Jammin!

A visit from a dear old friend, and a delightful brunch - perfect summer day.

With Sarah making a mad dash through Chicago to help her brother move into Marina City, I knew there were a few activities we had to make happen hurriedly.

Mainly: brunch. Our old favorite!

I'd heard nothing but great things about Jam, a hip local brunch place just down the street, and having not been yet myself, it was a perfect fit. In true form, I order a savory meal, Sarah a sweet one. (We're the happiest odd couple imaginable.)


Note how BLUE these blueberry pancakes are! We asked the chef - there is nothing artificial involved, simply fresh berries turned to a jam and then added to the batter. Every bite is steeped in berryliciousness. And note those cute little toppings on the side? Adorable AND yummy.

Color me lovely! Pretty pink and gold and blue!

Its official: I'm in love. With this phenomenal savory buckwheat lamb crepe. I died a little...

Nom nom nom...

And of course following brunch, we walked to two of my favorite local shops, Greenheart and Renegade Handmade, where Sarah grabbed some gifts, and I grabbed her a felt pin shaped like Illinois with a heart on it, in my continued efforts to encourage her to return to this beautiful city. And in our gift bags from Renegade? Bubbles! So what else would two gals do but walk down the street and blow bubbles to celebrate a beautiful day?

Such a gift

I have to thank Kathy and Sarah profusely for capping my incredible visit to their home off with the most beautiful gifts.




Everyone gets excited when they get a box like this...


So beautiful!




And in my home! A small version of the Our Lady Mother of Mankind statue at the Basilica of the National Shrine Washington, DC.


I have the most incredible friends.

Also, Theology on Tap programming is incredible! I have to thank Friar Johnpaul Cafiero for his beautiful speech on spiritual fitness. He's an incredible public speaker, and a man whose life story and love of the Lord is inspiring! www.FriarJp.com

Jersey and NYC with Papermoon

Mid July I made a trip out to Jersey to visit my dear friend Sarah of Papermoon. It was a spectacular trip. And really, truly, there are no words better than her own, along with all the glorious pictures, which are posted on Papermoon through this link.

I laughed so hard reliving these glorious adventures...

In the event that the link doesn't allow you to visit Papermoon, I've borrowed a few of the pictures...

If only you could have been there to see how complicated our ouija game was. You wouldn't believe the kind of information you can pull out of say, something like, JVWOUUUIN. It takes a lot of skill. This is the closest I've had to a teenage slumber party in a very long time, and it was brilliant.



And the clock was created as a collaborative act of silent art making, meaning a lot of giggling.


Ah... and then there was the bird. The glorious bird who stood on water. We nicknamed him the Jesus bird, and he lives in Central Park on the lake you can boat on, and he apparently spends all day doing this...


Standing on water... looking magnificent. He was terrific.

So was Jersey, and New York, and Sarah, and her family, and my entire visit.

And wait until my next post... wow... I was absolutely spoiled by Sarah and her mom with the most beautiful and thoughtful gifts...
But for now, I'm making myself wait a day to share that special treat with you all.

Home on the prairie

I adore Little House on the Prairie. Yes. The television series from the 70s.


My dear friend always told me I'd love it, but I was initially hesitant... I thought I'd had my fill of prairie life. I grew up in South Dakota where our class took field trips to the Ingalls Homestead, and I certainly read the books.


I even got a bonnet from the Ingalls Homstead! It was just lovely. Deep blue with a bright red flower print and white ruffle trim. Quite pretty really... I wonder where its gone?

It got me thinking about prairie chic...


This matches Laura and Mary's church dresses from the first season! Do you think I could pull it off?

I'm in the middle of the fifth season, and I am proud to say that I believe its one of the better shows every made for television. Morally upright, proper, hilarious, dramatic! And its from the 70s, so every time someone starts bleeding its so terribly tacky looking in just the sort of way that makes it wonderful. My only complaint? I don't think there were rules about animal cruelty back then... I've definitely seen a rattle snake get its head blown off and watched a poor little bunny rabbit caught in a rabbit snare.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the best part....

...Michael Landon!

What a beautiful man. Charles Ingalls is a role model for good fathers and husbands everywhere, and just look at that incredible head of hair!

