Spring Thing

This guy just did a Maverick type fly by and scared all the sparrows off the feeder. I can't help but think they are so cool. I'm falling for the bad guy all over again. 

The bath tub alcove is built and ready for tile. It's been a long time coming but I think we may be able to take our first shower in here in about 2 weeks. Holy moly that's exciting stuff!!!

In an attempt to shape up our ratty old kitchen we had the boys build this island. We may have misjudged the measurements a little because right now we call it "the giraffe". It's a LITTLE too tall, but that's an easy fix. 

The top is butcher block from IKEA, and so are the chairs. The painting is by Rosemary and the bowl is by Kajsa.

Rosemary visited last weekend and brought goodies as usual. She finished seeeeeewing the yellow Roman shades for the bedroom! Very nice! We chatted about lots of house stuff of course and searched together for a coffee table for the living room. I hadn't seen one yet that I thought would fit, but Rosemary suggested Ballard Designs and the answer was not 1 table - but 2! We are always re arranging the living room to watch movies and be comfy and with 2 little tables we can do anything we want! Plus these are good looking and fit the space. The living room is really very done except for some art on the walls and a musical instrument OR big fish above the fire place.

Rosemary and I found an interior decorator blog that finally explained what IKAT is. It's so good I have to share it. Here again is the fabric we settled on for the pastry shop windows.

It's a print AND and a weave. And it's gorgeous.

The boys are laying the floor upstairs. 

We still haven't settled on a finish for the floor, all our testing struck out miserably so we are just going to leave it up to our floor guy, Michael.

I've posted these houses for sale before but I found the listings and thought I would share them again. The prices are TOOOOO GOOOOD. This one is on 44/55 in Clintondale.

This house is on Maple Ave.

Here's the listing for more details!

This is my favorite sign of spring!

Which means the focus is about to shift drastically around here from INSIDE to OUTSIDE. I'm ready to get dirty !

Happy spring!

Midwest Blues

Got back from Milwaukee last night. It was quite the trip. Miles upon miles of barren, minimalist landscape dotted with stark industrial horizons. Just beautiful. We pulled in to a little sleepy town named Wausau where the central hub was the paper mill and I took a photo. It made me think of Harlan County USA and everything I think I know and love about the heartland. 

I drove and DP Lisa documented the passing landscapes as well as me.

Rigging camera ghetto style. On this trip I acted as teamster, production assistant, assistant camera, key grip and assistant director. 

Suspicious person... Me? Apparently.

In the elevator at the überhip brand spanking new hotel Iron Horse in Milwaukee where we spent 2 nights. Yikes can you say outta place? 

In the lobby of our other abode, the Motor Lodge in Boulder Junction - the musky capitol of the world, dontcha know. Don't know if I'm more or less outta place here...

Checking the effectiveness of a polarizer. I think we'll use it.

And what do you take home from Wisconsin? I couldn't take a cow so I had to settle for the next best thing - cheeeeeeese. Of course.

So dinner tonight is MAC N CHEESE. Of course.

With smoked ham and green peas. I looked up a sort of overly fancy recipe but I like cooking so I'm always looking for a bit of a challenge at least.

Here's what went in the pot:

Boil 2 cups of macaroni

Melt 3 table spoons of butter

Add 3 tablespoons of flour and 1 tablespoon dry mustard

Simmer and stir for 5 minutes

Add 3 cups milk, 1/2 cup shredded onion, 1 bay leaf, 1/2 teaspoon paprika.

Then I had to temper an egg for the first time and I botched it. Not bad enough to toss the whole mess but enough to want to toss the whole mess. I cracked the egg in a separate bowl and whisked it good. Then I added a spoon full of the hot mixture and mixed it. When I added the egg to the big pot it got slightly scrambled. Hmmmm. Anyway, I went ahead as nothing had happened. 

In goes 1/2 pound of shredded cheese! And salt and pepper.

I mixed this with smoked ham and green peas and poured in a big oven pan. 

Melt 3 table spoons of butter and toss 1 cup of panko breadcrumbs in it.

Top off the mac n cheese with another 1/4 pound of shredded cheese and the breadcrumbs.

Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 1/2 hour!

It was the treat of a lifetime to sit back on my couch after my midwestern adventure. Feet up, fire going, some wine, music and my man. Mmmmmmmmm.

I saw this picture in a design magazine in the early stages of house planning and fell in love with the fabric (it also makes up the long luscious drapes behind the chair). Rosemary did some research and found the exact match but in a cheaper knock off. Anyway, for  a second I thought we would use it for drapes in the living room but then we realized that the cleaner look with the wicker shades was better. Right?

(Funny thing is the little spotted Rosemary pillow on the right chair is almost the exact fabric of the one on the magazine chair.)

But I really wanted to use it somewhere...

