Home Again

I am finally back at my own house! Here are some pictures from my stay with my mom.

More Blue Houses

Six Days!

Six more days until Laurel and I leave for New York. Things are moving along on schedule but there's still so much to do! If I do this again next year, I am definitely going to hire an intern. I'm taking the day off on Monday, so there should be some more posts up then.

Blue Houses

These are some blue houses that have jumped out at me around town. There is one in Berkeley that I desperately want to photograph, so stay tuned for that.

NSS Update

Alright, posts are going to be a bit sporadic for the next week or so, as I am seriously feeling crunch time for the Stationery Show right now. At the moment things are basically on schedule (with a few planned-for glitches, of course), but there's still an enormous amount of things left to do. Next on my list is flameproofing the drapes my mom helped me make the other night. Sounds like fun! The good- great- news is that my friend Richard came through as always with my new cards and they are beautiful! They should be up on my website next week.

THE Green House

Driving around the East Bay, I've found that this shade of green is surprisingly popular, to the point that I decided it should merit its own photo essay someday. In the meantime, I give you this house, which is located in the middle of a row of beautiful mansions in Berkeley. The rumor is that the homeowners did it to spite their neighbors. Apparently the neighbors approached the owners of this house, after the paint job, with an offer to pay to repaint, but the owners refused. Now it stands out like a day-glo sore thumb. It's a shame because it was clearly once a beautiful brown-shingled Craftsman, and the grounds are still lovely...

This Week

Wow House

I know I already posted Orange and Pink houses, but this one falls somwhere in between. It might not look so impressive on film, but in person it practically glows!

Lemonade

Yesterday I made a big batch of Meyer lemonade.

Here's my recipe:

1 part fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 part simple syrup
2 parts water (or more, to taste)

Red Velvet Report

First of all, I should say that the Duncan Hines cake mix never showed up! We managed to do without, but I will have to make it in the future and compare.

Jenn, Amanda and I successfully made six different recipes. You can see the variety in the batters above. From left to right: Paula Deen's recipe, Martha Stewart's, James Beard's, a Chocolate R.V. cake, the one made with beets, and the "Suicide" (all the leftover batters mixed together) batter. I had made us a detailed chart with all the ingredients listed, to make things easier.
We rounded up everything we needed on the kitchen table. Kyoshi helped. We used lots and lots of red food color. Martha's recipe called for an entire bottle! Generally speaking, the recipes were easy to follow, and we were surprised by how different the results were.

These are the cupcakes sans frosting (clockwise, from the top right: Suicide, Chocolate, Martha, Beets, Beard, Paula).
Paula Deen's recipe came out the most red, although it used less food color than Martha's, because it had no cocoa in it. For the Chocolate cake we used quite a bit of color, but the cocoa covered it up. James Beard's recipe came out a pinkish-brown, and the Beets cakes came out purple! They also did not rise as much as the other recipes- I think the beets weighed them down.

In the end, we tasted all of them and concluded that the Suicide mix was by far the best! We found James Beard's recipe to be bland, but alright texture-wise. Paula Deen's was almost like cornbread. Martha's won points for moisture, but we thought the flavor was lacking. The chocolate ones were decent, but there was little to distinguish them from any other chocolate cake. The recipe made with beets, despite calling for twice as much sugar as the other recipes, was dry, too firm, and not at all sweet! The best description of that one was "bread-like." The Suicide cake came out moist, flavorful, and a nice swirly brown-red color. Unfortunately, I'm not sure the recipe can be duplicated without first preparing all five other ones...

We also prepared five different frostings and a "Suicide" frosting from the leftovers. We loved James Beard's, which called for cinnamon and no butter. It was light, and less cream-cheesy, and the cinnamon was a nice touch. Most of the other recipes called for pecans or walnuts, and were very similar. Paula Deens', with coconut and marshmallows, was very sweet, but good. I think the general consensus was that the Suicide cake, with the James Beard frosting, was the winner.

Paint Job

I am thinking about what color I want to paint Lucy, and I thought I'd open it up to suggestions. I want to stay within the range of her original mint green color, but maybe tone it down a little. For the interior, I am thinking about a deep, warm brown that would camoflauge dirt nicely... Here are some (poorly made) mock-ups of ideas I had. Please let me know what you think, and also if you have any other ideas! The insets are the interior colors I thought would look nice.

Also, would it be crazy to try a faux wood panel?? I feel like Lucy is kind of a surf car, so maybe it would be appropriate?

This old house

This house is around the corner from mine, and I love the detail on the porch. There's a similar one in Berkeley; I must get a pic!

Early Bird

This is my alarm clock, in "sleep" mode.

I want this lamp

... so, so badly! Why does it have to cost $300??

Dinner

Tonight I roasted a chicken and made garlic mashed potatoes and spinach salad. Yum!

