old traditions - Chinese New Year

ok, maybe I should say Lunar New Year, but I'm going to go and hog it all for the Chinese.

maybe I'm crazy, but I plan to make at least a few traditional foods! at the minimum, I'd like to make two types of rice flour cakes: turnip yumminess, and new year stickiness (mmmm, taro would be great too, but perhaps a stretch for me). epicurious has some recipes featured, and anything I make would be a variation of those (e.g. I omit dried shrimp - I've never really liked those little buggers). other foods I'd like to make are noodles, classic pork dumplings and scallion pancakes.

john gets all crazy when I outline elaborate meals to make, but I don't care how much anxiety it gives him, I'm going to cry "heritage!" and go for broke. if I go into labor while rolling out a scallion pancake, then so be it. I'd be surprised if boyfetus#2 decided to come out that early, anyway. and well, if he did, then he won't be a rabbit! he'll be a tiger. not as lucky as rabbits, them tigers.

ok, the above photo is a bit blurry, but I think you get the idea. I bought this reuben for lunch and it was REALLY good. I'd actually had some of a delicious chickpea salad first, so I didn't eat both halves, but let me tell you, I really did want to eat the entire thing (actually, I still want to go to the refrigerator and get the second half to eat right now).

random thought

do you think that anyone eats their cereal with coffee? not black, more like pour a latte over your cereal. just a thought...

substitute

a poor, poor, poor example of what a mirrored chest should be can be found at Pier 1. from the front, it's OK looking, but only if you don't notice that the sides aren't mirrored. $299 for a smallish piece sounds like reasonable price, if you've been perusing the more high end pieces, but it's actually very expensive for something that is crappily made with zero quality finish details. so, John, who was awash with anxiety over money just a few hours earlier, actually advised me to buy the pottery barn version immediately. "woa," I said, "what's the rush?" "I don't know, he replied, maybe let's just spend all of our money now?"

where there's a will, there's a way?

john called me this morning to tell me he's having anxiety over the cost of our renovations. he ordered some more heating oil this morning, and the fact that we're nearly through our pre-purchased lot freaked him out to the point where he began to fixate on all the ducats leaving our pockets. in light of my mirrored chest obsession, a diy project seems the way to go. luckily, I ran into this apartment therapy (of course) post. now, the question becomes: just how badly do I really want a mirrored chest for our entry-way? I suppose I have to walk the walk or shut up.

a few questions about the project spring to mind, the most obvious one being, where does one get custom glass cut and beveled? does it really cost $300 for that much glass? the second obvious question is, where does one get aluminum leaf? the third question is, gelatin? like unflavored jell-o?

WOA! NEVERMIND!

I just went back to the diy post and read through the comments and found that a sage reader posted about Pier One alternatives. hello, I think I found my substitute. oh zab, remember hello lunch? anyway, this may not be as glam as the Anthropologie table, BUT you know what? it's so much cheaper, and we can see it in person and we can purchase it locally, thereby avoiding the cost of "white glove" shipping and handling. phew! I'm going to ask John if we can go look at the piece soon. I'll let you know what I find when we see it for real.

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.