Since August

It's not that I haven't been doing bloggable things. It's that I haven't sat down to write about them. Well...it's kind of both.

To be honest, the blog slowdown began during glutenfest. Yep, I'm blaming the grain. Man, that sucked. Imagine how you feel when you get the flu. There's always one day that is the worst. And then, the day after that, you feel a little better...but still not good. That's how I felt. Like it was the day after the worst day of the flu. Every day for 10 weeks.  It was not a happy place to be.

The thing about having no energy and just wanting to lay your achy joints down and take a nap (God, how old do I sound?! But really, that's how I felt! Instantly OLD.) is that it's hard to be motivated to cook, or make crafty things, or take photographs of any of it. And then, when the horror of glutenfest ended and I was able to start eating normally and began to feel better, I had a lot to do. A backlog of tasks. And not much time for blogging.

Here we go...and apologies in advance if you follow me on instagram because there are going to be a lot of familiar photographs here.

I made a bunch of meals. 

 And I baked a bunch of treats.

I made a new Valentine's wreath, constructed entirely from scrap materials I had laying around my craft room/office/pantry/chaos closet.

I preserved some things in the refrigerator because the prospect of actually "canning" anything freaks me out. Some jalapenos (not pictured). Some meyer lemons.(Ok, a LOT of meyer lemons.)

Some kumquat marmalade.

Oh, and hey, I got a new job! IN WHICH I ALMOST NEVER TRAVEL FOR WORK.

I know.

It's amazing. Revolutionary. I hardly know what to do with myself. But one thing I am doing is decorating my (shared) office, now that I spend so much time here. Luckily, my officemate is a dude who cares not at ALL what the space looks like. Which is excellent because you know I love free rein when it comes to these sorts of things.

The monkey lamp from CB2 is my FAVORITE. As are the drawings from Penelope - "You're the best Kate ever." How cute is that? 

In more recent office decor developments, I am super excited about the window seat, which fits so perfectly it almost looks custom. (It's not.) I absolutely love sitting here and working. The current pillows are no-longer-used leftovers from home for now but I'm pinning more pillow fabrics and other items for the office so you can probably expect an office decorating blog post from me in the future.

And yeah...that's about it. Kind of a sorry showing for an entire half a year.
Will try to do better between now and this August!

Consider the Dishtowel

Because a lot of the people I work with are in other non-San-Francisco offices, in future time zones, I spend a lot of time on early morning phone calls, which sometimes turn into all-day phone calls, which often means I work from home.

Here's a shot of my at-home "office." (It's really the breakfast room.) I try to keep the table relatively clean (doesn't always work, but I try).

The gorgeous orchids are courtesy of my buddy Sherwin. Thanks Sherwin! My kitchen-office suddenly feels so posh. It's amazing what flowers can do for the spirit.

And this, dear friends, is my office's view.

Yes, I could sit on the other side of the table, and have a view out my kitchen window. But for some reason I prefer sitting this direction. I really don't know why. It makes no sense.

I am weird.

But you already knew that and that's also really not why we're here today.

See those posters on my wall of my at-home office space?
They aren't posters. They are dishtowels.

Proof I am not a perfectionist - the canvas is definitely not stretched evenly!

If you've been with this blog since the beginning, you will see other examples of my love of using dishtowels for tasks beyond dish-drying. This is another sneaky use for them.

I ran across these two towels at Sur La Table a couple of months ago. Turning them into fun, cheap wall art is easy; here's how.

Equipment:
A piece of fabric. See below for tips. 
A staple gun and plenty of staples. Just your basic one will do. I have one like this.
4 canvas stretcher bars that are an appropriate size for your fabric/desired finished piece. You can find these at art supply stores. They will have two kinds, the cheap ones and the expensive heavy duty ones. If your piece of fabric is less than 4' square, get the cheap ones.
Two picture hanger screws and picture wire
A tape measure or ruler

Bonus Equipment: DIY frame from the art supply store. These come in metal and wood. If you get the wood kind, you will also need a touch of super glue to join the pieces. You don't need glass for this project.

Directions:
1. I was going to type out instructions but then I found that the internet had already solved this problem for me. Instead, please enjoy this video.


2. Try not to get too annoyed as this lady is super nice but oddly bouncy.
3. Frame if you wish, then add the hanging hardware and hang your art.

