mirrormirror

Not At All Authentic Thai Green Curry with Butternut Squash

When I give recipes for Italian, French or British food you can assume that they’re at least somewhat authentic, as I’ve lived in all those countries and have some idea how their food is supposed to taste.

The closest I’ve been to Thailand though, is the Thai takeaway at the top of our road, so I make no claims for the authenticity of this dish.  I can however tell you that it is indescribably delicious and actually fits in pretty well with our recent health kick. If you’re actually Thai though, I suggest you turn away now.

I got that basics for this recipe from our favourite jeweller Abigail Percy via a Facebook conversation but have modified it using my own imagination and the instructions from the green curry paste bottle.

INGREDIENTS

(Enough for 2 greedy people + leftovers)

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 medium red onion (sliced)

2 cloves garlic (pressed)

1-2 tbsps Thai green curry paste (or to taste)

1 x 14oz can coconut milk (I used low-fat)

1 x handful cherry tomatoes (halved)

1tbsp brown sugar

1tbsp Thai fish sauce (or to taste)

1/2  a butternut squash peeled and chunked (I used nearly half a large squash and roasted the rest to make BNS risotto later this week – you could also use sweet potato/yams or pumpkin)

1/2 pound peeled uncooked prawns/shrimp

Any other vegetables (I added some mange tout – French beans or baby corn would work well)

1 x bag spinach

Big squeeze of lime juice

Chopped spring onions/scallions and coriander/cilantro to garnish

 

METHOD

Heat the oil in a wok and then gently saute the onion until soft but still retaining some shape.  Add the garlic and curry paste and swoosh around the wok a bit to release the flavours. Add the cherry tomatoes and cook until softened (you may need to turn down the heat for this, so that the curry paste and onions don’t burn).

Add the coconut milk, sugar, fish sauce, bring the broth to the boil and add the butternut squash. Turn down to a simmer (I covered it with a lid) and cook gently until the BNS is softened, about 10 minutes. If you need to add extra liquid you could use chicken stock/broth or water.

When the BNS is cooked through, stir the prawns and the other vegetables (but not the spinach) into the broth. Cover the curry with a thick layer of spinach and top with a generous squeeze of lime. Steam the spinach over the curry for around 3 minutes and then stir it into the sauce.

Garnish with chopped coriander and spring onions.

We ate ours with brown rice (Trader Joe’s does microwaveable pre-cooked brown rice in vacuum packs, which is SO convenient).

And it was incredible.

Wrist Worms

Aren’t these great?  I so need a pair as I get cold sitting at my glass desk (who on earth thought a glass desk would be a good idea?) in winter.  And yes, I should be able to crochet some myself but can’t find a pattern this cute anywhere.

 

Wrist Worms by Sandra Juto are available here

A New Me

Or a post full of SOMETHING. MUST. BE. DONE.

We’ve talked a bit about weight loss before but this time I’m serious. I’ve had enough of being fat and unfit and I want to embarrass myself into doing something about it by blogging about it.

As of this morning I weigh 172lbs (12stone 3lbs)  which is NOT GOOD for someone who’s only 5ft 1ins tall. In fact, as my Wii Fit never fails to delight in reminding me, I am obese.

Here I am this morning in my work out clothes

 

I could win the Olympics for yo-yo dieting and have tried every regime under the sun.  Last year I had some success with Weight Watchers, but have managed to put most of that back on again.  In fact I’m currently nearly at my heaviest weight ever.

This time though I don’t want to count points, or calories or carbs or avoid certain foods. I LOVE food (as you’ve probably worked out) and restricting my eating in any meaningful way always ends up in a big fat fail for me.  I also don’t think I eat that badly – we cook a lot at home, so most of our food isn’t processed; I eat plenty of fruit and veg; and I don’t like the taste of soda or really junky foods.  But I do know I eat too much, and have been known to binge if there’s a pot of ice cream in the house.

Over the last month or so though, I’ve been reading a lot about the science and psychology of overeating (particularly white carbohydrate addiction), so this time I’m going to approach things in a slightly different way.

Based on my reading here are my new weight loss rules.

Paola’s 5 Rules of Weight Loss

1. Do a bit of exercise EVERY day

2. Cut right back on/avoid refined white carbohydrates, fats, salt and artificial crap

3. Eat as much fruit & veg as possible

4. Try to eat slowly and meaningfully

5. Cut back on portion size

We’ll be talking a bit more about each of these elements over the next few weeks and what is working/isn’t working  for me and I might refine these rules along the way. On the 6th of each month I will weigh myself and post up photos so you can see any progress.

I know we’ve been here before, but this time I’m really determined to keep going with it. I also have an added incentive.  Last week week I signed up to do a triathlon at Lake Chelan on July 18th 2010. Since at the moment I can barely run, I am rather daunted by this prospect at the moment, but it really is focusing my mind. And hopefully the long deadline means that I will be a completely different person come July.

Wish me luck!

Oh and coincidentally (since I’ve been planning this post/new regime for quite some time now) Megan Not Martha has just written up a long post on how she managed to lose 25lbs this year using a similar regime. We meet up occasionally to knit, and I can testify that she really does look amazing.

Go Fug Your Room - is this right for Elle Deco?

I don’t usually like to use unknown people for ‘Go Fug Your Room’ – it’s generally far more satisfying to diss celebrities and famous designers - but I have to admit this recent photoshoot in Elle Deco UK  of the New York apartment belonging to Leif Sigersen, a Danish set designer, left me rather befuddled and confused.

Sigersen is described as a collector of ‘weathered vintage pieces and quirky accessories’  who has turned his home into a ‘showcase of stunning displays’.

Or has he?

This looks like a particularly squalid student bedsit. 

Since when does a pile of leather sandals piled up on a rusty radiator equal either interior design or a ‘collection’?

Aren’t kitchens meant to be for cooking? And isn’t this all a little unhygienic?

And who does all the dusting?

I think the plants must have died of depression.

So, I can just about get on board with the restrained colour palette and use of texture, though it’s not exactly my cup of tea; and there are probably some very interesting vintage pieces in with all the old junk and I genuinely think the photography (by Ditte Isager) is delicious and redolent with atmosphere.

I could probably be persuaded to classify this as conceptual art if you asked me nicely, but seriously, does it count as interior design and decor? And if it does would Elle Deco like to come and photograph our basement?

Really interested to hear your thoughts.

poll by twiigs.com

Back with a BANG – on the cover of Ideal Home!

I bet you’re all chewing your nails with anxiety wondering what has happened to mirrormirror recently given that I’ve hardly mentioned it at all over the last few months. (Actually the way sales have been going I reckon you’ve even forgotten it exists).  I’ve hinted at stuff going on behind the scenes but haven’t been able to tell you the full story until now, when I can REVEAL. EVERYTHING. Aren’t you excited?

