glitter dot pendants and rings. Also, the cards and knitting and crochet related gift enclosures are a good thing to stock up on. Also, she might have some hand spun yarn. Not to miss is the culinary and dental goodness of Sew Dorky, maker of felt donuts and teeth. If you'd rather have something which will fit nicely on your wall, consider a donut portrait. All the way from Portland is Monsieur T., maker of too cool t-shirts and the PDX Super Craft girls, makers of many fine things. Also, be sure to stop by the Craft magazine table and meet the swoony Natalie Zee and Bre Pettis. link Grog's Animated Guide to Knots, in college I was tested on the bowline and clove hitch. via Dethroner. link It's very cold here so Oatmeal Dinner (at Posie Gets Cozy) looks incredibly appealing. I love steel cut oats and usually eat them plain with a few dried cranberries, so the idea of toasting the grains in butter before simmering them seems very decadent. Megnut's post Thanksgiving pie report and she declares this recipe by Karen Barker the best pie crust recipe ever, I must try it. I'm glad Meg reported that she didn't use a food processor to make the dough, I don't have one and will be making it by hand as well. link Wednesday, November 29, 2006 First new rule in my house: When doing the dishes one shall not hide the coffee making implement on the drying rack underneath heavy breakable dishes. One shall perch the coffee making implement on top of the pile of drying dishes so as to smooth the morning path from no coffee to coffee. Second new rule in my house: One shall never let the coffee filters run out. It has been a frustrating morning. link Yesterday Kottke linked to this article on the NYTimes which talks about how people sign off emails, with "best" being generally regarded as a brush off. I'm horrified, I use it all the time and certainly not as a brush off. I find "sincerely" too formal, and "warmest regards" seems awkward for me so, maybe I'll use "best wishes" for a while? Or "regards"? link NPR is running a craft contest and they are having people show of thier work on Flickr? These are my separate worlds colliding: "My name is Melody Kramer and I am a web producer at National Public Radio. This month, we are producing a 'do-it-yourself' holiday feature and asking our readers to send in pictures of their homemade menorahs and Christmas ornaments. We will feature the best on our Web site, www.npr.org. The winner in each category will receive a prize from the NPR gift shop. We are especially looking for quirky, funny and/or offbeat designs, and/or designs that mention news items from 2006. For example: *A Mel Gibson menorah *A global warming Christmas ornament *A red state /blue state ornament We'd like to ask our readers to post the pictures on Flickr.com with the tag word: NPRHOLIDAYCONTEST. We will feature the best designs in the coming weeks, and also link to individual websites, if the designs are selected." link Tuesday, November 28, 2006 Thing I want: this restaurant spring clip memo holder to hold recipes in my kitchen. Also, these display clips. At The Museum of Useful Things, via Mighty Goods. link Monday, November 27, 2006 Oops - back in mid-November I broke my archives and feeds. So, if you're reading this through Bloglines or some other nifty reader there are a dozen or so posts here you might have missed. Sorry about that, I think I've managed to fix it now. link November passed by quickly, but I have to say I'm so grateful to everybody who took part in NaBloPoMo. It was so nice to hear from people who tend to space posts further apart, it was a welcome distraction from the gathering cold and darkness and I adore the smaller mostly unplanned posts as they tend to share a slightly more intimate glimpse into life. I'm in the midst of installing a new blogging system, I've only ever used the same Blogger account since 1999(!), and the job is a doozy. I would have given up long ago if it weren't for the very patient superhero I so conveniently cohabitate with. I'm nearly ready to switch over, and when that time comes I will have comments, hopefully to the joy of those who remember when I had them in the distant past. Leslie is planning on doing an advent calendar again this year (yay!) but she needs some help and is asking for personal stories: "What's the weirdest/ silliest/ most unusual / funniest Christmas (or whatever religion specific or non religious holiday - Channukuh, Solstice, Kwaanza, winter break, etc. All are welcome...) tradition at your house? At ours, it's an unusual comic taco making ceremony we refer to as "the Nativity Taco". Do you have a funny Christmas story your family can't stop telling (or you hope they never figure out?) If you'd be so kind to tell me your stories with as much detail as you can muster, I'd love to include them in this year's calendar." If you've got something here is how to get in touch. And this weekend I couldn't help but procrastinate from the blogging software install to make my very own store at Amazon. Ok, so it's really more of a list, but it was