Gooooood Morning Vietnam Wallet

If you've been within earshot of me any time within the last six months, chances are you've heard me yammering on about the trip I'm about to embark on. Next week I'm headed to Southeast Asia to visit some friends and will spend 3 1/2 weeks traveling in Vietnam, Thailand, and Borneo.

One could say I enjoy planning. A lot. I tend to get fixated on and consumed by these things I'm organizing, and even start planning trips that will occur after the one I'm about to take. (Colorado this summer, anyone?) So it's not surprising that my planning works its influence into my other projects (which also require planning). Hence, the travel wallet. I actually made this for my friend, who I'll be meeting up with in Borneo. See you soon, Linds! You'll have a wallet for the last week of your 3-month trip. How convenient. I am so good at planning.

I found the project in a book called Sew & Stow, which features some really great ideas for bags, wallets, and other organization-focused items. I've reached a point in my seamstress journey that I'm really excited about: I can improvise and the result doesn't look completely bush league. In this instance, I added some fusible interfacing, and instead of using bias tape around the edges, I sort of made my own by folding and pressing some material that I used for the inside of the wallet. I also included a zippered pocket, and velcro! Which was referred to in the book as "hook and loop fastener," which confused the hell out of me until I gave in and googled. I'm still working on stitching straight and making sure things line up, but am really pleased about how the basics are becoming easier, and my ability to troubleshoot has improved. Or started to exist.

I take off for Vietnam on Thursday, and get back March 8th. Eeeee! It's all suddenly very real. I'm going to do my best to post some updates from the road, and look forward to sharing some stories about the street food and the markets and the... street food! And hopefully won't have any anecdotes about getting dysentery and being airlifted back to the U.S. or bribing my way out of a Thai prison. Ha! Just kidding Mom. That stuff never happens. Really.

Wish me luck!

Sins of the fork.

In a move that I'm sure will deeply bewilder my family, I recently emerged from 21 days of self-imposed dietary restrictions. After an especially gluttonous holiday, (who am I kidding, it was 3 months of food-related transgressions) I was in need of some hardcore detox. Pants were snug, energy levels were low, and my face seemed... poofy. So for about 3 weeks, I slowly took away food groups that were living like renegades at the bottom of my very naughty food pyramid. Week One saw the omission of meat and caffeine. Week Two I took away dairy and sugar. (Gasp!) And week three saw a half-assed attempt at eliminating gluten. I lasted about 36 hours.

It's true, for about two weeks I was a sort-of-vegan, and then some. I put rice milk on gluten-free cereal. I ate a shitload of spinach. I said no to donuts, avoided tacos and passed on my beloved Stumptown brew, opting for tea, instead. Tea that tastes like grass. That means it's healthy. (Dear God, it better be healthy.)

Eating in this way takes some careful planning (and a lot of self-loathing) and at the start there were about three food items in my house that fit the criteria of my new plan. I blew the dust off my Moosewood cookbook, and planned myself some veggie-heavy, meat-free, nondairy meals. And surprisingly, they didn't taste like... veggie-heavy, meat-free, nondairy meals.

Of them, the tastiest surprise was this Cajun Skillet Beans recipe. I was so impressed, it's earned a spot in my regular roster. (Recipe below.)

I ended my little food experiment this week, and even though I don't harbor plans to become a full-time vegan, I'm far more conscientious about what it is that I'm shoving into my face. It was a much needed reboot, that provided some valuable perspective. I'm happy to report that my average scone-per-day quota has fallen dramatically, and I think twice about eating a block of aged Gouda for dinner. I think I might be turning into... a grown up. One who's out to show her metabolism who's boss.

Cajun Skillet Beans (adapted from the previously mentioned Moosewood cookbook.)

