homemade IS best

Images from IKEA's new cookbook Hambakat är Bäst (Homemade is Best,) styled by Evelina Bratell and photographed by Carl Kleiner. The amount of each ingrediant was carefully measured out and arranged in a sleekly graphic but fun way, much like IKEA's furniture. (Disclaimer: I love IKEA. And did a senior project on them.)

Sadly, while free, the cookbook is only available in the kitchen section of IKEA stores.
In Sweden.

Originally found on Snoop, then spotted all over the blogosphere.

quick pic: staircase

[Stairs with reclaimed frames, by Stuart Haygarth]

Found on Re-Nest.

eat at edo's

I meant to share these yummy images from Edo's Squid, a great place on the second floor of 411 N Harrison St. Not a secret to Richmonders, but it definitely feels like a secret while you're trying to find it, either in person or on the web. (Anyone know if there is a website?) Once inside, it's not overly formal. Go on the early side and you'll see families. It's right in the midle of VCU, but you see lots of non-students here and far fewer obvious students (though if I were a grad student, this is where I'd take my dates.)

The food? Amazing. Super delicious pasta, nothing outrageous, but just solidly good. I hope to go back very soon. Roommate trip?

two sugars, please

I love these teacup bracelets from Abigail MaryRose Clark. She calls them "Nostalgic Jewellery Using Reclaimed Objects" which I think is apt. She also takes wonderful pictures that really help sell her jewelry. If you want one, you'll have to wait though. On her Etsy, it reads:

"Due to extremely high demand of my Teacup Bracelets I will be unable to list any new items until October. I am a one woman team and making as much as I can. Please, please, please come back and have a browse as there will be hundreds of wonderful items listed."

Originally found on Ready-Made: Off the Rack. Buy here. More images on facebook here.

recipe: vegan basil and roasted tomato pasta

Again, a recipe of sorts that isn't really a recipe. But a great summer dish, nonetheless. I made enough basil pesto for about 3 batches of pesto and froze some of it. I left it vegan because I've heard it freezes better that way.

To make pesto:
Toast 1/2 cup pine nuts. Take one batch of basil, washed and desteamed. Stuff the food processor full and glug some extra virgin olive oil around it. Toss in a few tablespoons of toasted pine nuts. Grind it all up. Add more basil/oil/pine nuts until you get the right consistency. Salt and pepper to taste, trust yourself on this one.

To make the pasta:
Set water on to boil. Slice yellow cherry tomatoes in half, mix with tablespoon of olive oil, lightly salt. Broil in oven for about 10 minutes, checking until slightly wilted. Boil pasta, strain. Toss pasta, tomatos and pesto together.

I don't think the tomato pesto combo needs cheese, but feel free to add some on top. Making the pesto took me about 15 minutes, start to finish. (Including dropping the first set of pine nuts on the floor. Avoid that, it's expensive.) The rest takes the amount of time to boil the pasta. So quick and easy!

from the blogs to the stores

I just wanted to say a quick THANK YOU to all the bloggers who have been showing per:cent jewelry love lately. Two amazing Richmond women have featured my jewelry. I'm excited to be spending more of my *spare* (ha. hahaha.) time on the jewelry side of things and am working to slowly turn it into slightly more than a hobby.

Check out my coverage by Modern Atlier (Georgeae on Twitter), a perfumer and blogger, and RVA Fashionista (Twitter) who, well obviously, is quite the fashionista.

I also did my first ever craft show this past weekend. Two friends helped me get the courage to go, and I'm so glad I did! So a thank you to PipMalloy and Tiggie Smalls- both who have awesome items if small etsy shops. Pictures from the craft show are below. I'm still working on a sweet setup to display my jewelry, I think the table was super crowded.





Lastly, I don't think I've blogged about it but I'm now being carried at the Blue Elephant (Twitter) a wonderful new consignment furnishings and home decor store that is hard at work supporting local artists. The Blue Elephant is located at 425 Strawberry Street. Closed Monday, you can get your shopping on Tuesday-Friday 10:00am-6:00pm, Saturdays 10:00am-7:00pm and Sundays 12:00pm-5:00pm.

favorite things: alexander mcqueen

Gilt.com has Alexander McQueen on sale today. I still can't come close to affording any of it- and even if I could, where would I wear it? My favorites:





There are some slightly more wear-able pieces (though not more affordable) but I love how fun yet elegant these pieces are. I'm not sure if these are designed by McQueen or by his label posthumously.

i'm having fun now

I love Jenny Lewis. I fell in love with her as part of Rilo Kiley and was first ecstatic when she released Rabbit Fur Coat with the Watson Twins and then when she collaborated with Jack White on Acid Tongue. When I saw she was going on tour to promote her newest band/album, a collaboration with her boyfriend Jonathan Rice. But getting to the show was not as easy as I thought. The show sold out super quickly, while I was in the mountains without internet, so I had to track down tickets on Craigslist. By posting that I was looking for tickets early, I secured them without too much hassle.

