East of Everything

Valentine's Day (and we escape the Northeast!)

2010-02-26T22:20:00.005-05:00

On Valentine's Day we had our favorite things: beer and charcuterie. We walked all the way to our favorite beer bar in Williamsburg in the afternoon, munching on beer and pretzel caramels, a new favorite thing. (Next time anyone comes to visit on a warm Saturday we are hightailing it to the Brooklyn Flea to get papusas and candy, and they are just going to have to trust me on that.)

Then we went home to sparkling wine and seafood from the Outer Banks that we've been keeping stockpiled in the freezer.

C is an expert at many things, but in the photo above you'll want to observe how good he is at celebrating romantic holidays and growing a beard.

Since I can only pull it together to blog seasonally, I'll also go ahead and mention that we just took a delightful trip to Atlanta. We celebrated Kate's birthday and followed an amazing itinerary that she custom designed just for us! We are still talking about the food, the cultural events, the beer, the 65-degree weather, the extremely clean Marta trains, the suspiciously friendly people, the yoforia! I'd post a picture of the whole group, but I don't have the express permission of each participant.

So I got this for ya instead, from the Atlanta Botanical Garden:

And here's my backyard this morning!

Just kidding! Here's my backyard this morning:

Autumn in New York

2009-10-11T18:09:00.008-04:00

This fall there's been biking in the city,

and fishing in the country,

and pumpkin beer,

lots of pumpkin beer.

Rooftop Farm

2009-08-30T22:12:00.003-04:00

Mmmmmm, kale...

with a view at a rooftop farm near our house.

August Garden

2009-08-09T13:04:00.004-04:00

Our garden has really taken off recently. Actually, it's a little out of control. Everything is bigger and taller than I ever expected.

I found out that nasturtiums love the North. This is a climbing variety that is winding through the chain-link fence on one side of our garden, and on this side it's tumbling over the brick edging and climbing all over the yew bush.

Zinnias!

I don't think Chris is completely happy with how wild our garden has become, but I love it. Most of our backyard is concrete, and it makes me happy to see all of these plants bursting out of the garden space, even if it is a little unexpected.

I grew everything here from seeds. It was hard to picture exactly how the garden would turn out when I was planting tiny seeds back in April. I mean, I didn't think the Mammoth Russian sunflowers would actually grow to be 12 feet high...

The New York Botanical Garden

2009-07-26T18:42:00.004-04:00

Welcome to the Bronx.

You didn't know it looked like this, did you? I didn't either. We went to the New York Botanical Garden to see their Edible Garden exhibit.

I liked this idea for a vegetable garden design:

Another design idea I loved, but didn't get a good photo of, was growing corn in a (huge) container along with peas or another climbing plant so the climber could use the corn as a support. We are definitely growing some corn next summer in our garden.

I also liked this idea for pruning (training?) an apple tree along a fence--easy picking!

This lotus was part of a beautiful exhibit of aquatic plants.

After the gardens we walked to the Little Italy of the Bronx, along Arthur Avenue, which was rumored to be waaaay better than the Little Italy section of Manhattan. We had a good dinner at an Italian restaurant, but my favorite place was the Madonia Brothers Bakery, where they fill your cannolis while you wait. If this place was in our neighborhood I would be in big trouble.

Next up will be some photos of our garden. It is doing well, thanks to Erik, who watered for us while we were on the Outer Banks.

Summer Solstice II

2009-06-25T20:22:00.004-04:00

After yoga in Times Square I continued to celebrate the summer solstice at Brouwerij Lane, Greenpoint's finest beer store. They were a part of Make Music New York, a huge city-wide event where 850+ bands played in parks and public spaces. Brouwerij Lane hosted six different bands. Originally the music was supposed to take place on the sidewalk because I think Make Music New York is all about filling the streets with music, but the rain came back and everything was moved indoors. The music still went on all afternoon. I caught the last two bands.

Guess who designed and printed the poster? Find out here.

Summer Solstice

2009-06-21T17:40:00.006-04:00

To celebrate the summer solstice I went to Times Square to participate in Mind over Madness Yoga. Throughout the day there were several free yoga classes held in Father Duffy Square. I received a flyer about the event in the mail weeks ago and signed up right away for one of the classes, all of which soon filled up.

Chris thought it was crazy, and over the weeks leading up to today I wondered if I would really have fun doing this. Not to mention it has rained about 17 of the 21 days of June, which has made it difficult to be motivated to do anything. We woke up to another rainy day, and the forecast didn't look good. In the event information the organizers explained that participating would involve rolling out my yoga mat on concrete, and it would be held rain or shine.

So if it rained I figured I could end up doing yoga in a puddle on the street. I seriously thought about staying home. But I headed to Times Square anyway. This was what it looked like before the class started.

The class was Bikram yoga, which I'd never done before. Bikram yoga is usually done in a hot room. When we started the class it was cloudy and kind of chilly, but as we got going the sun finally came out and it warmed up. I can't say that I liked the Bikram style, but doing a class that was so different from my usual yoga classes seemed to fit the circumstances. It also helped me to concentrate on yoga in the middle of Times Square because I was learning something new.

When the instructor came out he stripped down to teeny leopard-print shorts, which was a little unfortunate because I'm sure it helped to convince the onlookers that yoga is for weirdos. But I let go of my own assumptions about the instructor and the Bikram style and really enjoyed the class.

