New York New York

I went to pick up my mail last night and the New York stationery show had sent me some badges to get into the show. Sad to say I am not going. I really wish I could go because it is such a fun show and it is held at the perfect time of year...the middle of May. So beautiful.

They also sent me a little deck of cards with information about some of the exhibitors and I thought this product is so cool. This company recycles the old wooden stadium seats from ball parks. The cuff links below are from Yankee Stadium.

Before

After

They also recycle dog tags (real tags used on dogs not from soldiers), Pan Am 747 jets and scrabble tiles. There is a list of places that sell their product on their web site here.

Toast Anyone?

Yes I know this is such a stupid thing to blog about but I am in love with my new Breville Toaster.


It has two little buttons that I am in love with, the "lift and look" button which allows you to check out the toast in the middle of the cooking time and the "little bit more" with lets you cook the toast for a few more seconds to get it just perfect. I ate a whole bag of toasted english muffins on saturday. Yes as I am typing this I am thinking that maybe I should get a life so I don't have to type about kitchen appliances anymore.

Happy Birthday Miss Tiffany!

am sitting at an airport waiting for my next flight thinking about returning to my post vacation life and the only thing keeping me from being totally depressed is the fact that I am going to dinner tomorrow night to celebrate the birthday of Miss Tiffany. I have been thinking about the things I love about Tiffany. Here are the top five-

1-She will come and rescue me when I lock myself out of my house.

2-She has amazingly cute kids.....really and they are really nice too. She is also always doing fun things with them. I think she is a great mom.

3-It never fails, she always has the cutest hair. It is so thick and cut in such a cute style but the best part is the color. It is always slightly different but it always so beautiful.....yes I know a superficial reason to think someone is cool oh well.

4-She always has such enthusiasm for new things and new adventures. I love that about her. She told me a few years ago that her dream vacation was going to Atlantis and she did it...so cool.

5-Tiffany and her best friend Emily worked for me the summer they were 14. I am not sure what we were working but I was super stressed about it and Tiffany and Emily would drive me crazy , I can not even remember why now, but when they would leave at 4:00 I would fire them and tell them not to come back the next day but by 5:30 I would call Tiffany and ask (beg) them to come back.. This happened at least 3 times a week for the whole summmer. Persistence that is all I can say. 6-ok I can't stop at

6-(I can't just do 5 what was I thinking?) Tiffany has the greatest, happiest laugh of anyone I know. I got to hear her great laugh one night when we were working (that same summer when she was 14) and she wanted to show me a magic trick she knew. It involved me and a broom and somehow I tripped myself and landed on the ground.....haha....,.can you see why she got fired so much?

7-I almost forgot she has a ferret as a family pet. I think you would have to be a totally cool mom to let your kids have a ferret.

I think Tiffany is great. If you know her please leave a comment about why you think she is great.

(yes I know most people would just scan in the photos of tiffany and chad but that is much too easy and looks too good. I prefer taking a photo of the photos with the iPhone...,.sorry) Sent from my iPhone

Can you guess where I am?

Graceland

Dear Michelle-
I am so sad you are not here with us! We are having fun but I think it
would be so much more fun if you were here.

We stoped in the coolest little town on our way to Memphis named
Franklin. It is in the book 1001 places to see before you die. It was
beautiful. We ate lunch at this little place called Puckets. It is a
dinner and little old fashioned grocery store all it in one....so
cute. We ate a tradition southern meal called a meat and three. They
had a chalkboard in the wall with three types of meat (bque pork,
roast chicken, pot roast and gravy) and then a list of all of the
vegetables (stuff like cole slaw, baked beans, squash, turnip greens
and other such traditional southern food) then you pick a meat and
three vegetables. Oh my gosh so Southern! I loved it. After lunch we
went to a few of the coolest antique stores I have ever been to. Then
we went to a fantastic plantation and a confederate army cemetery and
the battlefield of the battle of franklin.
I had so much fun today. I am in love with the TN it is so beautiful
and green.