So day of the show, I hopped in my car and headed to DC. One of my tires had been low earlier in the week, but I re-inflated it with my roommate's compressor, and for the past couple days it had been good to go. Sadly, around Potomac Mills Mall, that changed. My tire blew.

Thank god for AAA. The tow truck driver hooked up my car to the truck and was driving it safely off the road to where he could help change the tire. I guess I look tense because he asked if I was alright. Not wanting to go into the whole story of how I was sad I may miss this super amazing concert, I just said I was frustrated. "No use getting frustrated. Especially not out here. Getting frustrated is no good. Get on the road frustrated and bad things happen," he told me. Words to live (and drive safely) by.

Despite being set back an hour, we still made it to the show fine. We missed most of the opener but the last few songs that they played didn't make me regret that one bit. I was there more for Jenny Lewis in particularly, and it was obvious the crowd was too. Jenny and Johnny played most the songs on their album but the crowd definitely got loudest on the few Jenny Lewis songs (all from Acid Tongue, in keeping with the more fun/rock sound they have.)

[So cute! And Jenny Lewis is so talented!]

The coolest part of the show was when Jenny brought four girls on stage to sing backup in "Acid Tongue" along with Johnny. Sadly, I can find any video of that online, though I did find a sweet video of them singing "The Next Messiah" at The Black Cat. Jenny asked Johnny to name the chorus, and he definitely lost points in my (and the crowd's) book by naming them the "Don't Quit Your Day Job Chorus." The guy in front of me immediately yelled something along the lines of "You aren't famous anyway."

[These girls must have been so freakin' excited]

That one incident didn't ruin the show, however, and I'm definitely considering going to see them in Charlottesville next month. Any takers?

picked a peck of pickled...

How much is a peck? According to Wikipedia, a peck is an "imperial and US customary unit of dry volume, equivalent in each of these systems to 2 gallons, 8 dry quarts, or 16 dry pints. Two pecks make a kenning (obsolete), and four pecks make a bushel." I'm not sure the difference in a "dry quart" versus a wet quart or other types of quart.

But, this weekend I made roughly 16 pints of pickles. 6 half pint jars of pickle chips, 2 pint jars pickle spears, 3 quart jars pickle spears (with some extra chips thrown in), plus 2 quart jars of pickled carrots that I'm very excited to try.

For the pickles, I love dill pickles so I used a variation on this. We were out of whole peppercorns, I so used 1/2 tablespoon ground white pepper and 3/4 tablespoon ground black pepper. Plus a generous shake of cardamon seeds. And then followed the recipe, estimating on the dill per jar.

By the time I got to the carrots, I was tired. I had a large bag of local carrots and wanted to pickle them but didn't have a recipe. I google searched and found a few then improvised.

I kept the 2 1/2 cup vinegar to 5 cup water ratio, not bothering to empty out the saucepan so it still had the dregs of the pickle mix. I added 1/2 cup sugar, more ground mustard and salt (1 tbsp each.) It smelled pretty good so I'm hopeful. Washed and peeled the carrots, cut the thicker ones in half and trimmed the ends, then poured the pickling mixture over top.

I canned them all in a hot water bath, though a few tipped over so I pulled them out early and stuck them in fridge to each sooner. I'm not sad about that, since I haven't broken into most of my canning goods so it will be nice to enjoy these pickles soon. In fact, I canned them on Saturday so they are ready today- I may have some tonight!

favorite things: high design cfls

Environmental awareness+design thinking=Plumen 001 light bulb
Currently only available in Europe, however.

Originally found on Re-Nest. Plumen.com.

labor day weekend review

It took me a long time to recover from this weekend of relaxing, hiking, family, craft fair, thrifting and bluegrass. What a wonderful weekend!

[screech owl]

[craft fair]

[blue ridge mountains]

[thrifting favorites- glass bottles, books and hats]

[bluegrass in downtown charlottesville]