I've Been a Bad Bad Blogger

Last post June 1st? Eek, the summer went so fast. A month-long trip to NYC and having Joe home with us here the rest of time made the days just fly by. The only items I made over the past couple of months were a ton of shirts for Parts & Labour on S. Congress. They're a really interesting boutique that only sells locally made items. I've also had a bunch of custom orders that I have worked on in place of updating my long-neglected blog. The only thing I made for myself this summer was this skirt:

Oh, do you like those shoes? I put them on for the photo because they were the last extravagant purchase I made before quitting my last full time job. Remember that scene in Sex in the City (the series, not the film) when Carrie realized that all the money she spent on shoes could have been used for the down payment on an apartment? I think that that might be a semi-universal epiphany (and by semi-universal I mean professional urban single women obviously). I like to remember the days when no one had heard of Suze Orman, and it was perfectly reasonable to blow money at Barney's and on cocktails instead of using it to pay off credit cards and save for the day when one might actually have a child and have no use whatsoever for 3" red suede platform shoes that were handmade by some little white-haired shoe-master in Italy.

But back to the skirt. Does it look vaguely familiar? That might be because originally it was a sun dress that I was working on. I could never figure out how to line up the bodice with the skirt, and so the bodice that I sewed a few months back is now being scrapped. At least I got one cute new thing to wear out of it. *Note to self- always make a muslin version of any new pattern before using the good stuff.

Of course there have been about a hundred things that I have been meaning to blog about, but I have come to realize that a more realistic approach for me will be to post about one thing each week. That's my "new year's resolution" for this upcoming school year (yes, I still think of time in terms of school years. I suppose that I will think of time this way for a long time with a teacher husband and a child). Here are some snapshots from our summer:

Dreamy days at the beach:

A boy and his love for baby lions (t-shirt made with transfer paper and access to flickr) and old tractors:


A visit from Joe's mom, and a dinner out at the Biergarten in Wahlburg:

Look! He's a little boy already:

Me me me and more about me

Here is my flickr mosaic created for Spiralling's game. I'm determined to win.

1. Jessica Simpson, 2. Dark Bordeaux, 3. Leg it, 4. Tiffany Blue Washers, 5. Bad liver and a broken heart, 6. mr. imagination's bottlecaps (149), 7. Overhead, 8. Box of Macarons, 9. Today menu: Colorful fruit, 10. Love and affection, 11. Lazy Cow - Flatford, Dedham, Essex, England - Sunday June 10th 2007 - Highest Explore position - #1 on June 14 2007.WOW!!.:O):O):O), 12. Rose, Duke & Hayden

The way the game works is that you answer the following questions (I put my answers after the questions below) and then you type each key word into the search engine on flickr and choose one of the photos from the first page that comes up. I made the mosaic over at fds flickr toys.

The Questions:

1. What is your first name? - Jessica
2. What is your favorite food? - See's Candy
3. What high school did you go to? - St. Ann's
4. What is your favorite color? - Tiffany blue
5. Who is your celebrity crush? - Tom Waits
6. Favorite drink? - Lime Ricky
7. Dream vacation? - Hawaii
8. Favorite dessert? - French macaroons
9. What did you want to be when you grow up? - A writer
10. What do you love most in life? - Love and affection
11. One Word to describe you. - Curious
12. Looked up my flickr name and found something about me: I wasn't too sure what this one meant so I typed Violette Crumble into flickr and got a great shot of Hayden wearing a Rose & Duke shirt.

Harlan was home from school all of last week and I have to say the poor guy had a rough few days. One evening he burned his fingers on the stove top (I gave up on locking him outside the kitchen gate while I cook because I couldn't take the shrieking). The next night we set up his much anticipated big boy bed. Like an idiot I didn't put a guard rail on its side, but set up some sheepskins on the floor next to the bed instead. Well, insomnia struck me that night and I ended up taking a big dose of anti-anxiety pills to knock myself up. I awoke to the sound of my poor guy screaming, and wandered deliriously into his room to find Joe holding him, blood everywhere.

Somehow Harlan fell out of bed with his blanket wrapped around his legs. We figure he stood up on the sheepskins and then face planted onto the wooden floor, smashing open his lip and busting his nose. The swelling is finally going down, but in the photos below you can see his fat lip and his slightly Joan Riversesque swelling around the nose and under the eyes.

