Holiday Shop Gorgeousness

Oh, this is THE most swoonwothy shop. It is, yes, my favorite store and, no, it's not Anthropologie! Gasp! This is Taken for Granite, the prettiest little store in a converted old gas station in the Stony Creek section of Branford, Connecticut. (The pink/orange granite from Stony Creek was used to build the Brooklyn Bridge.) It is on the Long Island Sound shore so there is a definite sea theme, but at Christmas the store comes alive with the most amazing glittery, sparkle-y, vintage displays. Here, just look!





















And here is the centerpiece of the whole holiday display! She is maybe 8 or 9 feet tall with a wire form skirt, lit from within, and covered with magnolia leaves, frosty floral bits, and ornaments. It was so spectacular that I gasped when I walked in!

Tuna Casserole

Food. I love it. I love making it, eating, talking about it, planning the next meal as I'm still eating the current one. The women in my family love to cook, bake, and can and preserve. They have all the family recipes, all that good comfort food.

One of my favorites is tuna casserole. Now, I loved it even with the inclusion of the contents of the red and white can, but Shauna and Daniel's version has none of that! My husband hates tuna casserole. Hates. Won't eat anything with canned tuna. At all. No way. So I save making tuna casserole for when he's away. Since he's working out of state ... it's tuna time!




Yeah, those are potato chips on top, Baby!


Now that's the seal of approval! (Although you can see that he ate all around the mushrooms.) It was soooo good that C told his Daddy that he just had to try it. And he agreed that he might. I'm gonna hold him to it!

Away for the weekend

Aaaah, vacation. Well, sort of. The kids and I went to New Hampshire to visit for the last time, I hope. Not that I don't want to go back, of course. It's just that I want to move. Our family has been apart for about a month now and it's really, really tough. Going away for the weekend wasn't the least bit relaxing for me either and was tougher than usual since I didn't have my dear husband there to help. It's tough being in the inn because I feel like I'm constantly shushing the children, and I don't want to be that way. But it is a business too so they can't just run around willy-nilly! C was "on" all the time because he knew my attention wasn't all on him and P was plain ol' grumpy. She is more of a creature of home and habit than I am, so being in an unfamiliar place with lots on the agenda and lots of people was just unsettling to her. She slept terribly too, as did I. Now that we are home, we can relax! How crazy is that?!

The important thing, though, is that we spent time with friends, ate wonderful food, and got to see how beautiful New Hampshire is in the fall, one last time. While we were there I was thinking what a coincidence it was that the first time we three (we were just three then) went up to the inn seven years ago it was close to my birthday and here this time (a different three) we were there the weekend before my birthday. And so it all comes full circle -- and I hope we sell our house soon so that we can call it all complete.

I had to take a photo of this barn with Totoro, one of our favorites, painted on the door.

Mount Washington. The sign at the start of the auto road says "This is a narrow, steep, mountain road with no guardrails [eep!], so if you are afraid of heights, you might not enjoy the drive." Shoulda taken a picture of that sign. I'm not afraid of heights, but I am pretty terrified of tumbling down a mountainside with my children in a minivan, so I opted out of this adventure. I have to leave New England without one of those "This car climbed Mt. Washington" bumper stickers. I'm pretty sure it's against the law to have one of those stickers if you didn't actually make the drive. If it's not, it should be.

My dear friend Catherine, a gorgeous singer (a gorgeous singer who sings gorgeously is more accurate), flew in from Minnesota to perform a recital at the little white church in Eaton, just down the road from the inn. The church is called The Little White Church and it's easy to find because it's the little church, the white one.

The kids waiting for the music to start. I think C is telling Tim bad jokes. Again.

It's white, it's little, it's the...

And suddenly some magical creature appeared in the window! And he promised me Bailey's!

A view out the window of the church to the graveyard. I just looove a good old graveyard.

Crusty Bread That Even Those Who Eat Gluten Might Like

Bread. It's the basis of so many world cultures. It's the thing many celiacs miss the most, and it's one of the hardest thing to get right without gluten.

One of my favorite food bloggers, Shauna Ahern of The Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef, and her husband, Daniel -- The Chef, have a new cookbook out of their best gluten-free recipes. It has everything from recipes that are naturally gluten-free (chocolate mousse!) to gluten-free recreations of gluten-containing foods.

The Aherns were recently at the Hancock Shaker Village for a book signing. I've wanted to take the family there before we leave New England, so we went up on a beautiful early autumn day to meet Shauna, Daniel, and of course, little Lu.

