(Video link here.) We were happy to see clever Snoopy pulling out a folding ping-pong table for his Thanksgiving crowd (along with an assortment of mismatched chairs). Covered with a cloth or kraft paper, nobody would know the difference.
He isn’t the only one cobbling together a table. It’s a yearly scramble for many people around the holidays. Our strategy: a bunch of little tables placed in such a way as to make a perfect base of a 4′ x 8′ sheet of plywood ( or two if necessary), which can be used for projects later on. Sawhorses also make great, flexible bases.
Recently, Lynne Rosetto Kasper of public radio’s The Splendid Table asked Sally to come up with some ideas for decorating the holiday table. (On December 21st, you can listen to a packed 6 or so minutes of ideas). Sally went right to her local farmer’s market to “forage” for visually beautiful, of-the-season items she could put right on the table, to create an instant still-lifes in lieu of, or in combination with, flowers. For Thanksgiving, she found fragrant quinces (above), apples and tiny seckel pears. The secret of their charm: Sally carefully picks through the crates to find fruits with their leaves still attached which evoke farms and orchards… (After the meal, they can be roasted or braised.)
And playing on an idea we posted some time ago of flower-and-vegetable arrangements, Sally plunked single radishes with their leaves in glass beakers and vases, for a suprising vegetal bouquet: read more…
Inspired by designer Pamela Hovland‘s hand-drawn place settings, we’ve just ordered a 48″ x 200′ roll of kraft paper ($26!) for the holidays. Pamela unrolls a long swath of paper to act as a tablecloth, then draws each persons place setting, with their name, right on it (taking care of seating arrangements in one fell swoop). At the end of the meal, she hands out pens so that guests can write on each others “plate”, like a high school year book — at Christmas, they write the imaginary gift they would give.
In the days after the party, Pamela cuts out the plates, attaches mailing labels and sends them to each guest, so they’ll have big memories of the wonderful day. read more…
With Thanksgiving soon upon us, the debate about whether to brine or not-to-brine the turkey before roasting rages on. We’ve long been a fan of brining, having found it the foolproof method for insuring a moist, well-seasoned bird. Until recently, when two things made us question our belief.
Yesterday, on Serious Eats’ Food Lab we read a very long post documenting the wonderfully-obsessive J. Kenji López-Alt exploring and testing our brining works like a scientist. AND in Canal House Cooks Every Day, the swell prize in our current book giveaway, we read Christopher Hirscheimer and Melissa Hamilton’s use of the dry-brine technique — simply salting the bird 3 days ahead — pioneered by chef Judy Rogers in her great Zuni Cafe Cookbook.
We trust Christopher and Melissa’s sensibility SO much that we’re publishing the recipe below. read more…
We’ve long been fans of Canal House Cooking, the groundbreaking cookbook series created and published by Christopher Hirscheimer and Melissa Hamilton. We are totally smitten with their latest effort: Canal House Cooks Every Day, a bright red, 385-page tome documenting a year of cooking from Canal House, based on their popular daily lunch blog. The book offers many levels of pleasure: great REAL do-able recipes by two women who cook for themselves daily, evocative photographs and illustrations AND a no-nonsense, simplepleasure-centric philosophy of cooking. Perfect. Check out a preview here.
We’ll be giving away a copy to the lucky winner of a random drawing (see details below). read more…
The kid in us demands that we celebrate Halloween despite all that’s happened recently, even if it’s only in our imagination.
Speaking of our inner children, here’s Saturday Night Live’s Stuart Smalley’s crazy-funny Halloween affirmations (video link here — turn the sound off while you wait out the ad): read more…
Yesterday had us jumping all over the web checking out reports of Hurricane Sandy, including the startling report on Manny Howard‘s startling FB page about a Brooklyn chicken coop being mauled by the storm. (As you may remember from My Empire of Dirt: How One Man Turned His Big-City Backyard into a Farm, Manny’s fledgling chicken coop was obliterated by a tornado that picked it as its place to land in Brooklyn.)
While we were poking around Manny’s page we came across this photo of the aftermath of an al fresco dinner party — Manny is the master of fabulous impromptu, out-of-control parties. We post it as a relief from the dire reports of Sandy’s havoc and a reminder of other days to come, of ease and joy.
There’s a movement afoot to change Columbus Day to Explorer’s Day. First, because Columbus didn’t really discover America (it was explored by MANY before him). And second because America has always been about exploring; it is a country of explorers. Maggie Koerth-Baker at Boing-Boing says it eloquently:
….exploration is inclusive. The ancestors of Native Hawaiians were explorers who crossed the ocean. The ancestors of Native Americans explored their way across the Bering land bridge and then explored two whole continents. If you look at the history of America, you can see a history of exploration done by many different people, from many different backgrounds. Sometimes we’re talking about literal, physical exploration. Other times, the exploring is done in a lab. Or in space. But the point is clear: This country was built on explorers. And it needs explorers for the future.
Being explorers of all sorts, we’re going ahead an celebrating Explorer’s Day today.