After the class we were treated to live music and samples of Rachel's Wickedly Delicious yogurt.

It was super easy to keep up a yoga practice on the Outer Banks, with the great instructors at the Outer Banks YMCA, Outer Banks Yoga and the constant connection I felt with the natural environment. I wondered if I would enjoy yoga here in New York. I've been happy to find a new yoga community at the Greenpoint YMCA in our neighborhood that isn't really much different from the Outer Banks yoginis and yogis. I really wanted to do this event because I thought it would be the perfect expression of my belief that I can bring yoga with me wherever I go. And it was.

At one point during the class I looked up and realized that we were right in front of a McDonald's. It was two-stories high and I could see people sitting inside eating and looking down at us doing yoga, and I thought, well that's a good reason to be out here too.

Find more photos here.

A reason to invite children to your wedding

2009-06-14T13:42:00.005-04:00

They know how to party!

When I'm Too Excited About Arugula to Notice Anything Else

2009-06-06T14:45:00.006-04:00

How did I go to the farmer's market today and not notice that this was also happening in the park?

I'll have to head back tomorrow for some shopping.

Another recent discovery is this park on the East River. It isn't exactly in our neighborhood, but the walk isn't too bad. And there's sand there. No lie. And the view looks like this:

A Garden in Brooklyn

2009-05-31T22:22:00.003-04:00

I've been gardening away in our little backyard. I've been planting seeds, pulling weeds, watering, fertilizing, and transplanting little tomato and cucumber seedlings up to larger containers. We're not planting our vegetables in the ground because Greenpoint is on top of an oil spill. Apparently our neighborhood is a Superfund site. Although that kind of sounds like a good thing, because it has the word "super" in it, it's not because it means that we're on a national priorities list of hazardous waste sites. Yippeee! Seriously, I saw a map once and our apartment isn't right on top of the spill, but better safe than sorry.

For a wasteland, the soil is fabulous! After planting seeds once the chance of frost had passed (not that long ago), we're finally seeing some results. Hopefully the following will serve as the "before" shots and I'll have photos of blooms to share in the summer.

The sunflowers are off to a good start.

The Hyacinth bean vine is just starting to take off. I was unsuccessful with my first planting, but then I discovered the trick to germination is soaking the seeds for 24 hours prior to planting.

My favorite are the nasturtiums, which seem to love New York so far. When I grew these in North Carolina they did much better with a little shade, and really took off when it cooled off in the fall.

Before we moved in our landlady had planted the garden with some rose bushes, shrubs, and an evergreen tree. After we moved in she planted a few more roses for us and they are all doing well and about to bloom. Here's one of the established rose bushes.

I've really been working hard on the garden, and I was ready to take all the credit for the results when the vine next door started to bloom. The lot next door to ours was obviously tended to by a gardener at some point. There are containers lining the fence and a garden plot that must have been carefully cared for once. But the only human activity I've seen over there has been limited to a smoke break or mop bucket emptying by one of the Yummy Taco (a terrible restaurant around the corner on Manhattan Ave.) employees. So my pride in my work was really put to shame when this showed up next door.

Hey Ya'll

2009-05-24T19:28:00.005-04:00

I haven't been saying ya'll much in New York, I guess. The locals don't cotton to it. I don't cotton to the way the locals say they are having a BBQ when they mean they are having a cook-out. Cooking a few hot dogs on a grill doesn't equal this. So there.

So I'm working now, which is great. Money! A sense of purpose! A place to go during the day! A more comfortable desk chair than I have at home! Loss of free time is not so great but thus was always thus. Lately I've been spending my free time producing a hacking cough, but I hope to be rid of it soon.

See what my talented husband has been up to right here and here. (He did the designing and the beer pouring as well.)

More later.

Love,

Lee

Hip Hip Hooray!

2009-04-16T18:09:00.003-04:00

Guess who starts her new job on Monday? Me!

Hot Cross Buns

2009-04-08T14:34:00.004-04:00

My granny made these at Easter every year. Now my mom does, and I guess now I do too.

Sewing Up Some Privacy II

2009-04-01T18:59:00.003-04:00

Here are the curtains I sewed for our living room window. Their construction is a big improvement over the bathroom curtain I made first. The fabric weight and color is perfect: it lets in plenty of light, but also provides enough privacy. Pretty good for the skimpy Ikea fabric section. Privacy was definitely a major consideration here because this window sits in front of the sidewalk right at eye level.

The next step for this curtain is custom screenprinting by Chris. I'll take more photos when it happens, but at the moment the project is still in the design phase.

Sewing Projects: Practical and More Practical

2009-03-30T08:34:00.004-04:00

Last Sunday when Chris left for work he said he needed a bag. When he came home I had this just about finished. I made it up as I went along, and it turned out only a little crooked. Sewing this way is like skipping right to the fun part. I used some corduroy fabric that I already had, and decided to turn it inside out so the outside of the bag would be smooth.

Here is Chris on his way to the Spuyten Duyvil beer store, bag ready to be filled with bottles. The whole bag used recycled materials: the corduroy is cast-off pant legs from Chris making a pair of shorts, and the strap is one of Chris's old belts. To disguise the seam of the pant legs, I ran a zig zag stitch over it in gray. The color combo ended up coordinating with pretty much his whole wardrobe.