And this is it! I ordered the fabric (from Calico Corners) and Rosemary is going to sow drapes for the blue room/pastry shop/music studio/Linda's creative headquarters. It's gonna look gagagagaga amazing. We still have a lot of painting to do and a floor to lay but it's fun to jump ahead and get started on detailing.

Oh and since I already ruined my reputation of brassy punk broad...

(then)

and have now become someone who orders things from places called Country Curtains I might as well show you the fabric that is becoming drapes for upstairs. Don't get me wrong - it's gorgeous and THANK YOU to Rosemary AGAIN!!!  and will make the bedroom look GREAT but we may have to throw in some token skull ornaments or an Iron Maiden poster to balance it all out. 

I'm mostly joking of course - I want all this beauty and I want it now. 

Let there be light! And soup.

I'm making a pit stop in Clintondale between random midwestern gigs. Cleveland was lovely. Worked on a commercial for a brand new hospital. I love shooting in hospitals because we can roll our gear everywhere and the elevators are BIG. We also tried the best of Cleveland dining and ate at Michael Symon's Lola's. Holy guacamole. Sam, Niki and I did it up with oysters, deep fried bone marrow and Asian style pork belly as appetizers. My entree was smoked Berkshire pork chops on top of cheesy polenta. The desert - mini donuts and cinnamon hot chocolate and mini french toast with bacon ice cream. Fun as a novelty but in the end, you got bacon and you got ice cream and they should never really be together. The rest of the meal - out-frikkin-standing. So everything that was made GOOD by fasting was made BAD by this meal. And it was worth every calorie.

Next week I head to Milwaukee with Lisa Rinzler to help shoot B roll for a new Alex Gibney documentary. I'm excited to be a part of this VERY important project.

My favorite thing to eat in Mexico was Sopa Azteca. Catering served it a couple of times and whenever we had dinner at our Zapatista coop this is what I ordered. Of course I had to learn how to make it! Turns out I needed some special ingredients but it also turns out I got a super special Mexican grocery near the apartment, Tehuitzingo. Most importantly - dried Guajillo chiles and Epazote leaves.

So with everything in  place I made yesterday my Sopa Azteca day.

I roasted 2 big tomatoes in the oven. Just made a little cross hatch on the bottom and poured some olive oil over them and put them in the oven for about 1/2 hour at 350 degrees. Meanwhile I chopped 1 small white onion and 2 garlic cloves and placed in the blender. I also softened 2 Guajillo chiles in warm water. Once they were soft I used scissors to open them up. Deseeded, deveined them, clipped them into small pieces and put in the blender. Once the tomatoes were nice and soft I took them out of the oven, peeled the skin off and deseeded them. They also go in the blender. I heated up 1 quart of chicken broth. I added a little broth to the blender so it would puree easier and the rest simmered in a separate saucepan. The puree then goes in a sauce pan along with 1 tbsp of corn oil and simmers for 15 minutes. After 15  minutes add the chicken broth and let it simmer for another 15 minutes.

During the 2nd 15 minutes I got my fixins together. There's fried tortilla strips, feta cheese (which should be Oaxacan cheese or queso fresco but a mild feta also works), fried Guajillo strips, crema, which is NOT sour cream, more like creme fraiche and avocado. Other possible fixins are shredded chicken or pork rinds.

I finished off the soup with salt to taste.

I wish I could have stored the flavor of my Chiapan Sopa Azteca experience and compared it to my own making but I think I got real close. Improvements would be fire roasted tomatoes and home made chicken broth.

While I was in Clevetown, our electrician Rene came in and hooked up the electricity in the pastry shop and bedroom. Yes we are sosososos close and it's looking oh so beautiful.

We finally have light by the little porch. In the  back is a little lamp in the box window. Cute cute and cute!

And by the new side entrance.

And this is one of the bathroom fixtures in place.

A test patch of Farrow and Ball's Citron. Very lovely indeed.

It's been a year now with this renovation. We are due for some reflections back in time I think. The J's (to whom we these days refer to as: REALLY?!) started gutting the pastry shop and the new bedroom around this time last year. Around the same time as we spotted our first Robin in the yard!

Last year we had no idea what was going to pop out of the ground come spring time. This time around it will be like seeing old friends. I'm just hoping everything survived the winter. It was the first one for our Hydrangeas, dappled willows and Rhododendrons. 

Our little pink Dogwood is already budding.

So is the Star Magnolia.

The daffodils are on time.

At least the Rhododendrons are looking healthy. 

I've been quiet about the birds lately but that doesn't mean they're not hanging around. We've been feeding them throughout the winter and they've stayed faithful to us. The other morning I saw 5 Lady Cardinals at one time.

There's still a little snow on the ground but it is disappearing quickly. We are very ready for spring. And for our GREEN HOUSE!

¡Fiesta!

