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It’s A Very Tiki Holiday

December 15, 2015

tiki inspired holiday tablescape with green and white elements

Everyone has those friends who make you want to just follow them around all day to see how, exactly, it is that they do life so damn well. For me, that's Stephen and Dave. You've been hearing about them for years now, ever since I started blogging - they're Kendrick's best friends from college, so we've known them forever, but we also lived in the same building for a few years and had some epic rooftop adventures. And then they moved to the West Coast and we thought, cool, let's do that too. (Kidding, but only sort of.)

Every time I go to their apartment - an industrial-style loft in San Francisco - I need to photograph it; it's just that well-done. The most interesting thing about it, though, is that every time I visit, I notice that it looks even better than the last time, but not because they've added stuff...it's usually, rather, that they've taken stuff away. Pared it all down.

Oh.

ENTREES

Homemade Alphabet Soup (Sopa de Fideo)

December 9, 2015

mexican comfort food soup called sopa de fideo

Let me first just say, in case you're under the extremely mistaken impression that I am a food snob, that I have absolutely no problem with canned soup (or canned anything, for that matter). I think it is delicious, and have deeply-entrenched food memories that emerge when I so much as smell some Campbell's chicken noodle.

That stuff is DELICIOUS.

But! I also recognize that it's...maybe not, I don't know, the healthiest thing in the world, what with the sodium and the vaguely questionable meat cube-things that floating around in there. And soup is one of those things that is so easy to make in big batches and then throw a bunch in the freezer to eat later, so:

Recipes

Orange-Cranberry & Cream Cheese Crackers

December 7, 2015

cream cheese and cranberry-orange compote on crackers

Trader Joe's is such a joy in my life. Putting aside the wine selection for a moment (but omg the wine selection), can we please talk about those samples? They are literally what give me the ability to wander through the aisles unaccompanied by the sounds of budding sibling rivalry in the form of simultaneous desire for the exact. same. banana.

The unfortunate thing about the fact that the samples must immediately be dispensed into tiny hands if we are to maintain any semblance of peace is that I rarely get a chance to try them. I guess I could pick up a third little sample plate for myself, but I become so excited by the fact that my children are paralyzed by the sight of herb-scented quinoa mounds placed atop teeny little crackers that I just start rocketing around the store in search of the aged gouda that is my other joy in life.

But the other day I went to Trader Joe's and made my customary stop at the counter to pick up samples for Indy and Goldie, and Goldie decided that she didn't like hers (and said decision, in toddler-speak, translates to I Will Throw This Dramatically Onto The Floor If You Do Not Remove It From My Hands RIGHT NOW). So, in the grand tradition of mothers everywhere, I ate my child's partially-masticated leftovers. (If you think this is the grossest thing I did all week, you would be very, very wrong.)

Entertaining

Holiday Cocktail: The Paloma

December 3, 2015

Paloma cocktail with grapefruit juice and tequila

You know what's fun about Palomas (besides everything)? They're light and fruity - so you'd imagine they'd be a strictly-for-summer cocktail - but the deep pink color and snowy (or, to be specific, sugary-salty) rim and general fabulousness make them perfect for the holidays.

(MAN that sugar-salt rim is good. I've never tried doing this before, and for real: you have to give it a shot.)

Tequila hasn't really been my beverage of choice for...oh, maybe a decade now (due in large part to a couple of tequila-inclusive incidents during my college years that turned me off the stuff for awhile), but I've recently rediscovered it. Not the bottom-shelf swill that we used to drink straight from the bottle during our dorm room dance parties - ohhhh god, I get a headache just thinking about that - but rather the good (or at least pretty good) stuff. When it comes to tequila, it's always worth spending a little extra money, because bad tequila is a bad time. And good tequila? Whee.

DIY Projects

Odd (But Strangely Useful) Little Idea: DIY Wine Charms

December 2, 2015

skull glass with rope and berry wine charm

You know those little charms that you can hook onto your wineglass so that everyone at a party can tell which glass is theirs? I've always thought they sounded like a nice idea, but there are two problems with this: 1) Most of the charms I've seen around are a little on the cheesy side (although these are kind of cute); and 2) I usually use tumblers for wine instead of traditional glasses, and wine charms are made to hook around the stem of a glass.

Those aren't the biggest problem, though; the biggest problem is that owning something like wine charms requires forethought, and forethought is not something that I typically possess. The only times that it has ever occurred to me that I might like to own some wine charms has been when I am mid-party and suddenly discover that I have no idea which glass is mine. Over Thanksgiving weekend, this is exactly what happened, and so do you know what I did?

Broke out my crafting box, of course. A little twine, some jewelry clasps that I have hanging around from a bracelet project I did with Michael's, and a few fake berry branches leftover from a photo shoot, and BOOM. For real, if you have some string (twine, Christmas ribbon, cooking string, etc) laying around, you can do this...and you can use anything as an identifier - a couple of beads, a dried flower, a leaf, whatever. It's totally something you can do in five seconds. And it's fun. And free.

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