I've hemmed a few pairs of pants, which I am inordinately proud of. I got the idea that hemming pants was the hardest sewing project ever when Jeanne and Joanne's Sewing Room in Wilmington ruined two pairs of my pants by hemming the legs at different lengths. Seriously J and J, how do you do that? So obsessively comparing one pant leg to another throughout the process, I've now hemmed jeans and corduroys. I also hemmed a pair of dress pants using a blind stitch hem on my machine. This tutorial on machine blind stitch hem was very helpful.

Newborn Hat

2009-03-20T09:37:00.004-04:00

I knitted this hat for a newborn baby whose mother recently helped me with a freelance article. My Nana gave me the pattern, which was written for the volunteers who knit baby hats for newborns at Mary Immaculate Hospital. I was born there, and both of my grandmothers volunteered there for years. The pattern is no-nonsense, and it was only two days from casting on to finishing. A better knitter could probably dash off one of these hats in one sitting.

The Wandering Cable-Knit Scarf

2009-03-11T16:33:00.004-04:00

This cable-knit scarf has been to Ocracoke, Bluefield, and New York, and that was all before it even came off the needles. In keeping with all of the projects I've knitted that required paying attention, it took me forever to complete it.

But lucky for us, there were still plenty of freezing days for C. to enjoy his scarf in New York. He has a way of tying it that's all his own; it involves multiple wraps around his neck so he doesn't have too much scarf hanging out.

The pattern for this scarf at Knitting Addiction calls for cashmere yarn, but I found a nice merino wool that feels good. This was only the second project that I blocked after knitting, and now I'm converted. Washing and blocking makes the final product so much softer. I discovered this by accident when I dropped my own scarf on the damp ladies room floor at Brooklyn Brewery.

Our first Nor Nor'easter

2009-03-04T10:02:00.002-05:00

A nor'easter ripped up the east coast this week and for us that meant waking up on Monday morning to about six inches of snow. This was the view from our back door.

(By the way, check out our neighbor's new fence on the balcony behind our shed. We saw them working on it, and for a day or so we watched nervously and wondered if they were going to put up a solid wood fence. They had the power to block out, oh, half of our sunlight if they did. Thankfully they went with chain-link!)

The wind was blowing the snow around, so it was piled high in some spots like here on our picnic table.

It was funny to have a nor'easter bring snow instead of rain, 40mph winds, and beach erosion. You know, like the one that came through the Outer Banks the week before our wedding and had me glued to my computer constantly updating Saturday's forecast.

Feed a Cold

2009-02-24T17:07:00.002-05:00

This has been the scene around our house for the last few days. Only we both have the man cold, and there is no one else around to be the voice of reason. Today we sniffled and sneezed our way through Polish class. (It seems like almost everyone else we encounter is sniffling also, can this be possible?) The nose blowing and sneeze-blocking kept me distracted from asking "Why? Why are we learning Polish, why?" At lunch I was reminded of the answer: the bigos, oh, the bigos.

Birthday Party

2009-02-16T10:51:00.004-05:00

Party on the top floor in East Harlem. I wonder if this is the urban equivalent of tying balloons to your mailbox.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2009-02-14T09:01:00.004-05:00

I've been using my new sewing machine quite a bit since my parents gave it to me for Christmas. I've been wanting to use it to make cards, but I couldn't get motivated until I saw this simple Valentine's Day card idea. I altered this idea a little, by using card stock I had on hand instead of buying something fancy, and I made the card a single layer, more like the cards you passed out in grade school.

I've been wondering how in the world anyone sews a curved line with their machine, and I knew that working on this project would help me figure it out. The answer: very patiently.

I gathered some scrap fabric, cut out some hearts, and started out by practicing the zig-zag stitches.

It was hard, and I knew that if I waited until I could do it perfectly, I wouldn't send the cards out in time. So I practiced until I could basically trace the heart, and then I went into production mode.

Step 1: cut out hearts using scrap fabric. The link above includes a template, but I just made my own by sketching on card stock.

Step 2: sew the border stitches using a straight, short stitch. Make a few extras to take the pressure off for Step 3.

Step 3: experiment with your zig-zag stitch setting and stitch length until you find your favorite one to use for outlining the heart. Secure the fabric heart to the paper, with a bit of glue or double-sided tape. Then it's the fun part--zig zag stitch on a curve!

Step 4: I wanted to create the ragged edge like the cards on the purlbee. I followed a link on their site to learn how to create that edge using my sewing machine. Remove all thread from the machine and then "sew" close to the edge using short stitches so the needle creates a perforated edge. Fold several times, then tear away the excess paper from the edge.

Making the perforated edge was too much fun, and it made the cards even more like grade-school valentines: remember how they came in sheets and each card was folded and torn away?

Happy New Year!

2009-02-13T16:43:00.006-05:00

Last Sunday we got to Chinatown just in time to see the tail end of the New Year's dragon dances. We got caught up in Soho shopping at Uniqlo. We celebrated Chinese New Year with an early dinner at Great New York Noodletown, where we looked around and were convinced that everyone else was eating something better than what we ordered. Next time we will know better. We'll order the Chinese broccoli (which isn't listed anywhere on the menu, but everyone except us was eating it) and the salt baked shrimp (which is actually fried).

