Easy Ski-zy

I hope you all had a great long weekend- we had the best time in Vermont skiing with friends. One of the biggest ironies for me about skiing, though, is that in order to engage in an activity that is by nature so graceful and fluid, you have to dress up like an Eskimo and clumsily lug a bunch of unwieldy equipment while wearing impossibly stiff plastic boots. In all of that, it's a miracle if you don't lose a hat or mitten (or nearly decapitate a passerby).
A few years ago, I finally figured out a way to carry all that stuff semi-gracefully. I call it the "suitcase" method, and it doesn't require any special straps or skills.
Here's how it works:
First, stack your skis with their bottoms together. Then slide the wrist-strap loop of one pole over the tips of the skis, and the wrist-strap loop of the other pole over the ends of the skis. Then stick the tip and "basket" end of the poles through the loops on the opposite end, forming a handle. Grasp the poles toward the middle, finding the balance. Voila! Now you can carry your poles and skis with one hand, like a suitcase (or rather, a suitcase made out of skis).
You can also attach your boots together by their straps, and carry them over your shoulder. That leaves you with one hand free to carry your face mask, helmet, gator, foot warmers, glove liners, extra socks...well, you might need to bring a real suitcase, too.

Inaugural Luncheon Details (why not?)

After a full day of watching the Inauguration coverage, I am pretty well-versed in the details (although I'm still waiting for the photo from space that Wolf Blitzer keeps promising). I loved all of the pomp and patriotic tradition, but true to form, I was most interested in all of the details of the Congressional Luncheon. A little research on the official luncheon website revealed a surprising amount of detail. The meal was served on a reproduction version of the Lincoln china (above). There was also a special painting borrowed from the New York Historical Society- "View of the Yosemite Valley," by Thomas Hill, which served as a backdrop to the head table. The painting is meant to represent the "dawn of a new era" and also is an allusion to Lincoln's signing of the Yosemite Grant, which made the valley a public reserve.
The site also revealed what the floral arrangements looked like- pretty much what you might expect, if you ask me, what with the red, white and blue.
The best detail of on the website is the bizarre menu for the luncheon, along with the accompanying recipes. In honoring and alluding to Lincoln, the planners chose "game birds" and apples as ingredients because he was said to have enjoyed them. Click here to download the amazing recipes and have yourself a patriotic meal to celebrate! I'll see you in the pheasant aisle...

Inauguration Day

Hello All!
I hope you all had a great weekend. I'm glued to the TV watching the inaugural festivities to blog this morning, so I'll have to check in later. No matter what your political views are, this is a historic and momentous day for America, and I'm so happy to be around to see it!

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr Day!

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Product Endorsements

This Christmas yielded a lot of great loot for my husband and me, and I'm inclined to share my favorite things (other than whiskers on kittens and raindrops on roses, of course) with you. These are the kitchen and bathroom goods that have already brightened our lives this year!

The most popular item I gave this year was these amazing Onion Goggles from RSVP ($18). I think I made my distaste for onion-produced weeping clear in this post, but that was before I discovered this amazing product. They are super-comfortable, really work, and make everyone kind of look like Bono. Sometimes I forget that I'm wearing them, and my husband comes home to find me, be-goggled, reading a magazine or something. At least I haven't accidentally worn them out of the house (yet).

This Butter Bell ($20) is such a genius invention! You pack butter into the top of it, and put cool water in the bottom, and you can leave it out on the kitchen counter for up to a month. It keeps the butter fresh and soft.







As it does every year, my stocking yielded some lovely soaps and fancy toothbrushes (Santa has always been very hygiene-oriented in my house). Luckily, these are actually two of my favorite gifts to receive.

These soaps from Fresh ($14) smell terrific and are packaged beautifully with patterned papers and wired beads, so they don't have to be hidden away in a drawer until you need them.





I also love pretty (non-neon-colored) toothbrushes. There is a great selection (including a tortoise shell one with badger hair bristles!) at edentalstuff.com for about $5. They actually look nice next to your sink, and make you feel like your bathroom is ready to be photographed for Better Homes and Gardens (well, once you pick the wet towels up off the floor).

Back That Thing Up

I'm feeling a bit chuffed today because it seems I have finally, finally learned my lesson. When my Blackberry died this week, I was actually prepared, for the first time ever, having backed up all of my calendar information and phone numbers ahead of time.
Embarrassingly and depressingly, in the last 10 years (since I became tech-dependent) I have floundered my way through broken phones, a lost iPod, dead computers, and notably, one PalmPilot which took a swim in the toilet. And every single one of those times, I had to scramble to pull together friends' contact information and other lost info. I paid hundreds of dollars for data recovery and never was able to recover some files (which is why, at this point, I don't have a single paper I wrote in college or any photographs of the years 2004-2005). Why didn't I learn? Why? Because I'm an idiot, that's why.

