Tag Archives: Features

Weekend Reading

Posted on March 23, 2012 by | Comments Off on Weekend Reading

If the Characters in Downton Abbey Were Portrayed by Canine Actors, What Breeds Would They Be? from dogster.com. Very funny.

It’s Not a Fairytale: Seattle to Build Nation’s First Food Forest from Take Part (via Not Martha). WOW!

6 Horrifying Implications of the Harry Potter Universe from Cracked.

Not Taking Your Hubby’s Name? You May Be Judged Harshly from  Live Science. I think it’s very interesting that this is so regional.

The Beginning of the Brontes from The Millions. Made me love Charlotte even more.

Where’s Earl?Word from the missing prodigy of a hip-hop group on the rise from the New Yorker. A glimpse into a wold I know very little about.

What are you reading this week?

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A Deceptively Simple Cake

Posted on March 22, 2012 by | Comments Off on A Deceptively Simple Cake

I think every cook needs an easy, delicious dessert in their repertoire. Olive Oil Cake is mine and now it can be yours too.

The reasons to love this cake recipe are myriad. It’s dead simple to make. It’s got a lovely, not-too-sweet flavor. It’s made in one pan, so you don’t have the angst of getting the layers even and there’s only one pan to wash up. Your guests will have probably never had it before. They will say things like, “who would have thought you could put olive oil in a cake?!?” It’s a very grown-up dessert.

But my two favorite things about this cake are: 1. It is fool-proof and 2. You probably already have everything you need to make it in your pantry.

I have made this cake so many times that I can knock it together with my eyes closed. I originally used a Nigella Lawson recipe but over the years I’ve made so many modifications that I now consider it a collaboration between Nigella and myself.

Yes, I do measure all my ingredients into small bowls before baking. It cuts down on mistakes and makes me feel like I’m cooking on t.v.. 

Ingredients:

4 large eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
Zest of 1 lime (freshly grated, please!)
Zest of 1 lemon (see note above)
1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
¾ cup polenta (you can substitute fine corn meal here or even coarse corn meal that’s been whizzed in the food processor)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
¾ cup olive oil
Confectioner’s sugar for garnish

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In the bowl of your electric mixer, beat the eggs, sugar and zests.

Beat on high until the mixture is light and has tripled (or thereabouts) in volume.

Combine the rest of your dry ingredients on a bowl and whisk them together. With the mixer off, add one third of the dry ingredients to the bowl and turn on low. While the flour mixture is being incorporated, slowly add half the olive oil. Repeat the process, mixing only until you can see that the dry ingredients are incorporated. (Over-mixing is what makes cakes tough rather than tender.) When you’ve added everything, stop the mixer and scrape any remaining flour from the sides of the bowl. One last burst of mixing and your done.

Pour the batter into a well-greased 9 inch Springform pan, and pop it in the oven. Set the timer for 25 minutes but it will probably take 30. You can test this cake by inserting a wooden toothpick as normal, but remember that this cake isn’t getting iced so don’t make a big whole right in the center if you can avoid it. The cake will pull back from the side of the pan when it’s done and will spring back when lightly touched.

Cool your cake in the pan on a rack for 10-15 minutes before removing the side of the pan.

After removing the sides to the pan, put the cake back on the rack and place the rack over the sink. Sprinkle with powdered sugar using a fine mesh sieve or a sifter.

Voila! Serve with red wine and much laughter under the stars.

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Probably something you would like…

Posted on March 20, 2012 by | Comments Off on Probably something you would like…

Sweet little chicken necklace. $28

You can use this tea towel as is or cut and sew your own fox. $15.50

My friend Lisa of Red Staggerwing makes lovely bags. Right now I’ve got my eye on this Lunch Tote in mustard waxed canvas. $58

I don’t know why exactly, but this card tickles me. 10 for $17.50

Photos of the 37 ingredients in a Twinkie.

How to make cake flour at Joy the Baker.

Batman Running Away from Sh*t. Very funny.

My friend Lisa did a blog post on their new piglets. This pictures will be the end of me.

Recipe: Lemon, Honey and Thyme frozen yogurt.

Stapler of the Week. (And to answer your question, I don’t know why.)

Similarly, Brand Name Pencils.

This is a fantastic article on wool felt.

My friend Virginia has this cupcake pincushion ring and it looked so handy that I ordered one for myself. They come in lots of flavors, er, colors. $22

What’s putting a spring in your step this week?