What a day off looks like

2009-02-11T09:40:00.000-05:00

This must be what a day off looks like for our neighbor. Shirts courtesy of Yummy Taco. YT is another reason I'm not sorry to be cooking at home.

Saved!

2009-02-04T17:58:00.003-05:00

I accomplished an important step in relocating today: I found a place to get a haircut. And I like it. But maybe one day I'll go here, just for the window decorations.

Gwenyth

2009-02-03T18:19:00.001-05:00

Who knew Gwyneth Paltrow had a blog?

Sewing Up Some Privacy

2009-01-26T15:44:00.000-05:00

My parents gave me a sewing machine for Christmas, and I'm using it to do a little decorating around our apartment. This was my first project: a curtain for the bathroom window. Next Chris will screenprint it with a design.

The curtain is totally crooked on the right side. I was winging it a little when I measured and hemmed.

I'm currently one-half of the way done with two-piece curtains for our living room window. Will post pics.

Snowy Skyline

2009-01-20T15:37:00.000-05:00

Our view of Manhattan on a snowy day.

StoryCorps

2009-01-15T20:31:00.002-05:00

Tonight we went to see the founder of StoryCorps, a huge oral history project, at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. You may have heard some of the stories on NPR. All across America, StoryCorps invites people to come to a StoryCorps sound booth and bring someone they care about to interview.

The surprising part was that some of the people whose recordings we listened to were present. The founder invited them on stage to speak. There was Annie, of Danny and Annie. Mary read her story in person. We heard this story about a Sunday school teacher named Miss Divine. (If there is a better name for a Sunday school teacher I'd like to hear it. Didn't think so.) This New York city bus driver got up and said a few words after his segment was played. And just in case you aren't crying yet, this was my favorite StoryCorps recording that I heard a while ago on NPR.

His and Hers

2009-01-11T13:12:00.003-05:00

My new favorite fruit is the pomegranate. Why are they so freakin' expensive? I like mine over greek yogurt and honey for breakfast. Chris adds granola and berries because he is guided more by the desire to make nutritious choices than by his gut. Me? I go with my gut.

My favorite subway hallway

2009-01-01T21:11:00.004-05:00

Find out more here.

Snow White Cakes

2008-12-21T12:27:00.004-05:00

Good thing I'm not planning a wedding after seeing this window display at Bergdorf Goodman yesterday. My keep it simple cupcake decorating strategy would have been ruined.

photo by Chris

The Wedding Registry, exposed

2008-12-19T17:56:00.005-05:00

One of the parts of wedding planning that Chris and I fought about the most was the gift registry. It was a task bound to be fraught with tension. Chris and I have different styles, as any two people do, but disagreeing on things we would use daily in our first home together was worrisome. I was also wary of how it would look if we asked for too much, or things that were too expensive. But people were going to give us gifts, and some of them would want some guidance. What in the world should we ask for?

Neither of us love to support big box stores, and those are the kinds of stores where most couples seem to register. We didn't need much, so it didn't seem to make sense to register for a bunch of things (you know, kitchen things, decorative things, small appliance things) with one store. With a little help from Lori, who found this post on Brooklyn Bride, we decided to use myregistry.com. It seemed like the perfect solution. Myregistry allows users to add items from any website or any store to a registry in their name, and at no charge for hosting the registry.

Let me say right away it is not a perfect site. There were a few technical problems, such as some difficulty loading photos (a photo of a deep-dish lasagna pan that we registered for mysteriously popped up on the site after repeatedly refusing to load months ago). Also, several times people purchased items and attempted to mark them as purchased, but the site instead added to the quantity requested. Oops. Chris figured out that to correct it we had to go in and change the original number of the item we requested, and in some cases this even required a negative number.

But we were willing to put up with a few technical difficulties because using it allowed us to register for this.

Instead of registering for a set of dishes at a chain store, we were able to register with White Bike Ceramics in Brooklyn. Lauren, the artist, let us pick out a beautiful set of handmade porcelain dishes. My favorite so far is this beautiful platter.

We were also given two teacup and saucer sets that are perfect for sipping cup after cup of hot tea when your heat is broken. This weekend we'll go to Lauren's studio in Williamsburg to pick up our plates and bowls.

We weren't sure how our friends and family would react to our registry being a little unusual. It wasn't completely atypical; we love to cook and certainly registered for a few pots and pans at a typical wedding registry store, and we are loving cooking with them. But having the flexibility to pick gifts from any store really allowed us to carefully select only items that we were willing to pack up and move into a tiny New York apartment.

Homemade Sushi

2008-12-18T13:20:00.005-05:00

Chris and I have been experimenting with rolling sushi at home. When we lived on the Outer Banks it was so easy to get great seafood. I could stop by the seafood market on my way home from work, or Chris would check his crabpots and we'd have fresh blue crab meat. My favorite rolls last summer had fried shrimp or softshell crab in them.

Our neighborhood in Brooklyn has a large Polish population. Greenpoint has plenty of meat markets, with sausages and smoked fish, but so far we haven't found a good place to buy fresh fish in the neighborhood.

Last night we made veggie and smoked salmon rolls. We used cucumber, green onion, carrots, cream cheese, and smoked salmon.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

2008-12-16T14:13:00.005-05:00

Since it's our first Christmas together and we're in a new place, Chris and I have been trying to think of something extra Christmas-y to get us ready for the holiday.