Backing up your electronics is super-easy, only takes a few minutes, and actually makes all of your electronics work more efficiently and cohesively. Once a week (or even once a month if you aren't gadget-crazy), back up all of your electronics- digital cameras, Blackberries, cell phones, PDAs, and iPods to your computer. Using the "Sync" capability on your Blackberry, cell phone or PDA, you can link to your computer calendar and address book.

Then, I recommend that you back up all of the data from your computer onto an external hard-drive (they are available at electronics stores starting at about $60). Make sure you back up all of your photos, music files, and important written documents as well. If you have downloaded software that you have paid for onto your computer, you should back that up, too.

Alternatively, if you have a Google account (or if you are willing to register for one- it's free at www.google.com) you can also back up all of your contacts and appointments on Gmail and GoogleCalendar. (which backs it up on the internet, so if anything happens to your computer, you are covered). You can also back up Microsoft Excel or Word files using Google Docs. And you can back up all of your photos on an online photo website, like KodakGallery, which has the added bonus of making it so you can share them with friends and family. If you go the online back-up route, just don't forget to also back up your music files and software on discs.

Trust me (2009 me, not 2004-2005 me): the first time you do a massive back up will take half an hour, and then each time after that it will only take a minute or two. Which definitely beats years of regret. Baby got back (up).

Eggs-tremely Eggs-cellent Eggs

Around this point in the week, my dinner- menu- planning creativity always seems to start running out of steam. And when the temperature is below- frigid outside like it is on the East Coast (I believe the technical meteorological terminology is "colder than a witch's bosom"), I'm not particularly inspired to make the rounds to my neighborhood grocery purveyors.

Enter an easy, delicious and healthy dinner option that can be made super-fast from things you probably already have in your kitchen- Eggs Poached in Tomato Sauce. (It's also versatile- for eggs-ample, I think it would also make for an eggs-tra special weekend brunch...)


To Make:
Pour about half a jar of tomato sauce into a large rimmed frying pan, covering the whole surface of the bottom by 3/4" (or make your own using sauteed garlic, tomato puree and red pepper flakes, if you want to be a fancy pants). Warm on medium heat while stirring occasionally (I recommend wearing an apron or, at least, not your favorite silk evening gown while cooking this, as the sauce has a tendency to pop and splatter in all the wrong places). Crack the whole eggs directly into the sauce, trying to keep them separate from one another, and cover. Let eggs poach until yolks are firm, 3-8 minutes (depending on what "medium" heat means to your stove). One egg per person should be sufficient, but we usually indulge and have two each.

Meanwhile butter (or drizzle with olive oil) and sprinkle a little salt on some slices of bread (the same number as eggs you have poaching)- I like something crusty like a boule of French bread, (but whatever floats your boat), place on a cookie sheet, and put under the broiler or in a toaster oven until lightly browned and toasty. Make sure you keep an eye on those suckers- they will burn if you aren't careful.

Place bread on a plate, with a cooked egg and some sauce on top, and then sprinkle with Parmesan cheese (and parsley, if you've got it).

I usually serve it with a salad for a rustic Italian-feeling meal in under 10 minutes. I can't eggs-tol the virtues of this meal enough- if you want quick and delicious, it's eggs-actly what you're looking for.

Book Club...The Omnivore's Dilemma (+ Farm Shares!)

As a bit of a foodie (with a healthy appetite), I strongly recommend this book to anyone who has ever wondered where the food on their plate came from. And I recommend it even more to anyone who hasn't wondered, because this you need to know about. In The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, Michael Pollan walks the reader through the steps that food takes to get from the farm (or ranch) to the table, and the road is a very eye-opening and frightening one. The author explains how our disconnectedness from the food we eat has serious implications for the health of our bodies, and the health of the planet and economy.
In short, most mass-purchased produce is grown using toxic petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides, and then trucked or flown across the country (or even further, in the case of the bell peppers from Spain I got at the supermarket yesterday) to distribution centers, then trucked to local stores. By the time you buy it, it has been out of the ground for many days, and has taken very costly and environment-damaging travels to get to you.

After reading this book, I felt very empowered by the information and was inspired to try to shorten the path between my food and myself. As a city dweller, my options are limited (short of turning our rooftop into a chicken coop), but I was an inspired by a friend in Philadelphia, who belongs to a farm cooperative, to try to find one in my area. The website Just Food provides a great resource for finding CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) programs in the NYC area (or you can just google CSA and your city name, and some should come up). Here's how it works: you pay a farm a certain amount of money (usually between $250-500 for a full summer of produce) upfront- literal "seed money"- and then when the season comes, you receive a box of whatever veggies and fruit the harvest produced each week. While you share in the inherent risks (drought, insect infestation) of farming, you will likely end up with super-fresh, organic local produce for lower-than-supermarket price all summer long (usually June-November). Most also have optional chicken, dairy and egg share options as well. Some CSAs deliver to homes, or some require you to pick up during certain hours each week (so choose one close to home). All in all, it's an easy and delicious way to make the food chain a little shorter.

