What were they thinking?!?!

This blog is for you, sis. You wanted me to pick paint colors for your house, so I drove around town looking for avant garde color choices and snapped some pics. Any of these would be quite eye-catching on your home...

Here we have the classic "Blue on Blue," which Bobby Vinton was most likely thinking of when he sang "Blue on blue, heartache on heartache." Notice how the vivid blue paint makes the September sky pale in comparison? That's power, baby!

A neighbor down the street was apparently so smitten with Blue on Blue he decided to do a riff on it. Here we have White on Blue.

Not to be outdone, a third neighbor stole both the other's schemes to come up with this beauty.

Moving in a completely different direction, how about teal on pink? You really can't go wrong with pink, you know. It's the new black.

I rest my case. Pink rules.

Nothing says "Southwest Style" like electric turquoise on salmon. Note the xeriscaping that completes the desert look.

It was too sunny when I snapped this photo so the pillow-mint green of the basecoat appears white. Trust me, it's not white and it's not pretty. I assume the homeowner was attempting to do "Southwest Style" here and missed the mark by a mile.

Okay, I lied when I said pink is the new black. Green is really the new black, and you can see why here. Green is just such a welcoming, natural color, no? Notice the delightful interplay of the green of the grass and that of the porch railing.

The lovely mauve here makes me so nostalgic for the eighties. And what an inspired choice of roofing!

Again, the sun washed out the color here. It's a very bold, very dramatic blue. A really pretty blue actually - for a dress.

Why?

This one is in my neighborhood and I pass it almost daily. When I saw them painting the taupe basecoat, I thought it was really sharp. Then they went in with the pine green accents and, well - it just made me really sad.

How not to use an accent color.

And now, in all seriousness, for my favorite. I love brown with black and white. I'd suggest a more off-white than they used here though. Since you specified Behr paint, my picks would be English Saddle (270F-7) for the base, Cornerstone (330E-2) for the trim and Black Suede (S-H-790) for the shutters and front door (if you're painting it).

Another example of brown, black and off-white. Sharp!



The distressed look.  So "now!"

Hot love!

My daughter (the amazingly beautiful and engaging Rindy-Rose) posed a question tonight at dinner that neither her father nor I could really answer: "Why do people like hot (spicy) food?"

She is NOT a fan of spicy hotness. Up until the "magical" age of two or so, she really seemed to enjoy highly spiced foods, but sometime thereafter it was like a scene in adventure movie, where the huge, lead door comes barreling down and BOOM! Whole new freakin' ball-game where even black pepper sprinkles put her off.

When she asked the question, both her Dad and I were really stymied for an answer. I don't know "why" I like hot and spicy foods. She suggested that it was simply about "macho-ness" and I certainly understand why she thinks that: So many (usually white) boys seem to think that being able to tolerate insane levels of heat in their food makes them somehow more "manly." I just love cooking up a batch of green chili for these boys and watching them sweat and wipe their brows and drink copious amounts of liquid as they partake. My husband - the Thai man who was literally weaned on fire - drips buckets when he eats my green chili. When I order food in a Thai restaurant, I specify "Thai hot" and I always, ALWAYS get a very mild dish and it really pisses me off. Even when they say "Are you sure?" and I answer "Yes, I'm SURE, I've been married to a Thai man for almost thirty years so I know what I'm asking for!" While I appreciate them asking that, because I'm sure they get a shitload of "I am a MANLY guy who can take it" types who then end up sending the dish back, I'm sitting there with an obviously Thai man and I'm saying "YES, I am SURE" and they still hold back. GRRR!

I don't particularly want all of my food hot. For instance, one of the guys who sits in the back of my mind as I type this is a huge fan of fiery hot cheetos and other such snacks. I prefer my cheetos cheesy, not fiery. On the other hand, I recently found a recipe for Mexican brownies that, while not spicy hot, were spicy GREAT.

I guess I could google and find out why we spicy-HOT lovers enjoy our spicy hotness. But I'd really rather hear other people's thoughts on it. If you love certain dishes hot Hot HOT, tell me and try to explain why. The best I could come up with when Rindy-Rose asked at dinner tonight was "It's a great sinus-clearer."