So far we have come up with nil.

But then this afternoon something magical happened. The biggest snowflakes we've ever seen fell in Brooklyn. Here's a video of our backyard.

Warming up

2008-12-15T11:01:00.004-05:00

While our heat was broken we stayed warm by preparing meals that required long baking times. I made this spanakopita using the recipe in Amy Sedaris's book I Like You.

Here it is with some leftover wedding wine. That's one thing that wedding books and blogs don't tell you--agonizing over all those wedding decisions really does pay off because you get to have leftover wedding stuff when you're broke and unemployed in New York City.

I also made some pizza dough and used it to make a pizza roll with ham, cheddar, and pineapple. I used this recipe, but ignored the instructions for the filling and made up my own. This is the second time I've made a pizza roll, but I don't think I'll make it again. The outside of the crust gets over done while the inside is still doughy and undercooked. Next time I make homemade dough I'll do a calzone or just a pizza.

photo by Chris

The undercook/overcook problem may be caused by our oven. I think it may run hot. Also, the knob is slightly askew, so really I've just been guessing while setting the temperature. I probably need to get an oven thermometer before I start baking Christmas cookies. Amy Sedaris was on The Splendid Table yesterday and said that her favorite Christmas cookies were butter cookies with frosting made from the recipe on the back of the Domino's powdered sugar box. Guess who wants me to make those?

Our heat is now working. The boiler is fixed, and Chris and Andy fixed the radiator in the living room. It hadn't worked since we moved in, and they were stumped...until this bit of inspiration came along. It turns out that when the radiator was painted (in a glossy chrome), paint was slopped right over the pressure relief valve, and air wasn't able to get out to make room for the steam bubbling up from the boiler.

The Smallest Christmas Tree Ever

2008-12-08T13:02:00.004-05:00

So this is our first Christmas together and I thought we needed a tree, or a wreath, or something. We went to a studio sale in Williamsburg (Brooklyn, not Colonial) on Saturday to pick up some White Bike Ceramics* that our family and friends gave us as wedding presents. The studio sale was a combination of a few artists, and we found this pot with the smallest, most perfect Christmas tree ever.

It is a Norfolk Island Pine. I think the artist did a great job, not only with the pot, but he planted it and added moss on top of the soil and also added a couple of teeny pine cones. We brought it home and I decorated it with the wedding cupcake topper turned Christmas ornaments that Lori made for us.

Christmas decorating--done.

As predicted, our streak of good luck is broken, among other things. The heat in our apartment is broken, and will be until Wednesday. (Don't worry Mom--our very nice landlady brought us an electric heater which is keeping us from freezing.) Also, this morning the toaster broke. It had a Pop Tart logo on it, so it wasn't a stalwart toaster or anything, no huge loss there. There is a family joke about my fastidious Great Uncle Henry setting out to buy a toaster and researching toasters for at least a year before deciding on a brand and model. No small feat, considering he was most certainly not using the internet, but instead searching back issues of Consumer Reports. The punch line? My parents just happened to own the winning make and model toaster.

*I'll be posting soon about the beautiful porcelain dishes that Lauren is making for us. In the meantime, check out her lovely website.

I Should Have Known

2008-12-06T17:59:00.003-05:00

Of the 15 channels we can tune in on our television using rabbit ears, 3 are in Spanish. I knew I should have paid attention during those 4 years of Spanish in high school. If I had I could be enjoying watching Clint Eastwood's En la Linea de Fuego right now.

Brooklynite

2008-12-04T10:51:00.004-05:00

So we missed the lighting of the tree at Rockefeller Center last night. But we had a New York experience this morning. During breakfast we were listening to the local NPR station broadcasting a call in show about MTA raising rates for the subway or beginning to toll the Brooklyn bridge when Rosie Perez called in to speak up for the Brooklynites.

And Chris is circling the neighborhood looking for a parking space. Very New York.

One Month Ago Today

2008-12-02T14:21:00.005-05:00

I can't believe one month ago today I was nervous about our wedding. If only I could have known then how perfectly everything was going to turn out, I could have skipped all the worrying. If only I could have known that after a week of a nor'easter bearing down on the Outer Banks, and the forecast saying showers, showers, showers for Saturday, that our wedding day was actually going to be 70 degrees and sunny. If only I could have known that my hair, dress, shoes, makeup, etc. were all going to be just fine and were going to be the last thing I cared about that day. If only I could have known that instead of standing up in front of everyone I know and weeping throughout the ceremony, I would be grinning like a crazy woman.

If only I'd known I would have been feeling like this much sooner:

I really surprised myself with how relaxed and happy I felt on our wedding day. Of course Chris had a lot to do with that. Here is Chris on our way back from our honeymoon in Ocracoke. We were out on the point at Cape Hatteras, east of absolutely everything.

It's been one month since my last post and in that time Chris and I got married, went on a fabulous honeymoon, drove to Brooklyn and searched for an apartment, found an apartment we loved and signed the lease, drove back to the Outer Banks, packed up all of our stuff and U-Hauled it back to Brooklyn (thanks Dad for driving with us!)! Now we are surrounded by boxes that need to be unpacked. Oh yeah, we celebrated Thanksgiving with my family somewhere in there too. I'll be blogging about each of these events as soon as possible, but I'll spare everyone the drudgery of reading about unpacking box after box and instead post pictures of our backyard. Yeah, we have a backyard. In Brooklyn. Good things keep happening to us, like today when we discovered that the subway stop that is two blocks away from our apartment isn't even the closest stop--there is an entrance just one block away. Oh, yeah.

