yellow

Monday's easy dinner...cheesy garlic bread, celery and carrot sticks with organic ranch and steamed artichoke hearts

Still Life with Ezra

YELLOW TUESDAY

Nana Kitty's yellow recipe book...jello salad anyone?

Inherited yellow thread... from my nana Kitty

The yellow hanging lamp

monday green

Check out Curious Bird's Color Week

i love you kimchee

Today I splurged on some kimchee while grocery-getting. I am sure I could get it cheaper at the Korean Market, but I did not have time for another stop.

I only got a small jar of it and because I know we are a sour veg/pickle loving family, I purchased some veggies to make some spicy pickle.  

The boys like to pretend to be rabbits in Mr. Mcgregor's garden while stealing some vegetables. I get to use my awful Scottish accent and threaten to put them in a pie. Of course, a radish tower must be made.

I stuffed the veg. into a jar.

Covered the veg, with paprika, hot pepper, ginger and garlic.

Water and vinegar goes on top.

This is not kimchee. I like to call it kimchee inspired. Now that I have been waiting for the bus twice a day for almost a year with my Korean neighbors, I am now very comfortable asking them for an authentic kimchee recipe. Later this week....

new

A crocheted heart that Helen gave me...

A jade cutting from Dawn in a new blue pot

my homemade cleaning supplies and a new homemade sugar body scrub

peppermint and apricot kernel oil sugar scrub

works wonders on winter legs...

Rotisserie Chicken, Cabbage salad and roasted red potatoes

After we finished this wine, Matty asked me to get some more ...bitch. I did not slap him.

Gala, Braeburn, Golden and Red Delicious

On Monday we had one of my favorite easy meals. A rotisserie chicken from Wholepaycheck, roasted red potatoes and insalata de Mariana and some great wine (a full bodied grenache with a saucy name). Then we had brownie sundaes, not pictured, and an apple tasting. We love apples and Henry loves to talk about varieties. He knows that Nana loves Red Delicious (ack) which is America's fave and also the one famous for it's role in Snow White. Tall and lovely with creamy yellow flesh, thick bitter skin, no shelf life and a taste that deteriorates rapidly when cooked. He knows that Johnny loves Granny Smith, Auntie Mamy loves a  good Macintosh, Mommy loves Cox 's Orange Pippin which is an heirloom variety that you can find at Little tree (in NY) and small ones farm (in MA) , Auntie Annie loves Pink Ladys, Grandma's fave is eluding me at the moment is it also Granny Smith? Anyway, for Christmas Henry got a gem of a book filled with lovely watercolor illustrations, histories and descriptions of all varieties of apples including popular varieties and lesser known varieties. Did you know that there are at least 4 varieties of apple featuring Uncle Jona's name? There is also a variety called Mollie's Delicious. Whenever possible, we taste and read and learn a bit more about one of our favorite fruits.  

Edith Never Was A Mourning Person

So, here she is. The mostly finished first painting in the "Bird Girl" series. She may not be totally finished.  I am planning on making a few more and trying to sell prints and cards on Etsy.  Jen, if you have any etsy advice, let me know. And if anyone, visual arts friends or otherwise  has any healthy criticism please dish it out. I am living in a bit of a vacuum here. But hey, this is not fine art it is fun art. And it seems that there is a lot of it out there on Etsy and I thought it would be fun to join the bandwagon.

hopefulness in a poem

These two are my poem. 

Today's after school snack: plain yogurt with maple syrup and blackberries. So there, "gogurt"!

I think I am feeling better. I was in a funk for a few weeks. Late winter burnout. The sun and warmth, the being outside until dinner everyday is making me feel rejuvenated. I had also started a new b.c pill which I think was also making me a bit nutty. No more of that.

Today I had one of those "I wish I could capture the moment in a poem" feelings. My kids had just eaten dinner and the sunny day din was waning outside (most kids had gone home for their dinners). So finally it was quiet, which is rare near our parts. I have earned the nickname of "universal mother" around here (free fruit, hugs, and positive remarks and plenty of "stop throwing rocks and sticks, slow down, blah blah...). There are often a slew of kids clamoring around our house. Including Henry's newest "bestest" friend who is very sweet, if a bit rough around the edges.