I can not take credit for these great photos. They were taken at the zoo by new favorite Austinite Mark. The picture of me tells me that my hair is indeed pretty bright in the sunlight. I think that I'm going to mix my current red dye with some dark brown and see where that takes me, despite the fact that Joe's students all really love my hair color (another sign that it might be time to tone it down a bit). I'm also stuck in the place where my hair is no longer a cute Katie Holmes bob, nor is it the standard Jessica long hair that only gets cut every ten years. I'm at a crossroads people. Either it's getting cut again or it's not getting cut for ten more years. I'm leaning towards cutting it one more time in the next couple of weeks only because I want to look good at Mike & Desiree's wedding in NYC at the end of the month (for some reason it's more important to look good at weddings even if they aren't one's own, right?) I'm also planning on magically fitting myself into a dress I got at Anthropologie while I was pregnant. Do you think I'm kidding that I bought shit I couldn't fit into when I was pregnant? I'm not. I was lucky enough to not have to wear maternity bottoms the whole pregnancy because Harlan planted himself pretty high up in my ribcage. For this reason I was certain that as soon as he came out I'd be back in a size 6 or 8. No one told me that the ribcage might not go back. I was prepared for my shoes not to fit any longer (the majority still do). I was prepared for crazy stretch marks (didn't get a single one although there are some crazy spider veins on my back and today one showed up on my shin. If only they'd showed up on my elbow in the shape of a cobweb. And while we're on that subject I recently saw a guy with the spiderweb elbow tattoo that was in the shape of Texas. I'll have to do a whole separate post about Texans' love for everything Texas.) However, the ribcage expansion I was not prepared for. I'm still going to stuff myself into the unworn fancy dress however, and I think I may be able to do it by just moving the buttons over. No one will know, right?

Hot

So it's been hovering around 100 degrees here lately and I'm trying to embrace it as best as one can. Maybe if I pretend I'm one of those people who loves intense heat, I will actually become one. In the mean time, I had my bread party last weekend. Some friends came over and brought different items baked from the bread book. I made the almond bostock which is basically rolls of brioche with almond paste swirled inside them, along with orange flavor and grated orange peel and almonds on top. It was maybe one of the best things I've ever eaten, especially since we had it while it was still warm.
I also baked two plain loaves of brioche, and I just ate a slice of one with some Nutella and sliced banana on top. I guess the diet is officially off.

Katie made two focaccia, one plain and one with thin onions and salt. I could eat it all day long basically (with almond bostock breaks in between).
Harlan actually went up to this first and clamped his teeth around the edge of it. As Katie put it, "it got the toddler seal of approval." Kelly brought some pecan cinnamon rolls and they didn't exactly taste like crap either: Let me tell you, all that was left of these was a few pecans and some crust. Dr. Ruth made the light bran, and I have to say I think I may switch to this loaf for a while (I've been making the light wheat each week for sandwiches, but this one has a bit more heft to it): Jenifer made an awesome cheese ball with some fresh feta from a local organic farm.

In crafty news, I made a cupcake for Mae's birthday The pattern is from here.
We finally got some wicker chairs and a table from Ikea for our balcony, and I made a couple of seat cushions for the chairs. I've also been working on a sun dress with some of my coveted Folklore fabric. Here's the top of it shown upside down: Like the ric-rack around the top of the bodice? I'm going to add some to the hem as well. There is one big problem however. I cut my fabric and patterns super carefully, and sewed every single seam with the same seam allowance, but that shit just doesn't line up properly.
Notice how the vertical seams don't line up? I kind of tried it on and it seems like it should work out to fit O.K. if I go ahead and insert the zipper, but I feel like I'll know that I screwed it up. However, if I rip it up and take in the couple of inches along the front of the skirt then the floral pattern won't line up. I am stumped.

In shop news I'm adding a banana cowboy on a green background. He's kind of always been everyone's favorite and I think the green makes him look extra special.


A few nights ago we went out to a biergarten in the middle of nowhere and it was super awesome. Even though I'm not a big beer drinker, they did have the Widmier Heffewiesen that I always liked back in Portland, and a polka band really hit the spot. To make things even better there was a plethora of Texas glamour grandmas getting their groove on on the dance floor. There was one super old guy in a full-on Tyrolean outfit and I kept hoping he would ask me to dance, but all the old biddies kept getting to him first. Check him out in the left corner:

More Bees & Bread

This Saturday my high school class is having its 20th reunion (thank you to the lady from the park who acted shocked when I told her and said I looked 29. I guess the face lift really paid off) and I'm sad to say I won't be there. Yes, I'm one of the few people out there who loved her high school. I had dedicated and interesting teachers, and really cool friends. I should mention here that I didn't go to public school. My school is a pretty well-known private Brooklyn school that does things like have Bertolt Brecht Day, where we ate German food and performed his plays. We had a smoking lounge too, and you were allowed to smoke in front of the school, but if you were in 7th grade, you had to go around the corner to smoke so no one would see you (the school goes k-12). Mike Diamond from the Beastie Boys was a senior when I was in 8th grade and he would throw french fries at us eighth graders who dared to try and smoke in front of the front door with the seniors. It was good times all around, and I hope to make the next reunion.

