mercredi 2 août 2006

Krafty Korner.

I swear, I do have to go into work. But luckily, I'm scheduled for only 3 half-days this week (although they are very loooong and mentally strenuous half-days - actually, they're more like two-third days - so don't envy me too much). So what have I been doing with all of my free time?

No! Not laying on the couch and watching movies! Rather, I've been making things and watching movies.

Oh, did I tell you that my picture made the local Oregon newspaper, for my work "volunteering" (read: forced into it by my advisor because I finished my work early) at a swim meet? Of ALL the people that they could have put into the paper, such as LOCALS, I got to be the lucky person. Sigh. Anyhow.



For our Supper Club, I made little accordion-fold books so we could write notes on where we've gone, complete with glassine envelopes inside, for sliding in restaurant business cards and other tidbits. While there were only two different covers, everyone had different colour paper inside, and everyone had a different quotation. That top one you see on the right is mine.

(I actually wanted us to have secret handshakes and special sparkly rings, but then I snapped myself out of sorority-land.)

It only took me a movie and a half to put them all together - Failure to Launch, which is a sucky movie, even for cheesy romantic comedies, and had it not Matthew McConaughey in it I'd have turned it off, and The Incredibles, which I enjoy every time I watch it.


On the left, my main course - Liberty Farms duck breast with green beans, frisee, figs, and marcona almonds. It was amazing. And on the right, a picture of us with the chef. Not pictured: the CRAZY woman who wore only spandex pants, a sports bra, and Chanel sunglasses who got so drunk by herself at the bar she eventually had to be evicted, screaming, "It's because I'm a nigger, isn't it?" Actually, she looked like Janice Dickinson. Apparently, she has done this two other times in the past two years.

Oh - what's the Supper Club, you ask? 6 of us joined together with the intent of eating out once a month (obviously, I think everyone dines out way more often than that). There are rules, of course. We meet the first Tuesday of every month, unless there are extenuating holiday circumstances. If you've uttered the words, "I only eat chicken" and meant it, you don't get to take part. You have to be willing to taste new things - this is no Deep End Dining, but there has to be a certain amount of adventurous spirit. One person chooses a restaurant per month, and the location is extremely hush hush until the evening before. It's fun, and last night for our inaugural dinner we went to Table 8, where I've been before but not since it opened.



Then yesterday, I decided that I wanted to make myself an apron because I am sometimes a messy cook. HAAAA. I am also impatient with the sewing machine, and hence my projects end up crappy. Two frustrated movies (Junebug and Elizabethtown) and a couple of sitcoms later, I finally ended up with the above product. It's a good thing you can't get too close to see where I screwed up on the corners, and no, I don't want to hear about how the bias tape is uneven around the edges at parts. I'm still using it, goshdarnit. (Yes, it would have been cheaper to go to Williams Sonoma and buy a stupid apron already, but they didn't have a toile one.)

And finally, I have the base for a peach ice cream (recipe from the June/July issue of Saveur - it uses peach soda! I am intrigued!) in the fridge, just waiting to be made, and a picture of that will be up here later, when I finally deem it ice cream eating time.