fun choosing the things I really like or really want. If you've used up all your gift picking mojo take a look, hopefully it will give you some ideas. On thing I know for sure, everybody you know who cooks deserves a Baker's Edge Pan for the holidays: Read more about it here, and you can find recipes, including lasagna that doesn't get dried corners and doesn't slide all over the place when you are serving it. I really admire the amount of thought that went into the design of this pan, the handles are placed so that they are not flush with the counter when you flip the pan over, making it much easier to lift back up. I first saw this pan at Brownie Points and Chocolate and Zucchini. Also, it snowed here last night! link Friday, November 24, 2006 round or oval? Another post about the no-knead bread. First a question - it seems the collective opinion is that the 6 to 8 quart covered pot called for in the recipe is too large, it allows the bread to spread out too far creating a flat loaf. I used a 4-quart casserole dish because it's what I had, and the loaf was a good size. However, for the sake of my holiday wish list I'm wondering if the 3 1/2 Quart Oval Le Creuset French Oven would be a good size and shape. Has anybody used this particular pot, or even the similarly sized 3 1/2 Quart Round Le Creuset French Oven to make the bread? Was it large enough? My thanks, you lucky pot owner you. And now, the recipe for posterity with the collective changes found on many message boards in general and in this post at Chow and this post at The Kitchen in particular. I've made three loaves total and I like the changes, which appear in [brackets]. And here is a printable version. No-Knead Bread Appeared in the article The Secret of Great Bread: Let Time Do the Work by Mark Bittman in the November 8th, 2006 New York Times Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery Time: About 1 1/2 hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising - 3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting [I used bread, also suggested is substituting 1 cup whole wheat flour*.] - 1/4 teaspoon instant [aka Rapid Rise, QuickRise, Instant Active Dry, Perfect Rise, or Bread Machine Yeast] yeast - 1 1/4 [1 3/4] teaspoons salt - Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed. 1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 [1 1/2] cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees. [I put it on top of my fridge.] 2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes. 3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal [rice flour was suggested as it won't get gummy**]; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger. 4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart [about a 4-quart pot is preferred] heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 [10 or 15] minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack. Yield: One 1 1/2-pound loaf. * I tried substituting 1 cup whole wheat white flour and did not prefer the flavor, I have not tried regular whole wheat flour yet. ** I've tried flour, cornmeal and wheat bran and prefer the wheat bran so far. Also, seriously overdo the generous coating of the towel, otherwise you risk the dough sticking to the towel during the next step. link Wednesday, November 22, 2006 I've put up a list of How To Carve a Turkey videos over here at Readymade so you can be prepared when you're handed the carving knife. link Pre-holiday bookmark clearance. related to the home Ooh, nice cheery gift tags by Superfantastico, at Domicile. Coat rack as shoe rack at Apartment Therapy. I don't like the way it looks, but the space saving is an idea to hold on to. See also: revised shoe rack. DIY magnetic flower vase at Craft. Easy photo hanging idea I see things like this in coffee shops around here. Wow, potholder rug at Apartment Therapy. What's the cutest $50 thing in the world? at Ask Metafilter. Door-sized map of world history, I want one for my office. How to make an interlocking quadrilaterals lampshade at Apartment Therapy. Review of the Dirt Devil Cone. Collapsible wall mounted laundry drying rack, Martha Stewart showed of something like this I think, it would be perfect for the space near our washer/dryer. Corkboard alternative? at Ask Metafilter. Reading aid pillow, I could use this. Little Birds Soft Tree pattern! See the Flickr pool. related to technology Pillow for your laptop. iPod screen shields and a favorite keyboard at Popgadget. Lifehacker on Firefox 2: consolidating the chrome and config tweaks. related to feeding yourself Urban Outfitters ice: ice mice and DIY ice sculpture. Cocktail bitters at The Spirit World. Options for non-alcoholic drinks at fine restaurants. A lot of my friends don't drink and I've been meaning to collect grown up non-alcoholic drink recipes. Celebrate Repeal Day Dec. 5th, good idea, at Brownie Points. related to clothing yourself I do like the Crocs ballerina slipper. See them on a human at Super Eggplant, also they look like Barbie shoes, no? Sewing zippers at Craft. Winter Woods Skirt via