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Weekend Reading

Posted on March 18, 2012 by | Comments Off on Weekend Reading

Weekend Reading is late this week because I, um, forgot to post it on Friday. Oops! Hopefully you can fit some of these article in on Sunday.

Why Germans Can’t Say Squirrel from the Huffington Post: My favorite line? “In an episode of the British TV show “Top Gear,” host Jeremy Clarkson jokingly suggested that asking people to pronounce the word would be a surefire way to identify undercover German spies.”

“If the Serial Killer Gets Us, He Gets Us” from Texas Monthly: Skip Hollandsworth is one of the best magazine writers that ever lived. If you see his byline on anything, it’s worth a read.

From Brad and Doug Pitt to Sharon and Kelly Stone… Meet Hollywood’s most famous stars’ lesser known siblings from the Mail Online. I loved seeing the ordinary brothers and sisters of movie stars.

Public Toilet Hack: Keep Protective Seat Covers in Place, No Elaborate Sitting Routine Required from Lifehacker. Personally, I think those covers are more trouble than they are worth but I have a few ladies friends who would sooner wet there pants than use a public bathroom without one.

Is Anne Marie Rasmusson too hot to have a driver’s license? from City Pages. WARNING: This is one of those news stories that will completely enrage you and you may feel compelled to tell everyone you know about it.

Did something you read this week make you think, make you cry, make you laugh or make you angry? Share it with us.

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Cookbook Recommendations

Posted on March 12, 2012 by | Comments Off on Cookbook Recommendations

Juniper Moon Farm has a fairly extensive cookbook library and guests who stay for more than a few days invariably end up curled up on the couch surrounded  by a towering stack of books.

For me, cookbooks are for reading, not just using as reference books. My favorites have a spot on my bedside table, to be read on sleepless nights again and again. The very best of these is Nigella Lawson’s How to Eat, a book that I would absolutely put on my desert island list.

These are some of my latest favs:

Home Made by Yvette Van Boven is my absolute favorite of the moment. This is a peach of a book! It’s filled with lovely recipes, but more importantly, it’s packed with techniques that will allow cooks of all skill levels to go off-recipe and create their own special recipes. And, on top of everything else, it’s packed with gorgeous photos and charming illustrations. Trust me- you need this book.

Seasons by Donna Hay is a compilation of recipes from Donna Hay Magazine, one of my very favorites. Donna Hay is out of Australia and the magazine is fairly expensive on the newsstands, but I can never resist it’s allure. Simply put, Donna Hay’s food styling and photography are the very best in the business and her food is very original. This book is definitely worth owning if you can find it. I got my copy at Anthropologie and I am very glad I did, as Amazon is sold out. If you see this book, buy it! If it turns out it’s not for you, there will be a line of people waiting to take it off your hands.

Cook Italy by Katie Caldesi. If you only own one Italian cookbook, it should be this one. It’s full of authentic, regional Italian recipes and lots of photo tutorials.

My Nepenthe by Romney Steele. My friend Kris has a mountain house named Nepenthe and I first came across this book there. Nepenthe is a medicine for sorrow, literally an anti-depressant – a “drug of forgetfulness” mentioned in ancient Greek literature and Greek mythology, depicted as originating in Egypt, according to wikipedia. It’s also a restaurant in Big Sur, where movie stars and the intelligentsia met in the 1950s and 60s for good food and conversation.

Although I haven’t yet tried any of the recipes in this book, the old photographs and stories from back in the day make it a worth buying.

Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi was another Kris recommendation and it’s a winner. Jam-packed with interesting and delicious recipes that just happen to also be vegetarian, Plenty showed me that giving up meat doesn’t mean giving up innovative food. A must-have for anyone who hosts vegetarian guests.

The Cheesemonger’s Kitchen by Chester Hastings. This is a great book for everyone who loves cheese but is also sort of intimidated by it. Like wine, the world of cheeses can be overwhelming to the uninitiated and it sometimes seems as if you need to know the secret handshake before approaching the cheese counter. The Cheesemonger’s Kitchen will help you overcome those fears and dive into this glorious world. (FYI, I am working on a post on how to put together a cheese board for company. Coming soon!)

What are your favorite cookbooks? Do you have old favorites that you return to again and again? Share them with us.

