how to cure the common cold

I have a nagging cold that just won't go away, but I think I have finally found a cure!  A bowl of spicy pumpkin soup and a hot toddy.  

the soup: I baked some sugar pumpkins, scooped them out, threw them in some mushroom stock made from this goop, added in some cumin, chili powder, coriander, a little bit of brown sugar, and some milk, and finally topped it with a little sharp cheddar cheese and some baked pumpkin seeds.  I made myself a hot toddy (hot water, a shot of whiskey, lemon and honey.) and discovered that the two together made me feel better than cold medicine used to before they took out the Pseudoephedrine.  

Happy Halloween!

avec moi

Looking at Abigail Ahern's website reminded me of an Italian design company whose work I first saw while visiting Steven's family in Milan, Arcade Avec. The Arcade half of the company makes beautiful glass objects, vases, bottles etc in Venice.

And the Avec half makes carpets, other textiles, cushion and poufs designed in Italy and made with traditional processes and materials (all natural dyes, pure cotton and wool) in South America.  

Avec's lovely, simple products make me wish I had a loom or at least the patience to knit something larger than a baby sweater. 

but my favorite thing Avec makes is the Rasta Pouf.  We have 2 in our living room that we got at Luminaire in Chicago's great (but now defunct) annual sample sale.

Ours usually end up being used as Rasta dog beds.

images from Arcade Avec's website.  except the one of Gus. that one is from our living room.  

La Meena!!

Steven's uncle's resturaunt in Brighton, Michigan is open, and so good!  I haven't had the privlage of eating there, yet, but my hyper critical Steven had dinner there tonight and could not have been more impressed!  

I had some left overs but I can't wait to eat there for real!  

image taken from La Meena's website.

mon petit choux

I planted a lot of cabbage this year in the containers around our deck because it tastes good and it looks pretty.  But as it gets colder and colder I am wondering how I am going to use it all before it snows!  (it is supposed to snow a few hours west of here tonight, so it's getting urgent!).

Tonight I made a dish from Suzanne Goin's Sunday Suppers at Lucques (page 138.  I LOVE this cookbook! you can find some of Suzanne Goin's recipes on epicurious.com).  Salmon on a bed of green cabbage and corn that's been sauteed in butter with lots and lots of thyme.  It's so good!  Tomorrow I think I will make some cabbage and white bean soup and freeze it for lunches and nights we don't feel like cooking.  

But I planted a lot of cabbage, and I'm thinking I might need to make some kimchi (or gimchi or kimchee, depending on where you look) to use it all up.  

spring

I saw this photo of peonies  on apartment therapy today and it made me long for spring.  (I'm pathetic, it's not even November yet!)

I was out in Colorado for 3 weeks this past spring when our peonies bloomed and it was the only bad part about the trip.  

cuteness

Javi, Keith and Evangelina's son, drew this about what he did last weekend.  I wonder which one is Gus and which one's Ollie?  (My favorite part of this drawing is the nonchalant bend in Javi's right leg.)  

I think someone needs to get that boy a dog!

bump

I love this photo.

via yes we can hold babies

 

gift race

So, I read that China and India are engaged in a new Space Race (and that India is catching up) which is interesting, but I am actually more interested in the Gift Race I am going to start withRick and Toni.  

Really, they started it by being way too nice.  

Steven broke a bowl while we were visiting them by throwing it against a tree (don't ask) so we sent them some new bowls to make up for it.  (We sent metal ones because they are unbreakable, at least in theory!  I don't think we should let Steven test that theory, though.) 

But then the gift race started when they sent us another ceramic "lemon" made by Emily Jacir to add to my collection and a very old and very lovely copy of The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. (I have adored Emily's "Lemons" since I saw them about a decade ago at Anderson Ranch Arts Center and Rick and Toni have been kind enough to give a bunch over the last year or so.)

I have no idea what we are going to send them next, and it might take awhile to think of it, but we are amazed that they have sent up Sputnik, so we're going to have to go the moon!

(halfway through writing this I noticed I was pretty link happy and so decided to see how many links I could put in one post.)

In all seriousness, thank you Rick and Toni!  You know how much I love the lemons, and I absolutely love the book too. you really are too kind.

two headed monster?

nope, just Gus and Ollie crammed into Gus's basket.  

shouldn't someone get these poor dogs a bigger bed?

my little dumpling

ok, not dumpling, ravioli.  

For Steven's birthday I made ravioli again, this time with butternut squash with a walnut, sage butter sauce.  As I was getting things ready this afternoon I was listening to the Splendid Table on the radio and a caller asked about how to make butternut squash ravioli even more delicious!  

Lynne Rossetto Kasper recommended adding one sweet potato to the butternut squash to make the filling sweeter and meatier so that is what I did.  