As you may know I have been running mirrormirror from Seattle with the help of someone back in the UK, who sends out all the orders, deals with customer and journalist queries and generally keeps the show on the road.

At the beginning of the summer my colleague Diane decided that she could no longer fit mirrormirror into a hectic freelancing schedule which increasingly involved lots of week-long business trips to the US (and who can blame her?) so I was casting around to find someone else.

To be perfectly honest I thought the chances of finding a replacement were slim to non-existent.  Most of my friends back in the UK either don’t have the space or have too many work or other commitments to fit mirrormirror in and I was in no position to interview someone I’d never met before for the role.

A vague and sad plan crystallised, involving me running the shop down over the summer, hoping Diane could manage one last Christmas and then transferring everything to the US in the hopes that we’d get our green cards through quick and I could open in the US early in 2010.  And after struggling so hard to keep the shop going through the Minx’s babyhood and our move to Seattle I bet you can imagine how happy this plan made me feel.

Now, I am not a believer in anything very much, but sometimes the world really does move in mysterious ways.  In August this year I hooked up, through the magic of Facebook, with an old college friend and his wife who we’d lost touch with a bit following our move to Seattle.  And it just transpired that said friends had moved to a big house very close to Cambridge where the mirrormirror stock was living, and my friend’s wife was casting around for something to do now that the youngest of her FOUR kids (yes, she is also crazy) is going to pre-school, and said friend’s wife is one of the nicest, most efficient and well-organised people you could ever meet. And bingo! mirrormirror is BACK.

Which is fortunate as today we just got our best bit of press coverage ever.

The Cut Steel Garland by Atelier LZC is featured prominently on the front cover of December’s Ideal Home magazine (see it on the back of the chair in front)

  and also inside

while the Tree of Life is also featured in the same article

Vancouver and Visas and Wearstler and Wanders

Can you believe it’s been three years since we first got our visas for the US?

When we first came out to Seattle we assumed that definitely be back in the UK before our visas ran out. But here we are three years later, happily settled and with no return to Europe in prospect, needing new visas.  You have to leave the country to get them renewed so we’ve driven 150 miles up the freeway to spend a few days in Vancouver. 

Here are a few pics from a gorgeous autumnal walk we went on yesterday in Stanley Park.

And here are a couple of links which might be of interest until I’m back properly in front of a computer (on Friday).

First up Alexandra from A Bit Late is not impressed with Kelly Wearstler’s beach house. While I don’t think I hate it as much as her previous effort (she appears to have given up raiding the British Museum) I’m not sure it has a huge amount to commend it.  I haven’t yet seen the Metropolitan Home feature though.

Also our friend Marcel Wanders has apparently designed a range of Christmas decorations for Target here in the US.  I had high hopes for these as he’s done good stuff before for Habitat in the UK but really, with the exception of the big red, white and silver column candles which I may have to acquire, he was phoning this in without even bothering to switch on the phone. BO-RING.

Harvest

In which I rescue my poor bedraggled little saffron crocuses from a weekend of heavy rain and pick out the saffron stamens.  Take that $25 bottle of saffron from the supermarket!

I think I’ll make risotto.

 

I’ve not yet actually cooked with my home-grown saffron, so if we are all poisoned I’ll make sure someone lets you know…

My Nonna’s Lasagne – Parte Due

I bet all of you already know how to assemble a lasagne and this post will be a like teaching my nonna to suck eggs (ha ha!) but here it is for completeness’ sake.

First up, I always pre-cook the lasagne. I know you can get the ones which you just layer in with your sauces, but I personally can never get those to be quite the right consistency. Here are some lovely fresh lasagne sheets which have been dipped in boiling water until they’re the texture of slippery silk handkerchiefs. I was making a ton here, so I ended up layering the pasta sheets between clean tea towels (you can just see the bottom layer on the left).  By the way, this fabulous teatowel by Tikoli is available from mirrormirror.

Next, I spread a little of the meat ragu over the bottom of my roasting dish and then start layering. First a layer of pasta, then meat sauce, then bechamel and then a couple of handfuls of grated Parmesan cheese (yep, there is cheese in there somewhere). Rinse and repeat four or five times until you’ve used up all your pasta.

My final layer is usually mostly Bechamel, with a bit of meat sauce swirled in for colour and a couple more handfuls of Parmesan cheese.  I then bake in the oven for around an hour at 180 degrees Celsius/350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Serve with plenty of red wine and think of my grandma, who probably learned this from her grandma before her. I love the way that cooking provides such a connection with previous family generations. 

More Nice Mentions

My Charlotte Mann post continues to make the rounds, with mentions by her highness Not Martha, Urban Little House and Butterscotch Sundae. I reckon Charlotte owes me a small doodle by now.

The ever fabulous Shelterrific also picked up on the espaliered apples post.

If you’ve written a post linking either to this blog or the mirrormirror store and I haven’t mentioned you, please let me know.  I like to share the link love.

My Nonna’s Lasagne, Part I - A Tale of Two Sauces

My very first foodie memory comes from when I was about four years old and our Italian relatives were visiting us in London.

One rainy afternoon my nonna decided that she would make ravioli for us all from scratch.  I sat on a chair mesmerised while my nonna mixed dough on the chipped pale yellow formica table and then rolled it out by hand into a huge wafer-thin sheet that covered said table from corner to corner.  She then covered half the dough with little blobs of the filling she’d cooked up earlier and carefully folded the dough over the top. I helped her press the dough around the little blobs of filling and then watched as she cut out the individual ravioli with a little fluted wheel. And then she did the whole thing again (she was cooking for 8 I think) and then she made a sauce.

I remember being amazed that something she had spent all afternoon preparing was then gobbled up in ten minutes flat.  I also remember thinking that nothing I had ever eaten previously had ever tasted so good (thus setting me up for a lifetime of pasta overconsumption).

There is no way I could ever make my nonna’s ravioli, I just don’t have the skill and dexterity she had to roll out a sheet of pasta that thinly, but, via my mother, I have inherited her recipe for lasagne.

Making lasagne the Northern Italian way is a long and painstaking process and it is only cooked on very special occasions. I try and think of it as performance art or something and set aside two cooking sessions to prepare it – one for making the sauces and one for the assembly.

The main difference between this and lasagne I’ve had in the US is in the saucing.  Instead of ricotta, Northern Italians will generally make a bechamel (besciamella) sauce and instead of tomato sauce will use a thick meat ragu.  Here is my grandmother’s recipe. Quantities are unfortunately all rather approximate.

RAGU BOLOGNESE

Finely chop a medium onion, a small carrot, a couple of garlic cloves and some parsley and sweat everything down in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil.  I like to add a couple of heaped tablespoons of chopped pancetta at this stage but that's purely optional. 

