DIY // Slate Cheeseboard

Reblogged from Sugar & Cloth:

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What's better than cheese and crackers? A good excuse to eat them. And that, my friends, is exactly what this super cute slate cheeseboard will give you-- All for under $5. 1 | Slate tile (you can get free samples at tile & flooring stores) 2 | Felt Circles 3 | Olive oil 4 | Chalk marker / chalk (optional) 1 | Scrub (thoroughly) and rinse your slate piece, and pat dry. 2 | Coat all surfaces of the slate with olive oil, then scrub and rinse slate again. This will condition the surface and help create a …

Just a cute idea that needed sharing

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Tags

hollandaise, key lime juice, king arthur flour, lemon curd, yogurt

When I used to buy yogurt, there were certain types my kids liked and ones I was guaranteed to have to make sure didn’t petrify at the back of the refrigerator.  Top of the list were two citrus fruit flavors, orange creamsicle and key lime.  Now that I’m making my own yogurt, it’s a challenge to find things which don’t become monotonous because even a good thing becomes boring with too much exposure.  We’ve been recently eating the preserves from the citrus flesh left over from the mixed peel, which is delicious, but this morning I was presented with a fantastic alternative.

The cake which takes all year, part 3

Tags

almond paste, booze, British, Christmas Cake, fondant, marzipan, royal icing

Subtitle: The devil’s in the details

Having made the mixed peel, cooked the cake, bathed the cake in alcohol weekly and now anticipating Christmas, it’s time to decorate your cake. 

I have previously made valiant attempts, but so far have failed to wow.  That’s all got to change!  Regardless of my lamentable efforts, the Christmas cake in England is not only enjoyed for its taste, but also its visual presentation.  The cakes are whimsical, elegant, simple, traditional, non-traditional, white or colored.  What matters is the ooh and ahh factor when brought to the table.  Click on the picture to link to the blog where they show how that one was made.  The recipes given to me for completing the decoration are below, but creativity is an intangible.  If you’re stymied, start with something simple and see where you go next year!

The cake which takes all year, part 2

Tags

booze, British, Cake, Christmas Cake, fruit, glace cherries, marzipan, oranges lemons, royal icing, william and kate

You’ve made your mixed peel, you’ve used the syrup to make fizzy drink and the flesh to make citrus preserves and now it’s September.  [insert majestic music].  It is time to make the cake [dom dom dom].

This recipe is from the father of my friend Karla.  Karla, although having lived here virtually all her life, is a green card, being proud of her British birth.  Her father likewise, and with a very lovely Yorkshire accent.  Several years ago he compiled a cookbook of his region’s dishes and she let me copy this one.

Fizzy Bubbly

Tags

brew, bubbles, champage, orange, simple syrup, zohan

What to do with the citrus simple syrup from your candied fruit?  You can store it in a jar in the refrigerator and use it for cocktails, fruit smoothie citrus hits or you can make this fabulous drink.  I call it Fizzy Bubbly, in honor of Zohan and because it does.

It will require special equipment.  I got mine from ThinkGeek, one of my favorite places to shop, but you could find a a wine or beer making supply store and purchase similar items.  You need a champagne yeast and an airlock for the top of the bottle. It is also useful to brew in a container with extra head room so as not to have particulate contamination of your airlock. I used a heating pad on the lowest setting for an ideal yeast procreation environment.

The cake which takes all year, part 1

Tags

Cake, British, fruit, booze, marzipan, royal icing, oranges lemons, william and kate, Christmas Cake

Last night we had, among other things, boxed macaroni and cheese.  Ghastly, but the kids like it.  It’s 10 minutes to the plate once the water starts to boil.  Quick and dirty.

Christmas Cake is the polar opposite of quick and dirty.  It is a laborious process, occupying many months and lots of loving care.  Why do it?  Because my sweetie is English and unlike his countryman still on the isle, cannot scamper to Tesco’s to purchase one.  To keep his holidays festive, I learned how to make a Christmas Cake and aside from the decorating (more on that later), I’ve been given high marks for my confection.

Camel’s back

Tags

alarmist, carcinogenic, extreme, follow the money

She’s a dear lovely lady who lives down the street.  She just had a double mastectomy for what thankfully was stage 1 cancer which had not spread to her lymph nodes.  She writes gracious letters, as this one was.  She wrote a post script which was the last straw.

I apologize to friends and family who will think this is aimed at them.  It is not.  This is a culmination of almost 30 years of observation and reflection about the forces that bend and shape our society.

A secret life

Tags

arabic alphabet, clandestine, covert, Grandparents, Libya, president ronald reagan, silk dress, Vietnam

My grandfather was an interesting man.  As a child I found his stories tedious because I would rather have been out riding my bike or playing hopscotch, and he tended to drone on and on.  What I did appreciate were all the unique gifts I had from the places he visited.

I had an address book in Arabic from his time in Libya.  It was not very useful as the Arabic alphabet doesn’t have 26 characters, so you couldn’t even assign values straight across.  It was leather bound and had a pen though. I have a camel, also from Libya. It was actually part of a set of three he sent to my mother to make a part of the Christmas story – the camels of the kings of the east. When the daughters left home, she split up the set and we each have one. I suppose a singular carved camel looks odd, but to me it has meaning.

Sometimes you have to laugh

The news this morning is making me giggle.

• The SEIU backed “occupiers” are wanting union Longshoremen to honor a picket line, and they won’t.
• The Seattle school district has lost a lot of money because of their ban of junk food in vending machines, so they’re considering overturning the ban.

Bottom line: Money is more important than principles apparently. Follow the money, always follow the money.  You derive much more truth in your evaluation when you understand how the money flows and affects the decision makers.

Dodge Ball and Zucotti Park

I read an article yesterday (warning – abundant profanity and some crude sexual references) listing what the parents of the people occupying Wall Street (and other venues) did or failed to do, which “ruined” that generation.

OK, we’ll get it out of the way first off, so we’re on the same page.  The system is rigged in favor of the permanent political class and the wealth mechanism they are in bed with, the banks.  Disgust and displeasure with those spawned not only OWS, but earlier the Tea Party.  That much the protest groups share in common.