Things that make my brain happy

Here is my weekend!

Went to a Boilermakers Jazz Band show and danced the night away...


Bought some beautiful seckel pears at the farmers' market...


And made a pillow box and botanical tag for my friend's birthday present!


It was super nice to exercise my brains and my fingers.


Though when I made the cap for the acorn, the boy had no clue what was going on and was trying to guess what it was. "Sausage!" he yelled. "LOG!"


He didn't really link it at all with the oak leaf.


Oh well.

Rule: Take your brain out on a date. You will feel good about it.

Things I made, then promptly stuffed into my face.

The first is scalloped tomatoes and the second is a corn avocado soup with Salvadorian crema and parsley oil (was supposed to be cilantro, but I mis-grabbed).

Rule: If you make and eat delicious things, it takes up the time that would normally be spent blogging... or procrastinating blogging.

Clawfooty

My renewed effort to learn how to bake started with belligerently making clafoutis (not actually pronounced the way it looks in the title of this post) while the boy was off playing ultimate frisbee with other steely-calved peers. It's basically crepe batter on fruit and baked. I used this recipe: RECIPE. In all honesty, it doesn't taste as fancy as it looks, though it is quite tasty. I suppose "rustic dessert" is the most apt description. I'm not knocking on it, just sayin'. Looks rrl rrl fancy when you have individual ones in scalloped dishes. Like so:




(squeeee I made those!)

I may have been on the verge of yelling "I CAN *SO* BAKE!!" when I pulled them out of the oven. They weren't quite as custardy the next evening as I felt like they should have been, so I'm not sure what to add or subtract for more custard-texture-action; possibly more eggs? Less baking? Somebody with more experience, help me out here.

I think my next project will either be a reader-submitted recipe, or some wildly-difficult layer cake with crazy candy decoration which I will ultimately get frustrated at and chew with undue savagery. So uh... maybe somebody should post a recipe?

Also, I should really stage my food photos so I don't always need to use the macro setting to make it look good.

Rule: Butter and sugar will always smell great together.

Speaking of...

So I had taken a few photos of a present that I DID complete, but forgot to post them. WHOOPSIE. I had gotten my boy a fancy wine-tasting class, but just printing out an email and giving it to him would've been fine, but I wanted slightly more panache. Thought it might be fun to have a bit of a steampunk feel to it instead of going for a more obvious motif. All lettering and embellishment done by hand.






Rule: look up all components of your project before you start using scissors. or measure twice cut once or something. I forgot to look up what real clock/watch movements looked like and one of my gears is a little funny-looking.

Just so you guys don't think I'm a big punk.

I post a lot of things on this blog, and I don't want people to think I just put it out there and don't take my own medicine.

I started with an easy goal, as they tell you to do.

I'm cooking more.



This is pan-grilled tempeh with a "chutney" of onions, fire-roasted poblanos, garlic, turmeric, white pepper, and coriander. Slices of seared tomatoes on top, a couple of dollops of creme fraiche, and a blob of raspberry sorbet to temper the heat of the poblanos and the acidity of the tomatoes. Best part? All this was locally-grown except for the tempeh (trader joe's) and the creme fraiche (leftover from a tea party).

Rule: Practice what you preach. Also, have a tea party. My last one was awesome.

(side effect of me cooking more: more photos! woo, multitasking!)

To do list.

It's list time.

Things that just overwhelmed me recently:

- bought a ring from a vintage store. will imbue with meaning. somehow.
- get better at dancing
- get back out to Eastern Market before it gets cold
- get better at writing
- design my Halloween costume of Cthulu
- respond thoughtfully to others' emails (sorry, you know who you are!)
- be a good listener
- post a draft blog post I've been saving for a while
- attend more cultural/art events in the city (Arts on Foot, Crafty Bastards, Pilobolus, augh!)
- visit all the museums that are free
- go camping/cook stuff outdoors
- figure out if being in a relationship with no real plan is ok
- find hippie deodorant that works well (trying this out)
- participate more actively in my community-supported agriculture program
- travel more
- save more money (not sure how I will make this and previous work together)
- learn to cook better
- take more photos
- wear that scarf my boyfriend bought me
- become more fit
- dress like a French lady
- read more
- listen to more TED talks
- paint some ceramic
- use my ampersand printers blocks
- decorate my house like a European cafe
- reinvent wheel
- buy an effing comforter and duvet cover
- buy a pocketwatch
- decide what i want to do with life??
- start an etsy store?
- question marks
- try more restaurants
- move where my friends are/make my friends move where i am
- become better at making conversation
- be as smart as i was in high school
- go to the club with DVS and dance till i drop

I have no idea when I will have time to do all of these things.

Rule: Occasionally smack yourself in the face with all of your current goals. It will help you re-prioritize. Then figure out concrete ways to take the first step in achieving these goals. Any helpful tips welcome.