Cook until the pancetta is crispy and the onions etc are soft and then add about 2 heaped teaspoons dried oregano and the minced beef (I use 1 pound for a smaller lasagne and 2 pounds for a big roasting dish size).

Brown the meat. Sadly I have experimented a lot with reduced fat mince and can only conclude that full-fat is much, much nicer and makes a more authentic sauce. If you want to make a lower-fat version bulk up the meat with finely chopped mushrooms which are not authentic but delicious – they do turn the sauce a slightly darker brown though.)

When the meat is brown add a couple of tins of chopped tomatoes (I sometimes push it all religiously through a mouli, but mostly I never bother), a couple of bayleaves, salt and pepper, and a slug of any wine you might have open in the fridge. if you’re using a lot of meat, add more tomatoes and wine. Sometimes I add a little sugar if the tomatoes seem to need it.  Bubble the sauce gently for as long as you possibly can, or at least about an hour and a half, with the lid on the pan but open a crack to let the steam escape. It is cooked when little pools of red fat (!!!) appear on the surface.

SALSA BESCIAMELLA

Make a plain roux-based white sauce with around 2 pints of milk – though obviously you need to adjust this according to the size of your lasagne.  The very best lasagnes all have plenty of creamy sauce though. At the end of cooking time, when the sauce should be the same consistency as thick cream, flavour it with salt, pepper and a little grated nutmeg. That is all. Resist the temptation to add cheese at this stage.

Please do not look at my horrible backsplash and kitchen paint colour.  It will change one day, probably some time in the next millenium.

Megan Not Martha is having a more traditionally American lasagne moment over on her blog courtesy of her rather fabulous Baker’s Edge Lasagna Pan.

I can be very pedantic about lasagne (pronounced ‘lasagn-EH’).  It’s never called ‘lasagnA’ in Italy.  The name refers to the actual sheets of pasta and feminine nouns are pluralised with an ‘e’ in Italian.

Fancy Hotel of the Week – Mondrian Miami

I’ve never had much of a desire to go to Miami, but all that changed when I saw this hotel.  I totally adore the whimsy and wit of Marcel Wanders and his masterful use of shape and pattern, though the only thing I have that he’s designed are my gorgeous patterned storage boxes from Habitat.

The Mondrian Miami is still very ‘Miami’ with lots of shiny, lots of heavy columns and lots of huge curly chairs, but it does all look rather fun.

Design details I love include the faces on the walls, the shiny white floors, the layered monochrome patterns, the indoor and outdoor chandeliers,  the strangely curving staircase and the funky modern chairs (not so keen on the faux French antique chairs, but I can see what he’s trying to do).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The World of 100

Or if the world were a village of one hundred people.

Graphic designer Toby Ng has produced a set of 20 posters, each conveying a simple statistic about the state of the world.

 

 

Which I’m finding to be very thought-provoking as I sit at my spanking new computer on my overweight, college-educated butt…

See more stats and realise even more how lucky we all are here.

Psst! Guess Who?

 

Yep, it’s our very favourite diabolical domestic goddess Martha Stewart – looking pretty good we have to admit - in her Mad Men era modelling days. From Tory Burch {via the Bubb Report}.

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Harvest

Or fences that grow apples.

Look what we’ve been picking recently!  Small, perfectly formed, and just the right size for the Minx’s lunchbox.

I first got the idea to use espaliered apple trees as fences when we visited the tulip festival back in 2007 and they’d used them to fence in the car park.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are our two just planted espaliers to the left of the picture below back when the garden was new in August 2007.

That first year they sure did look pretty but the one apple they produced was eaten by our garden squirrel.

This year, however, look what we got.

The extremely cool thing about these espaliers – as you can just about see from the picture above -  is that each of the four branches has a different variety of apple on it.  The Gala and Granny Smith apples in the top picture both came off the same tree.

Cupcake Couture

Our old friends Trophy Cupcakes here in Seattle have been showing off their Halloween cupcake range.

 

They are fabulous and I’m particularly liking their couture outfits from Bella Cupcake Couture. Truly fashion at its finest.

Bella Cupcake Couture makes textile inspired cupcake wrappers which are fabulous for weddings, parties and other special occasions. Utterly sublime.

World’s Most Beautiful Object?

So, this black steel fireplace by French company Focus has apparently been voted the World’s Most Beautiful Object by the Pulchra design competition in Italy.

Thoughts? It’s impressive, but definitely not my most beautiful object (still trying to think what would be though).  And this room is utterly spectacular, though that has more to do with room’s bones than the so-so decor.  

What objects would you nominate?

Pearly Kings and Queens

One of the main things that really drew my eye to the Lulu Guinness spread was the magnificent Pearly Queen of Dalston  wallhanging above the banquette. I love everything about it – its wit, the fact that it’s made of buttons, its quintessential Englishness, the colours – and it seemed like just that sort of thing an expat Londoner would hang over her Seattle sofa.

I even vaguely thought about commissioning one, but it soon became clear from sculptor Ann Carrington’s website that it would be way out of my league – it’s apparently a fairly important piece, purchased by the Rothschild collection in honour of the Queen’s 80th birthday, and doesn’t belong to Lulu Guinness at all, it merely served as the inspiration for her limited edition ‘Stamp Jayne’ handbag (shown to the left of the banquette picture and seemingly no longer available through her shop).

Here it is in more detail

And here are some other works by the artist, both made using thousands of tiny pearl buttons.

 

I wonder, though, if American readers are getting the cultural reference?

Pearly Kings and Queens are the heads of certain families in London’s East End, descended I think from Victorian costermongers (street sellers?) who decorate their black clothes with thousands of tiny buttons and do tons of work for charity.

  

If you like the look then these cushions here are pretty special.

Go Love Your Room? – Lulu Guinness

I’m a little bit on the fence about this one, as it’s a little too romantically girly for my taste, but there’s still a lot to love in Lulu Guinness’ Notting Hill house.

Love the refreshing colours, but there’s too much spindly furniture – which never looks comfortable and wallow-y

 

My least favourite room in the house.  I love her bags, but I’m not a fan of LG’s bedding (it’s from her homewares range) and the mural commissioned from an art student doesn’t redeem things much. And I do wonder who dusts that collection of powder compacts.

First up the bones of the house are superb – the Victorian houses built in Notting Hill are larger and grander than in other parts of London, so the proportions are generally, as in this case, more splendid.

And there’s something about the quality of the light there, I lived in Notting Hill for twelve years and even on gloomy days it always seemed brighter and lighter than the rest of London – something to do with the white coloured houses and the sunset views to the west.  But maybe it was just because I loved living there so much.

But I digress.

I love the eclecticism of the decor, the bold use of colour, the collections of objects which are clearly much loved and personal and the way the whole thing reflects LG’s own quirky feminine but slightly kitsch style. (Is she well known in the US? I haven’t come across her here.  In the UK she is renowned as a handbag designer, but she also designs homewares.)