Evany. link Tuesday, November 21, 2006 I recently came across two instances of people planning to create Faulkner-themed meals, how unexpected and awesome. First this question at Ask Metafilter about Faulkner themed picnic foods, answers include fried chicken, various Southern dishes and sassparilla soda (apparently Target carries some). The second is a question about a Faulkner themed retirement party during the November 11th show Cradle of Flavor (starts at 39:10). Suggestions include fried chicken, pimento cheese, coconut cake, biscuits with ham and a list of great Southern cookbook authors. link Monday, November 20, 2006 recipes Pumpkin Bread of Heaven at Modern Cottage Apple roll at Food Chronicles Shortbread with cornmeal for crunch, mmm, at Chocolate & Zucchini Cider pie (cider pie!) via Chow link Friday, November 17, 2006 Sew Subversive Down & Dirty DIY for the Fabulous Fashionista. I love this book, adore it. I nearly squealed with glee when they started with how to thread a needle, went through basic mending and then through everything you need to know about sewing machines, including how to load different bobbins and talk about tension, all without being boring. I really wish I this book had been around when I was in eighth grade. The book covers tools, how to care for fabric. The projects all cover easy fashion transformations using existing garments or materials, from pillowcase dresses to pin tucking an oversized shirt or skirt. They cover making skirts out of jeans, and how to (joy!) de-taperfy your pants. Each project is clearly explained with photographs and good diagrams. Here is another thing I love - not all the clothing in the photographs is perfect, there are some loose threads showing, a few slightly ragged edges. But it looks great, an expression of pride in the work it takes to create something cool. The authors really love what they are doing and it comes across really well. I recommend this for anybody who is starting out sewing, and anybody who is interested in refashioning clothing. You can see more of the book, including the introduction and table of contents, here. link Thursday, November 16, 2006 Gathering links in preparation to change the dining room lighting. At Apartment Therapy: Caviar Chandeliers Best product: crown bulbs Hanging lighting using crown bulbs How to change a light fixture Hanging a chandelier at This Old House. And last, a bit from the very first issue of Budget Living which I've been intending to imitate for years now: link Wednesday, November 15, 2006 Mark Bittman's article about Jim Lahey's no-knead bread came along just as I was considering making bread for the first time. So I made this bread and I suppose I'm spoiled for the rest of my life. It was so little work and the bread was so, well, awesome. The inside was chewy yet airy, and the crust was crunchy but not too tough (though Scott called it "dangerous and shardy"). Here is the article, the recipe and the video which is reassuring to watch if you are as noob as I am, since I wouldn't have quite believed there was so little word to do. Also the folding of the dough to form a ball is good to know about. Go there now, as I suspect it's all about to disappear behind a pay wall. I did manage to screw a few things up. The dough stuck to my kitchen towel after the second rise despite a serious layer of flour, and I could be found vigorously shaking sticky dough which would not come loose (those glutens, boy) off of my towel into a very hot casserole dish. Also, while I would have loved nothing more than to use this recipe as an excuse to get a 6 quart Le Creuset enameled cast iron dutch oven (I even would have been happy with the Mario Batali dutch oven... in persimmon), I settled for using my very old 4-quart Corningware casserole dish, which turned out to be big enough for the job. However, I think it might have been damaged by the 450-degree oven so it might never be the same. There is something about this mostly hands off process that inspires one to take pictures, and here are mine: Smitten Kitten kept notes and pictures as well (she is far more eloquent than I) and points to a whole bunch of others, including ones popping up on Flickr - nokneadbread and noknead. update: The Kitchen has an excellent no-knead bread round up, including the changes some people are making. Looks like people might prefer using a smaller pot. You can read a little more about my bread making adventures here at Readymade. I'd like to add that this bread is great dipped in a good olive oil as it gives me a chance to mention that the olive oil I bought earlier this year based on the pretty label just happened to be named one of the best tasting olive oils in a recent Cook's Illustrated magazine. Pretty labels rule. link Neat things related to the home: Wall straps at Product Dose. Flying carpet with felt padding to create a lounging area, at Charles & Marie. A neat trick for outdoor lighting involving winding Christmas lights around a wreath form, at Modern Roost. Easy pane of glass kitchen backspalsh at Apartment