For the raviolis: 1 butternut squash and one sweet potato mashed up with some ricotta and a caramelized onion.  

for the sauce: walnuts and sage sauteed in butter with a little bit of cream.  

Delicious!  

I hope it was a happy birthday, Steven!

my old man

I made this card for Steven because we are going to go and buy him a new (age appropriate? kidding!) pair of glasses for his birthday today!  He is down to one pair and is accident prone.  

Happy Birthday Steven!  I'm  so very happy you were born. 

cruisin' for a bruisin'

One of the other people presenting their work the other day with Steven was graphic designer, Chris Bidlack.  

One of the things he showed was his hilarious "Make Your Own Straight Jacket Express".  My favorite parts are the peeling "W" sticker on the back and where the instructions say that "livid McCain supporters should use rounded scissors" to cut it out.  

yellow is the new pink

The photos of the double decker roof garden in New York have made me want to put some yellow flowers in the garden so I just ordered some Coreopsis "Sunshine Superman" seeds.  

I got seeds because they are cheap and because the plants will be better adapted to the climate here.  (Most plants are grown in nurseries in warm places and suffer quite a shock when they are moved north.) But mostly, because I am feeling a bit overwhelmed, it's getting cold and don't think I will get much more planted this year.

I guess our yard will continue to look crappy for a few more years until it fills in. 

Steven better get tenure.  

image and seeds from Park Seed. 

think pink

I love this from interior designer Abigail Ahern's London store.  

I also love her house tour on Design Sponge.  

permissive

During our visit to the Kreeger's, Gus and Ollie kept jumping up on their sofa.  

I wonder why they thought that was ok? 

(photo taken in our sunroom.)

bumper crop

we had a hard frost last night, which thankfully killed most of the mosquitoes, but also took out our pepper plants.  We picked all the ready ones yesterday and after giving 2/3rds away we are now trying to figure out what the heck to do with the rest.    

any suggestions?

my little pumpkin

I hadn't been all that into decorating for Halloween until I saw this.  I just hadn't thought about all the options!  Now I have to go and get myself some gourds.  

image from casasugar

time for a change

I need a haircut desperately and would like to think  that I would look charming with this one. However, given the thickness of my hair, it is more likely that I would look like a lampshade.  

image from La Garconne (which is one of my favorite online stores).

bar fight

Ok, I am sure they are not going to fight, but Steven is giving a lecture in a bar tonight.  

AIA Huron Valley presents "The Best Design" at the Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti at 6:30 tonight.  Each of the 6 presenters will show 20 slides and talk for 10 minutes.  

Cash bar.  

He's going to talk about the MoCAD store I posted about a few weeks ago and this residential project we are working on here in Ann Arbor.  

fight or flight

(aka, Ollie vs the Ocean and Gus Goes After a Gull.)

Ollie and Gus had never seen the ocean until this weekend.  I think the waves freaked Ollie out a little bit because, as he does with most things that freak him out, he attacked them.  Smart dog.  

Gus focused on trying to murder a seagull or two, which should have been easy since Keith and Evangelina's kids were baiting them with bread crumbs, but no luck. 

  

ravioli

A few years ago we hosted Thanksgiving and had so many left overs that we didn't know what to do! So I mashed then up with some ricotta and made ravioli using pre made wonton wrappers.  (wonton wrappers are great because they are much lighter than regular pasta, and best of all you don't have to make them!)

Keith and Evangelina had a whole bunch of crab meat in the fridge so we did the same thing with them!  Crab meat, ricotta, sauteed scallions and parsley in the raviolis, fresh tomatoes, garlic and a little cream in the sauce.  Delicious!  (plate by Keith.)

play ball!

Javi, Ale, Isa, Gus and Ollie spent the morning playing ball in the courtyard while the adults tried to recover from last nights dinner party.



and then Gus and Ollie spent the afternoon trying to recover from the morning ball playing.

cape dogs

Gus and Ollie are having the best time on the Cape. Ale and Javi have walked them back and forth across Keith and Evangelina's kitchen about 400 times.

not baked and not clams

we had oysters last night, delicious.

oh, canada!

Gus and Ollie visited a foreign country for the first time!
Niagra Falls, Canada.

the cape

Today I am going to Cape Cod.  Tomorrow, clam bake.  

everyday miracles

In March Rick and Toni gave us this beautiful slate chalkboard that Rick had salvaged from the college where he worked when they were throwing them out.  (He got a whole bunch of them, it's incredible, and incredibly stupid, what people throw out.)

Since then, it sat on our kitchen floor. (sometimes with Ollie.)  That is until today!  

(this was actually in a college classroom. until just a couple years ago.  how times have changed.)