 

I ADORE the pearly queen wallhanging and her tchotchkes (one of my favourite American words) are mostly fab though wonder how practical it is to have everything lined up behind the banquette like that.

The other interesting aspect is how the house has evolved since it was last photographed in 2001 (seen here on Hidden in France) – LG has kept many of the same pieces but the style is a little more pared down and the colour palette more restrained, with much more use of white.  It’s so refreshing to see a wealthy person who doesn’t throw everything out and start again every few years, but who keeps their house full of familiar, much-loved  treasures.

 

Kitchen 2009

Kitchen 2001

Just loving all the perspex and the black and white

 

I’ve always loved her trademark perfume bottles

What do you think? {All images, by the way, from Living etc}

Seeing Things – the Surreal Line

What I like about art is that sometimes it teaches you to look at things with a different perspective.

In my life I must have spent thousands upon thousands  of hours commuting backwards and forwards on the Tube in London, but never once did I think to look for these surreal juxtapositions of Tube trains/passengers and the huge ad posters which are posted on the other side of tunnels from the platforms.

Genius stuff. By Yusuf Ozkizil.

 

 

 

And now these pictures have got me all nostalgic for the Tube.  Who knew that I would think of those days of being crammed in like sardines with one’s nose stuck in someone’s smelly armpit with such fondness?

Conversations with the Minx

 

As we are driving past Seattle’s baseball and football stadiums

 

Minx: That’s Safeco Field!

Me: Who plays there?

Minx: The baseball.

Me:  And who plays at Qwest Field?

Minx: The Sounders! (We recently went to a game.) We had to sing ‘go home Chelsea’! (Chorus of ‘go home Chelsea’ from the back seat). But there were no girls (the Minx is a keen soccer player).

Me: Who else plays at Qwest Field? (Silence) The Seahawks play at Qwest Field. We haven’t been to see them but they play American football.

Minx: Do they have girls?

Me: No, girls don’t usually play American football.

Minx: Is there nowhere in Seattle that I can go to watch GIRLS?

How do I explain that one?

Packing Tape Art

Feeling inspired to create but can’t afford the materials?

Yes, paints and stuff are expensive, so go and rescue that sad and lonely reel of packing tape you’ve got stuffed in a drawer, pick off the bits of fluff and get to work.

Here’s the sort of thing you could be making.

The above are made from layers of tape stuck to plexiglass with light shining through. 

All images by Mark Khaisman. 

I came across this fabulous art via Flavorpill’s Daily Dose, where my post on Charlotte Mann’s wall art was also featured {via a mention on Fashioncopious.com).  As a result my blog stats have gone through the roof and it’s been fascinating to watch my post go slightly viral, with people blogging about it, linking to it on Facebook, Tweeting it and posting it on other social networking sites.

Such things don’t normally happen round these parts, though I suspect it has slightly more to do with Charlotte Mann’s fabulous art than my sparkling prose.  Anyway, thanks all for the mentions and I do hope Charlotte is getting some nice juicy commissions as result.

Go Fug Your Room – Kelly Wearstler AGAIN

Really my dears, she makes it all too easy.

I know we’ve been through all this before, but Ms W has a new book to promote, so therefore pics of the interior of yet another Hollywood home are doing the rounds (does she actually live in any of these houses?) and it’s the FUGLIEST yet!  Quelle joie!

Ths sad thing is that from the exterior this is a beautiful LA house with a stunning pool, but now you couldn’t pay me to live amongst all this cold, hard, ersatz splendour. Money truly is wasted on some people.

Can anyone explain what I’m missing about this woman?  I would genuinely love to know – at the moment it just looks to me like the Empress has new clothes.

No, she didn’t let her boys scribble on the walls, apparently this is custom-made graffiti-inspired wallpaper. Which is not to say that the boys wouldn’t have done a better job.

Like living in the British Museum, and about as comfortable.

Doesn’t it strike you as a little inconvenient to have to move half a hundredweight of assorted replica statuary every time you want to lay the table?

This is apparently Kelly’s study – such a practical place for a working designer n’est-ce pas? And those chairs would seriously freak me out.

Two further questions strike me. 

- With the zebra skins and the faux decapitated heads, is Kelly channelling Eddie or could Eddie be channelling Kelly? (Though why either of them would wish to is beyond me.)

- And how on earth does a colour scheme of dark blue and dirty brass with some pink scribbles qualify one to write a book about colour (the subject of Kelly’s next magnum opus)?

Oh and for those of you in the UK and elsewhere, Kelly Wearstler is one of the most famous interior decorators in the US.  I kid you not.

Viktor & Rolf – Spring 2010

This post is for all Project Runway contestants (and judges) past and present, who have struggled with the concept of ‘avant garde’.  Viktor & Rolf took saws to densely packed layers of tulle to create walking sculpture and the result is both strangely gorgeous and absolutely riveting.

Wouldn’t you just love to see some super brave starlet walking down the red carpet in one of these? (And she could always sweep the carpet at the same time.)

{via Project Rungay – run there to see more pictures, the runway videos are worth watching}

Go Fug Your Magazine - Lonny Mag

As you know I was never a big fan of Domino -  I’m becoming more American every day, but nothing has come remotely close to replacing the British shelter magazines such as Living etc and Elle Deco in my heart – but I was looking forward to the launch of Lonny, the online magazine brainchild of former Domino Market Editor Michelle Adams and photographer Patrick Cline.

Issue 1 was launched today and I’m afraid you’ll just have to colour me rather disappointed.

First the good news.

- The online reader tool is fantastic – clear, fast and making it very easy to flip between the pages (though it seems strangely old-fashioned to just duplicate a print magazine online – if you can add hyperlinks, for example on the shopping pages, why not just do it?)

- The photographs are aces.

- The styling, though completely not to my taste, is generally excellent.

- There’s lots to read, with plenty of home tours and not too many ads.

The bad news, unfortunately, is that the whole magazine is a celebration of the fussy, over-ornate, grandma’s old knickers style that dominates American interiors magazines and which I’m sure led partially to Domino’s demise.

The front cover is spectacularly meh. I know it doesn’t have to stand out on a newstand, but really couldn’t they do better than this?  If the cover of a magazine is supposed to tell you what a magazine is all about then this says is ‘fussy’ and ‘mumsy’ (do Americans understand what this means? Should I be writing ‘momsy’ instead?), which is not a decorating style I aspire to.

Inside the layout is full of the multiple fancy fonts, strange dotty lines and fussy boxes which we’ve discussed before about American magazines, though it is less busy and better organized that some.

The shopping pages feature some quite spectacularly ugly stuff.

 

The fashion pages are EXECRABLE. I have no words.

And there of course are loads of rooms cluttered with overdecorated repro furniture and table lamps in every direction (what is it with Americans and table lamps?)

