3 Ring Binder

See? I recycle.

Traveling to New York City in record time again, we were early for even early check-in so we headed down to Chelsea Market in the Chelsea/meat packing district neighborhood. We walked around the crowded but very cool foodie heaven for a little while stopping in the Buon Italia where we ogled the proscuitto , the Manhattan Fruit Exchange where we admired the bin of salsify , and the Bowery Kitchen Supplies where we found specialty bowls that Stephen has coveted but been unable to find anywhere else.  He got excited for a second, but was going to leave them there until I convinced him that fourteen bucks a pop is a small price to pay for realizing a culinary vision. Speaking of culinary vision, we didn’t spy any Food Network personalities even though the studios are in the building, but we did add Morimoto to our list of NYC places to eat for the next Flash Tour. Self-timer on stairs of amphitheatre on the High Line. While we were in the area, we hiked up to the High Line ...

Cutting down a live evergreen, installing it in your house into a heavy duty vase, then embellishing it with little trinkets and lights is just plain weird. Yet, every year we look forward to the piney smell, the sparkling lights, revisiting our favorite ornaments, adding new ornaments, and making little stories up about the goings-on between the little figurines hanging there (if not to the constant watering and needle clean-up). In this one minute look at our efforts and effects, you can see a few of our plastic couples kissing, actual photographs of family, the Christmas puppies looking frightened of the Michael Vick NFL series figurine, and the macabre world of Tim Burton spilling over onto the now headless Felicity of American Girl fame. Except for a few NYC ornaments, our places visited collection seem to be missing among the boxes in the holiday decorating production staging area (aka: the living/dining room). Then there are the casualties. Two years ago, BOOM! Our lovely ...

1. Snow. Finally. Last night, while we decorated gingerbread cookies, we were treated to the sight of a lovely winter wonderland out of our back windows. We had to get out in it and stop the snow action with flash (in this photo I am sporting the magic scarf   and ever-popular Seussian Santa hat). 2. Red Delicious. This holiday season’s cocktail of choice . The red delicious is another Danny Meyer concoction straight out of last year's Mix Shake Stir : apple brandy, apple liqueur, apple cider, crème de cassis, lemon juice, cinnamon sugar rim, star anise garnish. It is as lovely to look at as it is delightful to drink. (Hint for entertaining: I divided the shaker contents into two and used small martini glasses.  A perfect potent potable present.) 3. Good ideas. Good work. Upon seeing some cute glitter paintings at the American Textile History Museum   last week, I was struck by how reminiscent the paintings were of costumes from the Nutcracker. Having a...

Streaking the streets Daubing the yards Highlighting the trees Coating the roofs A palette of white, Opalescent in day, Without animating light, Turns shades of gray.

Warm-up Scour every inch of 25 acre tree farm for the perfect tree, count RTR (rejected tree reps). Once found, take as many pictures of people you love in front of said tree. Try to exceed last year’s number. Strength Saw through tree trunk for time.   For added agility trial, don’t yell timber , see who gets clobbered and who can move like lightning.   Wrap and carry tree to car (men). Try to maneuver through stump-filled field without breaking ankle (women). Drag tree into house, throw in stand, screw the crap out of the four rusty stand screws into the stem for stability. Blizzard Wrap each child's new ornament with care and different color organza ribbon. Pull out all ornaments collected over twenty-eight years, hand-made and mass-marketed, handling all as if completely valuable. Using all your strength of character, pass out to children in equally metered fashion admiring each appropriately for time. Open new ornaments. Find schedule for tree-top angel placement withi...

A different take on that delightful Anne Taintor style. (via Bad Banana Blog )

I started last night, but today has been the big wrapping day. At first you may be tempted to say, if you don’t know how to wrap a box, make a bow, or craft a gift tote already, it’s too late, lady . I freely admit the videos are pretty lame, but even we seasoned veterans can use a tip or two to improve our wrapping skills. And we did! Better creases, folding to edge, flattened lightly wired ribbon. (Ignore the man on the left.) Make little gift bags out of topical magazine images (e.g. food magazines for little homemade sweets). If you don’t own it already, you should so you can play it while you wrap: my favorite Christmas rapping.   Or, you can listen to this beautiful music and study the cello hold: one of my essential wrapping moves. (Sometimes I do wish I had a prehensile tail.) I need to remember this earlier next year . I hope all your holiday plans are wrapping up beautifully.

Last night I had the cocktail party that I’ve been working on since I got the book, Mix Shake Stir , out of the library in November.   Apparently, I was working on the idea of the cocktail party (sharing fabulous holiday drinks with friends) more than the execution of the cocktail party.   The gleaming glassware, festive lights, roaring (but non-smelly gas fireplace) fire, cedar candles, George Winston playing Vince Guaraldi’s Linus & Lucy music wafting through the air, fancy clothes (beads, fur, wraps, fuzzy socks, Christmas bulb earrings, and goggles) were no match for my lack of actual immediate availability of drinks!   You see, I have rules. As my objective for the evening was to share my new found enthusiasm and information about different cocktails, my plan was to make one of each of the seven drinks in the offing and have the ladies pick straws.   There were no short straws, only straws in ten different colors (apparently straws are another thi...