The Magic Garden

It's very hard to capture my father's garden, mostly because it is so large (half an acre), but also because it is such a beautiful wilderness that there is something different every way you turn, and it just can't all be encapsulated in one photograph, or even a few.
Nonetheless, I have tried! I am sure there will be lots of photos of this garden while I'm staying here. It always enchanted me as a child, and it still does.
There's just something magical about the artichokes growing amongst the irises, and the small green apricots peeking out from behind the roses that climb around my bedroom window.

Procrastination

So today instead of working, I re-organized my parents' spare room, which was once my childhood bedroom. Long gone are the days of hot pink walls and Nirvana posters, "Monet" bedspreads and drippy candles... When I graduated from college, I helped them pick a cool cucumber green for the walls, and a very nice sofa bed (which I am enjoying right now!). They have gradually moved some of their Scandinavian furniture into the room, including a chest of drawers I purchased but might take back. But the room has also become a secondary junk pile for my father (aside from his office, in which we do not set foot unless absolutely necessary), and I was tired of living amongst the boxes, so I decided to move them. During the course of a few hours, I stacked approximately 30 full slide carousels, and literally HUNDREDS of boxes of slides from their travels. I also uncovered several boxes of newspapers dating back to the 1990's (my dad claims he will read these one day), and a large bag full of the old, obsolete kind of floppy disks. There are still about 8 boxes that I am not even going to attempt, but those are now neatly piled in a corner, out of the way. I also re-shelved miscellaneous travel guides and maps, and chose a few nice things to display, like this model ship from my uncle's Navy career, these old books from my grandma's house, and this pair of scissors from my great-grandfather's tailor shop (they're huge!). You can also see some yak (I think?) hair from one of my dad's expeditions.

Yellow Houses

I saw some amazing houses today while driving around, but I didn't have my camera! I'm going to have to go back. Meanwhile, here are some yellow houses:

Clean Shirts

Here are some of Eric's shirts, fresh out of the laundry.

NSS Update

Well, the Stationery Show is now two weeks away and I am gradually crossing things off my list. I am most nervous about sewing and flame-proofing the drapes for my booth, and also about carrying everything! Luckily, Laurel will be along to help, but there will be alot of things to bring, including 300 catalogs, a lamp, a rug, shelving, drapes, tools, large, framed posters, press packets, a big, wooden sign (see photo), several rolls of contact paper, 12 unfolded cardboard boxes...

Orange Houses

Love the chartreuse trim!

Hot Pink Houses

This week I'm going to be posting pictures of some houses around the East Bay. I've always been fascinated by houses that are painted in garish colors. Although the majority of these are found in poor neighborhoods (where perhaps an interesting study could be made of the aesthetic tastes of different social classes), there are also a surprising amount of homes painted in shockingly bright tones in middle-upper class neighborhoods as well. If I were a gutsier person, I would knock on these homeowner's doors and ask them why they chose their particular paint colors. Unfortunately, I'm not, so the mystery remains. In any case, I think there is a certain sense of pride that goes along with painting your home such a brilliant hue. You will notice that in almost every case, the yards are well-maintained, and the accompanying vehicles are well-looked-after.

Treasure

Seymour found this leaf on the ground yesterday and I managed to take a pic before he shredded it. I think it's such a pretty yellow!

White Things

This is my last post of old photos! I guess I will just have to take more...

Top Row: Books in the living room, Seymour, a fake rocket at the NASA Center

Middle Row: Seymour, my stove, more books in the living room

Bottom Row: The mini chandelier in my dining room, tuberoses, a deer I wish I'd bought in Cayucos

Amazon saves the day!

Once again, the people at Amazon.com have saved me. In the past month alone, I have been able to find the following items through them that I couldn't find elsewhere: "Rockulator", an out of print album by Westworld, "The Allnighter" on DVD, Martha Stewart's "Housekeeping Handbook" for only $17 (list price is about $40), and now... Duncan Hines cake mix! Who knew that you could order groceries from them? I looked at all the online shopping sites (NetGrocer, PeaPod, Vons/Safeway, Jewel-Osco/ Albertson's, Ralph's, AmericaGrocer... even Target) and none of them carry Red Velvet, even if they don't ship to CA. But trusty old Amazon does! And it's shipping direct from Gristead's market in New York City within 3 days.

Red Velvet, If You Please

I have been to three major supermarkets today, and NONE of them carry Duncan Hines' Red Velvet cake mix! This is very troublesome indeed, because I am involved in a Red Velvet tasting venture on Saturday night and the mix was to be one of six recipes to try. Now, I have only ever seen said cake mix once, in Rhode Island, and I am beginning to be concerned that it is a product marketed only in the East. Which would be a terrible shame! No other cake mix company makes a Red Velvet, and I might just be out of luck.

Despite all this, of all the cake mix companies, Duncan Hines is my favorite, if only because I read and very much enjoyed the biography of Mr. Hines himself. Contrary to popular belief, he was a real person, and pioneered the guide-book industry in America. Just as automobiles were making travel a reality for the masses, he began documenting the different restaurants and hotels he had tried on the road, and letting people know which were fit to revisit. Over the years, his name became so well-associated with good taste that he was asked to lend his name to a collection of food products, including the cake mix that I cannot find.