So easy!

Tips for choosing fabric for this project:
Think outside the bolt on this - you can use dishtowels, napkins, old tablecloths, pillowcovers (taken apart at the seams), even old favorite pieces of clothing. Thicker and woven fabrics are easier to use; but super-thick and very thin fabrics can be challenging. Stretchy fabric is practically impossible; don't use it if you've never done this before.

A note: if you are framing something that you need to protect because it's an heirloom or whatever, take it to the professionals to get it framed. This project is more about doing a quick change on what's on your walls and creating some "cheap art" for yourself. Otherwise, if your fabric is iron-able, iron it as best you can.

Some other examples from around my home:

My motto. In the kitchen, of course. This piece also began life as a dishtowel.

A Marimekko "Lokki" panel atop a bookcase.

More Marimekko panels. Previously in my office, now adding some color to a quiet corner of the living room.

Since Last Year: A Summary

This morning I am going to WOW you with my breakfast.

Boom.

Your jaw dropped, right? Almond butter and homemade blackberry jam AND peaches on a RICE CAKE?! STOP IT! KATE, YOU HAVE GONE TOO FAR.

Ok, let's get real for a second. I've been away for awhile.  Babies have been conceived and born in the time I’ve been away from this blog.

Just to be clear: Exactly NONE of these babies were mine.

Everybody got that?

It’s not that I haven’t been making things. I have been. I just haven’t been writing about them. For some reason life just felt too busy.

And then, just like that, it didn’t.

Now here I am with three posts on three consecutive days like I've never even been gone. I don’t know what happened. Maybe it’s summer daylight lasting until 9pm.
Maybe it’s something else.

Whatever it is, herewith, some things I did when I wasn’t here.*

*Not in chronological order.

I gold leafed a bunny.

Isn't he cute? Also, I learned that gold leaf is messy. It is definitely a cousin of glitter, "the herpes of craft supplies."

I had an Oscars party.

We had a red carpet, too. Natch. The tape adhering the red carpet stuck to my floor. Still can't really get it off. Yes, I've tried Goo-Gone and scraping. Good thing this is a rental.

I made some necklaces.

And some bacon candy.

I bought some art and hung it up.

I made brownie sundaes.

Make your own hot fudge sauce and brownies; buy the ice cream.

And stuffed escarole.

This looks like a mess, but it's incredibly delicious. Lidia Bastianach is a genius.

And gluten-free, grain-free meyer lemon mug cakes.

Just replaced the weird sweetener with 1T +1t of granulated sugar. These make an amazing breakfast treat, too.

 
Ok, I made those a couple of times.

I made some ridiculously tasty Banana Bread with Coconut and Rum. Oh, and browned butter. Thank you, Joy the Baker, for that one.

And thank you, Blake, for your hunting skills.

This went into a "Goose Bourguignon" recipe. Which turned out gamy, but edible. I count it as a win.

Turns out making a wild goose edible requires a LOT of ingredients.

Britta was an amazing co-chef on this one. Turns out butchering a goose is a fairly nasty process.

On the lighter side, I made some appetizers.

These are purple rice crackers with avocado, a little greek yogurt mixed with a little lime juice, and garnished with my new favorite seasoning, shichimi togarashi. Virtuous, yet delicious.

And roasted some rhubarb.

Delicious over vanilla ice cream although also pretty good on its own or with yogurt.

And then there was this ham. This eight pound, big ass country Easter ham.

Three pounds of which is hacked up into large chunks in my freezer.
Where it will probably stay for a year until I no longer feel guilty about composting it because what am I going to do with huge chunks of frozen ham?

Any suggestions?

A Thing of Beauty

This past weekend, I organized my shoes.

Wait, wait! Don't close the browser window! This story has a good ending.
Bear with me. 

I realize devoting a full day to shoe organization is like one step above (below?) storing them in the oven, Sex-and-the-City-style.

But it was necessary.
My shoes had started to multiply like Gremlins in a kiddie pool.

There were shoes behind the closet door.

And behind the bedroom door.

And in an old, broken bookshelf.

And on another old, broken shelf. 

(Thanks again, movers, for breaking all my stuff!)

And in a basket.

Er...two baskets. 

And in the closet.