Anyway, my kids had eaten dinner and were crunching apple slices. I could hear the crunching and mixed in with the crunching I could hear a mourning dove crooning. We have a bunch of those doves around here and they are gorgeous. I am looking at my kids whom I hadn't felt angry with all day. They are gorgeous. Between the two of them there were two scraped knees, one scraped temple, one wasp -stung finger, one freckled, slightly pink nose (with a residual morning application  of spf ), one tawny colored nose, one missing tooth, one adult tooth, one super sweaty head, two dust and dirt covered necks and twenty filthy fingernails. If that is not a poem, I don't know what is.

nuevo salad

Cabbage (I used half  of a large head)

Cilantro... amt. depends on how much you love cilantro

equal parts olive oil and lemon juice ( I used 1/3 c. of each, whisked together)

sea salt to taste...

This salad is so healthy you can very easily finish the chocolate peanut butter cups you started eating when the little kids were washed and fed and sleeping in bed.  
If you don't have time to let the salad tenderize in the fridge, you can let it sit for less than a minute in some boiling water ( before adding dressing and cilantro...


Michaela asked for a new food post. All I could come up with is this and it is fabulous but one of it's star ingredients is cilantro which Michaela can't stand! Try another herb if you are of the anti-cilantro school!

This salad came from Jona and Rana by way of Sharon. Uncle J and aunt R had it in Chile while visiting Mariana. I think we may dub it after her because I imagine that we will eat it a lot. It is easier and much more refreshing than coleslaw. I am sure Henry will eat it by the tubful if we name it after his beloved Spanish-speaking cousin that he has yet to meet. He is so proud that he has a cousin who hails from such a far away place. I dream of them meeting and becoming really good friends, they are so close in age.

P.S The salad in the blue bowl was my lunch, mixed greens with slices of caribbean -style baked tofu.

On Beauty or The Wonders of Photoshop or better yet, Unabashedly Superficial Ramblings

By the way, that first title selection is a fabulous book by Zadie Smith. But that is another post. I am writing because I just joined Facebook. I would never have joined had Carolina not urged me to be her friend on Facebook and rather than offending her with an explanation in very poor Spitalian and also wanting to have a relationship with her I joined. Also, Chris and Helen have promised very exciting scrabble games. As if I will have any time for an of that. So, I joined and then came the task of putting up a profile pic. The first one was a goof. A silly picture of myself that was totally unflattering and a joke, and really who cares about a photo of yourself on Facebook, I mean I have two kids to keep alive, cockroaches to ward off, a stagnant artistic career and a bunch of other pressing things to consider on a daily basis. But then I decided I would try and take a pretty picture of myself. Now I am going to get honest here. It was really hard for me to take a picture of myself that I liked. That didn't used to happen. My skin has been misbehaving for a couple of years now. I have enormous bags under my eyes and I am starting to get worry lines between my eyebrows. It sounds like I am complaining but I am not. And I am not asking for a borage of " but kelly you are so beautiful." Note that I did not say that I was ugly. But, I have gotten over the "pretty" thing considerably. I have had two kids. I consider the fact that I am only 5 lbs. over my pre-pregnancy weight nothing short of miraculous. I have stretch marks. Those are not fun. I will never wear a bikini again. But I have two amazing kids so I don't care. I also have a husband who told me the other day that I could gain fifteen + pounds and still be totally hot. And really when you're with someone long enough you realize that good looks only go so far. Perfectly beautiful people can be boring as hell, have no sense of humor, be dumb as rocks and bad lovers....I would rather have all those other things. And I find "perfectly beautiful" quite boring (I prefer "interesting" looks). Rose would agree wholeheartedly with me on that point. But, I digress. I took a dozen or more quick pics with the camera an was unsatisfied and then I remembered PHOTOSHOP! Woohooo! I know it is not really me in that photo, not exactly but I don't care. It felt good to erase those lines and spots, inject a little color and glow...... I think it might have a special therapeutic effect, if used sparingly.

Note that I didn't add an unedited pic of myself. I don't feel ready for that yet.