Therapy. Low-maintenance houseplants at Ask Metafilter. link Tuesday, November 14, 2006 Long checkout line + much blog reading = informed impulse purchases. Candy Cane Kisses, reviewed favorably at Candy Blog. Chicken Poop lip balm, declared "damn fine lip balm" at Sundry Buzz. link Monday, November 13, 2006 Daily Candy is coming along with a Seattle edition, set to launch in early December. link I was gonna post about these but I ate the apples before I got to snap a picture, so this post at The Stranger about the new(ish) Ambrosia apple will do. On the subject of apples The Splendid Table talks with Dr. David Bedford, one of the creators of the award-winning Honeycrisp apple, and did a tasting of apples on the September 23rd show titled Donuts (starting at 20:55). Did you know the Honeycrisp apple took 30 years to develop? Worth it. link The Craftster Guide to Nifty, Thrifty, and Kitschy Crafts, Fifty Fabulous Projects from the Fifties and Sixties is a resuscitation of those crafts your grandmother or mother grew up with. I myself am not a fan of kitsch beyond the window shopping sense so while I appreciated the whimsy of some of the things in this book they aren't things I would make for myself, which isn't to say I wouldn't make them for somebody who I know would like them. The book has projects I've seen before (melted record bowls, cigar box purse, toothbrush bracelet), projects I liked the book's take on (etched martini pitcher, sweater teapot cozy) and projects I want to make (headbands with a button and elastic loop, your own knitting loom, and glamorous paper decorations). Almost every project has pictures of the finished object combined with a vintage inspiration photo which is fun to compare. The directions are clear and the pictures in nice full color and when combined with the general exuberance of the tone and I really like this book. link Friday, November 10, 2006 Food: Chow talks about a new no-knead method of baking bread that is given the thumbs up by Harold McGee and turns out to actually be a very, very old method. Ugly Green Chair introduces me to the Ginger Rogers (mint, ginger syrup, fresh lime juice, gin, and ginger ale) by way of Daily Candy. Oh thank you. Peanut Butter Popcorn at The Kitchen. Orecchiette at Delicious Days. Best Buttermilk Pancakes at Bakingsheet. link Thursday, November 09, 2006 Choo choo! Check out the rock candy smoke. It's so cute my brain hurts a little. Williams-Sonoma always has some baking item I lust over but simply don't need (pumpkin cake pan, stadium pan!) but this season there are a few items which are really tempting me. First is the Railyway cake pan. It's a train, a whole train, with an engine and a caboose! I'm so excited. (Now, one could do the same with some cleverly decorated mini loaf cakes...) The other thing tempting me is this 3-D cookie set. I've seen 3-D cookies before but I find the way it's all packaged together for you oddly comforting. link I have a stack of books I've been meaning to mention here. So, here's to trying to get one up every other day, or so. In Stitches by Amy Butler. I was completely taken in by the special pocket containing patterns which is closed by a sticker and the spiral binding, so easy to leave open in front of you. The book itself is simply charming. The projects in this book are fantastic, they are whimsical and practical things I would not only make but also use. At the moment I'm most taken by the fabric boxes, I've been wandering around my house envisioning colorful boxes tucked on shelves. The illustrations with the directions are clear, and the colors and photography make everything so very appealing. See more about the book, including pictures and a list of projects inside, at Amy Butler's site here. link Wednesday, November 08, 2006 Last Saturday I braved heavy rains and early holiday shoppers to see the Tord Boontje things at Target. The stores are decorated with his designs, what look like huge versions of his Until Dawn curtains, it's amazingly cheerful. You can find the dinnerware for sale in the Target's Red Hot Shop. But what I really loved was the selection of his things in the seasonal section. There are paper garlands, pictured above and reminiscent of the Fairy Tail cards. There is also a darling advent calendar garland (also pictured above), glass votive holders (much like the Table Stories designs) and plastic LED decorative lights. There was an empty hook labeled window clings which I was intrigued enough by to travel to a second Target in an attempt to find. After I got there two friends bumped into me at an aisle at the second Target staring at a completely empty display. So I suspect if you'd like to get any Tord Boontje holiday things, you might want to act quickly. link Tuesday, November 07, 2006 I live in a state with mail in ballots, it makes it incredibly easy to vote. But I have to admit I do miss going to the polls. In Cleveland this meant going to my high school gym where a group of volunteers would offer me cookies and a sticker after I came out of the curtained box and ask how