Gotta Catch 'Em All

I've found that most of the people I know have their own way of capturing the world around them. Every day I see people take photos, write, paint, sew, play music, etc.

I feel like these are ways to hold close the beautiful and interesting things around you. It turns the moments, the light, the texture of the world and makes it physical. Archive-able. Sharable. You could say that it's a legacy of things you think about and notice. The part of your personality and aesthetic you wish to pass along, or at least record.



Walking around with something that I can capture the world around me with helps too. I feel like it sometimes it makes me more observant. It's like a little voice in my bag saying, "Look at that! Look at this!" I look for the things that inspire me. On a bad day, having that reminder to look for things I admire or that fiddle with my brain helps to reaffirm my satisfaction with my life and the world.



And at other times, it's handy for wonderful (and I mean that most literally) things I happen upon purely by accident.



And sometimes it's good for being selfish. Capturing to have for always. This piece of the world and of time to hold and think about. Sometimes something has texture that makes me want to rub my eyeballs on it. Sometimes a moment feels like a sound, or a set of words. Sometimes I want to wrap myself in soft things, pretty things, turn myself into a shape. Sometimes I want to put things that have survived human history under a glass jar to ogle, to appreciate, to mock.

I personally do this for vanity and selfishness and hedonism. I like reading the things that I write (sometimes) and looking at the photos I take, because (if I'm successful) they evoke in me the emotions I had when I wrote or photographed. Maybe it's because I'm a control freak and I like setting up my own stimuli.

Others might want to send a message straight into the retina. Make pupils contract. Make sphincters tighten. Make hearts beat and neck hairs stand on end. Sometimes they want people to be outraged, to be sympathetic, to be sad, to be joyful. Essentially sometimes they want people to care about something. These are worthy causes, especially if there's something important to say with these snippets of the world.

I don't really do that yet. Gotta work my way up to it, i guess.

Rule: Capture something of the world at least once for yourself or others.

Take sexy photos

...of stuff you love.

Today, a package arrive for my boss, and inside it was some stuff for him, and a little green-gold gem for me. Olive oil! A lovely present. I took it home and immediately admired it's clean, perfume-inspired labeling, but rustic, shapely packaging. I imagined the silky goodness inside. Putting it in my cupboard, I realized that the other olive oils I had were packaged beautifully and looked scrumptious as well! I decided to have a sexy photo shoot with them!

My favorite indulgence will save the world

It's brunch. I won't keep you in suspense, like some people. My favorite indulgence is brunch. Lots of people like brunch. What's not to like? I mean, everybody likes breakfast food already, except for those few heathens that hate eggs.



But why do people really like brunch? Let's look at the facts: tasty breakfast food, waking up late, drinking about one million different types of beverages, having a large selection of types of food you can eat, and HOLLANDAISE SAUCE. I probably could've truncated that list to just hollandaise sauce and about 80% of the population would be nodding in emphatic agreement. There are also other great things about brunch besides being buzzed at 11am.

Brunch is a time when you choose to wake up (almost) whenever you want, and whoever you have brunch with, you are saying to them, "I choose to dedicate the genesis of my day to you." This time when the sun is flaring off of everything and you're content to be awake and fuzzy-headed and every cell wakes up with the sensation of bubbles from your mimosa pricking your tastebuds, that is the time you're choosing to share with yourself and others. You're awake enough not to act too dumb, but asleep enough to still share the nonsense of your last dream. You don't have to give up the salty for the sweet. You can share food or hoarde it all for yourself. In front of you, you might have a water, a coffee, a bellini and an orange juice. It's ok to have dessert even if your main course was a ridiculously loaded waffle. Excess is ok. The amount of food you eat at brunch is directly proportionate to how much of your soul is available to you. It's ok to laugh at brunch. It's ok to talk with your mouth full at brunch, but don't spit on anybody. It's ok to cry at brunch, you will feel better by the end of it. Don't be selfish; allow yourself to be kissed by someone who's just had a bloody mary. If you are in a place without windows, it is not a good place for brunch. Light filtering through the different glasses on the table summon the image of stained glass windows. Your table is a church, a holy place where all thoughts are of praise and joy.

Every time I gather with friends, I end up going to brunch with them. We walk to brunch, we drive to brunch, we shuffle to brunch. We eat brunch, we devour brunch, we savor brunch. We wake up, we dream, we float in between. We are happy, we are elated, we are bittersweet. We enjoy the fresh warm air, we enjoy the fuzzy applause of rain, we enjoy coming out of the cold. We drink to refresh, we drink to wake up, we drink to mellow out. We feel whole, we feel infinite, we feel like puzzle pieces. We wear soft shirts, we wear flowy dresses, we wear fluffy mittens. We share memories, we share food, we share plans for the future. We save photos, we save each other, we save the world.

We do not save cake for later.

Rule: Have brunch.