We are on our way to Memphis! We stopped at the Casey Jones Train
Villiage. It was so much fun and so cute. The store was filled with
funky country antiques as part of the displays. We bought fudge and
lots of candy. So much fun!

Hey ya'll here I am in Country Music USA ....... Nashville.

Spent the day in slc with kaycie and angie at kingsbury hall watching
Annie. Good times were had by all.

In Boston for the next few days for meetings.....it is freezing here!

Jumping right back on the baking saddle so to speak. After last weeks
baking disaster I decided to jump right back in. I found this recipe
for Chocolate Coconut Cheesecake Squares in the Gardening issue of
Martha Stewart Living. I have not picked up a Martha Stewart magazine
in awhile and I must say I was totally impressed with the gardening
issue I may need to renew my subscription to that magazine.
I was happy with the way these turned out... I think Lulu Belle
liked them too.

Baking With Jake and Kaycie

What better way to spend a cold snowy afternoon than by baking with Jake and Kaycie. They came down to my house and we made the Mocha Roulade from the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook Page 187.......well, that's what we started out making.
We baked the cake, rolled it up in a cocoa dusted towel and let it cool while we started making the chocolate mousse for the center of the cake.

Let's just say it now, we really struggled with this baking project. I thought it would be so easy. We made the Blackberry Roulade last year and it was so easy to make.

The trouble really started with the chocolate mousse. We were supposed to bring water, corn syrup and sugar to a boil then heat to 238 degrees. I don't have the greatest candy thermometer and the sugar mixture got way too hot so when we poured the mixture in with the egg yokes well you can imagine what happened......hard, crackling candy in the egg yokes..... yummy. Ok, not to worry we will just make a mocha flavored whipped cream with a little melted chocolate thrown in for good measure. So Jake whipped up the cream mixture while Kaycie and I began to unroll the cake. Disaster! We were distressed to find that the cake was sticking to the towel, falling apart and it looked a little soggy. We knew there was no way we would be able to spread the mocha cream over the cake and then roll it back up.

Jake came up with the great idea to use whatever parts of the soggy cake we could salvage and make it into something like a trifle. We found some cute little glasses, filled up a pastry bag with the cream mixture and we started layering the cream and the soggy cake. We were almost finished when a piece of chocolate got stuck in the pastry bag. I held it over the sink and kept squeezing the bag to push out the chocolate when suddenly the bag exploded all over my kitchen window covering the blinds and glass with mocha whipped cream. Good Times.

Jake finished filling the glasses by hand and then topped each glass with a Girl Scout Thin Mint Cookie.

This is what we ended up with.

This is what it should have looked like....oh well.



Despite all of our struggles our little desserts turned out great. Jake wants to name them 3 Layers of Heaven and is already making plans to include layers of melted chocolate and caramel the next time we make them. Kaycie wanted to name them Chocolate Layer Yumm Yumm.

Despite our struggles this was one of the best baking days we have had together. Jake and Kaycie worked well as a team and really seemed to have fun together. They blew out the yolks and whites out of eggs and made egg people while the cake was baking.



On the last page of the book My Life in France Julia Child wrote " Good results require that one take time and care. If one doesn't use the freshest ingredients or read the whole recipe before starting, and if one rushes through the cooking, the result will be an inferior taste and texture. But a careful approach will result in a magnificent burst of flavor, a thoroughly satisfying meal, perhaps even a life-changing experience"

Good advice I need to remember.

Cool Letters in San Francisco

For years I have torn articles out of magazines and newspapers and put them in a folder marked "travel" and then never looked at them again. So my new plan is to put them on my blog. It will be so easy to pull up the San Francisco folder on my blog and get a list of all of the places I want to visit when I go to a new city.

So here is a place I have wanted to go to for awhile and I keep forgetting about it. Timeless Treasures. They have ton of antique letters that you can do fun things like this.....

Also, lots of fun vintage finds like these.....