Feel the Love

I love you. You know who you are. And I am making you chocolate fondue later.

Card available in my Etsy shop.

More Stickers

I've been busy making more stickers from old magazine images . . . I really love how different patterns show up in the butterfly shapes. Each is random, different, and pretty. These are my latest available for sale in my Etsy shop.

My grandmother, being the pack rat and farm gal that she is, gave me a bunch of her seed catalogs, so look for lots of floral butterflies soon!

Custom Thank You Notes

This weekend I finished a custom order. The bride-to-be requested my "Thank you, my deer" cards in her wedding colors, red and aqua. Love the cheerful color story! I bet the wedding will be smashing.

If you have a custom request, please feel free to email me.

Rustic Cabbage Soup

I made this last week (the recipe is originally from the site 101 Cookbooks and can be found here). It's perfect for a cold New England evening. And if you skip the sprinkling of Parmesan cheese, it's vegan!

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
a big pinch of salt
1/2 pound potatoes, skin on, cut 1/4-inch pieces
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 large yellow onion, thinly sliced
5 cups stock
1 1/2 cups white beans, precooked or canned (drained & rinsed well)
1/2 medium cabbage, cored and sliced into 1/4-inch ribbons
more good-quality extra-virgin olive oil for drizzling
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, freshly grated

Warm the olive oil in a large thick-bottomed pot over medium-high heat. Stir in the salt and potatoes. Cover and cook until they are a bit tender and starting to brown a bit, about 5 minutes - it's o.k. to uncover to stir a couple times. Stir in the garlic and onion and cook for another minute or two. Add the stock and the beans and bring the pot to a simmer. Stir in the cabbage and cook for a couple more minutes, until the cabbage softens up a bit. Now adjust the seasoning - getting the seasoning right is important or your soup will taste flat and uninteresting. Taste and add more salt if needed, the amount of salt you will need to add will depend on how salty your stock is (varying widely between brands, homemade, etc)...

Serve drizzled with a bit of olive oil and a generous dusting of cheese.

Serves 4.

I Love You, Ira Glass

I drove to Vermont this weekend to see my cousin and his new bride, who had flown in from Tibet (yes, I said Tibet). It was a long drive and I love the sparseness this time of year . . . literally the only colors I saw were white, brown, black, and gray. It was the perfect chance to let my mind stop it's running monologue, enjoy the scenery, and catch up on some old episodes of This American Life.

I love driving and crafting to This American Life because their thematic format keeps me entertained without obnoxious, loud, or intrusive. It's good humored, gentle, and cerebral all at the same time.

I highly recommend the August 2007 episode "Break-Up" (available in the archives) with Valentine's Day on the horizon. It's cringe-inducing. Not to spoil anything, but one of the contributors writes a break-up song and shares it with Phil Collins. Hilarious and genius.