Food and Craft Market

120/365
May 2, 2010

There was a fair of sorts at the Brooklyn Lyceum. Vendors from the north east came to sell their (mostly hand-made) goods. This shot is of the crafts area, but we spent most of our time in the food section. There were lots of people selling sweets (cupcakes, truffles, cookies, etc.), teas, bacon marmalade, and ramp butter. We got ramp butter (butter with ramps) and it is far more delicious than I imagined. It's great just on bread and on steaks.

We tooled around here for a while then headed off to see some open houses nearby, so it was a fun day.

Brunch

119/365
May 1, 2010

I don't know if weekend brunch is a trend everywhere now or if it is just a popular city thing. Either way, we have enjoyed more than a few of them since moving to NYC. Brunch pretty much means a restaurant serves breakfast foods later in the day and with cocktails. By a long shot, most of our brunches have been at Coco Roco. I always get a Bloody Mary to go with the perfect rotisserie chicken and sides and Craig gets a mojito with whatever he orders. Even when we lived far away in Crown Heights (which we call Little Pine Bluff), we trekked over here on weekends for Coco Roco more than any other place.

It's great for two, but we've never had trouble getting space for a crowd. I think we take most of our visitors there as well, and the mojito never disappoints. You can tell it's a classy joint by the paper table cloth and crayons. Many a decision has been discussed with the crayons: apartments, trips, furniture, neighborhoods, pets, chores.

I just spend 20+ minutes trying to find a picture that may not even exist in my library. One day at Coco Roco Craig drew a monkey (this falls into the "pets" category of conversations, but is a whole other story). I made fun of it and assured him that it did not look like a monkey and drew my own version and we spent quite a bit of time comparing monkeys. For the record, we are both terrible drawers but my monkey was definitely more recognizable as a monkey. I guess there may not be a picture of our drawing.

More of my pets

118/365
April 30, 2010

This was a day that I almost did not take a picture so I was searching for something late at night, and the fishbowl won. What you can't really see is all of the eggs the snails have laid. I tried for probably a year to get some snails to just survive in the bowl and finally I got about three that grew and now they are reproducing like crazy. New tiny baby snails are always emerging. Maybe if I get a macro lens one day (good for close up of tiny things), I will take a good picture of the snails and eggs.

117/365
April 29, 2010

The inner glass on our oven door cracked while I was baking bread. A little reading makes it sound like the glass in this oven just eventually breaks after running self-clean, which is too hot for the glass. It reminds me of the grill I bought that was painted with flammable paint!

It seems like we constantly have repairmen around lately. Plumbers, cleaners, this, and there are others that need to be done but that are less pressing. Since we rent we don't have to pay for these repairs (not our fault) but it sure is annoying to have to have to have the added time of communicating estimates to the LL to get approval. It would be nice to just choose who I want and get stuff done faster.

Action!

116/365
April 28, 2010

Bored to Death, a newish show on HBO, was filming at the pub down the street from us for a day or two. Craig and I love this show. A lot of it is set in Brooklyn, and some specifically in our neighborhood of Park Slope. Sadly, all of the filming we saw was inside of the pub so I couldn't sneak me and Shep into a scene on the street. All of this set-up and crew were there from the morning until at least 11pm, and I bet the scenes there only make up a minute or less of the episode.

The seed saga continues

115/354
April 27, 2010

I've spent a lot of time obsessing over my herb seeds this spring, and had some ups and downs. I replanted my cilantro after my first batch died while I was out of town and we use a lot of cilantro here. It's looking good here, but after transferring it to pots I put it outside and now I'm worried the wind and cold weather may have roughed it up again.

Bread dough

113/354
April 25, 2010

Oops, posted these out of order. This is the bread in the next post, the day before. It is loaded with rosemary and thyme.

Bread time

114/365
April 26, 2010

I finally made some loaves of bread with my sourdough starter. The one with rosemary and thyme was definitely the best. I do not love my bread this dark but I let one loaf go this long because the teacher claimed it's best this done. I'm still undecided. Now I just need proofing baskets to get really pretty lines around the bread.

An international affair

112/365
April 24, 2010

Our friends Markus and Antonia got married (at Jersey City City Hall) during the week and had the reception party on the weekend. These are some of the first people we met when we moved to NYC. Craig and Markus work together and Antonia was one of my favorites to talk to at his "work" parties. She is from Greece and he is from Austria and they met here in New York.

The party was fun and had excellent food and drink and it was the perfect place to wear this dress, which I love.

I was making silly faces because Martin, who was trying to use my camera was having issues.

Congratulations, Markus and Antonia!

Fry little chicken bits, fry!

111/365
April 23, 2010

One of the many wonderful things my mom taught me was how to fry chicken. I probably add more seasoning (lemon pepper) than she did, but we don't know the meaning of too much seasoning around here. It had probably been two years since I last fried chicken, but it turned out perfect-tender, moist, but completely cooked. We had some fresh strawberries, fresh cantaloupe, and cooked broccoli with it. After eating this meal Craig looked at me and said, "You should cook more meals". I took that as a great compliment.

Tasty lunch

110/365
April 22, 2010

Fresh green beans, onion, and bell peppers sautéed in a little olive oil makes an excellent meal.

