Moms with Scarves from Cool Mom
Moms with Scarves
Happy Mother’s Day
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Simply Enchanting
The most interesting thing about this photo is how enchanted those two guys are with the one on the steps and how enchanted she is with whatever she’s holding in her hands, oh, and the fact that I forgot to paint that top step when I painted the rest of the porch. Guess who’s going to be out there with a paintbrush very soon?
Frozen Mango Margarita
Frozen Mango Margarita from Ellie Krieger at Food Network.
Warm weather will arrive, eventually, and when it does, I’m going to whip up this frothy, fruity, high-antioxidant, low-sugar concoction, grab a good book, find a shady spot, prop up my feet and sip away. When you follow the recipe link (up there), don’t forget to check out the video.
Tip: If you don’t have superfine sugar, just put some sugar in a food processor and spine it around a few times. Voilà, you have super-fine sugar.
Hitler’s Food Taster
“Margot Woelk kept her secret hidden from the world, even from her husband. Then, a few months after her 95th birthday, she revealed the truth about her wartime role: Adolf Hitler’s food taster.
Woelk, then in her mid-twenties, spent two and a half years as one of 15 young women who sampled Hitler’s food to make sure it wasn’t poisoned before it was served to the Nazi leader in his “Wolf’s Lair,”" [continue]
Canadian astronaut wrings out a washcloth in space
What I Did This Week
That title sounds like those essays our english teachers made us write on the first day of school: What I Did Last Summer. I was a weird kid who loved to write essays on any topic. Once I wrote a three page poem, translating Beowulf into modern, hip lingo (um, hip isn’t even hip anymore, is it?). Anyway, it was the sixties so I doubt its ‘hip’ now. I wouldn’t know because my teacher kept it. She must be long gone by now, and so is my cutting edge version of Beowulf. I’m sure the world can go on.
It was gorgeous here this week – in the eighties and nineties – and the humidity was very low. The mornings were so beautiful. I wish I could bottle it and bring it out in July when the thermometer reads 102° and the humidity is 90%.
It was perfect weather for painting. I love to paint and especially on such beautiful mornings, but I do wish our porch railing would hold its paint.
I’m not sure what they did when they built our porch/deck, but my guess is that they painted the pressure-treated wood while it was still fresh and possibly damp. They probably didn’t get good paint adhesion, and as a result it pops and peels and cracks in certain places every year. Herm replaced the bench seat, and we don’t have the same problem with it now, even though it’s a flat surface and receives a lot of weather.
After we finished painting, I propped up my feet and relaxed with an audio book until the sun caught up with me. It was heaven!
We won’t have much shade back there until the crepe myrtle leafs out. And since we committed crepe murder last year, I’m not confident of how much shade there will be this summer. We could live to regret our impulsive decision to whack it back. It was a beautiful tree, but it outgrew its spot and was scraping against the house and roof, and Herman was tired of dealing with it. I can’t blame him. When we bought it, the tag claimed it would only grow twelve to fifteen feet. It was at least twenty-five feet and still growing.
This is a bloom on our camellia shrub. The light was just right.
The only blemish on several days of the sweetest mornings and softest breezes and perfect temperatures happened when our new neighbor came out to power wash his house and tuned into Rush Limbaugh. He turned the volume so high that the entire neighborhood could hear, which was probably his intention. Gotta luv the burbs.
How to Make Crème Fraîche
Image: Home Made Happy
A few weeks ago, my husband asked me how to make Crème Fraîche. I’ve never made it from scratch so I looked around for a recipe. How hard could this be? Well, it’s even easier than I thought it would be. Easy as falling off a log is an apt description. With only a quick, little search, I found Home Made Happy and a simple recipe with beautiful photos.
I found a slightly different recipe for Crème Fraîche at Serious Eats.
Once you’ve made your homemade Crème Fraîche, you’ll find oodles of ways to use it.
Smoked Salmon-Dijon Creme Fraiche Canapes Recipe photo by Taste of Home
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How about a swirl of Crème Fraîche on your Maple Butternut Squash Soup?
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How about a dollop on Summer Berries?
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Salmon with Wasabi-Crème Fraîche
And here’s a video showing how easy it is to make Crème Fraîche.