(Sorry I kinda caught you mid-word there, Shauna!)





This is the beautiful brick house where the book discussion was. It was the home of the Shaker Brothers and Sisters.

The beautiful round, stone Shaker barn.

The intricate inner structure of the round barn.


I told Shauna that I would like to do the Julie/Julia treatment to the book (except without the Queens/Paris (sadly!) element. So here I go!

I started with the most missed, most lamented deprivation of people who are told to give up gluten: good old crusty bread. Crusty Bread That Even Those Who Eat Gluten Might Like, as a matter fact (yes, that's really the name of the recipe and it's exactly what it says it is). When I read the recipe, it reminded me of Mark Bittman's internet sensation, the No-Knead Bread, in that it has a long rising time and is baked in a blazing hot pan. But this recipe calls for much more yeast than Bittman's bread, of course, since we're not dealing with gluten here. The dough is mixed very quickly and then rises for 2 hours. It's baked for 30 minutes in a 500 degree Dutch oven.

The dough at the beginning of the rise.

After two hours.

I baked the loaf in my Le Creuset pan on parchment paper, which makes it easy to remove it from the pan. I poured a little olive oil on top and sprinkled it with some nice coarse Himalayan Red Salt.

Ahhhh, beauty..... And the smell..... Mmmmmm.....

Absolutely delicious with just butter. I love Kate's Homemade Butter with sea salt. It comes from Maine and is the nicest, most readily available, and most local butter I can get around here.

And it makes a divine tomato, basil, mozzarella sandwich! I got a super dark red heirloom tomato for this. It was soooo good!

September snuck up on me -- and I lost July and August.

Oh, jeez. It has been a while! Well, for whomever is reading, goodness things have been crazy and life turned upside down in the best way possible! My dear husband got a wonderful new job, but it means we will be moving halfway across the country. I love New England and I love where we live, but honestly we have done nothing but struggle since the day we got here. It has been very hard on us, especially for my dear husband. He so deserves this break.

So I have been decluttering and sorting and tossing. I had the dump-run guy here yesterday morning, and he took SOOOO much crap out of the basement. It looks AWESOME down there. I keep going down just to marvel at the tidiness of it all! Now, I do shield my eyes from the other side of the basement which is still a little messy, but the worst of it is done. Even if I didn't do another thing, it's still a huge improvement.

So, let's see. It has been hot, as this poor squirrel could tell you.



Before we move away, there are some things that I want to do that I thought I would have forever to do. One thing I have always wanted to do is to go to the Hancock Shaker Village. Today we finally went, but it wasn't just the Shakers we were going to see. My own favorite gluten-free blogger, Shauna Ahern of The Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef, was going to be there for a book signing and talk as part of the country fair that was going on this weekend! I was so excited to go that I couldn't get the family out of the house fast enough. We were rewarded with an incredibly beautiful New England Indian Summer day!

Shauna and Daniel had their little one, Lu, with them. She was a trooper given that she's logged more miles in two days than most adults -- and she had WAY better coping skills than many jet-lagged adults! We and the other people who came to see them just sat at the long Shaker dining tables and chatted about our own experiences with going gluten-free, trading cooking tips (like this one about using vodka in pie crust dough, which I am eager to try), and about all the deliciousness in the Aherns' new cookbook. I cannot wait to get started on the recipes, which all look delicious and not all of which are GF alternatives for "regular" food. Hey, chocolate mousse is naturally GF and their recipe for chocolate mousse with jam and creme fraiche is calling to me! I actually said to Shauna that I would like to do a Julie/Julia treatment to her book and blog about it. Oh, crap! Did I say that out loud?! When I'm trying to sell my house and when my dear husband is about to leave for his new job?! Yes, I did. And my dear husband hates tuna noodle casserole, so I will start with that recipe -- and follow it with the chocolate mousse. That's the ticket!

It's Saturday! And that's a very good thing!

Well, "Something-I-Made Monday" turned into Saturday this week. I have made two dresses for P from Butterick 5439, and I have a third in the works. It cris-crosses in the back and can be made reversible. This one isn't, but it could be if I add another set of buttons. I don't stand her too close to the lamp in the family room because it's the same Amy Butler fabric! I might lose her!





Well, now I've given you two things I made! Well, one I redid. Here's the before.