my parents were. In San Francisco the polls were the deliveries garage of a hotel a half a block away from my apartment, the same dignified man in a good suit would hand me my ballots each year and everybody there was quiet. Another downside to the mail in ballot system is that it can take a while for the counting to get done, so today I'll be watching as things unfold and hoping we get solid results in under a week. Go out and vote today, and afterwards you can listen to this segment on NPR where Melissa Block interviews two voice over artists who get a lot of work on attack ads, and they manage to make nursery rhymes sound threatening. via The Morning News. link Monday, November 06, 2006 The nonstop rain and cold have descended upon us so I'm thinking about warm food: Broccoli spaghetti frittata, we made this last week, it was perfect. At The Kitchen. Baked oatmeal at Everybody Likes Sandwiches. Gently poached pears with ginger and cloves, at Domicile, yum. link Friday, November 03, 2006 If you live in Portland you're lucky enough to be able to attend the Studio Craft trunk show tomorrow. Look for the beautiful things that Alicia of Posie will be selling, everything she does is wonderful. Show details. link I missed out on seeing Amy Sedaris when she was here last week on tour for her book I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence. I pulled the most common of my lazy sins and waited too long to buy tickets, and then they were sold out. But I hear the book is fabulous and plan to make a special trip to acquire it this weekend. link Thursday, November 02, 2006 A few people wrote in to show me their versions of the creepy crawly cakes, and I loved them all, however many of the letters had self deprecating comments in them: "mine aren't as good as yours..." I know this is meant as a form of compliment, but it made me realize I didn't show you what came before the treats I eventually presented. So, in the spirit of living up to the name of this site I offer this behind the scenes action. I started thinking about these a year ago, I mentioned needing specific pans last Halloween. I started test baking in early September and ended up with something entirely different than I had planned out. Originally I wanted to make molten chocolate cakes in the form of spiders, so that when you cut into them with a fork they'd bleed dark chocolate, ewwww. What I learned was that making dome shaped molten chocolate cakes is hard to get right, and that piped chocolate legs melt when inserted into warm cake (duh). Here is a list of things that didn't work: - one boxed cake mix - two molten chocolate cake recipes - lots of variations on greasing pans for smooth cake release - five different cake pans - sauce legs (though I might come back to this) - piped chocolate legs - piped chocolate legs melting when poked into warm cake - lots of broken pocky legs - my ability to visualize spider anatomy without research - one last chocolate cake recipe (not molten, still botched it) - planning Black Window colorings I kept notes for myself as I went along. You can see them on here. That page is a list of my failures, you don't even need to read the notes, just scroll down and peek at the pictures. In the end a burned thumb forced me to take my snack cake backup route, and by that time I had worked the kinks out of the Pocky legs. Who in their right mind would continue on after a year and a string of failures? I have documentation to show that that person is me. I'm not finished with this cake though. I am now the owner of a shiny new mini bake n' fill domed cake pan (as seen on TV!) and some super special chocolate from England. I'll likely be baking spider cakes well past Thanksgiving. added: You can see some adorable spider cakes made by Greeting Arts, some turned up on Flickr here by Kay and Matt (hee: spider killbot army!) and here by Queequeg18. And this one made by Hannah makes me feel like my snack has already been pimped: It's a huge spider cake using Pepperidge Farm Pirouette cookies for the legs. She used the full sized as-seen-on-tv Bake n' Fill pan, which has tempted me in the past. link Wednesday, November 01, 2006 This thread on stirring natural peanut butter in the jar is an example of why I love Ask Metafilter, the detailed sincere answers to a seemingly trivial question. I myself dump the contents of a new jar of separated peanut butter into a large bowl and use a potato masher to mix everything back together, then I refrigerate the peanut butter to keep it from separating again. But, my method makes more dishes. People on this thread have a bunch of techniques: hit the open jar with a short burst in the microwave, pierce the solid bits and let the oil drip down, store the jar upside down for a few days before opening, and even pointed to this nifty (if uni-task-y) peanut butter mixing device. Somebody even reported back on trying out the upsidedown storage method. Awesome. link		other stuff here how to make stuff sites to go to about archive rss my flickr email www.flickr.com random thing to make