28 December 2010

glazed maple cookies



i made these during my holiday baking marathon and they were fairly simple and delicious! they taste like stroopwafels!

Makes 40

* 3 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
* 1 teaspoon coarse salt
* 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
* 1 cup sugar
* 1 1/2 cups pure maple syrup
* 2 large egg yolks

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, with racks in upper and lower thirds. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour and salt. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in 1/2 cup maple syrup and egg yolks. With mixer on low, beat in flour mixture.
2. Drop batter by tablespoons, 3 inches apart, onto two baking sheets. Using a flat-bottomed glass dipped in flour, flatten cookies to a 1/4-inch thickness. Bake until golden at edges, 12 to 15 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Transfer cookies to wire racks to cool. In a small saucepan, simmer 1 cup maple syrup until reduced to 3/4 cup. Spoon over cookies.

recipe from martha stewart. believe it.

i should be working



but the interweb won't let me. too many things to google and pointless knowledge to obtain.

random



wishing i was here...









carmel by the sea

21 December 2010

day dreaming



this image came from the florida state library and archives. it is of bonita colson in 1960 at weeki wachee springs.

la lune




the lunar eclipse last night made me feel like i was in a sci-fi (excuse me, speculative fiction) film because it hovered very menacingly making me feel like i lived on a planet with multiple moons that always glowed red.

17 December 2010

lunch



during my lunch hour today npr was airing a segment about carl akeley (not pictured) and the art of taxidermy. it was hard to stomach but i listened to the entire thing. it was mostly a history of taxidermy but still...brain scoops and ear splitters...gross.

turns out...

paper dolls (other than the disney princess series, naturally) are nonexistent in oklahoma city. lame.

good grief



i keep hearing this song during my daily activities, apparently it's be my new theme song.

i want to go to there

the slightest disappointment

apparently it was suppose to snow early this morning. naturally i was disappointed when i walked outside and didn't see this...



song of the day-francoise hardy: l'amitie

of course of course

nichelle nichols



she is so effing awesome!

15 December 2010

gabrielle ray

pretty pretty

a pretty picture for a pretty day.



paul cezanne-cherries and peaches

embroidery



for the holidays i've been trying to make as many of my presents as possible. i will post more pictures later, but i don't want to ruin any surprises so i'm going to wait. in the mean time i have given my parents their presents already, so i feel comfortable posting pics of their gifts. as if they would ever read my blog to begin with. ha! so here they are. both pieces are based on photographs of them circa 1985-1987. i admit that the quality of the images is terrible, but my camera batteries are dead and i have been far too lazy to do anything about it. so until then, i will be uploading awful cell phone pics. your welcome. these two pictures are mid-process, i have one of them complete which will come later. auf wiedersehen!

i almost forgot

i have a book club meeting coming up! i suppose that since it's my first meeting ever it's understandable that i keep forgetting about how i committed to it. oh well. our first book is flannery o'connor's "a good man is hard to find." even though i've been putting it off a bit, i'm still excited about reading this book. here is a link to a digitized version on google books, maybe you will enjoy it. alright, enough from this gal for the moment. ttyl.



song of the day-more marion harris: a good man is hard to find

14 December 2010

rise and shine



it seems like a marion harris kinda day. hope it's splendid!


song of the day: marion harris-i'm gonna do it if i like it (1921)

sweets!



i have the biggest craving for a cupcake! hopefully i can find a delicious one after work today.

xoxo

05 November 2010

good morning

so i've been trying to update blanche's blogspot. we now have a few things up, hooray! we're all over the interweb now, so here are some links...

facebook

tumblr

myspace


check them out! there are a couple of reviews posted that we've recently received.

30 September 2010

this day in history

get ready, i'm probably going to do this a lot. i get a daily "this day in history" e-mail from history.com, so i read historical facts while i drink my morning coffee. it's a pretty good start to the day and i always feel compelled to share some of this information. this one might be a little on the nerdy side, but i don't care because i myself am i a little on the nerdy side.

This Day in History: September 30, 1868.

The first volume of Louisa May Alcott's beloved children's book Little Women is published on this day. The novel will become Alcott's first bestseller and a beloved children's classic.