Found a Mexican grocery close to our apartment and am so inspired to cook Mexican. Also I'm coming off the fast gradually and I want to make all the things I loooooove. So first up is Guacamole of course. I haven't had it really since Chiapas. Since guac became dinner most nights I needed some time off, but that craving was the first one to really hit me hard after I started eating again. 

Cumin makes all the difference in the best guacamole. 


3 avocados
1 lemon
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
cayenne to taste


2 Roma tomatoes
1 small white onion


I made the chips from store bought corn tortillas, by frying them in vegetable oil, but as soon as I get my hands on some masa harina from Tehuitzingo grocery I'm making my own. 

This Tzotzil woman was an extra in the movie and her business in the scene was to make tortillas. The tortilla press which is next to her is an essential tool and I'm dying to get my hands on one. Maybe Tehuitzingo can help me out there too.

I got to Clintondale last night after a very successful shopping spree at Tehuitzingo. They had all the goodies I was looking for and more! The above picture is of dried Guajillo chiles, an important ingredient in Sopa Azteca which is next weekend's project. I also bought Epazote leaves that go in the soup. They really DO smell like gasoline. 

They even had the crappy candy we had at crafty on the moive. It made me a little sentimental. As difficult and challenging as the The Blue Eyes was, I know I will never do anything like it again. Anyway, so I also got masa harina so I can start making my own tortillas. Until I get a press I will just roll them out by hand. 

And until I make my own I got a nice stack of their tortillas to use. I fried some up today and added to my black bean soup. Turns out this one is a great freezer/defroster. One of the best soups I've made, I think!

The floor wood got delivered this week. It has to sit inside and acclimatize for 2 weeks before installation.

They are 12" yellow pine boards from Willliams lumber. We had a whole shipment of white pine from Ghent in the house for about a week until we realized it just wasn't floor grade. So when we got rid of those boards, we decided to upgrade to yellow pine, which is much harder and better for floors anyway. It has enough color in itself that we will probably get away with just a white wash and then a water based finish.

We had to go to tub school the other weekend. We bought this guy in the summer and were shocked that we got away so cheap. It's a whirlpool by American Standard and we LIKED that it was so simple and small. We are shower people and may indulge twice a year with the jets. So our former contractors prepped for this tub and built a deck. Turns out a drop in tub is never a good idea when you use it mainly for showers. Many leakage possibilities and when water hits the deck it's got nowhere to go. But the deck was built and the floor was laid. Between our plumber Scott, contractors Jake and Brian and James and I we figured out a solution finally. One can purchase a vinyl flange that turns a drop in tub into an alcove tub by creating a seal between the deck and the tub. Only thing is, when using this flange - the tub has to be butted up against the wall. So without moving the plumbing and adding tiles to the floor, Jake and Brian built out the back wall and created a thicker foot wall that will end where the tile ends on the other two walls. It may look a little unorthodox but it will work and we can stay with our little tub.

I picked up the marble for the vanity today too.

The tiles came from Lowes and the backsplash was ordered from Terra Tile and Marble on Route 9. I was impatient (of course) and just laid it out to get an idea. We are getting SO CLOSE!!!

I painted a yellow patch on the bedroom wall and Rosemary is sowing Roman shades. SOOOOOO CLOSE!!!

This coming week I am off to Cleveland on a commercial. We are driving out there and right now that feels a little sucky but I have made really sick trail mix and downloaded some David Sedaris so hopefully it will be an alright ride. And in an interesting turn of events I'm continuing my mid western tour and fly to Wisconsin the week after. Fave DP Lisa Rinzler is shooting a documentary and we are heading out there for some B roll. 

But in between the jobs I'm making a pit stop in Clintondale to make Sopa Azteca. Stay tuned.

All hearts day

We celebrated Valentine's Day or as we call it in Sweden - All Hearts Day, on Sunday.

We treated ourselves to pink Bellinis with peach schnapps instead of the nectar. More fun that way.

And lox bennies with rosemary red potatoes. We all know how to make Hollandaise and that you need to grow a few more limbs to make it. The potatoes were tossed in olive oil and rosemary and roasted in the oven for about 45 minutes.

Writing this is actually torture since I'm on day 5 of a fast and all I want i s FOOOOOOOD. But I feel like a million gazillion bucks, I jump out of bed in the morning ready to go. I really hope I won't go back to my old coffee habits because feeling like this rules!

In case you didn't know, I kinda like this guy and I'm so lucky he's my Valentine! Skål James - here's to another however many years we've been together!

And so for a progress report...

Our very handsome bathroom floor.

The rest of the bathroom is coming together. Jake and Brian put the vanity in place yesterday and built out the shelves on the wall. We utilized a strange little cavity that was there anyway. The marble is ordered for the top of the vanity and we are very close to dropping the tub in place. 

I love this bathroom I love this bathroom!