The search is over

I've found my little place! The owner accepted my offer this Sunday while I was hanging out with the family, so we celebrated by going out to Sears and looking at ovens. ha! Goodness, I have a lot to do between now and April.

Baby it's cold outside...

When the snow is falling and the wind is a blowin - homemade hot chocolate always hits the spot! Things around here have been pretty busy. I've decided to purchase a little home for myself and have been occupied with looking at places on the weekends and getting everything together for homeownership. The good news is that I've found a lovely condo in midtown and will be making an offer this week, the bad news is my nerves are going to be going crazy waiting to see if my offer will be accepted. So...anyone have a friend who works at Lowe's and who's loose with the employee discount??

Word to the wise...

In non-photo related news, I would like to recommend Things Mean A Lot an absolutely marvelous book blog for my fellow bibliophiles. Her name is Nymeth, she's an aspiring librarian and I would love to have a cup of coffee with her. So, if you're looking for a new book to add to your "to read" list, check her blog out and enjoy her book reviews. I've added about 25 books so far and counting...

Foggy, Foggy Night

Snow Day!!

So, St. Louis has been experiencing the coldest weather we've had in a decade (as is much of the rest of the country). Add strong winds and sticky snow and you've got a bonus snow day from heaven. I love working in education! Anyways, I was happily baking some homemade blueberry muffins and Caroline was reading on the couch when we received a phone call from our land lord letting us know that a major water main had burst up our street and that we should move our cars.

We scrambled about, putting on our winter gear over our pajammas. Hey - you'd still be in your pjs if you got a bonus day off work too! Thankfully my car was already parked on the other side of the street. Caroline was not so lucky and had to drive it out of the mini-river we had going and through the wet, slick snow. It actually took her a while to get out!

Here's Caroline fording the water. It was actually quite deep! Well, now that that little kerfuffle is over, we'll just get back to our lazy day routine...

Christmas!

One of the many things I love about my job is that I still get a Christmas break along with the students. I had a wonderful holiday and had many wonderful dinners with friends and time with family. I did not however, remember to bring my camera with me on most days. So here's a tiny bit of my Christmas break - beginning with my two favorite holiday ornaments.

On Christmas eve, my family traditonally attends my parent's church to attend their candlelight service.

And what's cuter than seeing a one and a half year old in pink pants learning to ice skate...or really just being held over the ice by her dad. It was great going out to the skating rink and watching the kids learn to skate!

It was a lovely break. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

The Pear and Almond Tart

For those of you who read this blog, I promise, this is not turning in to an exclusive baking blog. I just can't seem to help it! It's all I've been doing lately that would warrant a photo as it's been quite cold outside. So bear with me please and I will try to take some non-foodie photos in the near future.

My parents were hosting a large Christmas party at their home this past weekend and with all the other dishes my mom was making she had no time for dessert, so she asked me to make a Pear tart to "go with" the pork loin she was fix'n. I went in to deep research mode and found a recipe for a pear and almond tart through, you guessed it, Cook's Illustrated. It was quite the process and I learned quite a bit about what to do and not do when making tarts. Yes, this tart required an entire bottle of white wine to poach the pears.

Add in a cinnamon stick, whole cloves, lemon rind and peppercorns and you have a delicious juice soaking in to the pears. I was sad I had to throw it away and it seemed like a waste. I think you should be able to add some gelatin to the wine and use it as a glaze at the least.

Here's the what the tart looks like when the shortbread dough is being par-baked. It's kind of like catching someone with rollers in their hair and face cream on, right?!

The frangipane is made up of pureed almonds, butter, eggs and sugar. And it tastes awesome.

After the pears had soaked in the juice, you take 'em out pat their little bottoms dry and slice them up.

Here it is - and all I can see when I look at it is the HUGE space between the pears since I miscalculated the spacing when setting this pears in to the frangipane. And freinds, let me tell you, there is no going back once those pears have been placed. Believe me, I tried. From all reports, though, everyone enjoyed the tart! ya!

Sur La Table

Oh. No. I am in trouble.

Evil has a Cousin

So, we have very intrepid squirrels as you can see in this post. You'd think they would jump off a window ledge featuring two very large and very agitated cats, but no, they stay and swish their tails at danger.

Apple Pie Pie Pie

For Thanksgiving dinner I volunteered to bake an apple pie. I thought it was time to try my hand at a lattice top as I had bought a lovely pie crimper the week before at Cornucopia. I took the above photo as a thank you to my friend Katie - who gave me this wonderful cook book stand for my birthday.