A Bundt in the Oven

One of the desserts I made for our holiday party (and then promptly forgot to photograph) was a truly delicious lemon-blueberry bundt cake that I keep thinking about. If you don't have a bundt pan, you can divide the batter between two loaf pans, and it will be equally loaf-ly.

You will need:
2 1/2 cups (+ 1 teaspoon) all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup sour cream
a few handfuls of blueberries
2 tablespoons grated lemon zest
Nonstick cooking spray, for pan
1 cup confectioners' sugar, for dusting or glaze

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl, whisk 2 1/2 cups flour with baking powder and salt; set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugars with a mixer on high speed until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and eggs, one at a time, beating until incorporated. Reduce speed to low; add flour mixture in three additions, alternating with two additions of sour cream.
3.In a small bowl, toss blueberries and zest with one teaspoon flour; gently fold into batter. Coat a 12-cup nonstick Bundt pan (or two loaf pans) with cooking spray. Spread batter in prepared pan.
4. Bake cake on bottom rack of oven until a toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean, 60 to 70 minutes. Cool in pan 20 minutes. Invert onto a rack; cool completely, top side up.
5. For decoration, you can either dust the cake with confectioners sugar (using a sifter), or combine the confectioners sugar with 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and enough water to make a liquid glaze. Drizzle over the cake.

This is such a great festive cake for a tea party, a birthday, a shower or for a dinner party. And, if, by some miracle, you don't finish it at the party (for instance, maybe your guests don't have taste buds), it is just as delicious toasted for breakfast. OMG, my mouth is literally watering right now, writing this- it's that good.

Root for Your Boots

Is there anything worse than floppy boot tops? Okay, yes. But is there anything worse that is so easily fixable? This tip comes to us from my friend T, who, mentioned it oh-so-gently after seeing my sad, droopy boots getting all creased and damaged in the closet.

Instead of paying the big bucks for wooden boot shapers (like my dandy of a husband has), you can just drop a rolled up magazine into each boot. It will unfurl just enough to hold the bootleg erect (it should be all the way inside the boot- not sticking out like in my misleading pic). Just be sure to use a mag with a little heft- US Weekly probably won't be substantial enough (and no one ever accused US Weekly of being substantial).

It's a green, easy, and economical solution, and best of all, it gives me a great excuse to keep that Rolling Stone with Brad Pitt on the cover just a little longer. Give the droops the boot!

Something's Fishy

One of the reasons we eat so much chicken is because of my irrational fear of having my kitchen smell like fish. Luckily, one of my brilliant college roommates taught me a genius way to cook salmon without the smell (really one one of the only useful things I learned sophomore year), and since then I have been a complete devotée of this method, especially when the weather is too cold to use the grill outside.
All you do is season individual salmon fillets with lemon juice, the fresh herbs of your choice (any combo of dill, parsley, chervil tarragon and basil would be delicious) salt and pepper (an an optional pat of butter) and then wrap them in pieces of parchment paper and aluminum foil, forming fish "packets". I always place them on rimmed sheet (just in case they spring a leak or something). They only take about 10-15 minutes to cook in a 400 degree oven, and the foil and parchment contain the scent and the moisture, resulting in stink-free, flaky, steamed fish. Unwrapping the packets always reminds me of eating fish steamed in banana leaf on tropical vacations. I usually serve the fish with rice (you could continue the tropical theme with white rice with diced red onion and cilantro) and some fresh veggies, which turns out to be a meal that is light and healthy, quick to make, a snap to clean-up, and decidedly un-smelly.

On a side note, we also once used this method to cook salmon in the dishwasher on a bet. If you put the dishwasher on it's hottest mode, don't add detergent, and let it run a full cycle (including drying), the fish packets will come out steamed to perfection. Make that two brilliant things I learned sophomore year...

I Heart...Chinoiserie

If I were ever to find myself in the position of having tremendous wealth (keep working, hubby), I think I would decorate one of my numerous homes (probably the one in Paris) entirely in chinoiserie.
Chinoiserie is the Asian-influenced style that became popular in European decoration and design during the 17th and 18th centuries (as trade increased). The term Chinoiserie refers to the European-made imitations of Asian design, not to things actually made in Asia (and incorporates Japan and other Asian influences, not just China). While I admire Asian design, I happen to prefer the imitations, which have an English-ness or French-ness they can't seem to shake, no matter how much they try. The beautiful pink room above was featured in Southern Accents magazine. The piece in this room is obviously an antique, but this reproduction bookcase from Dorothy Draper would fill in nicely, and has a very pretty, modern quality.