My new oven must-have

109/365
April 21, 2010

In the bread class that I took, the teacher talked a lot about pizza stones, a product I had not given much thought to. The point of them is to help hold heat. Some ovens just naturally fluctuate in temperature and every time you open the door to check on your food, the hot air rushes out and the temperature drops. The stones help keep the temperature even, despite these disruptions. I got these smaller squares so I could spread them out and because a few smaller ones was a lot cheaper than one large one (that I could easily drop and break). If you bake a lot, consider getting some.

I finally have toe shoes!

108/365
April 20, 2010

Ta-da! This is are my Vibram FiveFingers, a shoe that lets you walk like you're barefoot without the danger of cuts and splinters. Years ago, I think when we were still in North Carolina (I vaguely remember showing them to an office-mate who made fun of them), I read about a concept shoe that was basically leather between your foot and the ground and I waited and waited for them to become available. Finally a few years ago they started selling them and it's taken me a while to get around to trying some on for size and choosing a style. This was not my first choice of color, but I took what was available.

Supposedly you have to adapt to barefoot walking (which is how I always am at home) so I started out just wearing them around the house for a few days, then I started wearing them on walks through the park with Shep. So far, I'm really happy with them. I still have some pain (supposedly nerve damage) from when I snapped an ankle ligament last year, and the way I walk in these seems to alleviate that quite a bit. As long as it's warm enough, these are great, even in the wet morning grass at the park.

For those of you considering these, they are kind of hard to put on. For me at least, it's not very natural to stick my toes in separate compartments. This style has a mesh covering over the top of the foot, which really slows down the process, but the ones without the mesh are much quicker to put on.

Cupcake Class

107/365
April 19, 2010

In the bread class post I mentioned that I took another class at Brooklyn Kitchen. It was a cupcake class with the couple who own/make Robicelli's cupcakes, which are delicious. Their frostings taste amazing and I wanted to learn the tricks. It turns out that the trick is French buttercream, which is time-intensive but worth the effort. I really tested the limits of my Kitchenaid with this one, as it starts with whipping eggs (mostly yolks) for a really long time, then tons more mixing with each addition.

Cooking with ramps

106/365
April 18, 2010

I used my ramps in a broccoli soup and it was good, but not that different from using onion. The other way I used them was as a sauce for steak. I sauteed them in butter (adding the leafy bits toward the end so they wouldn't overcook) and added some balsamic vinegar. We ate this with some grilled steaks and veggies, and it was good on both.

Ramps

105/365
April 17, 2010

Ramps, a kind of wild onion that tastes somewhere between onion and garlic, are very popular here during their very short season. The farmers' market near us had them at only one booth and they were $16 per pound, and people were more than happy to pay that for them (about $6-8 per bunch). I had never had them, so I had to get some to experiment with.

Another show

104/365
April 16, 2010

We (Craig, me, and our friend Charles) went to see a band called The Low Anthem at the Bell House on this rainy night. I had only listened to them a little, and was still kind of undecided on whether or not I liked them, but the venue is just a few blocks from our apartment so it seemed like something fun to do. It turned out to be a really fun show. Each of the band members played several instruments and there's a fair amount of variety in their songs (unlike the opening band whose entire set sounded like one long, boring song). It was an entertaining show so I didn't spend much time trying to take pictures so this one is about it.

Sourdough starter

103/365
April 15, 2010

This is my very active (bubbly) sourdough starter that I got from my bread class.

Carefree

102/365
April 14, 2010

I took this in Meadowport Arch of Prospect Park. I just liked the silhouette of the kids playing and running in the nice weather.

The trees are watching you

101/365
April 13, 2010

This is kind of a typical site in our neighborhood, Park Slope. Brooklyn has lots of artists and generally creative and crafty folks, so it's not odd to see faces or even sweaters on trees and sculptures everywhere. There are several trees, buildings, and fences with similar faces.

Evening classes

100/365
April 12, 2010

Cooking classes are abundant in NYC so I decided that with a slightly lighter class load for grad school, I should try out some cooking classes. On this Monday evening I went to Brooklyn Kitchen called "Artisanal Sourdough Bread in the French Tradition". I've baked a fair amount of bread over the years, but I figured a class might be fun.

I loved it. I learned a ton, including that all you need for pretty loaves is a nice proofing basket. I was so excited that I also signed up for another class on cupcakes, which I'll post about later. Using sourdough starter to make bread instead of commercial yeast can give the bread a lot more flavor. The teacher had all the flours he was going to talk about out in this nice display.

More signs of spring!

99/365
April 11, 2010

It was a gorgeous day, no rain or clouds or high winds, so we headed to the park. The magnolia blooms were fading and the cherry blossoms were at their peak (a few weeks before the big cherry blossom festival). This magnolia flower reminds me of the magnolia in our backyard in Pine Bluff. It was a good climbing tree.

What is it?

98/365
April 10, 2010 (I'll try to remember to the date on the rest)

I had quite a few lazy days in April, including this one. This is in our apartment. Any clue what it is?

Florence and the Machine

97/365
This is a self-portrait with the point and shoot. Craig, Burns, and Gwen are behind me in the shot.

I started listening to Florence a year or so back and was instantly hooked and eventually forced the cd on those around me and they all seemed to dig the music, too. When I found out Florence and the Machine would be playing in NYC I was over the moon. I was probably more excited about this show than any other because I knew she would put on a good performance with her lively music and I really love all of the songs, not just a few. Eight others people went to the show with me and I think we all had a great time.