Someone will probably sneeze right on me the next time we go out, or a mouse will run across the foot of the bed tonight, but for now, things just keep getting better.

Wedding Wrap

2008-11-01T17:16:00.010-04:00

I finished my wedding wrap with time to spare. If it's freezing on our wedding day (exactly one week from today!) I'm covered with the wrap, which I knitted with bamboo yarn. Now I can worry about everything else for the next week, like how in the world I'm going to iron my dress without setting fire to it.

I know I'm supposed to settle down and not worry about the details at this point, but instead my stomach is in knots.

I've been able to let go of a few worries along the way. Like when I realized in the middle of knitting this wrap that the colors exactly match a pair of Lands' End wool socks that I own.

This is the first garment I've knitted (not counting hats and scarves) and I'm happy with it--I don't care if it looks like I started to knit a sweater and gave up.

Moving Day for Bagheera

2008-10-25T09:38:00.003-04:00

Chris's cat, Bagheera, moved in with my parents this week, in preparation for our move to Brooklyn. He has always lived in the 30-foot radius surrounding Chris's apartment so I was worried about how he might adapt to moving 3 miles away. Also, there's Rudee, our big brown dog, to contend with. (By the way, I feel like a traitor posting pictures of Bagheera before I ever posted a picture of Rudee. She's jealous enough already.) But everything is fine so far for Bagheera.

There have been a few face-offs between Bagheera and Rudee. Rudee sticks her nose in Bagheera's face and Bagheera sticks his nose out to meet hers, and Rudee jumps back as if he struck her. He's tough, and was always getting into fights in his old neighborhood. Chris read that you can tell how your cat handles fights by where their wounds are: wounds on the hindquarters means that they were struck while running away, and wounds on the face means they were facing their opponent head-on. A few weeks ago Bagheera got into a fight and his eye was wounded and totally swollen shut. He's healed now, but he has battle scars on his nose, ears, and close to his eyes from all of his many scuffles. He's a head-on fighter for sure.

I hope he'll get along okay in his new neighborhood. He's fitting in to his new household pretty well. He's putting on a brave face and ignoring Rudee for the most part, though I've seen him tiptoe past her on more than one occasion. Here he is making himself at home.

By the way, that is a wedding project on the coffee table in front of him--our mixed CD we'll be giving as a wedding favor. Chris put together a playlist of our most favorite songs that will also be on the wedding reception playlist, and then we arranged them. He designed the cover and printed them, cut them out, scored the folds and we glued them together. Chris has a history of making mixed CD's for our friends for different occasions, so this is the perfect favor for us to give. I have mixed CD's for all the birthdays I've had since since we met, so I can't wait to add this one to the collection.

Magnolia

2008-10-20T19:17:00.005-04:00

This is the tree we'll get married under.

These are the bricks we'll stand on.

Michael and Sarah got married!

2008-10-15T09:26:00.005-04:00

Last weekend our friends Michael and Sarah got married. They had a fabulous wedding. They rented a house on the sound and the ceremony and reception was all held outdoors.

The photo above is from their choreographed first dance. They had a good friend choreograph the dance and teach it to them. There was a move from Dirty Dancing and some breakdancing on Michael's part. It was awesome. Sarah said it was her favorite part of wedding planning.

It was really fun to be planning our wedding at the same time as these two. When they came to town to plan (they live in D.C. and were planning a "destination" wedding on the Outer Banks; we live in the destination) we compared notes and commiserated. On the day of their wedding they kept saying, "you guys are next and we're ready!" I can't wait to be in their position: wedding wrapped up and honeymoon on.

Hey Loverbun

2008-10-09T18:44:00.004-04:00

Chris and I went to Sanctuary Vineyards today to meet up with Brooke Mayo (our wedding photographer) for an engagement shoot. Brooke calls it a Lover Buns Session. It was the most fun. She zoomed us around the vineyards in her little red car and we posed for pictures all over the place.

Check it out on Brooke's blog.

Beer Decision '08

2008-10-06T18:00:00.006-04:00

Here are the beers we considered for the wedding, from left to right: Dogfish Head 60-minute IPA, Bell's Two Hearted Ale, Big Boss Hell's Belle, The Duck-Rabbit Milk Stout, and Highland Gaelic Ale. We decided to get small kegs for the wedding reception, with the exception of a few cases of Bud or Michelob to keep the Joe six-packs happy. Just kidding: I'm not adopting that phrase. I think using kegs will create less waste and make clean-up easier for our caterer. Trash bags full of beer bottles are not fun to tote to the dumpster. Plus, we both really like draft beer.

Chris picked up the above beers at Chip's and we had a tasting. Oh, the tortures of wedding planning! They are all excellent beers, but in the end we chose Bell's Two Hearted Ale (Chris's favorite IPA) and The Duck Rabbit Milk Stout (this is just great beer). For a Hefeweizen pick (my favorite style of beer) I think we will have a keg filled at our local brew pub. It just happens to be America's only wind-powered brew pub. Two out of our three picks are North Carolina beers, which makes us happy. Next up: Adventures in Wine Tasting as we search for an incredibly cheap, but actually pretty tasty red wine.