This is a small, but not insignificant method of floor cleaning around here.  Think about that the next time "5 Second Rule" pops into your head at my house.

These women could be my new best friends. Ladies United for the Preservation of the Endangered Cocktail (LUPEC): [A] classic cocktail society dedicated to breeding, raising, and releasing nearly extinct drinks into the wild (a.k.a. Boston-area bars and restaurants.) Founded in February 2007 by Misty Kalkofen and nine fellow cocktail enthusiasts, LUPEC Boston is the city’s first and only female-oriented cocktail society. The ladies of LUPEC Boston meet once a month to sample delicious cocktail creations from a bygone era, and educate themselves about the important and nearly forgotten forebroads who sipped them.   And did I mention they blog! (That’s where I got that bit from). How about the alter-egos? Did I mention those? I find this all quite interesting – and in my own backyard, no less. From the Boston Globe’s article: The women get together at least once a month to talk about how cocktails and spirits have played a role in history and feminism. Per LUPEC’s bylaws, these...

Go tell it on the mountain, Over the hills and ev-er-y where. Go tell it on the mountain, That the Objectivist Round Up is here . That last line takes a little getting used to, but it's worth it. (Nice suggestion, Jenn) This is how I imagine it sounding (but with the appropriate words):

[I wrote this on December 23, 2008. I’m sharing it today – December 15, 2009 – the day I print, cut, fold, stuff, stick, and mail about 80 cards and 50 newsletters.   Last year, I had them all out by the first week of December.   To date, we’ve gotten 4 cards. But I’m not bitter.   Because of electronic media I can know more than I ever wanted to know about my friends’ lives; but I just can’t touch electronic images, my daughters can’t fight over who gets to open the next email, we can’t put .jpg files on the tree for family to peruse. I'm sad to notice the decline in this lovely tradition of sending Christmas Cards.] This is a topic about which I had previously given little thought: the number of Christmas cards sent out vs. the number of Christmas cards received. This year, we ran a scant 33% return!   In retrospect, I think we usually run a good 75% return on these lovely little year-end missives, so I was a little shocked not only by the low numbers, but t...

It's still not quite right, but the cleaner buildings are much better looking than my first attempt .  There is no real pop of color, just grays and desaturated tones, so that bit of delight is missing. My daughters are both in front of the tree and in the carriage, so there is some magic. It's one of two images I will be printing on the "you choose" foldng card because the relatives and some of the children insist that we actually be able to see their faces.  I like my Christmas missives to be a little interactive. Sadly, there is no matching game on the newsletter this year.

I wanted to update you on the last three Holiday Cocktail experiments: the Guilty Kilt, the Ginger-Tonic, and the Pomegranate Gimlet. The Guilty Kilt was moved up from the Honorable Mention category to the must-have cocktail.   Now I know that some of you will be shocked and awed that on the first night we actually used the single-malt Scotch in the mix when it called for blended Scotch whisky, but I loved it !   It was sweet and smoky, and just plain yummy. Odder still, Stephen loved it! This is odd because until that night, he hadn’t had any alcohol other than wine – ever!   And he only started drinking wine in his 30s!   So, you can imagine my surprise to find him shaking one up every night since then!   He moved on to the blended Scotch whisky, but n amed the one with the single-malt the Big Catholic Guilty Kilt.   The second drink I tested was the long awaited Ginger Tonic: the non-gin drinkers gin drink.   Yeah. It was okay .   I rea...

Now before you’re all impressed by my pursuit of the perfect holiday cocktails and the incredibly glamorous life I must lead in order to embark on such an endeavor, I’m here to set the record straight:   I take my charge quite seriously.   And I take my credit card charges quite seriously.   But . . . it’s all good. Okay, it’s not really all good. Some of the drinks have been duds, but it has been good, as well as really fun, learning about the different types, blends, and taste combinations of alcoholic beverages so I can share some lovely holiday spirits with my friends. Most of you probably know a lot about your favorite beer, wine, and spirits.   However, with the exception of a few experiments in college – including the time my roommate and I made our own Kahlua during which I came dangerously close to losing my eyebrows probably trying to kick an imaginary crash cymbal while boiling vodka – I knew nothing about spirits.    I could drink...

After a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day yesterday, I found something to smile about at the local nursery's Christmas gift shop. When I looked at this scene of little trinkets under a Christmas tree display,       I immediately saw a child’s Christmas wish for a dog. I thought it was strange to have something so concrete among the "hope","peace", and "believe" abstract set, so I did a double take.  Even though it took me a only second to realize that it was just “hope” upside down and not a partially obscured "a dog", I was delighted by my interpretation for an appreciable moment. Sometimes that’s all you get. Sometimes that’s all it takes.