Regardez

Table lamps outside? Seriously you guys are OBSESSED.

The one more modern home featured is about as imaginative as a Crate & Barrel catalogue

Even the home of Grace Bonney from Design*Sponge, whose taste I normally quite like, is made to look dull.

Finally our old friend Eddie Ross is back with his special brand of granny style, featuring even more zebra than he had in his New York apartment and a ton of fuss and clutter on every surface (a shame as the bare bones of his country house look absolutely amazing).

The very best news though is that we now have a great new source of ‘Go Fug Your Room’ fodder.  I thereforewish Lonny Magazine many, MANY years of success.

And now, having offended most of the American online decorating establishment, I will go and do some real work.

Get Wood

For the longest time I avoided wooden accessories in the home – they always seemed a bit too rustic and  ‘knit your own yogurt’ and you know that I’m really not that sort of a girl.

But recently wood seems to have become a little more sleek, sophisticated and playful, while still retaining that delightful tactile smoothness and warmth.

Check out this gorgeous coffee table from Habitat in the UK

 

These cute owls (here we go again) from UK designer Matt Pugh

This beautiful walnut cheese board/server from SavedFromAFire  (made from offcuts of wood saved from furniture making, which would otherwise be thrown away or burnt).

 

These stacking rings from Little Sapling Toys who make the most fantastic wooden kids accessories

These wooden iPhone cases from Vers (though I’m not sure how practical pulling your phone in and out would be).

 

and finally, the wooden accessory that revived wood for me, my Jean Pelle candleholder

Versace Spring 2010

I don’t often indulge in fashion here, mostly because I just don’t have the figure for it  - no one out there is designing for short, big-boobed women of a certain age. And thanks to foot problems, it’s also years, despite a congenital passion for shoes, since I indulged in sky high heels.

However, I was blown away by these – my dears, aren’t they gorgeously, divinely, ridiculously fantastic? (Not sure about the peep toe boots though).

 

 

 

Would someone like to buy me the pink booties at top right?  I couldn’t walk more than an inch in them, but all the cotton candy colours and graphic prints mixed with steel and plastic would fit right in here (after we’ve painted the walls) and I could display them on the mantelpiece as a piece of conceptual art or something and pat them lovingly from time to time.

And while you’re buying the shoes, the bag on the left wouldn’t go amiss either. (Oh and by the way, your eyes are not deceiving you, the soles of the shoes are indeed floating away from the heels).

Images via Project Rungay (the best blog in the world) and Obsessed With Shoes.

An App –and Some Owls

How on earth did I live before I had my iPhone?  It seems impossible to even contemplate now, though I still find the touch screen infuriating at times.

Here’s one of my current favourite iPhone apps.

Developed by Seattle photographer Chase Jarvis, The Best Camera allows you to add some cool effects to your iPhone photos and also upload them easily to social networking sites such as Facebook etc.

Here’s an untweaked iPhone photo

and here is the same image tweaked using four different filters – Jewel, Paris, Slate and Candy (there are some more standard filters such as B&W and warm up filters as well). You can also combine several different filters together.  Jarvis has set up a website www.thebestcamera.com where you can upload the images you’ve taken – loads of great pics up there already.

These cute (I have no idea why they’re cute and not scary or ugly, but they are) mama and baby owls come courtesy of a blog reader Bushra who – after our recent owl discussion – emailed me the link for these owls on Etsy.  Which was splendidly timed to arrive just when the Husband was casting about for a birthday present that his baby could give to her mama…

A Couple of Nice Mentions

 

Corine from Hidden In France has gone gaga for Babettes and Freshome has been inspired by the work of Charlotte Mann. Thanks so much for the mentions.

If you’ve mentioned the shop or the blog recently and I haven’t thanked you then do let me know.  I like to share the link love.

Last Drop of Summer

or the final chapter for this year I think in ‘If My Daughter Ever Complains About Her Childhood I Will Refer Her To This Blog’.

 

We spent the weekend at Lake Chelan, about three and a half hours drive from Seattle, high in the Cascade mountains, where the cooler temperate coastal climate of Seattle and its surroundings meets the desert of Eastern Washington. The climate and landscape seemed very Mediterranean and the lake itself reminded me a little of the northern reaches of Lake Garda in Italy, though sadly without the charming jewel-like lakeside towns and delightful Italian restaurants.

Much kayaking and swimming  – in crystal-clear lake and pool – was accomplished and a great time was had by all.  And a good job too, because we got back to find that autumn has finally arrived with a vengeance in Seattle. The words ‘freaking cold’ came to mind this morning.

We’ve got no more weekend trips planned (at least until the end of the month, when the Minx and I need to go to Canada to renew our visas) and I’m relishing the idea of hunkering down a bit with knitting and house stuff – it’s been a long, long, but utterly fabulous summer.

Dead Good

We’ve talked about British furniture company Deadgood before and I’m completely smitten by the cute little ‘Capsule’ sofa and chair they unveiled at 100% Design.

   o

Who are the good independent furniture designers in the US?  I’d love to find stuff like this here, but don’t seem to be able to track it down. (Check out more from 100% Design – oh how I miss it – here)

Update: Just editing to show the comments that have been appearing on my Facebook page….maybe I’m liking this chair a little less now…

3-D Glasses Dress

So, if I were 20 years younger, 20cms taller and er, a heck of a lot thinner, I would SO be buying this dress (and not just for Halloween either)

Made to order by Nicole Lindner. Available here.

Blanket Coverage

 

Delicious eye candy via Decor8 yesterday of the home of photographer Danielle Thompson. More photos of the rest of her home are on her blog, but I was particularly drawn to the pictures of her sofa, which sort of have the vibe I’m aiming at – a smooth modern sofa accessorised with a vibrant granny blanket. And her warm contemporary pastel colour scheme is so wonderful.

I also really like the arrangement she’s created above the sofa. I’m a bit over very frilly frames like these, but love the idea of collecting frames and framing fabrics.

If you’re looking for a easier crochet blanket, check out this simple but beautiful one from Casapinka.  I love its clean modern vibe, crochet can so often look overwrought and fussy.

The Soups of Summer - Gazpacho

 

I know, I know, yesterday was the first day of autumn. 

But I’ve been making a lot of delicious chilled gazpacho this long hot summer and I wanted to share. And anyway, it’s astonishingly still 83F/28C here in Seattle, so it’s still appropriate for Pacific Northwesterners. AND it’s a great use of all the heirloom tomatoes still at the farmers’ market.

The recipe below is one I cobbled up myself from various books and online sources.  I’ve been fiddling with it for years now and can’t remember what my sources were, sorry. I think it’s fairly authentically Spanish though.