Foodiefights Battle: Rye and Cherries

When I saw that rye and cherries were the two ingredients chosen for this weeks FoodieFights battle, I threw my hat in the ring immediately. I could live on rye bread, and have perfected my own Jewish Rye recipe. And cherries... oh, my! Cherry has long been my absolute favorite flavor for almost anything: pie, cake, ice cream, Icees, you name it, I want it CHERRY-flavored!

I actually made a loaf of rye bread and built a sandwich that sounded absolutely heavenly in my head (a grilled sandwich with cracked pepper roast beef, lemongrass and basil mayo, grilled radicchio, goat cheese and a cherry relish with fennel, celery, lots of fresh black pepper and mexican oregano), but was surprisingly bland when it was all said and done. Luckily I had already made a success of a dessert and that is what I'm here to share...

Rye 'n Spice Cake with White Chocolate Cherry Ice Cream and Chocolate-Covered Drunken Cherry Sauce

Rye 'n Spice Cake

This is a really tasty spice cake, and it's perfect for serving under ice cream because the rye gives it much more body than a plain flour cake so that it doesn't turn to soggy mush.

Ingredients:

1 cup rye flour

1 cup all purpose flour

1/3 cup granulated sugar

2 tsp baking soda

zest of one orange

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp allspice

1/2 tsp almond extract

1/4 tsp ground fennel seed

2/3 cup honey

2 eggs, beaten

1/4 cup canola oil

1/4 cup water

Directions:

Sift dry ingredients together. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Pour into greased 8" cake pan and bake 30 minutes at 350 degrees, or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

White Chocolate Cherry Ice Cream

I'm very new to ice-cream making, having just received the ice cream maker attachment for my KitchenAid this past Christmas. With more experience, I would have known better than to add the white chocolate chips (which were a last minute idea), or at least that they should have been chopped up rather than added whole. As is, they're just big old frozen turds in an otherwise delicious ice cream.

Ingredients:

2 cups heavy cream

1 cup milk

3/4 cup demerara sugar

2 egg yolks

1 TB vanilla extract

1/4 tsp almond extract

2 cups fresh cherries, pitted and quartered

1 cup white chocolate chips

Directions:

Combine cream, milk, sugar and egg yolks in a small saucepan, stirring to dissolve sugar. Heat gently until mixture begins to thicken slightly. Remove from heat, stir in extracts and refrigerate for one hour.

Add one cup of cherries to the custard and pour into ice cream maker. Add remaining cherries and chocolate chips during last few minutes of churning.

Chocolate-Covered Drunken Cherry Sauce

Oh, yum! I could have eaten this all by itself - it tasted like Christmas.

Ingredients

1/2 cup freshly-squeezed orange juice (1 orange)

1/2 cup spiced rum

1/4 cup demerara sugar

1 heaping cup fresh cherries, pitted and quartered

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp cloves

1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

Heat orange juice, rum and sugar, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Add cherries and spices and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 15 minutes. Add chocolate and stir till melted in. Transfer to a blender and puree till smooth. Spoon over ice cream while still warm.

There you have it! Now, hustle on over to FoodieFights and VOTE! Well - not this minute though. I don't think voting opens until tomorrow. I know I don't have a prayer of winning - having looked over several previous battles, I'm up against some truly creative minds - but I hate to go down with NO votes. ;)

Cliches

As a former (eons ago) student of creative writing, I've heard it over and over and over again: Cliches are unimaginative. Cliches are lazy. Cliches are...cliche. But the overriding fact for me about cliches has always been: "They're all those things because they're basic truths." One of those cliches that hit home for me tonight was "Life is what happens when you're making other plans."

I started this blog to share my creative endeavors in the kitchen. Days later, "life" reared its ugly head and made (god, I so want to say "mincemeat" of my plans, but surely I can channel Mr. Broten and do better from the start).... Days later, life sucker-punched me... (sorry!), um... Days later, the One-And-Only-Holy-God-of-Making-Sure-You-Don't-Get-Too-Comfortable paid a visit and sent me skittering down the highway of doom.

Okay, a tad over-dramatic, perhaps. But my focus tonight is also dramatically skewed, so you'll forgive me. (Or I will just delete your comment. Ha!) Tonight, I sat looking around the room I spend the most time in. (The room I spend the most time ON as well.) Spring just finally sprung here a week ago, and I've been out of town all that time, so the room is still dressed in winter. The heavy deep purple drapes are still up, the deeply-cloaked forest rug still in place. The mantle is still dressed with winter berries and sparkling candles. And as I sit and look at it all, I realize it's the last time I'll see it this way. I'll switch the drapes and the mantle-scape and the rugs and all of the other details to mark the transition from winter to spring soon, and we won't be here when autumn begs me to bring back its winter duds.