Yes, more sporadic posting I'm afraid. I've been working on designing the new Rose & Duke line (entirely sewn from scratch children's clothing, that won't be sewn entirely by me for once) and researching manufacturers. Aside from that, there's been a little more stitching going on for Abby:


I bought the blank tea towel fabric from reprodepot, and sewed some ric-rack along the bottom edges. I also got some great amigurumi patterns from a new friend over at Ravelry (I sent her a really good Japanese pattern book for her to copy from in exchange for the patterns she designed and sent me copies of). I made a marshmellow man and a sour apple.

The apple is missing his leaf and the marshmellow man is supposed to be a cupcake, but I think he looks more like a toasted marshmellow instead. He reminds me of the marshmellow man that I got as a gift when I bought something from Chet and Dot.

MY OVEN SUCKS. I have a thermometer in there, and sometimes you have to turn the heat to 550 to get it to reach 450 and sometimes you have to set it at 420 to get to 450. There's no telling what will happen once you put the bread inside. In addition, my dough rising is pretty incosistant as well. I don't know if it's the crazy Texas weather which changes so quickly, or if something else is going on, but half the time the dough is nice and wet and it rises perfectly and looks like this
and when it comes out this wet and flat on top, the bread comes out like this This is the light wheat bread by the way. I've also tried the olive bread and my favorite, the Chris Kimball (of Cook's Illustrated) sandwhich bread:
This is super tasty, but like all the other loaves- not very tall. I have no idea how to get a taller loaf so that one can eat a more normal-sized sandwich.
I also got a wild hare and tried my hand at homemade orecchiette (which is a bitch to remember how to spell) because the recipe in the recent Italian issue of Gourmet sounded sooo easy. While it wasn't necessarily difficult at all, it took forever. I spent half of a nap (Harlan's nap) cutting and pressing each little piece together. It tasted really nice with some Romano cheese, chopped parsley, and oven roasted tomatoes from the Whole Foods olive bar. The texture of the orecchiette was soft but not sticky or slimy. I think however, that I will continue to buy it from now on instead.

5 Minute a Day Bread, Take 1

Have I mentioned that I'm trying to do everything in my power to both save money on food and eat organically and locally when possible? Yes, you and every other whitey out there you are probably thinking. (O.K. Not every whitey out there, if you caught the Oprah episode this week about the families who waste tremendous amounts of everything possible. Family #1 who sounded suspiciously from Long Island threw out $700 of food a month because they don't save anything once the bag/box is open).

With the rise in prices of food and the current concern about wasting fuel by buying stuff flown in from all over the world, I'm doing what I can. If I can buy as much as possible organically and in bulk, and then make things myself like bread, desserts, and almost all of our meals, then I'm accomplishing two out of three. I also joined a local CSA, which is a chemical-free farm that customers pay a bulk sum to at the beginning of each season. Customers then go to the farm each week and pick up two giant bags of produce. At my CSA the cost breaks down to $25 a week, which for that amount of organic food is pretty darn good. Another great perk to the whole thing is getting lots of varitiy of produce that are not found in any supermarkets. If you want more tips on how to eat healthy for cheap, check out this long but very informative thread on a cloth diapering board I frequent (the third post down turned me on to the CSA and making everything from scratch using bulk organics).


At the same time I decided to make everything from scratch, I kept reading all the hoopla in blogland and message board land. I jumped on the bandwagon and bought the book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. For those of you unfamiliar with it, the authors of the book developed recipes and a method for baking different types of bread made from a dough that only takes fifteen minutes to make, requires no kneading, and remains in the fridge all week. Each time you want bread you cut a 1 pound hunk off the dough and quickly shape it, let it sit out for an hour and a half, and then bake it for thirty minutes.

Required equipment includes an oven thermometer, a baking stone, a pizza peel, and something large to store the dough in. I asked a group of women on a local mothering message board (several of them are on the bread bandwagon already) what pieces of equipment I can do without, since I did not want to have to invest quite so much money in something that may not even work out. I got some great tips from them that I will now share with you lucky readers:

1. Don't blow $30 on a baking stone. Instead, go to Home Depot and pick up a giant terracotta (untreated) tile for $1.30. Here's mine with some awesome lemon-poppy scones on them (the breakfast of the week that was actually the breakfast of three days):


2. Oven thermometers are really inexpensive at Target, as compared to Williams-Sonoma.

3. The book requires you to fill a broiler pan with water and keep it in the oven during baking, to release steam. Instead of ruining a pan and fussing with all the water, buy a brick and soak it in water for a while before putting it in the preheating oven. The brick will release an even amount of steam and you don't have to worry about any accidents with the water.