Gazpacho

This chilled soup, which is nothing more than a whizzed up salad, is gorgeous when (if) the weather is warm and the tomatoes are juicy.  I quite often make a big pot just for us to eat at home, but it also makes a great starter for a summer dinner party, in which case you may want to add the optional garnishes. Don’t bother making this if you can’t get hold of really delicious, juicy ripe tomatoes – in the US I use heirlooms and in the UK cherries.

You will need to whizz every thing together with a handheld blender. If you don’t have one you’re going to have to do messy things with a food processor or goblet blender. If you don’t have one of those, I really wouldn’t bother making this.

Ingredients

At least a kilo/a couple of pounds of tomatoes (I usually just eyeball this and use ‘a lot’)

½ large cucumber, peeled

2 cloves garlic, peeled

1 small onion, red for preference

½ green pepper (optional, but Anaheims are nice)

2 slices white bread or 8 tablespoons fresh breadcrumbs

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons sherry vinegar (or substitute red or white wine vinegar)

1 big handful parsley sprig

1  large sprig mint

few drops Tabasco (optional)

1 teaspoon tomato ketchup (optional see below)

salt and pepper

FOR OPTIONAL GARNISH:

1 red pepper, chopped into tiny dice

1 green pepper, chopped into tiny dice

1 small red onion, chopped into tiny dice

2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped into tiny dice

Tiny croutons

Method

Unfortunately the tomatoes need to be peeled, which can be a pain if you are using cherry tomatoes. However that is the only hard work you’re going to have to do.

Pour boiling water over your tomatoes, wait for the skins to split and then slip them off. If the skins don’t split give them a helping hand with the point of a sharp knife. Place the peeled tomatoes into your serving bowl. Roughly chop the cucumber, onion (and pepper if using) and add to the tomatoes with the garlic, mint and parsley. Tear up the slices of bread or add the breadcrumbs. I always have a bag of fresh breadcrumbs in the freezer and add them frozen to the soup.

Whizz every thing together with your handheld blender. Add the oil, vinegar, Tabasco and salt and pepper to taste and a teaspoon of tomato ketchup if you think that your tomatoes need it (apparently they do this in Spain, so that’s OK). Stir together and chill in the fridge for at least an hour. Add a few ice cubes if you want to chill it faster.

(Teatowel by Tikoli available from mirrormirror)

Hot Date – Seaplanes and Kayaks

It’s a busy month round here – both the Husband and I have birthdays and it’s also our wedding anniversary - so we decided to both take the day off work and go on ‘hot date’ instead.

Can anyone tell me why we haven’t done this before?  It felt so deliciously naughty and decadent and we didn’t even need a babysitter, just friends who were kind enough to pick the Minx up from school.

Despite the fact that we live close to Seattle’s Lake Union and are constantly buzzed by the seaplanes flying overhead, the Husband had never been on one (I did here, but it’s not quite the same in February), so we decided to book a flight out to Roche Harbor on San Juan Island.

I do keep forgetting what a ridiculously beautiful corner of the world I accidentally ended up in.

Ready for takeoff 

Bye bye Seattle and Mt Rainier

Past Mt Baker

Lunchtime

 

Pretty restaurant

 

Kayaking – we saw seals! (but I wasn’t quick enough with my camera to photograph them)

Autumn is on its way

 

Iles flottantes

Into the sunset

Back towards Rainier

Approaching Seattle

Buzzing the Space Needle 

It’s expensive, but on a beautiful day I can’t recommend this highly enough to anyone living in the Pacific Northwest. It truly was one of the most awesome things I’ve ever done in my life.

Getting Old

It’s my birthday today and Seattle is rewarding me with the most glorious sunny day imaginable.

The long hot summer of 2009 continues its magic, I’ve picked myself some flowers from the garden, and I’m feeling very lazy, very grateful and very content.

Real birthday celebrations are happening tomorrow, so I can spend the day with Minx, and then on Monday both the Husband and I are taking a day off to go on a very exciting hot date, of which more anon.

See you on Tuesday!

Cute antique milk bottle vase is from Casapinka’s fabulous new Etsy store.

Plates with Holes – Andrew Tanner

Not terribly practical if you’re chasing your peas round your plate, but I do like the way these wall plates with holes subvert the whole plate as practical item concept.  And look nice too.

All details of British designer Andrew Tanner’s Silhouette plates are here.

Scribbler on the Wall – Charlotte Mann

Feeling down because you can’t afford the latest must-have chair, your partner is allergic to the cats you love, or the view from your window is less than stellar?

Why not just grab a black marker and paint the things you crave on your white walls instead? That’s what London artist Charlotte Mann does, which has garnered her a spot on the shortlist for the British Design Awards 2009 in the Surface Design of the Year category.

Image of journalist India Knight’s house from October’s Elle Deco

All other images from www.charlottemann.co.uk

Style Guile

Or what makes this work?

Holly over on Decor8 put up a very thought-provoking post recently asking for styling tips and wondering how interiors stylists manage to achieve that sort of perfect lived-in dishevelment which just looks desirable and comfortable rather than messy and cluttered.

I thought it would be fun to take a look at rooms that ‘work’ and see if we could analyse what makes them look so good and try and pick up some styling tips of our own.

This room takes the city of Barcelona as its inspiration and comes from the Habitat-sponsored supplement in October’s Elle Decoration UK.

So, what makes this work?

Colour Editing

- The colour palette used is very limited – just splashes of red, orange and yellow against a white background. A few touches of blue and green are introduced in the kitchen and on the sunburst clock just to stop it all looking too ‘matchy matchy’ (and because I suspect the tiles were a permanent feature the stylist could do nothing about).

The colour values on the other hand are varied, from the dark red chair (and note that half-hidden but important black chair) to the medium values of the yellow and translucent orange and the lightness of the white.

Echoing Shapes

I love it when stylists do this. Look at how the orange rectangles in the windows are echoed by the orange fridge and how the straight lines of this quite boxy room are reflected in the large floor tiles.  Then see how all those edges are softened by circles of the table and round chairs, which are again echoed by the lampshade. And how the rounded corners of the fridge are repeated in the rounded arms of the straight-legged chairs and the gentle curve of the fireplace.

Tchotchkes/Knick Knacks

The funny modern chess set on the table looks a bit incongruous I think, though I can see why something predominantly white, black and boxy was used for the scheme. I love the way they’ve used the beautiful tins that Spanish packaging is famous for but then mixed in some slightly less glamorous packaging with the salt and the teabags so that it looks like a real person might live there (though the salt pot echoes that little canister at the front and the colours of said salt and teabags match perfectly). Varying the heights and sizes of the canisters to the left also gives some visual interest.

I particularly like the artfulness of having front chair a little askew so that it looks like someone has just sipped their drink (note the perfect colour), got up from the chess game, and is lurking just out of shot. Though why this person needs sunglasses to play chess beats me.

Hidden Theme? 