Don't you see these ugly brass lamps like every day at your thrift stores? (Sorry, brass lamp connoisseurs.) This lamp was $6 and the shade was $3. One can of Montana Light Turquoise paint, one yard of Amy Butler fabric, and two yards of grosgrain ribbon. That's a $20 lamp! Take that, HomeGoods! (Not dissing you, HG. Oh, how I love HomeGoods. Don't you?)

So, the delay in posting this week is because it has been nutty 'round here. P has been feeling poorly. She gets these allergy attacks (pollen) that just wipe her out. She gets congested, has post-nasal drip, which makes her cough like crazy, which keeps her awake, which makes her muscle tone go completely out of whack, which makes it so that I can't even leave the couch to do anything. Last night, my beautiful husband stayed up with her so that I could sleep!

On top of that, she is in PT bootcamp for three hours a day, plus driving 1.25 hours each way to get there (but totally worth the drive). That's three times a week. This week on Monday we went to the children's hospital to do the preliminary stuff for P's dental surgery next month, which freaks me right the heck out. At least Wednesday C got to stay at his friend's house instead of going to PT with us, and yesterday he stayed with another friend. Lucky kid.

Soooo....

My house is a wreck. The laundry is multiplying on its own. Srsly. The kitchen is frightening. Not in a 'Hoarders' kind of way; just in a "I have to use the stove top as extra counter space for food prep" kind of way. That will be resolved this morning. My yard needs mowing because I didn't get to finish last time since the battery died in my nice little eco-friendly mower. Plus it's humid. Not Savannah humid, but humid. Got lots of things on my mind. Are we selling our house? If so, how in the HELL am I going to pack it essentially by myself because K is working soooo much and driving 1.5 hours each way to get there every day. (That worry may be several months off, but might as well worry about it now, right? Yeah, not right, I know.) Or are we just refinancing? That's good too because then I would have time to finish off projects around the house. I need to paint the deck and railing. I really want to change the ugly brass doorknobs on all the doors upstairs. They are just ugly and tarnished and I know that if Taniya Nayak were here, she would tell me that changing those doorknobs modernizes the house and says to buyers, "Here's one thing you don't have to spend money on yourselves." I need to do something about the cheesy mauve floral tile backsplash in the kitchen so that buyers won't have to spend money on that and so that I don't commit hari kari from having to live with it for another day.

Well, there's a peek into how my crazy mind races! Oh, there's more! But I'll spare you.

Here's a blog recommendation. Meg Duerksen. She's cute and funny and witty, and if her latest giveaway is any indication, she has like 8 bajillion readers. Or something like that. I wonder what it's like to have 8 bajillion readers? Would I want 8 bajillion readers? I don't know. I wish I could make some kind of living off this little bloggie and maybe have some giveaways for my faithful readers (yes, I am speaking to you, one little person who reads my blog, you in your parents' basement). I guess I have to blog more regularly for that kind of thing. We'll see. I do have laundry to fold and ridiculous "maybes" to fret about, ya know!

Something-I-Made Monday

To keep me to some sort of regular posting schedule (ha!), I am instituting "Something-I-Made Monday." Please feel free to participate by leaving a link to something you made in the comments section. Here is my contribution.



I know it doesn't look like much, but these straw bales are going to be my garden! I was all prepared to do a lasagna garden where you layer newspaper on top of your grass, then compost, grass clippings, etc., until you have a nice mix of things to plant in. But then I started reading about straw bale gardening where you plant directly into bales that you have helped along in the decomposition process with lots of water, then nitrogen, and then fertilizer.

I found an ad on Craig's List for some very inexpensive bales. We went out last weekend to pick them up, and we had a great time. The guy works for the state, but lives on his family farm where his dad used to grow, pickle, and sell his own horseradish! He still grows some, so we are definitely going back for some of that! He also had the most beautiful rooster I had ever seen! I mean, like right out of central "I-need-a-rooster-for-a-movie" casting. He also had the most fabulous collection of old tractors and farm equipment along with a great old barn. We mentioned what great photos we could take out there, and he said he would love to have us come back and do that!

Today I potted my tomato seedlings and my baby basil plants. I also am going to grow potatoes in a hay mound, so I went to Agway to buy some. The Green Mountain potatoes were only 75 cents a pound, but I only needed 4 potatoes so that weighed, like, nothing. The guy very kindly just waved me away without charging me! So I bought one of their straw bales to make up for it.

Just the other day I discovered some foxgloves growing in the back of the yard that I didn't even know were there. We have lived in the house for two years now, but they must have been hiding!