We were knocked out by the insanely colorful streetscape made by a Lebanese team of artists/designers, known as dihzahyners, in Beirut.
We imagined how the the worst and bleakest urban neighborhoods we’ve traveled through would be TRANSFORMED by color. All it takes is paint, vision, collective effort: read more…
These balloons bearing the message “Sorry I am such an asshole” are meant as a slightly humorous and generous apology. They made us think of how great it would be to be able to buy balloons with all sorts of messages beyond, “Happy Birthday” or “Congratulations!” or “Get well,” like: read more…
It’s lonely being a writer. Sometimes I go for days without seeing another human being except my husband or the barista at the local coffee bar. When I’m deep into a book project, I try to remain focused. My phone calls with friends are, “Can I call you back? I’m in the middle of searching for the right adjective.”
Although some days, I send an email to my friend Rick that goes something like this, “I don’t know how much more of this I can take. My client in Chicago is driving me bonkers. And my feet are burning from stomping out ten other fires. Meet for cocktails at 6? Signed, Miserable in Manhattan.”
Rick responds, “You betcha. I’ve been testing recipes for a diet book since 5 a.m. and writing a book proposal for a supermarket chain. Heading out to buy more groceries for testing. Later.”
At precisely 6 p.m., as I’m pouring some cold vodka into a glass and adding some olives and olive juice, the phone rings. When I pick up, I hear Rick’s voice and the clink of ice cubes going into a glass on the other end of the line. Time for our ritual end-of-the-day phone cocktails: Phone-tails. read more…
In case you haven’t been able to get away enough this summer, here’s a couple of lovely little slices of it, of being truly AWAY:
The first via Beatriz da Costa from her vacation in Brittany. The second, via Logcabineer: ”A light summer rain”, brings sitting on a porch at twilight right to your door. read more…
(Video link here). Our recent balloon post about how wonderful it felt to let balloons go (and make a wish) created quite an uproar. It seems we hadn’t considered the environmental impact of balloons – especially the foil kind – on the environment, so we redacted it and tried to impart some semblence of fair-and-unbiased reporting into the mix. Even though we haven’t done deep enough research to know if latex balloons properly filled with helium and without ribbons pose a dire environmental risk, we’re stearing clear of sending balloons into the atmosphere, in case.
One reader had a suggestion: “tissue wishing papers that when lit on fire float into the air until they disappear into tiny bits of ash. My friends and I let the birthday person wish on one and send it soaring.” We googled “wishing papers” and came up with “sky lanterns“. They are purportedly biodegradable lanterns are made out of rice paper, non-toxic wax and bamboo. Their wax “fuel cell” is essentially a candle which when lit, creates air currents that cause the paper lantern to fly into the air, as much as a mile high.read more…
UPDATE: After we published the post below, about giving balloons to grownups so they can experience “setting them free”, we got a number of comments alerting us to the dangers balloons pose to birds, wildlife and the environment. Charmed by balloons, we confess to having been completely naive about these harsh realities, which you can read about here. As we discovered when a reader freaked out about a post about shipping pallets, many of the dangers were overblown and the issues often more complex than stated, so we posted essential info. Our research indicates that Mylar balloons pose the worst environmental danger as they are basically foil and nylon; old-fashioned balloons are normally made of latex and are biodegradable. Numbers vary wildly as to how much wildlife is actually hurt or killed by latex balloons. There is some research that indicates that latex balloons, fully inflated and without any strings or ribbons attached, tend to shatter into tiny pieces at high atmospheres (about 5 miles); the fragments drop to earth to biodegrade . All that being said, we prefer to err on the side of safety, and have redacted our post:
A friend recently sent us an unusual birthday gift: a huge gaggle of classic, brightly colored helium balloons. What was unusual was the idea she had for them:
Remember when you were a kid and you accidentally let a balloon go, and you’d watch it, heart-broken, rise into the air? The balloon escaped, was set free, to ride the currents and seek its fortune as it were. I thought it might be fun to let one go here and there – or all of them – intentionally, and feel the freedom of watching them fly.
Inspired idea THAT IS POTENTIALLY REALLY BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT.
The balloons, powerfully heliumed, arrived with a note that read:
“Happy Birthday, With all our love. (Not to be used for travel.)”
($26!) for the holidays. Pamela unrolls a long swath of paper to act as a tablecloth, then draws each persons place setting, with their name, right on it (taking care of seating arrangements in one fell swoop). At the end of the meal, she hands out pens so that guests can write on each others “plate”, like a high school year book — at Christmas, they write the imaginary gift they would give.
, the swell prize in 
, the groundbreaking cookbook series created and published by Christopher Hirscheimer and Melissa Hamilton. We are totally smitten with their latest effort: 
, Manny’s fledgling chicken coop was obliterated by a tornado that picked it as its place to land in Brooklyn.)
. They are purportedly biodegradable lanterns are made out of rice paper, non-toxic wax and bamboo. Their wax “fuel cell” is essentially a candle which when lit, creates air currents that cause the paper lantern to fly into the air, as much as a mile high. 
