tastespotted: desserts with less guilt
clockwise from left:
chocolate financiers at smitten kitchen / rose bakery carrot cake at big city little kitchen / carrot cake at elana’s pantry
in the hopes of finding out more about what caused the demise of tastespotting, i’ve been doing google blog news searches daily. not much surfaced over the weekend aside from the obvious: tastespotting is no more and there were some legal issues involved that no one seems to know anything about. then yesterday morning there were proclamations of “tastespotting is dead, long live foodgawker.”
it appears that someone spent the tastespottingless weekend hacking a wordpress blog to fill the void. foodgawker doesn’t have as clever of a name, and the design is pretty crude, but it has all the pretty food pictures and links to great recipes that tastespotting had. yay! i’m tempted to offer a few hours of my time to them to refine the design a bit, but i don’t want to step on any toes over there because i appreciate the work they’ve done. a lot.
last week i stumbled upon a recipe smitten kitchen posted for gluten-free girl’s gluten-free chocolate financiers. they are officially my new favourite chocolate treat: super rich, chewy on the inside and crisp on the outside… they’re like 2 bite brownies but better and with less guilt. and then this morning i found a recipe for gluten-free carrot cake through foodgawker, and like the financiers it calls for almond flour. i have to try it out. the frosting recipe included is vegan though and calls for a cup and a half of coconut oil, which is just AWFUL for you. so i’ll try out the carrot cake recipe minus the frosting, and will report back on whether it compares with the rose bakery version. i’m convinced that the rose bakery carrot cake is the best in the world. ever. and with 9 carrots called for in the recipe, i can almost convince myself that it’s alright to eat this cake for dinner. i made it for my brother and his fiancé a few months ago and now they want it for their wedding cake, but with marzipan icing, and not the amazing cream cheese frosting that the recipe calls for.
wolf, bear, wolverine, kitten
here is one of the projects that’s kept me busy the past little while. my friend leeroy asked me to help out with album art for a side-project he’s been working on. it’s a combo of scratchboard and photoshop and it came out like the black-velvet meets spirit animal t-shirt image i had in mind. it doesn’t hurt that i love the music leeroy and his friends tim easton and evan phillips have worked on together. leeroy has a new album coming out soon too, and i just got some photos so i can get to work on the artwork for that. leeroy is pretty awesome.
here’s one of his songs off this first easton stagger phillips record, and you can hear more on their myspace page if you’re interested. click on the play button below to stream it, or the link to download.
mp3: easton stagger phillips - “stormy”
the kitten is sleeping right next to me again. today bowie the dog got over her apprehensions and decided to follow kitty everywhere, tail wagging. sunday has been hissing and growling a bit less today than she has been so far, so i think she’s on her way to getting over the insult and injustice of our new little addition.
i got a lot of great names (mabel, flossie, holly, laurel) and not some so great names (lady deathstrike, laboneefa). natch, i can’t name her cat, because my old cat who at 19 passed away last year was named kat — katmandu actually! i know a lot of people re-use pet names, but to me it would feel like i was looking for a replacement, and that’s not what this kitten is.
i also still really like the name sailor… but hans was not included in my decision to get a new kitten, and since he doesn’t like the name sailor it’s just not going to happen! despite more than a couple people telling me that it’s a stripper, or erotic thriller character’s name, we decided that she’s a penny. pennelope if she’s naughty, and penn for short, or pennypennpenn because it’s fun to say. in closing, here’s a super cute video of the kitten being super cute:
cute overload
there’s a tiny kitten squeeking in my ear and climbing all over me at the moment. i couldn’t help myself… she is now sleeping on my shoulder. hans wasn’t thrilled by my impulse but i can tell that he’s been trying to keep from smiling every time the kitten does something cute, which is pretty much every 30 seconds.
i went to vancouver island to visit my family over the weekend, and brought my friend åsa along. no sooner had we gotten our bags out of the car than my dad came walking very quickly out of the garden to say “the deer that you can pet is back. you want to meet him?” i asked him how he knew it was the same deer to which he replied “because i just pet him.”
we can’t figure out why this little deer has no fear of us, or where his momma is, but he comes to my parents place like clockwork every afternoon and he likes apples. he’s been very good about eating the weeds, while leaving the plants in the garden be, so his visits are very welcome all around. and how cute?!
i thought i would name the kitten sailor so i could come home and say “hello sailor”. but hans doesn’t think that’s a good name for a girl kitten, so now we’re thinking about naming her penny, but we’re taking suggestions.
more later, or tomorrow. i’ve been so busy the last several weeks that i’ve really let the posting slide. seriously though, what happened to tastespotting?