1 onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 T olive oil
3 celery stalks, chopped
2 red bell peppers, chopped
1/2 t dried thyme
1 t dried basil
1/2 t dried oregono
1/4 t ground black pepper
pinch of cayenne
pinch of salt
2 cups chopped tomatoes
2 T honey
1 T Dijon mustard
4 cups black-eyed peas (two 16-oz cans)
chopped green onions

In your biggest skillet, saute the onions and garlic in the oil over medium heat. Chop the celery and bell peppers, add them to the pan. Cook for another 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the thyme, basil, oregano, pepper, cayenne and salt. Cover and cook for 5 minutes, until the onions are golden. Add the tomatoes, honey, and mustard, and simmer 5 more minutes. Add the beans, cover, and stir occasionally until thoroughly heated, about 10 minutes. Top with the green onions. I served it over rice, but honestly, it's just as good without it.

It's official. I'm a seamstress!

I have a tendency to enthusiastically decide to learn a new skill, become obsessed with the new skill, then fail to fully cultivate said skill. Take for instance the web design course I took this fall. Here we are, six months later, and I have yet to build and relocate this blog to the Wordpress site of my dreams. And my college minor in German. Oh, and that grant writing class. I've written tons of grants. That's a lie.

But this instance, I've outsmarted my own tendencies, and followed through. After months of messing around with aprons, and totes and curtain hems, I hereby proclaim that I have graduated from Sewing 101, and have achieved intermediate status. Behold, the purse:

This masterpiece combined a variety of elements that I'd never encountered: like fusible interfacing. You should have seen the look I got at the snooty fabric shop when I asked about it. Well, snooty fabric ladies, look at my adorable fricking purse. That's what I thought. I also inserted my first magnetic closure, my first non-ghetto liner, some pleats, and performed some crazy inside-out flipping action. I found the pattern in a new book called One Yard Wonders that I'm looking forward to exploring further.









So what's next? I've got a wallet in the works, and I can't wait to dive into this one. Advanced intermediate level, here I come.

Thanks, Etsy elves, for making me look like a genius.

I had grandiose plans to create something handmade for all my loved ones this year, but since I didn’t start in March, like I should have if I was being at all realistic, I only pulled off a 20% success rate. (But what I did make, gets gold stars. Stay tuned for show and tell.) Here are some things I found on Etsy this year that made me look like the Sean Connery of gift giving. (Yeah – I'm not sure either, just roll with it.)


I can’t say enough good things about wildcloudberry, the seller who made this lovely scarflette for my bosom buddy Selma. I perused the shop, and loved the garments, but didn’t see one that was 100% Selma-esque. So I inquired, and not only did the woman knit a custom cowl from the shade of yarn and variety of button I requested, she did it in record time. It arrived just a couple days later, wrapped up all darling in a manner that you know you’ll never be able to replicate if you open to take a peek. Which I proved true. Anyway, I loved the scarflette, as did Selma.


What do you get a man so obsessed with BBQ that he watches Pit Master marathons and already has an iron brander that spells out his name? A fancy rub sampler, that’s what. The set from purposedesign includes eight different hand-blended rubs in small reusable tins. Chimichurri Rub, I’ve got my eye on you.

What do you get a man so obsessed with his iPhone that he recently broke his Word Warp high score while in the bathtub? (BBQ guy and iPhone guy are one in the same, by the way. And sorry, Beardy, for outing your weird man-bath time.) Anyway, you get him this iPhone/iPod dock by Woodtec. I thought about getting all metaphorical about the marriage of technology and the outdoors, but that’s not what it’s about. It’s a log, that charges your iPhone. That alone is reason enough. Plus it brings me one step closer to molding Beard into the lumberjack of my dreams. A tech-saavy Paul Bunyan. The metamorphosis will be complete as soon as I figure out a reason to keep an ax in the house. Or… not. I’ll make a pros and cons list.

Happy New Year, everyone! It's going to be good. I can feel it.

Yule Report

While you were spending Christmas in your comfy pants, eating peanut brittle and turkey legs while watching your favorite holiday movie with your family in your warm home, I was being tricked into doing a 12-mile hike. And it was fantastic!

