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Summer is for Quilting

I'm not sure why, but as the weather gets warmer, I start thinking about quilting.  Recently I took out the quilt I started working on last summer and got to work.  

 

The top is complete, and I have even purchased the binding and backing fabric, as well as the batting.  

 

I love all the fancy backs that I've seen around the blogs, but I think I'm going simple on this one.  There is already enough bulk where the points on all those triangles come together, so I don't want to risk adding even more and causing myself difficulties in the quilting stage.

Let's see if I can keep up the momentum.

Kindle = Still awesome + Less $$

You may have already heard the news -- the Kindle is now only $189. I have one and love it, so I thought I would let you know -- just in case you've been depriving yourself because it was too pricey.

Super Mario Galaxy 2

So, summer has begun and we are stuck under a rain cloud. What to do when it rains (nearly every day here!) -- play video games, or course. Nintendo recently came out with a real winner -- Super Mario Galaxy 2.

Maddie and I both love this game, which is a bonus.  I love games that the whole family can enjoy together. While we can play it separately, there is great feature here that allows a second player to be a helper -- picking up bonus items and fighting enemies. This is great because it gets more then the person playing Mario involved in the fun.  

If you played the first Super Mario Galaxy, which was pretty awesome, I think you'll like this one even more. There is no more running around to find a place where there are more stars -- now there is a more traditional world map, which makes things much easier. There are also fun new bonuses, easier controls and hours of gameplay.

If you are looking for a new Wii game for your kids, or yourself, I highly recommend this game!

Ridiculously Good Cookies

When I saw the recipe for Yves Camdeborde's Sablés over at Chocolate & Zucchini, I was compelled to make them and I am so glad I did. These cookies are very easy to make and incredibly delicious -- tender and buttery with a lovely bit of caramelized sugar and vanilla.

A few recipe notes -- I did, in fact, use my stand mixer and they turned out just fine. I also want to mention that I weighed, rather then measured, my ingredients. If you do a lot of baking -- get a scale! I only recently purchased one and I have been loving it. It is both more accurate and less messy. I also used a European style butter, which generally has less water than American style. I'm not sure the effect this might have, but thought I should mention it. Finally, please note that she uses Celsius for the oven temp -- the Fahrenheit equivalent is about 300 degrees.

Make these cookies! You will be so happy that you did!

Book Update

I've been reading quite a bit lately, but have fallen behind in my book log entries. So here are the last three I have finished:

William Trevor's The Story of Lucy Gault is a tale of isolation and guilt. Lucy makes a rash decision in her youth and suffers for it for the remainder of her life. The setting here reminds me of the setting of his Love and Summer, which was haunting and beautiful. Truly a wonderful writer.

Robert J. Sawyer has begun writing a new trilogy about the awakening of the consciousness of the internet and the first book in this series is titled WWW: Wake. The ideas here are quite interesting and his main character was likable enough to engage me in the story completely. Some of the jumps he takes are a bit hard to swallow, which would temporarily pull me out of the story, but all in all, a fascinating read. The second book -- WWW: Watch -- has recently been released and I'm sure I'll be reading it soon.

And just 2 nights ago I finished Yann Martel's Beatrice and Virgil -- a strange, yet engrossing novel that explores the ways writers can write about the Holocaust in an age when most survivors are gone. A weird little book with a main character who seems to be Martel in disguise, I was sucked into the story, but don't feel it was entirely successful in delivering its message. (And I'm still holding a bit of a grudge against Martel for the ending of Life of Pi.)

Now reading: Ghostwritten by David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas.

Busy Weekend

Where to start?  This past weekend was filled with activities -- celebrating our 11 year wedding anniversary, attending an auction, doing lots of yard work, visiting the farmers market and making jam.  

 

 The auction we attended was quite unusual.  Instead of an estate auction, it was a charity auction to raise funds for the Cathedral Area Preservation Association (which is the neighborhood in which we live), and as such was a collection of donated items.  One woman had donated a huge portion of her dollhouse collection -- there had to be about 50 dollhouses plus many boxes of dollhouse furniture.  Maddie fell in love with this little cutie and it was a steal at only $6!  Some of the houses were going for over $100, so I believe we were lucky.

 

We also ended up bidding on some furniture, which was grouped with a second box and went for $6.  So now she has more than enough to furnish both of her dollhouses and many extras, which will be sold at our yard sale this summer.

 

Don't aks me how, but I ended up bringing home a box which included 4 place settings of Dansk Maribo dishes.  They were going for $1.00 for the entire box!  Is that insane, or what?  The box also included a butter tray (which it turns out might be pricey) and a sugar and creamer set in the Lenox Chinastone For the Blue Pinstripe pattern.  I'm thinking I may resell these.

 

And while we didn't win the box lot that included this gem (it was boxed with an air mattress and pump), we were able to purchase it from the winner for a buck.  Yes, an old fashioned pencil sharpener.  I had been looking for one of these for a while and this one was brand new in the original box.  