oh my god
what happened to tastespotting?!
notcot, what good are all the pretty things if there’s no food?
damn you!
scott walker and rob calder of the salteens run into their very old friend mark monnone of the lucksmiths at an architecture in helsinki show at sxsw 2007. i wouldn’t damn them, would you?
have you ever noticed that as soon as you get back from the post office you have a notice that the mail man tried to deliver something while you were out and now you have to go back to the post office to pick it up? i got a notice that my baggu bags were ready for pick up and was super excited… mint, lavender, peacock… oooh, ahhh. but then i turned the notice around and saw that i owe an extra $35.39 on pick-up. my order came to $65 and change with shipping included, and being asked to pay an extra 50% mark-up on delivery? to reference scott walker of the salteens, that’s tantamount to extortion! damn you baggu for not giving your good neighbours to the north the heads up that we’ll be gouged if we order your beautiful, functional, perfect products. on my arrival at the post office i found out i actually had 2 parcels waiting for me, and the second was my white dogwood cake stand, creamer and sugar from the wonderful and talented whitney smith. yay!
damn you canada post, revenue canada, customs canada and whatever other bullshit bureaucratic organization that decided it would be a good idea to charge me $35.39 on an order of $65 including shipping for cloth bags i bought to help save the environment for handmade arts and crafts. thanks government of canada for flipping the finger at my attempts to be a environmentally conscience citizen buy handmade and local in the eyes of NAFTA. damn you and your pensions and benefits packages, each and every last one of you, damn you all. now i have to fill out paper work and wait for the slow wheels of bureaucracy to turn so i can get my refund.
despite the customs fee, and the fact that some guy in the shipping department at baggu (who i suppose i also have to damn) sent me the wrong order, it was a good mail day because i also got my built by wendy patterns. yay!!
photos of my awesome cake stand will be posted as soon as i have time to make a cake.
mp3: the salteens - “damn you”
mp3: the lucksmiths - “sleep well”
no flash photography
i took this photo last year. she still looks the same… like a fruit bat.
i just tried to take a photo of my dog. it’s late in the afternoon so our apartment is dark, and bowie is black so i flicked on the flash. as soon as the flash popped up, bowie turned her head to the side and started licking her lips. we learned from our dog trainer a couple of years ago that these are “calming signals” and that dogs do these things to try to avoid situations they’re uncomfortable with. bowie apparently hates flash photography. i don’t blame her. it’s not flattering, and you always blink. i tried to take a couple of photos anyway, and she got up from her bed and took a few steps and rolled over on her back. thank god i put the camera away before she peed all over the place in the ultimate act of submission. so bowie really hates flash, and i got no decent photos. i really wanted to post about dog collars! i’m going to do it anyway…
hans wants to get a new more feminine collar for bowie who is always mistaken as a boy dog. i put my foot down at the pet store and refused to let him buy the pink camo one. i still love her current green wagwear collar, but hans doesn’t because he seems to think it falls off randomly for no apparent reason. probably not the best thing to have happen when out on a walk. see, bowie’s kind of crazy. dog people call it “unsocialized” and basically it means that she doesn’t much like other dogs and is weary of strangers, but most of all she hates erratic behaviour and this is a problem for in our neighbourhood because there’s a lot of crazy around these parts.
clockwise from left:
mimi green “matilda” set available through etsy
our current wagwear fisherman collar that bowie keeps slipping out of
nicole’s dog murray’s paw and pattern collar
when bowie first came home with us i got a super pretty leash and matching martingale collar from an ebay seller called dit la fille. i have spent the past couple of years hoping to find a new dit la fille set but it seems that she’s gone out of business, or changed her name, or who knows what. long and short of it is that i have to give up on that idea. not so long ago nicole from making it lovely brought home a new puppy, and she got him a super cute collar that’s really similar to the dit la fille ones. they’re from paw and pattern and they’re offering a 15% discount to making it lovely readers and you can read about that here. then yesterday i was reading lori’s post on pretty little things and she got a new collar for her boston, matilda, from etsy seller mimi green. i love them both, but also still love the collar that unfortunately keeps falling off. i am torn. i’m sure that you’re all just riveted by my dog collar post and on the edge of your seats wondering “which collar will erin choose?!” stay tuned.
in other completely unrelated news, has anyone seen the new weezer album cover? what the crap is that about?
cotton brain
i bought the large print on the left and am hopeful i won’t butcher it with my remedial sewing skills.
do you ever feel like your brain has been replaced with cotton wool, and that your eyes have been turned into parched raisins? why does this happen? it’s such a gross feeling. i slept well and i am not dehydrated, so what gives? i am certainly not feeling creative, so my monday has not been a productive one.
