Echinacea, little bluestem, blue indigo, spirea, & serviceberry, in a pit-fired vase by Nedda Atassi from Gravel & Gold
For Christmas I gave a vase, along with a promise to keep it filled with pretty things. Stay tuned...
Hydrangea, buddleia, blue eryngium, eucalyptus
Hyacinth, sweet peas, and lots of 'em
Hyacinth, eryngium, and thanks if you can help me figure out what type of gentiana that is
Peonies, sweet peas, dahlias
Anemones, allium, blackberries, dusty miller
I must admit: this one might be my favorite since it's as much cream & grey & green as it is pink & purple...
Because sometimes you need some fluuuuuuuuuff...
Double tulips, every type of narcissus you could ever need
"Something white, creamy..."
Peonies, double tulips
Sweetpeas, peonies, fireworks grass, tiny mystery flower
"Something white"
Roses, double tulips, carnations
"Pretty, pink, from one little girl to another"
Tulips, narcissus
"She likes dark things, but she's not goth...something pretty but edgy"
Tulips, coral fern, magnolia branches
"Something VERY cheerful"
Viburnum, ranunculus, and...I forget the name of the darling little lanterns!
I don't think they asked for anything in particular, so I just freestyled
Double tulips, hydrangia, buddleia, some type of grass/grain
"Something feminine and natural"
Sensational tulips, scabiosa pods, nigella pods
I was meeting my friend for burritos after work, so I made her this little bouquet out of pieces left at the end of the day
Dahlias, clover, carnations, ornamental chilis, French fashion magazine
"Something tall, maybe viney or branchy, white, textural, modern, artistic"
Pussy willow, willow, hippeastrum, mossy branches
(For the first time I tried designing the arrangement on the floor, since everything was so freaking tall!)
"Tall, for an entryway"
Magnolia branches, crespidia, hippeastrum, French Tulips
"Something dramatic, for an artist"
Magnolia leaves, hippeastrum
"Natural, unusual, for a January Birthday"
Magnolia branches, magnolia leaves
Today, the lovely Leah & Imin hosted the 1st annual Jews For Dim Sum on the steps of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. I made cookies.
Almond cookies are often given at the end of the meal at Chinese restaurants, though their fame is overshadowed by that of fortune cookies. Face it, almond cookies- we could all use a little advice. Gelt is (are?) gold foil-wrapped chocolate coins given to Jewish children during Hanukkah.
Take the Terry's Favorite Almond Cookie recipe from Veganomicon (secret ingredients to their deliciousness: peanut oil, brown rice syrup, toasted sesame oil), roll dough and cut out using a gelt-shaped cookie cutter (a circle), and sprinkle generously with gold "Disco Hologram" edible glitter (leave some cookies plain because that glitter may be "edible", but who knows what's in it).
Eat all the dough scraps. You won't regret it. Don't take it personally if only a tiny fraction of your cookies get eaten. And as the sweet old man at the Indian grocery store said to me, "Enjoy the Christmas!"
My friend Mike and I go out for burritos & margaritas ('ritos & 'ritas) about once a month, so when his birthday arrived, I wanted to make a cake that related, somehow. (Actually, I think I promised him a cake-filled burrito baked into a cake...) A burrito cake seemed out of my skill/patience level, so margarita cake it was! Is such a thing possible? Of course, and of course the PPK girls have mastered it in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. But, even though I love Mike, and cake, and margaritas, I was only feeling ho-hum about this endeavor: I guess I'll bake some cake.. But a birthday and a recipe this good deserve something special, over-the-top, and a little bit trashy! And so..
I baked the cake into margarita glasses. Safety Alert: I had no idea if this would work, and no idea if it would work for anyone else. I picked out sturdy looking glasses at the thrift store, so maybe they were sturdy or maybe I just got lucky. This might be really dangerous! But it worked perfectly. I stuck a cookie sheet in the oven, filled each glass and set it carefully on the sheet, and baked them for a bit longer than the recipe said (because they were each about the size of 2 or 3 cupcakes).