More on jam making and book reading soon! 

Friday Thrift

 

Every Friday in the summer, Maddie & I hit the streets and scour the yard sales for goodies.  I can't tell you how many books we've gotten for 25¢ or 50¢, and occasionally we find unexpected treasures.  Today I found this great little Harrisville LapLoom for 10¢ (It's $20 new), as well as some old, Japanese oil pastels...

   

...which the elderly gentleman wanted to give me for free.  (I also bought an activity book for Maddie and made him take 50¢ for the lot.)  Such deals!

At another sale I found a pink pyrex pie plate for 50¢ and a great big bowl for $1.  I actually already have one of these huge aluminum bowls which I got from my MIL, but my Mom was eyeing it, so when I saw this one at the sale I had to get it for her.

Lots of fun treasure hunting and some useful purchases, all while spending time with Maddie.  This is a tradition I'm glad we started.

(BTW, Maddie got 5 books, two Pokemon figures and a seashell -- all with her own money.)

Lemon Granita

 

So yesterday after the dreaded dental appointment, I made this wonderful and surprisingly easy lemon granita.  It's like lemon flavored snow!  So light and fresh.  I declare this the summer of granitas.

If you want to try it, pop on over to The Pioneer Woman Cooks for the recipe.

Ack! Two of my old metal fillings need to be replaced... tomorrow.

I hate the dentist.

Yes, I realize that this is probably a common enough complaint, but today I have an appointment, and I'm already bargaining with myself.  We all do it, don't we?  I mean, shouldn't I get a treat for sitting in that chair, having my sensitive gums and teeth poked and prodded.

I hate to admit it, but since I now am a very good girl and go to the dentist twice a year, I'll tell you that for about 10 years I avoided going to the dentist altogether.  I do not recommend this tactic, as I ended up with a root canal and a couple little cavities, not to mention the pain of a deep cleaning in my first year back.  

So, off I go.  Maybe I'll make some cookies when I return.  I deserve it, don't I?

Homemade French-style Custard Ice Cream

It would be nice if I had a photo to post here, but I have been very lax with the camera lately -- and besides, you know what vanilla ice cream looks like, right?

One of my all time favorite activities is to choose a food project to tackle over the weekend, and this past weekend I decided to try making custard style ice cream.  I had made ice cream quite a few times before, but while we liked it straight out of the ice cream maker, the leftovers always seemed to linger in the freezer until I finally decided to toss them.  The "easy" to make ice cream recipes that I had always attempted involved mixing cream, milk and sugar together and then throwing it in the ice cream maker.  The results were somewhat hard and maybe a bit icy after freezing. 

A while back I purchased David Lebiovitz's The Perfect Scoop, which is filled with amazing recipes, but I had this fear of making custard which prevented me from trying the french-style ice creams.  I think it's something about cooking the eggs, and the possibility of creating scrambled eggs instead of something smooth and creamy.  I do like that This book takes you step by step through the egg tempering and cooking process -- which I do prefer to making ice cream with raw eggs (which I have tried without a great deal of success -- plus that whole raw egg worry).

So, long story, short -- I tried it and it was super easy!  In fact, it hardly took any time at all -- or rather, hardly any working time.  Mostly you heat things a bit and then wait for them to steep/cool/process in the machine/freeze.

The results were incredibly good and miles better than the non-egg, non-cooked kind I had made in the past.  If you've ever been a bit worried about trying this style of ice cream, check out this book and give his method a try.  

Summer Reading -- Myths

Several years ago, the Scottish publishing company Canongate Books had a brilliant idea to get together a whole lot of incredible writers and have each of them write a book that would retell a myth of their choosing.  In the past month, I've read two from the series and I'm ready for more.  

I started the series with two of my favorite authors -- the first being Philip Pullman who wrote the His Dark Materials Trilogy. You may have heard of the book he wrote for the Myths series, simply because the title is somewhat provocative -- The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. Now when I first heard about this book, my excitement was difficult to contain. I've read everything he had written and couldn't wait for more. At the same time, I watched as the press sensationalized what I figured would be much less controversial than it at first appeared.  

So what is this book about the "Scoundrel Christ"?  Simply put, it is a novel, a work of fiction, in which it is imagined that Jesus had a twin brother who was the catalyst for his success as a prophet and leader of a new religion.  It is a story about the seed that becomes the myth -- a story about the birth of the story.  Yes, it's about Jesus, so the baggage is there and certain people will ban this book.  All the controversy aside, the book is quite good and a very interesting read.

Then I read The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus by Margaret Atwood, of whom I am obviously a fan, having read three of her books in the last several months.  She brings wit and spunk to the tale of Penelope, Odysseus' faithful wife.  A great re-imagining based on a mix of fact and fiction, Atwood entertains and informs -- one again touching on the idea of story while adding in a good does of feminism.

I think the next book from the myths series that I would like to read is Karen Armstrong's A Short History of Myth which was actually the first book in the series.