Truly, this is the only part of our home I'll really, really miss. I put a lot of myself into every room in this house, but this is where we spent our time together as a family. In another incarnation, this is where Amarindra sang and sang for the camera. This is where Tyler sat on the couch puking from yet another endless childhood bug. This is where Rindy-Rose and I made cookies. Where Chevy and I worked on an elementary school science project and then eventually discussed college and laughed at Comedy Central after college. This is where the kids gathered after school, or after a party. This is where they had parties. And girlfriends and boyfriends and...

This is where I sat with my husband, cuddled together watching Mad About You or L.A. Law. This is where I tended to him when he was recovering from bypass surgery. This is where he laughed at me for setting off the smoke alarm yet again from another cooking failure. This is where I threatened to divorce him if he ever cooked pickled bamboo shoots in the house again. This is where he placed countless Valentine's Day and Anniversary bouquets.

This is where my mom always dropped all the many, many things she would bring along when she spent a weekend. This is where we played board games together every time she would visit. (And, sadly, only when she visited.)

This is where I've always sat alone late at night, unwinding after everyone goes to bed and doing whatever I wanted to do (like ripping my bra off and throwing it aside when hot flashes would rear their.. um... strike).

I'm going to miss this room so much. But really, it is only a room. We can make new memories elsewhere. And the memories we made here? They weren't about the room. They were about us.

Introducing the Elephant

While my kids have often told me I walk like an elephant (I like to say I walk "purposefully," but they probably have a point), the real "elephant in the kitchen" is the simple fact that I can cook. Now, this may not seem like a terribly mind-blowing revelation to anyone who doesn't know me, but to my family and friends it's HUGE (elephant-sized, even) news. It's also very new news. Aside from perfecting my all-time favorite food (fiery hot green chili of the sort you'll find in any self-respecting Mexican restaurant in Colorado ) years ago, I've been mostly a fast-food-and-fish-sticks kind of "cook." I actually considered naming this blog just that, but a year spent on a recipe and cooking-related website brought out my inner gastronome and creative (if chaotic) cook so the title no longer fits.

Partly, I blame my sister for my very tardy, second-century foray into the kitchen. Growing up in a single-parent household with a mother who worked as many as three jobs at a time, my sister and I divvied up the household chores: My sister cooked, I cleaned. Toilets terrified her. Raw meat was simply a mystery that I felt much too young to confront. When I got married the first time (at the ridiculously young age of 17), I completely depended on Hamburger Helper and a very thin volume of Betty Crocker recipes based around hamburger. Being not-very adventurous culinarily, I settled on two recipes from my beloved hamburger cookbook to make on a weekly basis: Porcupine Balls and... Okay, I lied. I settled on one recipe and I made it at least weekly, probably more often. My then-husband lost twenty pounds in three months. It's worse than it sounds - this was after being laid off and spending all day, every day, smoking pot and watching TV. That's usually a surefire recipe for weight gain, but my cooking was a mighty adversary. (On the other hand, another thin volume of recipes afforded me a really kick-ass fish stick sauce that I've since lost and mourn piteously.)

I spent my very early twenties divorced and eating lots of fish sticks and Taco Bell. Um - not together! Sheesh. I saved my absolute worst pairing for a meal when I was several months pregnant with my first child: fish sticks (don't worry: the fish sticks really won't be a continuing feature here), applesauce and canned pork 'n beans. Oh, yum! (Please, don't ever try that at home.) But I jumped ahead there. Before I was pregnant, I fell in love with the man who would eventually knock me up and started on a new culinary adventure as a sort of love note to him: Thai food. Being Thai himself, he could only eat so much bland, American fare before he started jonesing for something inyerface! So I picked up a thin book of Thai recipes and proceeded to master several of them. Okay... a few of them. Okay, two of them: Chicken Curry and Panang Meatballs. In my defense, I did also take to heart Maluli Pinsuvana's admonition that curry paste should always be homemade and I made sure my boyfriend/eventual-husband had a batch of three different kinds on hand at all times for three solid years. Only to find out that, no, it really wasn't as good as the store-bought stuff because I had to make too many substitutions for obscure Thai ingredients. Ha! He hadn't wanted to hurt my feelings all that time, and I had gotten sick of making the stuff after three months. I don't know if that's some sort of parallel to the Gift of the Magi or just a sad little example of how poorly Mars and Venus communicate, but it continues to amuse me to this day.