These are truly margarita cupcakes- there's tequila in the cake and the frosting (the cake is obviously cooked but the frosting is not), and the zest & juice of a million limes. I just bought 2 tiny bottles of tequila from the corner store, using the darker tequila in the cake and the lighter in the frosting. Why? Whim. When I use my darling but far-from-industrial-strength mixer, buttercream never comes together perfectly. It was a bit more wet than fluffy, but it tasted sooooo good. I spread a thin layer on the top of each cake, mixed together lime zest, sugar, and kosher salt, and made a "salted rim" on the outer edge of the frosting.
Since I was taking these to a surprise party, I wrapped each in cellophane and tied on uber-cheap green ribbon from the dollar store.
And then put each one in a sparkly hologram clashing green gift bag from the dollar store, threw in some crinkle-cut paper "easter grass", and tied on a compostable fork (just in case). Still, something's missing...
Of course, glitter tattoos and skull stickers for all, from the quarter-machines at the corner of Valencia & 16th. Possibly the most wholesome tequila-&-tattoos birthday celebration ever.
...But you're going to want to get her back there as soon as possible.
If you can swing it, I highly recommend living at one end of the Mission while one of your favorite people in the world lives at the other end. Over the years, Crystal & I had coffee, whiskey, and burritos at every possible spot between our two apartments (well, all the spots we liked), hit every garage sale and dollar store, analyzed the openings & closings of businesses, and had a damn good time. When she decided to move away last autumn, I was bravely excited for her, but so! sad! for myself. Her birthday was a'comin', so I wanted to make her a little piece of the Mission to take on her journey. We'd heard a rumor that there were no burritos in Seattle, so I was concerned.
But what?
A lowrider, of course. Before I started terrorizing the Mission with Crystal, I was completely oblivious to the existence of lowriders (and cars in general, really). But she loves them and would point out her favorites. One sunny day we were sitting in a dark bar, and she pointed out the door: "Look.." There, waiting at the light, was a burgundy lowrider with an orange...roof, would you call it? and a cool orange painted squiggle. It was niiiiiiiiiice. Once I'd decided to embroider a lowrider for her, I knew that color combination was the one. But, I couldn't remember quite what a lowrider, you know, looked like, so I did an image search. Nothing useful, nothing inspiring. Pouting. Then, I searched for "sweet lowrider" and learned, once again, to ask for what I really want. The image I based my drawing/stitching on was titled, "Sweet lowriders need gas too". Indeed. I printed the image in black & white, loosely traced it onto the linen to get the proportions right, and sewed it up! That orange squiggle was the hardest part. Embroidering a cool-as-hell squiggle is not ideal, perhaps, and it didn't turn out cool-as-hell as I would have liked. The next one- to celebrate Crystal's recent homecoming, perhaps?- will be sweeter.
As you might be able to tell from the light in these photos, I made some little autumn thank-you cards very, very early this morning. Well, not very very early, but early for a project to have been completed by me. I passed out with a fever last night at 8pm, which meant I was awake this morning...before 5! Took a few naps, daydreamed, watched the sky brighten, made tea, made cards.
Note to my boss, an adorably loyal reader: I did not stay home sick to make acorn cards. There are just only so many naps one girl can take.
I carved the acorn stamp, and made a few cards with the "thank you" written with various pens, but decided a darling acorn wouldn't talk in my gangly handwriting. Right? Totally. But then!- not only was I able to find my old letter-stamp kit from Sue, I found all the necessary letters, which are teeeeeeeny, and scattered throughout my craft supplies.
And here are my acorn-people sketches. And a mermaid. And the words "damnit" and "come on", I believe provoked by the fact that I couldn't seem to draw a stick. But those are good eyelashes, right?
Overall, a good morning for a feverish girl, made even better by this tribute to acorns. I take back my previous statements: I'd love to have White Stripes matryoshkas.