There are few things in this world that would drive me to steal, but if it were possible, I would peel this De Gournay wallpaper off the wall with my fingernails in order to have it in my home. It is all hand-painted (and thus, quite expensive) and so super-dreamy, I can't stand it.

It's possible to incorporate chinoiserie in more subtle (and less costly) ways- this Chippendale-style Macau chair from Ballard Design is $279, and this pretty Ginger Jar Lamp from ShopTableLamps.com is just $150.











I'm also crazy about these lovely linens from Leontine Linens. They have several Asian-inspired styles, and this bamboo-looking monogram just does it for me.





Lastly, what would a decorating post be without hearing from our friends at Domino? This turquoise chair/ fireplace combo feels like it stepped out of a dream. I love how their ornateness contrasts with the simple sanded wood floors and the worn rug. How do you say "gorgeous" in Chinese?

Parsley, Sir, Can I Have Some More?

If I were going on Iron Chef (in a dream sequence, obviously) and had to categorize myself, I like to think of myself as a "French" style cook, as opposed to Italian or Asian. I derive this self-evaluation mostly from the fact that I cook almost everything with shallots, butter and parsley (and more butter).

While parsley may seem like an unnecessary garnish, I think it gives a wonderful flavor and finished quality to almost anything, and I always have some in my fridge. I put it in salads, on chicken and fish, and in rice and pasta. In my world, everything gets seasoned with salt, pepper, and parsley.

There are two kinds of parsley- the flat "Italian" kind, and the curly kind (shown here). I typically buy the curly kind because it is more readily available, looks prettier, and seems to last longer in my fridge, but people who really know what they're talking about say that flat is more flavorful. It's all about your priorities.

If you buy fresh parsley, it should last in your fridge for up to two weeks. The best way to make it last is probably to trim the ends and put them in a jar of water (like cut flowers). Or, if you have a glorified mini-fridge like me, and would definitely knock over a jar filled with water the first time you opened the fridge door, you can do what I do- rinse the whole bunch in cold water when you get it home (it can sometimes be a little dirty or sandy), and then wrap it in a paper towel and put it in a Ziploc bag. To use it, just cut up the leaves using clean kitchen scissors.

As a bonus to it's delicious flavor, parsley contains three times as much vitamin C as an orange, twice the iron of spinach, and is packed with cancer-fighting anti-oxidants. Which should, hopefully, do something to offset all that butter.

Back to Life, Back to Reality

After celebrating the holidays with our families in Boston, California, and then Boston again, with only brief stopovers at our apartment in New York City in between, it was bittersweet to wake up at home in my own bed and send my husband back off to work as usual this morning. But I'm filled with a sense of purpose with the beginning of the new year and I feel like it's time to clean up and out. Today I am taking down the tree and the rest of the decorations, doing all our travel laundry, and getting ready for a clean, bright, fresh new start of the year. If you are doing the same, make sure you check with your local garbage pick-up and dispose of things properly (unlike this poor tree!) Most trees can be recycled into mulch- if you live in New York, the department of sanitation will pick them up with your regular garbage through Friday, Jan. 16, or you can drop them off at a MulchFest location this weekend.

Plus, I'm off to the post office to send off the Christmas cards and presents I didn't get out before the holiday tidal wave hit me. I'm guessing the post office will be a little more manageable now!

I'm also attacking some of my New Year's resolutions head-on. I joined the New York Road Runners, as a first step to building up to running a marathon this Fall. I will be running in a half-marathon in Central Park at the end of this month, and taking advantage of their races and other training aids and classes throughout the year.

Naturally, I have already wiled away several hours on Petfinder.com, looking to adopt a dog. There are so many wonderful animals in shelters, I don't know how we're going to be able to choose just one...if you are considering buying a cat or dog from a pet store, I hope you'll take a moment to check out all the cuties on Petfinder, and consider adopting instead. I think they will give you paws, (but that's just my opunion).

And, I'm back blogging (and making bad jokes) now, and will do so consistently every Monday-Friday, once again. My apologies for my absence over the holidays- I'm hoping you were all too busy with family and friends to notice. Lots of love and thanks to our own families and friends who kept us so happily spoiled rotten and busily entertained these last couple of weeks (SB and Boston, we love you)!

A New Day

Happy New Year to everyone! Here's hoping 2009 will be filled with happiness, laughs, projects, fun, health and love for all of us. My resolutions are to run a marathon, to cook less chicken, to work hard and be a good friend, to keep the blog fun and (hopefully) useful, and to get a dog (even though my husband says most of those don't count as resolutions). What are yours?