I think the theme here is ‘sun’. That’s certainly what this room makes me think of.  The colours of course are part of it, but also the sunglasses and sunburst clock, the bright yellow daisy-like flowers in the tea cosy and wall art and the shape of the pendant shade say ‘sun’ to me.

What do you think?  Does the room work for you? What other little pleasing tricks do you notice? What could the stylist have done better? Why has the enormous pepperpot shown in the main picture disappeared from the kitchen close-up?

Go Love Your Sofa - Babette

So here are more details of the present I’m planning to make for the new sofa.

This project has been percolating for a long time, ever since my friend Heidi from Peacock Modern showed me the pattern at the beginning of this year. It’s the reason I’ve been teaching myself to crochet and desperately trying to finish my existing big projects (I’m still ploughing through both the blanket and the lace wrap). And I’ve spent the whole summer collecting Koigu KPM sock yarn – picking skeins up cheaply on Ravelry and scouring and stalking online stores for sales and special offers.

Buying everything online has made for mistakes (which I’ve sold on) but also some happy accidents - ‘ugly’ colours such as mustard and burnt orange –which I would never probably have picked up, but which, in the spirit of Noro, I’ve kept on and which I’m hoping will give the whole thing more interest and depth.

Here’s what I’ve collected so far.

And here’s what they’re going to be.

Babette. How I love this funky modern take on the classic granny square blanket. How I’m looking forward to playing with my own colours to create a harmonious whole. How terrified I am of actually crocheting the thing and sewing it together.

 If you too are foolish enough to want to embark on this, the pattern is here, there is a helpful Babette group on Ravelry, and a Flickr gallery full of Babette inspiration.

Go Love Your Room – KenzieKate’s Nursery

I’m always a bit jealous of fabulous nurseries.  For the first year or so of her life when we were in our London flat the Minx slept in with all the mirrormirror stock in our second bedroom – not exactly conducive to beautiful decorating schemes.  Not that she really noticed if the truth be told.

This baby nursery is truly stunning – not many people could pull off a zingy green, yellow, turquoise and red colour scheme but Kenzie Kate of wedding blog ‘Something Old, Something New’ does an incredible job.

 

I think it’s a great idea to do a bright scheme like this, as in my experience most little children are not very fond of pastels and will let you know that in no uncertain terms as soon as they can.  The Minx can be very vociferous on the subject of her dislike for baby pink (though hot pinks and fuchsias are another matter entirely). So this scheme should last for some time.

 

The thing that really pulls this together are all the little homemade touches – the gorgeous mobile, the soft toys, the homemade quilt and art work.  I would give my eye teeth to be that talented a craftsperson.

All details can be found here.  Found via the gorgeous Helen of Countryside Wedding – ex mirrormirror staffer and soon to be yummy mummy herself.

The Golden Years

Or, yet another chapter from ‘If My Daughter Dares Complain About Her Childhood, I Will Refer Her To This Blog’.

This has been a record-breakingly fabulous summer in Seattle and this weekend we headed to the beach to cook sausages and watch the sun go down.

Go Love Your Room - Colour Me Amazed

I was just flicking through the most recent copy of the Elle Deco UK when I came across this house by Dutch designer Carlos Weeber.

I’m not sure I could exactly live with the colour scheme, but it is so refreshing to see an architect using colour – so many seem to be members of the ‘any colour as long as it’s white’ school.

Funnily enough the architect himself is colour-blind, so he works with an artist friend to put the colours together, and yes, the house is in Curacao, where a bright palette like this will fit in more, but still, I wish others were a bit more brave.

 

 

All photos from Elle Decoration UK (Aug 2009)

I apologise for the scanned-in quality of the images.  Of course if Elle Deco got its act together and had a website….

Ta-da!

So here is the new sofa in situ. It is as comfy as hell, IMMENSELY practical, extraordinarily well -made and we are thrilled to bits with it. Thanks Couch Seattle!

You will note that we’ve also taken your advice – you were right of course - and bought a new rug for that end of the room so that the coffee table sits on it correctly and moved the green rug to the dining area. We also moved the green curtains to that end of the room to give a bit of colour and raised the curtain pole so that they hang better and give more of an illusion of height.

 

Things Still To Be Done About Which We Need to Talk

- Paint the walls. I have a completely different colour in mind from the last time we discussed this and am going to get samples this weekend.

- Reframe and move the artwork. Commission or buy huge and expensive piece of art (ha ha! – Ed) or at the very least do SOMETHING with the wall above the sofa.

- Replace (or possibly just paint?) the incredibly ugly door on the left which leads straight out onto the porch.

- Do something about the light fixtures, about which we have still done nothing since last we spoke.

- Crochet the sofa a beautiful present.

- Learn how to style photos better and at least smooth down the cushions on the couch before photographing it. 

There is much to discuss and much to do. But we are getting there slowly.

The weather is supposed to be glorious this weekend which I suspect will be the Seattle summer’s last hurrah. So we are going to go out and PLAY!

Engraved Upon My Heart

 

Like everyone else in the world, I do like a good Moleskine notebook.  Portland-based company Engrave Your Book  produces beautiful reuseable leather Moleskine covers, laser engraved with artwork by up-and-coming artists and graphic designers, including Amy Ruppel.

Aren’t these just fabulous? I might try and get some of these in the shop. Currently available here.

Amy Ruppel for Engrave Your Book 

Jubilee

Isn’t this rather gorge? It doesn’t quite fit into our house decor, and it costs an absolute fortune, but je l’adore, oh yes I do.

To me it sort of sums up Britain in a way - different and edgy, fun and funky, a mish-mash of styles, slightly uncomfortable-looking and with a heart of pure unadulterated old-fashioned chintz.

 

 

Available at the Rug Company, { via Countryside Wedding}

Adventures in Knitting - Knitting the Ocean

The only thing I have really been able to achieve this summer is a ton of knitting.  I was inspired by all the fabulous patterns on Ravelry to embark on a cardigan for myself, the first time I’ve knitted an adult-sized cardigan or sweater since I was at college (more years ago than I care to remember).

This Featherweight Cardigan was a really quick, simple and pleasurable knit, particularly as it was the first thing I’ve made out of yarn dyed by a Seattle-based woman who goes by the name of Sundara.  The woman is a colour genius and I’ve recently been bankrupting the family buying up her limited edition yarns, but the colours, oh the colours are a-maz-ing.  I will blog about her separately as she really is an artist who deserves to be seen by knitters and non-knitters alike.

But I digress. This cardigan was made in Sundara’s soft and sumptuous Fingering Silky Merino in a limited edition colourway ‘Macedonia’ and, with its variegation from dark to light blue with little flecks of pale ‘foam’ on top, it was just knitting up the sea. The photos really don’t do justice to the depth of the blue and how it glows in the sunlight.  Full project details on Ravelry as usual.

These pics were taken by my friend Kassandra at Seattle’s Golden Gardens beach on the last beach day before school started. Our kids are rioting gently somewhere a few yards out of shot.  