And the other closet. 

Some might say I have too many pairs of shoes.
This sentence does not compute.

I clearly just needed some better shoe storage.

Here's what I did:

1. Assembled the large, deep Ikea Billy bookcase. (This one.) Despite my non-love of white laminate, I determined that the white shelves and background would provide the best, most neutral canvas for shoe display.

2. Drilled three extra sets of shelf holes at the top, bottom, and right below the middle door hinges. This was a huge pain in the ass and I wish I'd done it before I assembled the cabinet but I didn't realize that it was necessary until after the shelf frame was together.

3. Added the Billy Olsbo glass doors. Drilled holes and added cabinet knobs.

4. Alternated Billy glass and wood shelves in the cabinet to keep the look light & airy.

It only took about 4 hours.

Ikea seems to have gotten smarter about their instructions. They now feature this drawing to start that bible of exasperation, the Ikea instruction booklet:

Do you see that?

Sad guy with pile of parts = alone
Happy guy with pile of parts = with another person

That's right. Ikea is trying to tell you that you should not assemble their products without a second person around.

Screw you, Ikea. I don't have another person.

Despite their singleton discrimination, I have to admit, they've got a point. If you have ever assembled anything from Ikea that involves door or drawer parts, you know why this drawing is here; namely, for moral support and suicide prevention when you realize you're missing a part. I bet their risk management people made them add this to the instructions to avoid lawsuits.

Approximately 60% of the way through the building process, there is inevitably a moment of utter exhaustion as you look around, surrounded by torn boxes, papers, little metal parts, and rebus instructions. And a half-assembled piece of plywood laminate furniture that you have carefully made sure is NOT TOUCHING THE BARE WOOD FLOOR.

Ugh.

That said, I persevered despite a minor breakdown (proudly, there were no tears) that accompanied attaching the doors. In the end, it was worth it. 

I can now see all my flats, sandals, and heels at once. The only thing that would possibly make this better is a wider shelf (and more wall space) so that my boots could be in there as well. But there's no room for boots. It's ok. I'm still pleased with this solution. It feels like I'm shopping every time I get dressed.

It's a little bit awesome.

Joy. I feel joy every time I look at this thing. It's like Christmas morning EVERY morning.

As Mom said: "Nice! You have room for one more pair!"
Yes. And I'm enacting a strict one-in-one-out policy from here forward. Gremlins begone!

Easter Feasts

This past Easter weekend, we had a family mini-reunion at my Aunt and Uncle's home.

A lot of Vitullos in the same place at the same time can only mean one thing:

ABBONDANZA!

On Good Friday, we dined on a feast of many fishes...

Grilled shrimp that I briefly marinated in a bit of lemon, wine, salt, pepper, and olive oil.

Flounder Amandine. Aunt Margaret used corn flour instead of regular flour so I could eat this. And I'm so glad she did because it was unexpectedly my favorite of all the fishes. So good.

Pepper-crusted ahi. Perfectly cooked by the Uncles.

A giant bowl of mussels, Cousin Lucas' and my favorite. Also, two types of crab cakes. Because one type would never be enough.

We tried to make natural egg dyes...

It looked pretty, but the colors didn't really take...even after an overnight soak. So we resorted to the Paas.

The Paas worked.

Saturday, I made a Meyer Lemon Upside Down Cake.
It came from this recipe.

Prepping ingredients. The lemons I brought to DC from San Francisco. They came from the tree in my boss' backyard!

Prepping the pan.

Layering in the lemons. I love this picture. The lemons smell delicious.

Baked. Perhaps a little overbaked...

But at least the cake unmolded from the pan successfully.  That's always scary, flipping the pan and hoping the goods land in one piece.

Hmmm...

I've got to say, this is the first time Martha Stewart has failed me. The thinly sliced meyer lemons were positively bitter. I think this could be fixed by candying them first, so I'm going to try that, because I have high hopes in the future success of this recipe.

At least it came out pretty!
 

We made table decorations by stuffing jumbo cupcake wrappers with Easter grass and putting candied eggs in them. Cute and delicious!

We also introduced the cousins to the Easter Aardvark. The Easter Aardvark likes to sleep in on Easter Sunday, but when he does eventually show up, he brings candy and toys. Good deal.

Happy (belated) Easter!