I didn't go home this year, which marked my second ever Christmas away from my family in Minnesota. I've got a pretty big trip coming up in February (so epic that it involves anti-malaria precautions!) and have no vacation time to spare, as well as zero patience or money for peak holiday travel, aaaand my parents were just here two weeks ago, so quit judging me already, OK? Instead Beard and I had brunch with our friends Matt and Jenny, and then we all headed to Forest Park to take a stroll with their vizsla and visiting border collie mix.

As you can see from the photo, Portland suffered an identity crisis, and it was a gorgeous day. Sunglasses were worn. One thing led to another, and the next thing we knew we'd hiked up to Pittock Mansion, where the photo was snapped, then on to the rose gardens at Washington Park before looping back to the car, three adventure-hike hours later.

Then I promptly went home, put on my pajamas, and stuffed my face with pizza and Jubelale and watched Home Alone with some buddies. You really can have it both ways.

Hope you all had a lovely holiday, wherever or however you chose to celebrate it.

Stewing

You know that Dinty Moore beef stew, that comes in a can, with the mushy vegetables and the suspect-looking meat mounds? Most people have never considered actually eating it. But you know what? I love that shit. Loooooove it. So, with this in mind, imagine how much I adore its homemade, non-sketchy counterpart.

Free license to eat stew without scrutiny might be my favorite thing about winter. Apparently I'm pretty vocal about this, because a couple months ago at work, publishers started sending me a disproportionate amount of books about one pot meals - one of them being Slow Cooker: The Best Cookbook Ever. Seriously, that's the real subtitle. And I'm going to let it slide, because the book is amazing.

I didn't have to spend much time deciding what to make first - I wanted the stew from the cover, and I wanted it NOWS. Minus the corn. (I feel strongly that corn does not belong in soup. One of my coworkers also believes corn has no place on the cover of a book. So this was a double corn whammy. What a polarizing vegetable!) Anyway, the prep for this recipe was extremely easy, and I'm not sure the wonder of a crock pot will ever wear off for me. You put food in it, turn it on, and leave. And then it's a meal, ready when you walk into your house, which has incidentally been filled with amazing aromas. I can only hope that the Nobel Prize commission will someday recognize what this contraption has done for humanity.

So. Old-Fashioned Beef Stew. (Based on the version from the previously mentioned best cookbook ever.)

Ingredients:
4 yellow potatoes, quartered
2 medium onions, quartered
2 carrots, 1 inch pieces
1 1/2 lb beef chuck, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 cup beef broth
2 T olive oil
3/4 c flour
1 t dried thyme
1 c frozen peas

Throw your potatoes, carrots, onions, 1 t salt and 1/2 t pepper in your crock pot. Put 1 t salt, 1 t pepper and flour in a bag, then the meat. Shake. Heat oil in skillet, add meat, and cook until brown on all sides, but don't cook through. Deglaze skillet with the broth, scrape any browned bits, and put it all in the crock pot. Add the thyme, cover, and cook on low for 8 hours. Add peas, and cook for another hour. Voila.

I took photos of my stew, and then accidentally deleted them from my camera. But honestly, it looked just like the photo. Minus the corn.

I'm baaaaaack!

With the exception of 36 hours or so, I've felt like a crazy, deranged lady for the last three months. There aren't really good reasons for this. There haven't been any life-altering catastrophes, just a rotating roster of life stuff - and most of it has been enjoyable. Like trips and weddings, and positive changes. One being that I moved about a month ago, into a fantastic place, with a regularly sized kitchen! Look at it! Look at my kitchen! Well, look at half of it.
And while you're at it, look at my reading nook. Poang chair + bay window = win. The footstool doesn't hurt, either. But anyway, I moved. I've also been planning an epic trip. I'll be spending about a month in Southeast Asia, starting in February. More on that later. I've also been sewing! Sewing complicated things! Things that I am giving as gifts. So you'll have to wait until they've been given before I spill the beans.

Anyway, I'm excited to share some projects. Expect to hear about (and see evidence of) sewing milestones and a notable crock pot conquest very soon. In the meantime, I'm going to spend the weekend on the Oregon coast, with my visiting parents, hopefully doing a lot of this: