We passed Mora Iced Creamery while on our way to the Apple store in the Bellevue mall the other weekend. I had not heard of it, but it's by no means a secret. We tasted a bunch of flavors, and they were delightfully patient with us: maraschino cherries cream, sabayon (egg and marsala wine custard), pink grapefruit (sorbet, neither too sweet or tart, it was very refeshing), marron glace (French chestnut), crema rusa (moscato wine with walnuts, which I liked very much), and green tea. We chose dulce de leche and gianduja (hazelnut chocolate). I expected the gianduja to be like Nutella, but it was whole toasted hazelnuts, and incredible amount, packed into a nice chocolate ice cream, it was wonderful. The dulce de leche was intense, and the burnt sugar came through but didn't overwhelm. The flavors were so big we could barely finish both cups but didn't want to stop. So worth it. And they have a shop on Bainbridge Island, a perfect excuse for a ferry ride on the next sunny day.

We're finally coming to some picture worthy stuff in our house-fixing-upping. We've got a few more walls to paint white and then we come to the interesting feature in the house -- our red-orange accent wall, which we've decided to keep but repaint.

I do like this shade with the off-white walls, but I don't like the off-white walls. So we need to find a color that goes with a bright, cool white. We'd like to use an intense orange, something that doesn't look like candy, looks clean (shades with the words burnt or roasted in the name aren't working as well), and says something like "I am an adult capable of picking a sophisticated wall color".

These are the swatches I grabbed last night, and I suspect there will be lots of test patches painted on the walls in the future.

The color swatches obviously don't look quite the same in the pictures, but my favorite so far is Field Poppy.

Maybe a deep red?

I've been peeking at pictures of accent walls at Apartment Therapy (see this Google search for more).

San Francisco Apartment Therapy on the uses of white vinegar.

Super Eggplant on detergent that is good for stinky workout clothes (yay!).