Guest Blogger: Chicken soup with Papermoon!

Here it is, the long anticipated shared dinner and guest blogging event!
This blog is shared by and can be viewed at Papermoon

becca and i met as art buddies during my long lost college years (ha) and have enjoyed brunching our way through our mutual unemployment ever since.

topic of the day? chicken soup! here's becca!

Well I'm thrilled that we're doing our first official "guest blogging" piece.

A few nights prior I'd tossed together a little homemade chicken soup for one at home, using egg noodles, and some pan fried chicken. It wasn't just right; the chicken was a little too chewy, but I could tell this hearty meal had a lot of potential. When Sarah and I got together that week for dinner, we gave this homemade chicken noodle soup another go, this time with two chefs in the kitchen.

This lovely dinner happened back in March before Lent began,
so I won't lie to you and say those lovely sparkling beverages are just tonic water.

Sarah worked on the chicken, since I wasn't too pleased with my first try. I don't consider protein to be my specialty. And Sarah made the most incredible, soft, tender, lemony, herbalicious chicken I've ever tasted. It was perfect for soup. It was perfection all by itself! SO delicious.

* a side note from me: my chicken tactics

1. cut your chicken up into soup-able pieces, salt and pepper them and add plenty of herbs de provence. (i add a lot of extra rosemary to mine whenever i have it around). i also added a bit of sage to this particular chicken. i am an herboholic.
   
2. make a country dijon vinaigrette--for the acid, use one part white wine vinegar and one part lemon juice
3. put that chicken in the dressing and let it hang out.
4. when it comes time to pan cook chicken, i am all about medium heat. i object highly to putting down those little pieces and then flipping them over. i let them all sit until they are all basically visually cooked-looking, then turn over for the other side. dried out chicken is disgusting. medium heat! just cut the biggest piece down the middle to check for any pink before you turn off the stove and proceed.
   

back to becca!

I got busy chopping up the vegetables:
Garlic
Onion
Yellow Pepper
Carrots
Parsley
(I'm not big on portions, numbers, that sort of thing... I usually just sort of judge by how much seems to be proportional to the meal size. But I believe we used... two cloves garlic, 1 onion, 1 pepper, a handful of baby carrots, and a handful of parsley, if you were curious.)

They looked so pretty in Sarah's tiffin box containers. How convenient to have such a pretty, stacking set!

Cooking was pretty easy, but I just can't bring myself to pretend I'm a "food" blogger.

If you want a good food blog, check Lottie + Doof or Smitten Kitchen!

But anyway.... olive oil in the pan, medium heat, heat oil, add garlic until its just about to brown, toss in onions and carrots. Thank heavens Sarah suggested the carrots to cool the garlic, because I was about to burn it. If you've ever accidentally over browned your garlic, its not a disaster, but when you are enjoying your soup, you might bite down on something chewy and be confused about when you added peanuts to your soup, and why they taste like burned garlic. What I'm saying is, they get crunchy. Not good. Anyway, thanks to some cold, crispy carrots, no garlic was burnt!

Next, broth. We used vegetable broth--no need for any extra chicken-ness with our delicious recipe.


Toss in the peppers, add the chicken, and I add even more herbs, because... its hard to go wrong with fresh ground herbs, and a good pinch or two of pepper.

Now this is important... Egg noodles are delicious, but NOT if they are over cooked... they get pasty, and fall apart, and then you'd have Chicken Mush Soup, which is a texture disaster - never okay with me.
We tossed the parsley and the noodles in to boil for about 5 minutes, and it was perfection!

A peppery bowl of soup, some paintings, and a few Audrey Tautou movies later, and we were ready for dessert.


I got the recipe for the mango, ricotta and lime parfaits from Food Everyday by Martha Stewart.
Its lime juice, lime zest, mango, and sugar combined together and poured over ricotta cheese.
We may have been a little overzealous with the bourbon-enhanced whipped cream on top, which I could eat alone as a meal it's so good.

All in all, it was a lovely evening and an incredible meal, and in the end we learned a very important lesson, blue paint tastes the best.


what can i say... former art majors can't resist tasting the watercolors every once in a while.