I love visiting Penzeys Spices - a local spice shop in downtown Maplewood. When I was there last time, I saw this small container of freeze dried lemon peel. After talking to the store folks, these lemon peels just need about 15 minutes soaking in water in order to be resconstituted and used in baking. I thought I would give this a try and it worked beautifully.

It took me a while to get used to pie dough that didn't really look like dough. When it looks like sand, that's when you know that you're on the right track.

Gala apples did the trick and stayed tender without being mushy. I think I over did it on the cinnamon this time...it's just so hard to believe that there can ever be "too much" cinnamon. Right?!

I tell you. Parchment paper is my best friend, and it makes rolling out the dough so much easier.



I was so happy that the pie crust didn't end up charred and inedible! I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving!

Farmer's Market

We had beautiful weather in St. Louis last Saturday. So, to the Farmer's Market in Kirkwood I went. It was the frist day of their transition to an outdoor Christmas Market so I was eager to see what goodies they had on display and met up with my mother and younger sister, Leanne.

It was mostly kitschy stuff like this wooden fellow below.

While the decorations were a bit of a disapointment, the small covered market was not! I was just full of yummy treats. Like the crushed peppermint candies that would be perfect for my holiday cookies.

My sister, Leanne (home from college for the week!), had quite the time choosing between all of the homemade jams.

After lunch, my mom led me to the promised land...also known as Cornucopia. It was full of specialty baking and cooking supplies. Hello. I love you, adorable square tart pan.

Hello, ridiculously expensive cast iron enamelware - want to come home with me?

Jury Duty

So, a couple of months ago, I received a letter in the mail from the St. Louis City Courts letting me know that I had been selected for jury duty and that I was to report to the court house on Nov. 18th in order to serve. I was super excited! I just think that the opportunity to serve on a jury would be the neatest thing! The night before, I had packed a bag of fun things in order to keep myself entertained - that would include the lastest issue of House Beautiful, Better Homes and Gardens, Martha Stewart's Cooking School and my current fiction book. Perfect!


My excitement quickly turned to dismay that morning when I discovered that I was lost downtown and couldn't seem to find the building I was supposed to report to. Thankfully, I happened to run in to my new Jury Duty Best Friend as I was getting out of my car. She was just as lost as I was and between the two of use we were able to figure out that we were to report to the Court building (picture above). I thought it looks a bit like the Ghostbusters building, right?!

After about 5 minutes, Hannah and I discovered that we had several friends in common and bonded over family blogs. We both passed the first stage of the jury selection for a huge class-action lawsuit and will be hanging out again on Nov. 30th for further interviews of potential jury members. So, overall, it was a long, boring, different, wierd day. And it was so much more fun to spend it with a new friend!

What Say You?

So, I was posting a comment on Just a Plane Ride Away (the always fabulous expat blog) about how I was considering the purchase of a new set of dishes and that I was looking at "Friendly Village" which is a set of everyday plates from Wedgewood. This whole set is on sale for $99! I know that I would have found these dishes completely atrocious just a few years ago...so why have I bookmarked the site to look at the photo? WHY? I think I love it.

Boo!!

I hope your Halloween was a happy one! Our family decided to visit Aili and Mike's house for dinner and taking the kids out for trick or treating.

My sister is a great cook - we enjoyed some seriously fantastic chili (perfect for a cold autum night) and totally cutie pumpkin cookies!

Joseph decided that he wanted to be Cyborg, a DC comics superhero in Teen Titans. I thought he was dressed up like a character from the movie Tron! If you look closely, Mara is bundled up on the couch in the background. A few hours before we arrived she started feeling sick, so she missed out on trick or treating this year.

Miss Baby Elena, however, came to the rescue in her pink super girl outfit to save the day and get some candy for her sick older sister!!

People, I am telling you, I almost melted in to a puddle of love this little girl is so sweet, and brave and spunky and funny and just awesome. It was her first Halloween and it was great to be there for it! After the kids went to bed we enjoyed a marginally scary movie. All in all a great Halloween! Thanks Aili for a great dinner!!

Miscellania...

So, I've been getting a hard time for my sporadic posting from family members. I had a lovely weekend but left my camera in its perch and have nothing new to offer. The photo above, I took at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The exhibition at the time was on all things female and the piece in the photo is an orthroscopic voyage through the female reproductive system. Interesting and slightly repellant, no?