dear leslie, this would look so great in your nursery. please buy it so i can live vicariously through your baby.
i spent the better part of my sunday obsessing over nani iro fabrics. every 6 months or so nani iro is the cause of a completely and utterly wasted day. take a look at these flickr photos for examples of the beautiful things people have made with the kokka line. they are all so ridiculously pretty and i want to buy every single pattern and colourway available, but i can’t seem to find them in vancouver.
i have a huge aversion to buying anything over $30 online, unless it’s handmade in north america. otherwise i inevitably get dinged with a huge customs duty on delivery and it spoils what should really feel like a little christmas. so i have been looking longingly at nani iro prints at repro depot and purl but haven’t been able to take the plunge and buy them. i refuse to pay the government what seems like a 30% tariff on top of what i already think would be a bit of a splurge. damn you canada!
i think i’ll have to buy rain blossom rain in pink and clover in grey for the built by wendy summer dresses i have to find time to make. the clover print doesn’t look very grey though, does it?
i did buy myself 2 really cute built by wendy patterns this morning (3835 and 3964). simplicity has them on sale for about half-off, and i think they’ll be perfect for summertime. and because i couldn’t help myself, i bought 1.5 yards of one of my favourite nani iro prints through pattycake’s etsy shop and hopefully that will be enough to make a blouse. if anyone in vancouver knows where i can get some pretty kokka prints in town and not online please, please let me know. other than that, i will just have to content myself with the plain ol’, unprinted linens and cotton chambreys i can find at dressew. rough life.
update: i just realized that the reason my head feels like it’s going to shrivel up and fall off is because of allergies. my eyeballs could not feel any worse.
the scarlet letter
i have been fighting off a migraine for the better part of the day. it’s hans’ birthday on friday and i had to go out to pick up his gift and the daylight was more than i could bare. i came home, took a ton of tylenol and crawled into bed with all the lights off. after a couple of hours i was able to finish reading a book my mum had loaned me. she gave it to me a couple of months ago but i’d put off reading it because… well… i’m a snob i guess. remember how a few posts back i admitted to reading the other boleyn girl and how i find it embarrassing to read books that have been made into movies? i also find it embarrassing to read books that are part of oprah’s book club. i actively sought out a copy of anna karenina that didn’t have the O seal of approval stamped on its cover because i felt like it was a scarlet letter capable of dumbing down even tolstoy. i’m not saying that i think oprah is dumb, i just think that maybe her book club is. so there you have it: i am a snob, but this book was fantastic and i devoured it. read the cotton queen. ignore the O.
ps. i hated anna karenina. the character, not the book.
it’s a plastic, fantastic world
this earth day i made my second bulk baggu bag order of the year. they have new colours for spring!
clockwise from left: baggu bags / eco bags reusable produce bags / sigg water bottles
my parents are the 2 most well-travelled people i have ever met, and barring a chance encounter with the lonely planet guy, that’s probably not going to change any time soon. i got into a long argument with them over the weekend about their anemic costco tomatoes in plastic containers. it seemed like every item in their fridge, even the whole foods, was in a plastic container. my mum always has a costco flat of bottled water in the back of her SUV and she argues it’s the only time she really drinks water. nevermind that they are on a well and she can get what is probably the healthiest, best tasting water on earth right out of her tap. she’s convinced that water out of a plastic bottle tastes better and is better for you. it’s infuriating and it’s all just so wasteful, and she knows it. they don’t even feel like they’re being wasteful because they know that they recycle their plastics, and that the slate-look roof on their house is largely made of recycled plastics, so they don’t see a problem in having 3 garbage bags full of plastic for the recycling guy to pick up every other week. like the rest of the world they seem to have forgotten that the first 2 Rs are reduce and reuse and that just recycling isn’t good enough. the trouble with being so well travelled is that it’s made my parents so cynical that they feel justified in their wastefulness. they think that reducing their waste would be a pointless drop in the bucket. they see all the people in the developing nations of the world who toss their plastics into the ocean as the real problem. i find their outlook disillusioned and apathetic and they think mine is naive and idealistic.
when i was in kindergarten there was a big tree next to the playground that was full of tent caterpillars. i saw a group of kids jumping up and down, squashing them for no reason and i yelled at them to stop. they circled around me and taunted me with my new nickname “little miss nature, little miss nature, little miss nature.” that didn’t seem so horribly insulting to me. as a little girl i was really holier than thou. at 6 i yelled at a little boy for throwing his styrofoam cup into the fire and told him that he just released CFCs that would make the hole in the ozone layer bigger. it’s no wonder earth day is so focussed on little kids. they have a much more black and white sense of right and wrong, and god knows they’re annoying to live with if you do something they think you shouldn’t be doing. this earth day i noticed a cartoon on youtube teaching kids about the eastern garbage patch, something i doubt more than a handful of their parents have ever heard of. even little miss nature hadn’t heard of it until last year.