Like the fictional Jo March, Alcott was the second of four daughters. She was born in Pennsylvania but spent most of her life in Concord, Massachusetts, where her father, Bronson, associated with Transcendentalist thinkers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. The liberal attitudes of the Transcendentalists left a strong mark on Louisa May Alcott. Her father started a school based on Transcendentalist teachings, but after six years it failed, and he was left unable to support the family. Louisa dedicated most of her life and writing to supporting her family. In 1852, her first story, the Rival Painters: A Tale of Rome, was published in a periodical, and she made a living off sentimental and melodramatic stories over the next two decades. In 1862, she worked as a nurse for Union troops in the Civil War until typhoid fever broke her health. She turned her experiences into Hospital Sketches (1863), which earned her a reputation as a serious literary writer.

Looking for a bestseller, a publisher asked Alcott to write a book for girls. Although reluctant at first, she poured her best talent into the work, and the first volume of the serialized novel Little Women became an instant success. She wrote a chapter a day for the second half of the book. Her subsequent children's fiction, including Little Men (1871), An Old-Fashioned Girl (1870), Eight Cousins (1875), and Jo's Boys (1886), were not as popular as Little Women. She also wrote many short stories for adults. She became a strong supporter of women's issues and spent most of her life caring for her family's financial, emotional, and physical needs. Her father died in March 1888, and she followed him just two days later at the age of 55.

long time no see

so ross started a blog and created a link to kitty pims, so naturally i realized that i haven't posted anything in the longest time and i now feel it necessary to do so so that i don't look like a square.

with that being said, i've been obsessed with shannon and the clams lately and they have been the soundtrack to my daily commute for most of the summer. they make me wish i was a teenager in the mid-60s and that they were playing at my prom.



i mean seriously, of course i love them. anyhoo, i just found out that there is a music video for their song "hunk hunt," which rules. i got really excited when i found it. so here it is...



they are so incredible. well, i'm waiting for the gasman to show up and turn our gas back on. sarah and i had gas apparently leaking under our house, so that's kinda terrifying. it's been a three day ordeal, but it should all be over soon. i'm going to do my best to keep up with posting from this point on, so we shall see. ttyl.

ps-thanks ross.

12 July 2010

my other song of the day

monday monday

i have a ton of pictures to upload from my camera, but i'm pooped and i'm being lazy. i went to an awesome show last night: native guilt, legs dead and well, big kids and 1994. so i stayed up late and had to work all day. i'm exhausted. more to come later.

song of the day: the babies-sick kid in the distance

09 July 2010

underground restaurant

this is such a cool idea, i want to steal it with both hands...

rainy days

so the rain has only persisted the past couple of days, and its affecting my work. don't get me wrong, i love it, but it just makes me want to sit in my craft room with a quilt and a cup of tea. i'm suppose to go on a picnic tomorrow, so i hope it doesn't rain a ton. overcast i'm okay with. this weather has also made me realize that i could definitely handle living in the northeast or northwest somewhere, and that i'm dreading the looming heat and humidity here. this is a picture of the boy i'll be picnicking with tomorrow, this is from our last picnic at the salt plains...



song of the day: yellowfever-cats and rats

08 July 2010

tucked away in a basement



i started my curatorial work today, which means i spent all day in a basement with artifacts and my deathly hallows audiobook. i love my job. i'm in the process of cataloging a ton of edison phonograph records that have multiple (and usually incorrect) accession numbers on them. that probably sounds mind-numbingly boring, but i disagree. on top of all that, i hung out at a park during my lunch hour and ate a vegetable sandwich. not too shabby. after i got off work i hung out with my mom for a little bit, but i ended up feeling bad because i crashed from my caffeine intake and i think i might have been a bit of a crab apple. i'm fighting the urge to take a nap at this very moment because i know it will only lead to another night of me watching futurama until three in the morning and then being exhausted at work. this seems to be a pattern in my life. alright, enough of my rambling for now.

song of the day: songs for moms-expandable

07 July 2010

birthday treats

it's my dad's birthday this weekend, so naturally this is what he will be receiving from me. i've never tried making a checkered cake before and i'm a little nervous. but my excitement definitely outweighs the nervousness.

La La Vasquez - Hello?

i decided to start a blog today. i'm not exactly sure what compelled me to do so, but i'm going with it.

it's been raining here a lot the past few days, so i've been sitting in my house obsessing over british lo-fi. i wanted to post something by one of my new finds, but i didn't have much luck. but here's a video of la la vasquez playing at the cowley club in brighton. they're pretty awesome...