If you watched the Biden/Palin debate last week you might enjoy this video, featuring Queen Latifah.

The hand towel that wouldn't knit itself

2008-10-02T23:06:00.005-04:00

When I started this blog I thought knitting projects would be a major component of my posts. Only I was working on one project at the time, and for months afterward. It's a hand towel in a cool moss grid pattern from the the first Mason-Dixon Knitting book. Don't get me wrong. I love the way the pattern looks, once knitted. But while knitting...I can't tell you how many stitches I had to pick back until I discovered where I had gone wrong, how many rows I ripped out, and how often I just didn't want to pick up this project and start knitting because I had to pay attention to every stitch and mark off every row. I guess I like to knit on auto-pilot. But still, I love this moss grid pattern.

Here is the towel in March.

Here it is in September. Finished. Finally.

Now that this is behind me, I've begun a project with a much simpler pattern (stockinette stitch I love you). It is a wrap to wear over my wedding dress in case it is chilly on Nov. 8. (The average high for that date in Manteo, North Carolina is 65 degrees. If I knit the wrap it will be warm. If I knit the wrap it will be warm.)

This is a very deadline-driven project. It will also be the first wearable item that I've knitted that isn't a hat or a scarf, but fortunately the ladies at Knitting Addiction have come up with an easy pattern just for me. No sleeves! No keeping track of rows! No difficult patterns! Will I make it in time?

45 Days to the Wedding!

2008-09-25T23:08:00.005-04:00

Yikes! It's only 45 days to the wedding. It totally snuck up on me. Earlier I was thinking that it might be getting close to 50 days before the wedding and then I discovered that the 50-day mark had come and gone.

I would feel worried if I hadn't gotten two major wedding-related headaches out of the way today. First, our wedding reception venue required us to secure extra insurance for the event. Done, today, and my mom and dad deserve all of the credit. I cringe when I read wedding blogs where the couple refuse to let their parents be involved at all in the wedding planning. I can't imagine planning all of this without the support and input my parents have offered.

After the insurance was in order my dad and I set out to secure the many requirements necessary to procure a limited special occasion permit with the North Carolina Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission. Yeah. It was hoot. There was the trip to the courthouse, where I had to purchase a copy of my criminal record check, a trip to the bank to have my signature notarized...you get the idea. Not fun, but it's done!

Now we can move on and get down to the really difficult wedding planning tasks, like waiting for the bridesmaids' gifts to arrive in the mail and choosing the red wine that we'll serve at the reception (legally, thanks to the limited special occasion permit). I think we'd better try many, many different bottles. Anyone have any favorite budget red wines? Right now I like Hacienda.

While we were working on the red tape, Chris was vacationing with his family. On Monday I made apple pies with some fresh apples that were grown right next door to his parents' house. They brought them to us when they came to town for the bridal shower, and I sent a pie back with Chris. Delicious! I had all intentions of making my own pie crust so I could try out my new marble rolling pin that I received as a shower gift. I had to let go of that idea so I wouldn't spend the whole day making pies, but I did use the rolling pin to stretch the store-bought crust over the apple filling. That counts, right?

Beaupty Parlor

2008-09-21T18:50:00.006-04:00

As the wedding date gets closer I have had to face the ugly truth: I know nothing about makeup. I've been working on a makeup strategy for the wedding day and it's been difficult because I never wear makeup. Occasionally over the years I made the resolution to invest more time and effort in my appearance and not just go out of the house looking like I did when I rolled out of bed. The result of the resolution is always the same: I wear mascara or lipstick for about three days, then I go back to leaving the house looking pretty much like I did when I rolled out of bed. When I met the future husband I happened to be wearing mascara that night and it was a real thorn in my side because then I had to wear mascara for the next few dates.

I'm not sure when this happened because when I was younger I was very interested in makeup. My skill at creating beauty was evident at a very young age, as the founder, owner, and operator of a front porch beauty, oh excuse me, beaupty parlor.

In third grade I wore blue eye shadow to school every day. Too bad the old makeup tricks from my younger days just aren't working for me now.

So I've done a few trial runs with makeup for the wedding and it's working out okay so far. I found the most amazing mascara with the help of this beauty blog. My sister Kate was in town and helped me try out some looks. She prefers a dramatic eye. Here she is practicing her technique on one of our neighbors when we were kids.

I was really worried about wearing makeup to the wedding until we met with our photographer. She dispelled the rumor that it's necessary to wear lots of makeup for photographs, and even said that she recommended a very natural look. It was just what I wanted to hear. I want to wear the kind of makeup that looks like you're wearing no makeup at all but you look your best. Makeup that makes you look like you just walked out of yoga class. If anyone knows where to buy this I'd love to hear about it. In the meantime the trials will continue, but with less fervency, and much, much better mascara.

Luncheonette

2008-09-18T14:59:00.005-04:00

My bridal luncheon was last Saturday. It was amazing--the food! the drinks! the gifts! the games! The photo above was the toilet-paper bridal gown game. The team that dressed Olivia, my friend Judy's daughter, won of course. I tried to get my niece Rylee to be a toilet-paper bride contestant but she was having none of it. "You be the big bride," she said.