While we’re on the subject of rebooting and reclaiming one’s life after the baby years, looking at these pictures I think I also really need to start reclaiming my body – it seems a bit much to be carrying ‘baby weight’ when the baby is nearly five.

I’ve been hampered in my efforts to exercise recently by lack of time and crippling plantar fasciitis -an excruciating pain at the bottom of my foot, which I think has been indirectly caused by twisting my ankle very badly a couple of years ago.  At the moment the best exercise for me appears to be yoga, so I’m committing to doing a bit of yoga (either a class or a video) every day for the rest of September.  I used to do quite a bit of yoga before the Minx was born, and it’s horrible to realise how inflexible I’ve become. 

Separated at Birth?

Or, calling a Spade a Spade

Incredibly fashionable Kate Spade Fall 2009 bag 

Fantastically terrifying decoy owl

{via Making It Lovely and Whorange}  

So, let’s start as we mean to go on shall we?

This bag has been doing the rounds of the blogs in the last day or so. Much as we like an owl motif or two round these parts, and much as I hate to contradict two of my favourite design bloggers, I frankly find this bag both extremely ugly and utterly, bone-chillingly, terrifying.

It reminds me of the ferocious looking plastic decoy owl which you, dear readers, encouraged us to buy, and which was perched on our roof deck for the best part of the summer in an attempt to scare the birds from our cherry tree. I think it worked with the birds – there definitely seemed to be fewer around this year, and it certainly gave me the screaming heebie-jeebies every time I glanced it out of the corner of my eye.

Oh, and if you must buy this bag (and we would encourage you not to) the bag is available here.

We’re off to visit our friends’ cabin in the mountains this Labor Day weekend (oh how painful it is to write ‘Labour’ without a ‘u’ ) so I’ll be back on Tuesday.  Next week we’ll be talking about my new knitted cardigan and the new sofa.  How can you stand the excitement?

Reboot

Here’s the Minx enjoying her idyllic Pacific Northwest summer 

I’ve been waiting for this moment for nearly five years.

Yesterday the Minx went off to kindergarten (for UK readers that’s the equivalent of ‘infant school’) clutching her new Tinkerbell lunchbag in her sticky little mitt and I got my life back.

I fell pregnant with the Minx two months after deciding to start mirrormirror and was seven months pregnant when the website actually launched.  The Minx was three months old when my then business partner decided it wasn’t for her and eighteen months old when we moved lock, stock and barrel to Seattle while continuing the business in the UK.  So really I’ve never been able to work on the business without fitting it round the needs of a tiny child.

And although I’ve had varying amounts of childcare, since the Minx was born I have never before had the unbelievable luxury of five (albeit short) days a week at my disposal, instead of cramming in odds and ends and bits and pieces of work round the childcare.

So there are going to be some big changes round here.

- First up I really want to start developing this blog. Thanks to my diehard readers for sticking with it even when I’ve hardly been updating. I do love writing it though and now I’ll be able to update it at least daily. So stay tuned.

- Next, there are some changes happening with my poor neglected little shop back in the UK.  I’m not quite sure yet how they’re going to pan out, so no news yet, but stuff IS happening behind the scenes.

- Lastly and, most excitingly,  I hope to launch the US version of mirrormirror early next year, depending on when our green card comes through and I can legitimately work out here. Please keep you fingers crossed that it’s soon.

I’ve got tons of other ideas bubbling up, but we’ll start with this stuff for the moment and see how things pan out.  I’ve also got nearly five years of neglected filing and a disastrous email inbox to take care of.

The Desserts of Summer – Lemon Frosted Pistachio Cake

I already wrote about this cake from Nigel Slater’s The Kitchen Diaries when I was also writing the blog A Year of Living Gorgeously, so there’s more cake-y description, links and photos here. 

However the inlaws are in town, so the Minx and I whipped up another cake and I made a few modifications to the original recipe to make a bigger cake, so I’m writing out the full recipe here.

Here’s the cake in its latest incarnation.  Perhaps one day the Minx and I will manage a tasteful version.

 

I have a 23cm cake tin instead of the 22cm one specified in the recipe and used to end up with a slightly flat cake, so I have modified this by ‘adding a little bit more’ to the butter and dry ingredients which seemed to work although they weren’t precisely calculated.  The amounts I used are given below. In order to keep the ratio of dried ingredients to wet similar, I also added one tablespoon of olive oil, which I’ve used before in dense, moist middle-eastern type cakes such as this and which was a super successful addition.

If you want the original recipe for a 22cm tin then there is a link here.

Lemon Frosted Pistachio Cake (from the Kitchen Diaries, with slight modifications)

275g butter

275g Caster (baker’s) sugar

3 eggs

Shelled pistachio nuts 100g

Ground almonds 130g

A large orange

1 tsp rosewater

1tbsp olive oil

75g plain flour

 

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C/Gas 3.  Line the bottom of a non-stick 23cm cake tin with baking parchment.

Cream the butter and sugar in a food mixer until very light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating between each addition. Blitz the pistachios to fine crumbs in a food processor, then add them, with the ground almonds to teh butter an dsugar. Finely grate and squeeze the orange, then stir it in with a the rosewater. lastly fold in the flour with a large metal spoon.

Scoop the mixture into the lined baking tin and bake for fifty minutes (I usually need to add 10-20 mins but start checking at 50) covering the top lightly with foil for the last ten minutes (I never bother). Chek the cake by inserting a metal skewer (I use uncooked spaghetti) into the centre. It should come out fialry clean, without any wet mixture stuck to it. Leave to cool in the tin before running a palette knife around the edge and turning it out.

Decorate with icing made from 200g sieved icing sugar and the juice of 1 lemon.

You all know how much I love my American readers (and er, those in Liberia and Myanmar), but today I really can’t be arsed to translate all the quantities into pounds and ounces.  If must insist on being pretty much the only nation not using metric measures then Google is your friend.

Little Bo Peep

Funnily enough one of the things I miss most about England is sheep.  There is something so very quintessentially English and homey and comforting about a windswept hillside dotted with fluffy white blobs – a sight I don’t think I’ve ever seen in America, the land of the cow.

Lamb here is an exotic meat - tucked into a corner of the supermarket at the end of the huge counters displaying every possible cut of beef, chicken and pork, and viewed with some suspicion.  It’s rarely on the menu in restaurants, I’ve never had it served by American friends in their homes, and a waiter once told me that I may not like a lamb dish because the lamb taste might be ‘too strong’.

Anyway, I like this story, because it is so very English, so very charming and so very sheepy.  Vegetarians may be aghast to note that not only did sheepbreeder Louise Fairburn make her wedding dress from the fleece of her Lincoln Longwool sheep, but she served lamb from her flock to her guests.

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Full article here, {via Rose-Kim Knits}