obsession

ok, so we've been bleeding money in order to switch ALL of our knob & tube wiring over to the modern standard, to upgrade our electrical service, to renovate our third floor...and in the midst of that, all I can think about are wall paint colors and first floor furniture (and wall paper, and new toilets, and handmade tiles, and and and). we just bought a dining room table from Restoration Hardware (it was on sale! we couldn't actually view it in person, and I'm nervous we won't like it), but I've been obsessed with getting the antique-y looking mirrored dresser from Anthropologie for a while now. I'd like to put it in our entry-way and cram all of our shoes into it. I found a look-alike in Pottery Barn, which is cheaper, but it's still hard to justify spending the money on it. all the same, I can't stop thinking about it. sigh.

movie list

so, the bbc has its list of one hundred books, and that's gone crazily viral online. what about the criterion collection of movies?

I've counted (copy and paste the list of movies to excel, place x next to ones seen, use filter option to reduce list to those seen, use excel count to get quick count on number seen), and I've seen 104 titles out of more than 560 titles. I can't imagine ever watching every movie on the entire list, but just looking through it is interesting. for example, I never knew that the Maysles made a sequel to Grey Gardens, or that Heaven Can Wait was a movie before the Warren Beatty version...

the best part of perusing the list is that I'll not have a shortage of things to put on my netflix queue. hello, maternity leave!

more new traditions

OK, so I thought that I was OFFICIALLY through with making cookies (after two batches of walnut-chocolate chips, one batch of snickerdoodles, and a MASSIVE batch of frosted sugar cookies - which for me, is A LOT of baking), but I just saw this post, and I am captivated. I want to make those cookies today!

besides inspiring cookie awe, the article also suggested the perfect movie for circleness day movie watching, The Fantastic Mr. Fox! duh. I'd been wondering if there would be a dvd mainstay, and I've just found it. and yet one more bonus from the very same article? how about the circleness apple painting tradition? where do I get that gold paint? is it edible?


OK, I just checked, and there is an edible gold paint available for purchase.hm, we may be looking forward to a new tradition next year. The good thing is that Henry actually eats fruit, so he may be interested in its embellishment. Just think about gold and orange clementines!


I sadly did not have the presence of mind to take photos of the New Year's Eve cookie decorating party, I did take one of the tray of finished products. The McGregor Corsons brought a slew of gingerbread cut-outs (which, by the way, included bears, horses, hippos, and cats) and colored royal icings and colored sugars. it was great to see man and child alike decorating the cookies with abandon. Nick did the bikini bear.

circle time 2010

happy holidays to all! I've posted some circleness stuff at the circleness blog. check it out. love you all!

posh cracker update

I had to stop by whole foods on my way home last night, so I checked out the cost of the raincoast crisps - $7.99!!! for like 6oz, which probably translates loosely to about 40 crackers. can you believe that? no wonder I had a problem with the price...

maybe I'll have a raincoast crisp project where I try and rate all the recipes I can get my hands on? yummy! and yes, I did eat the rest of the loaf I'd baked up over the weekend for dinner last night. I had them with goat cheese. it was completely satisfying. people, try these things.

raincoast crisps

I nearly titled this entry, "raincoast crips." then I nearly laughed out loud. it's funny!

so, have you eaten these crackers yet?

have you purchased a box? I've eaten them as samples at whole foods, but haven't been able to cough up the ducats for the privilege of taking them home with me. I'm not very stingy when it comes to food, but really, I think I could eat the entire box in one sitting, and although I can't remember how much one costs, I know that I definitely balked at the price. but still, they're SO good. whenever they have them out at whole foods, I want to stand at the tray and just shovel them into my pockets (yes, I do resist that urge).

so, when the kitchen posted a diy recipe, I tried it immediately. I see now that there are others out there. I may have to try others as well!

but, back to the kitchen version (or actually, the Dinner With Julie version): it's great! one word of advice, if you have mini loaf pans, use them. I split the batter into four pans. you get a good sized crisp this way (narrow, rather than wide), plus, it's easy to bake one loaf and freeze three loaves, or bake two and freeze two, and so on. I love them with soft cheeses, especially goat cheese. oh yeah, and I subbed dried sour cherries for raisins, since that's what I had on hand (very delicious version). next time I'm thinking of trying a non-fruited version with sesame seeds. right, and another thing - I think the batter took about 5 minutes to put together. I didn't need a stand mixer either. it's a loose, quick bread batter, so it's easy to stir by hand. all in all, this recipe is a serious win-win.

MORE martha

I've been past the "I'll inhale anything sweet" phase of my pregnancy for a while, but today I literally inhaled at least 1.5 cups of granola. it was so good, I couldn't stop eating it.

recently, I've been eating yogurt and granola with a spoonful of cherry jam for breakfast, so I made a batch of Marth Stewart's "Farmhand's Choice Granola." the recipe was mentioned on The Kitchen and it looked good, so I gave it a try. I was slightly dubious of the olive oil call (I only had extra-virgin), but for health reasons, I went with it. I didn't make any alterations to the recipe, except to add a bit more coconut (I used unsweetened shredded since I didn't have chips) and substituted about a 1/4 cup of the walnuts with pecans (to use up a teeny bit of pecans I had sitting around). oh yeah, and I threw some extra almond slices in there too. it turned out to be the yummiest granola I've ever had! ok, I'm no granola expert, so take my exclamation with a grain of salt. I love the fact that there aren't any extraneous dried fruits in there. it's not that I don't like dried fruits, I do! it's just that I like the crunch without the chew. besides, since I put jam into my yogurt concoction, I don't need extra fruit. mmmm. I brought what I thought would be a three day supply of granola to work with me today, but I just finished wolfing down day 2 and day 3. oh well.

and one more thing: I've been addicted to the giveaways on Apartment Therapy and The Kitchen...so I've been entering them with abandon. will anything bad happen to me because I'm just throwing my personal information around like that? I'm an old person, after all, and I get all weirdly paranoid about identity theft over the internets.