Fast forward again to post-pregnancy and feeding an eighteen-month-old nutritious meals while also saving money for our first new home. I sat down every Wednesday and planned my menus (around what was on sale) for the first time in my life. And I did "okay" for the next several years in the kitchen. I didn't mix it up a lot - I still relied on a handful of favorites with an occasional wild-card thrown in, but we weren't eating the same thing twice a week and no one was losing weight.

Then child-number-two threw a wrench into the works. Unlike any child you've probably ever known, she turned suddenly picky about what she would eat between two and three years old! Of course, her older brother had gotten picky and set in his ways long before, but until she got to the uppity two-something that was okay: we all just ate what HE liked. But now what? My own mother gave us absolutely no choice at dinnertime. We ate what was put in front of us and we would sit at that table until we did. Or at least until she and my father tired of sitting there waiting and retired to the living room, at which point my sister and I would noisily clang our forks against our plates for a minute and then toss the dreaded sauerkraut or spam or spinach into the disposal. (We were so damned clever and our folks were such dunces!) But I didn't want to take that hard line because I had evolved into such a horridly picky eater and naturally blamed my mother. (That's what they're there for. Just do it.)

So, instead, I went on strike. About the four-hundred-thirty-third time one of them turned their little nose up and said "I don't like this!" I blew up and said "Fine! That's IT! I don't like to cook and you don't like my cooking so why am I killing myself?!" I knew my husband wasn't thrilled with Thai only a couple of times a month either, so I really just did feel like it was time to step back and let them have what they want. Which meant Michaelina's Budget Gourmet and Taco Bell and... you guessed it.... fish sticks (they're so damned good with Kraft Mac & Cheese! Hold the pork 'n beans though).

Through the intervening years I've gotten a fire lit under my butt and dived into the kitchen with gusto now and again, but it never lasts long. I get bored with the diet or the new cuisine or whatever spark it was that lit the fire and go back to a combination of eating out and a handful of easy favorites while my husband cooks for himself.

Then I landed on a message board where people were discussing food and recipes all day every day and a number of them were the sort of smart-assed, fun-loving sorts that I just can't resist and I got hooked. A couple of months after I started hanging out there, someone on that site challenged another member to make a dish from ingredients chosen by whomever happened to be around and willing to play at the moment. Think "Chopped" but every ingredient she was allowed to use was pre-determined by any and every yahoo who happened to weigh in. Luckily for her, the folks who weighed in were kind and provided her with a really great list and her resulting recipe was superb. I loved the idea of that challenge so much that I hosted a several "Gang-Up" challenges on that board myself, but threw it out to anyone who wanted to take a shot rather than picking one, poor soul to have to bear the burden (have the fun!) alone. I think I hosted seven or eight challenges over the next several months, and headed to the kitchen with the list from all but two of them and absolutely astounded myself every time. I had tried to throw dishes together without recipes before, but I'd never been very successful unless I was trying to imitate something I'd had in a restaurant (and even then needed lots of google help to steer me in the right direction). But with only one exception, all of my gang-up recipes ended up being such kick-ass successes that my husband gave them all four out of five stars (he saves five stars for desserts, and I don't do desserts!). Even the exception wasn't bad: my picky-youngest (you remember her? The persnickety two-something who caused the strike) liked it a lot. And I (the fifty-something masquerading as a persnickety two-something) really liked all of them myself. Which, of course, only fed the beast and whetted its appetite.

And that brings us, f i n a l l y, to the reason for this blog: I enjoyed the hell out of those Gang-Up challenges but can no longer host them on that website. While someone else has taken up the ball, it's not happening often enough to keep my creative spark burning. I miss that spark a lot. I'm really not happy unless I have a creative outlet. I have a decorative painting and interior decor business that usually feeds that beast, but business has been verrrrrry slow for the last few years (and I'm a rotten saleswoman) so this new hobby had really been filling that need. Then another member from the board mentioned foodiefights.com on Facebook and I decided I wanted in. The site doesn't require a blog, but I really wanted to blog the Gang-Ups I had already participated in so that I could have a journal of this journey for myself.

And that is why I'm here.