from left: a large entanglement of debris found off the coast of Hawaii from algalita.org / water sampled from the gyre
when i first heard about the eastern garbage patch i was horrified. discovered in 1997 by captain charles moore, the garbage patch, gyre or garbage island is in the middle of nowhere — 7 days by boat off the coast of california — yet this area twice the size of the state of texas contains more plastic than plankton by an average ratio of 6 to 1. in some areas there is 1000x more plastic than plankton. degraded into tiny pieces, this plastic acts like a toxic sponge, and this plastic full of toxins known to cause obesity, infertility and worse enters the food chain when accidentally and unavoidably ingested by marine life. hans and i spent an evening drinking red wine, scaring ourselves with the things we read and saw. cleaning up the ocean isn’t as simple as taking out a few boats to collect garbage. most of the plastic is like confetti; the gyre is a toxic snowglobe. all that we can do is keep it from getting worse, so fueled by wine and good intentions we swore to not buy plastics anymore. well that’s easier said than done isn’t it? have you ever tried to find basic essentials like dental floss, toothpaste or shampoo that aren’t packaged in plastic? i don’t think it can be done! even consumers with the best intentions can’t get away from plastic.
while i know that my parents are right that most of the plastic floating around out there is from southeast asia, i also know that these are the countries that are manufacturing our products and that we in the west are continuing to fuel this wastefulness. if we refuse to buy products wrapped in plastic would it make a difference? would companies be forced to change if it made no financial sense to continue manufacturing and packaging everything in plastic? i know that america is the most wasteful, all-consuming country in the world. if america changed would it make any difference if china and india with their incredible populations and desire to have all the riches of the west do not? i’ve seen the photos from my parents’ trips — the beaches in taiwan that look like landfills — i get it. i understand that the only way we’ll be able to save earth is by causing change in the second and third world through education. i just don’t think that excuses a total lack of change among us westerners. why should anyone else change if we, the supposedly educated and wealthy can’t be bothered to?
great produce bags available from etsy sellers bag green and lime bean home
hans and i bought baggu bags for everyone in our families at christmas. my mum’s birthday is in a couple of weeks and guess what? she’s getting more baggu bags, and a sigg water bottle too. i think she could learn to love the taste of water without the hint of plastic she seems to love so much. if she’s lucky i might even get her some re-useable produce bags from reusablebags.com or etsy. i might not be cute anymore, but i can still be really annoying to live with.
captain moore sets out on several research expeditions each year and a blog chronicles each voyage daily. vice magazine’s VBS.com is on day 10 of their 12 part series “garbage island”, filmed during moore’s 3 week long research expedition last september. most of the mini-episodes are dumbed down in true vice style, but i think this one is a good snap shot of these “journalists” realizing the scope of the problem:
mushroom soup for the digestively impaired
i had a craving for mushroom soup last night. it’s such a comfort food, but like most comfort foods it’s not so healthy. like clam chowder, the more cream the more delicious. (un)lucky for me, i have to steer clear of anything with a lot of fat and/or cream because it makes me double over with stabbing stomach pains about a half hour after i’ve enjoyed it. so last night i decided to improvise and use what i had on hand to make the best dairy-free, low-fat mushroom soup i could. it sounds really exciting i know. remember that kid you went to school with whose mom would make the sugar free birthday cakes? it’s not like that, i promise.
mushroom soup for the digestively impaired
2 dozen crimini or button mushrooms
1 large white or yellow onion
1 large cauliflower
1 tsp. thyme
1/2 c. dry white wine (or white balsalmic if you don’t want or have wine)
6 c. chicken or vegetable stock
salt and pepper to taste, and i added crushed red chilies because i like spice
add 2-3 good glugs of extra virgin olive oil to a large soup pot. add your sliced mushrooms and leave them be for a few minutes, then give them a stir and leave them be again. while these are browning, dice your onion and chop your cauliflower. once they’ve turned golden and are cooked to your liking remove them from the pot and save them for later. add your onion and thyme to the pot and sauté until transparent. add the wine to the pot to deglaze, and then add your cauliflower and vegetable stock. cook uncovered until the cauliflower is cooked through and soft. now you blend. if you have an inversion blender you’re in luck, but if you’re like me you’ll have purée your soup in batches with your blender. return puréed soup to the pot and season with salt and pepper to taste, and then add your mushrooms. heat through and serve.
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