I actually did not buy a brick yet because we had to hussle out of Home Depot when I was buying the terracotta tile (two year old wanting to run through aisles instead of staying in cart), but I did buy a great pizza peel and dough scraper at good old Williams-Sonoma. I hit up Target and got my oven thermometer (by the way have you seen the amazing Dwell Baby for Target line? I just bought this and this and this for a few baby showers coming up to go with the requisite Rose & Duke apparel) and went to work. The first thing I noticed about my super-lame electric oven is that it is off by ten degrees. For the temp. to be 450 I ended up setting it to 460. I went to work and heated my water for the dough to 100 degrees (measured on the candy thermometer). I added the yeast and salt and flour, stirred, and let it rise. Here is how it looked:
This doesn't look like it rose very much at all does it? It didn't. I refrigerated the bread, took it out the next day, let it rise again, and formed my loaves:
These loaves are over one pound, because I wanted larger loaves. Unfortunately I forgot to add baking time and took them out when the tops were only slightly browned. The insides were raw.
I baked a little longer and voila:
Two large loaves of bread that were extremely dense and required a lot of jaw-work to get down the throat. Not really what I was hoping for. I dumped the remaining dough and started over, this time heating the water to a little over 100 degrees, and decreasing the amount of flour by 1/4 cup (as recommended by the book if the dough was too dry the first time ,which this one certainly was). I got a nice, sticky dough:
When it rose it really took off too:
I have no idea why the photo won't remain vertical by the way- it's something with blogger, sorry folks.

This time I weighed exactly one pound of dough before baking.

The loaf seemed pretty flat when rising on the pizza peel before baking, and it did come out more like a ciabatta than I had hoped for. Unfortunately, I was baking the bread at the same time I was cooking dinner, and I had to set the oven to 550 degrees to get the thermometer inside to read 450. WTF? My guess is that when the stove top ranges are on, the oven just can't get quite as hot. The other consequence of the oven being wacky is that my tile broke in two. I bought another one, but if this one breaks too then I may have to give in and buy an official baking stone.

As you can see it's not the tallest loaf of bread in the world, but the texture inside was just perfect, with a moist and dense crumb, and a crunchy crust.
As you can also see we ate our first good loaf of homemade bread with Nutella. Dinner had already ended at this point, so what choice did we have? Next I'm going to try the light wheat recipe and use a loaf pan. Hopefully the loaf pan shape will make the bread more user-friendly for us, since we a sandwich eating family.

Here are a few shots from the CSA we go to. The lovely farm-maiden is holding a bouquet of garlic blossoms. The stalks are really sweet and delicious in a stir-fry. I used some last week in a greens and feta pie as well.
The farm property is fairly large for an urban farm, and the owner's eight year old son has been kind enough to take Harlan and me on a couple of tours. We got to play with chickens, see the tiny airplane in its hangar behind the crops, giant water drums, a koi fish pond, and several houses on the property that are made completely from native and found objects. The houses are also totally sustainable and I'm looking forward to a tour of them given by an adult at a cocktail party/ property tour they provide once a month. Photos will come. The eight year old also told us where to steer clear from hornets nest, snake-filled areas, fire ant communities, and other country things that reinforced that I would not ever do well living "off the grid" unless it was in a space community on bug and snake-free planet.

This is Harlan playing in a wagon at the farm. It's a funny photo of him, but I'm using it to show off his Obama Baby t-shirt, made by my friend Kim and available at her wonderful store Sidepony.


The rest of this post is totally unrelated items, starting with some lovely Jello desserts brought to a party recently.
Anyone know any good Jello recipes? I'm thinking this may be the only way I'll be able to eat dessert and lose weight. I'm looking for recipes using gelatin and fruit, not actual Jello by the way. This one had seltzer in it which gave the Jello a really nice texture. Also there was hibiscus involved somehow.

Here are Harlan and me on a little hike we like to take. Wild Basin's a nice place to go hiking except for the fact that Harlan ends up wanting to be carried quite a lot.

Harlan and his friend Sol, walking up the steps together, holding hands all the way:

I feel like this photo should be made into an inspirational poster. Perhaps it could say, "You can always make it to the top when you help someone." Or, "A friend with a hand, is high in demand." O.k. What about, "Four legs good, two legs bad." The possibilities are endless!