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This Morning in Pictures

Posted on March 10, 2012 by | Comments Off on This Morning in Pictures

 

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Weekend Reading

Posted on March 9, 2012 by | Comments Off on Weekend Reading

The new Sweet Paul Magazine is up today and it is a peach!

Smooth Moves: How Sara Blakely rehabilitated the girdle from the New  Yorker. I really enjoyed this article about the woman who invented Spanx.

The Body of Somerton Beach from Smithsonian Magazine. A detailed account of a mysterious body found in Australia in 1948—the man was never identified, and his cause of death remains unknown.

Anatomy of a Greenpoint Bike Accident from The Village Voice. This article makes me glad I don’t have to rely on bike transportation.

Nickeled and Dimed, Ten Years Later by Barbara Ehrenreich.  If you haven’t read the original, I highly recommend it as well.

 

What are you reading this week that we should know about?

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Probably something you would like…

Posted on March 8, 2012 by | Comments Off on Probably something you would like…

I shared one of my favorite places in all of Virginia with my in-from-out-of-town friends this week and it occurred to me that I’ve never shared it with you. Shameful of me, because I know you will love it.

A&W Collectables is a gem of an antique store located just outside Charlottesville, VA.  I am here to tell you that if you live with in a couple of hours of this place, you should get your backside in the car right and set your gps for A&W!

This isn’t the curated, ten-lovely-things-on-a-pedestal kind of antique store. A&W is a charming jumble, the kind of place the makes you hunt for your treasures. And the hunt makes finding something you can’t live without all the sweeter, in my opinion.

The only thing better than spending an afternoon poking through the rooms at A&W is taking new people there and watching their reaction. Picture the scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when the Golden Ticket holders are let into the room with the river of chocolate and you’ll get the idea.

We hadn’t even made it inside before Kimm found a covetable collection of vintage aprons, priced between $3 and $6 dollars.

Vintage buttons? 6 for a dollar.

Caroline investigated a gorgeous old ceramic water jug.

I suspected that my friends would be gaga over the vintage jewelry and clothes upstairs and I was right. Several pairs of vintage earrings went home with Lizzy.

But the vintage hats were the showstopper.

As you can see, a good time was had by all and each of us left A&W with a prize! Caroline bought an antique darning egg. Lizzy has four new hats in her wardrobe. Kimm bought some lovely aprons. Virginia scored a 50′s era enamel-line water cooler. Zac left with wood working tools, but I think I got the deal of the day with a $15 Underwood typewriter.

If you love lovely old things like I do please schedule a visit to A&W soon. The owners are just the sweetest people and there shop is a goldmine.

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Weekend Reading

Posted on March 2, 2012 by | Comments Off on Weekend Reading

I was a Warehouse Wage Slave from Mother Jones. Wow. This is eye-opening.

Study Shows What Men really Think of Women in Red Dresses from the Huffington Post. I guess this is interesting except that I’m not sure why we care what men think of our dress colors.

How Climate Change Causes Earthquakes and Erupting Volcanos from Mother Jones. Scared the socks off me.

The Death Star is a Surprisingly Cost-Effective Weapons System from Mother Jones. Made me laugh.

One-Armed Gunslingers and Germans in Teepees: A Brief Guide to the Euro-Western from The Millions. I loved this because I knew absolutely nothing about it before reading it.

Who Invented the High Five? from ESPN The Magazine. Probably my favorite this week.

Why Breasts are the Key to the Future of Regenerative Medicine from Wired.
What’s the latest thing you read that surprised/engaged/educated you?

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Probably something you would like…

Posted on February 26, 2012 by | Comments Off on Probably something you would like…

Four new species of chameleon were recently found on Madagascar, including this tiny one.

The secret language of stamps. (via Not Martha)

Recipe: Homemade Swiss Miss Style Hot Chocolate.

I love this t-shirt! It’s for toddlers but if it came in my size I would snap it up. $24

How cute is this dollhouse? It comes fully furnished for $85. Bonus, “For added fun, there are 50 hidden animals to find in the house and accessories!”

Love this print! $30

Looking for a place to buy a Venus Fly Trap? Here you go. $19

The best time to buy anything. I am bookmarking the hell out of this chart.

This parrot really loves chocolate.

Did you know you can make your own sock forms out of wire coat hangers?

20 projects for repurposing old sweaters. Great for those sweaters you can’t bear to let go of even though they are out of date/moth-eaten/too big or small.

I am completely charmed by this chicken block print. Only $15!

What are you smitten by this week?

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