The luncheon was hosted by my sister Kate, my friend Lori, and my soon-to-be sister-in-law Ashley. They totally spoiled me. The food they made was so good. Food is always my favorite part of any event, but this was an exceptional spread. We had tomato pie, deviled eggs, hot pimiento cheese, BLT dip, buffalo chicken dip, chicken salad sandwiches, ham biscuits, coconut cupcakes, and a mimosa punch. There was a reporter at the newspaper where I used to work who would list every single item on the buffet at any event she was covering, and no, this wasn't in the food section of the newspaper. I totally feel like I'm being her now, but seriously, the food was awesome. You can read more about the shower on Lori's blog. She did a much better job than I of taking pictures that day.

Ashley coordinated the games, which were the most fun. One was like the newlywed game, where she had asked Chris questions prior to the shower and then asked me the same questions. I thought I would do great at the game, but I just did okay. I knew Chris's favorite food (beans) and his favorite style of beer (IPA). I didn't know that his favorite color is gray--but that explains a lot about the disagreements we've been getting into over our registry. I didn't know his shoe size, but he didn't know mine either. When asked what habit of his I found most annoying I guessed, "he's very, very neat." But he'd answered that he is always on time. Oh, well. My future husband is so "annoying."

Later that night (in front of god and my future in-laws and everyone) Chris said that one question Ashley had asked was what was the most romantic thing Chris has ever done for me. They wanted me to guess his answer. I thought of the few times that he has brought me something special to eat for lunch at work and how much I liked it. I guess I was trying to think of something bigger, something that would please everyone to hear, something involving flowers, but I couldn't. It turned out that surprising me with lunch at work was what Chris had answered too. I guess that's as romantic as we get. Ashley threw the question out, no way was she going to ask that in front of a roomful of gals all gathered to celebrate our union. The way Chris and I are together is much harder to fit into a newlywed game question. We're the best of friends, and we support each other and have lots of fun together and all that is very romantic; it's not a big, grand gesture but lots of little ones that all add up to being very happy. Except when we're arguing over all of the gray stuff that Chris wants to put on our registry.

The Day after Labor Day

2008-09-02T22:35:00.008-04:00

Ahhhh, September. Chris and I celebrated the end of the summertime tourist season by taking a dip in the ocean and then taking a long bike ride, now that we are much less likely to be run off the road by a tourist looking for the Dairy Queen.

The wedding is just over two months away and we are making great progress, people. The wedding invitations are being printed. I'm hard at work on addressing the invitations in calligraphy (5 down, 95 to go). We chose a cottage to rent for the honeymoon in Ocracoke. I hope it works out, because I must have looked at every cottage on this website twice already. My sister Kate came to visit this weekend and she did a cupcake run--chocolate--and they were awesome.

We now have all of the fabric for the table runners cut, several are pinned, and some are already sewn. My mom and Kate got them started, but Chris did the most measuring and cutting. He took this picture of me cutting the fabric for the last tablecloth, but it's misleading because seriously this is the only one I cut. I did do some ironing, however.

A few major and minor wedding-related hissy fits out of the way, a couple of freelance articles and photos sent off to the editor, and I feel just like Bahgheerah did this afternoon:

We're making arrangements

2008-08-23T19:53:00.006-04:00

Today we experimented a little with arranging some of the flowers I'm growing for the wedding. This is one of the fun wedding planning details that I need to invest my time and energy in, instead of letting Miss Manners* get me down.

I need to be more vigilant about cutting the blooms, because removing them means the plant will put more energy into creating new blooms. Plus, we can surround ourselves with beautiful, homegrown fresh flowers in the meantime.

Remember the seeds that I planted? Almost all of the containers are blooming now. We have zinnias and globe amaranths. The only seeds that aren't blooming yet are the cornflowers and coneflowers. I love the color combinations in these arrangements.

My mom did this arrangement. It was her idea to use the spiky greenery and the thyme. I love it! I took this into work so everyone can enjoy it. Maybe it will help us all get through this last week of August.

The zinnias are supposed to bloom through the fall. To be sure we have some nice blooms for the wedding I need to do a second seed planting. I planted half of these in early June and the other half in late June. I don't want the plants to be spent by November 8!

*This book really has a lot of very sensible advice. Advice like: the wedding is not a show you're putting on, the wedding day should not be the best day of your life, the wedding day is not just the bride's day; are all ideas that I can get behind. Only when I got to the chapter on engraved invitations, and how engraved was the only way to go, and how gauche any other option would be that I got a little P.O.'ed with Miss Manners. Which isn't very mannerly, now is it?

Corollahhh

2008-08-21T19:18:00.006-04:00

After I begged and pleaded, Chris agreed to go up to Corolla with me today. I needed to do some research at the Whalehead Club and the Outer Banks Center for Wildlife Education for an article I'm writing. Several months ago Chris mentioned that he'd like to tour the Whalehead Club and I helpfully reminded him of it yesterday. I'm sure he never meant that he would like to tour the Whalehead Club in August when Corolla is teeming with tourists, but oops, my deadline for the article is next week.

There was hardly anyone else touring the Whalehead Club, which was fortunate. We took a tour with an audio guide, and it was well done.

The grounds of the place really was covered with tourists. Tourists on bicycles, tourists pushing baby strollers, tourists with screaming children, etc. The usual mix. We watched a couple of families crabbing. While we were watching them catch a crab, another family walked up and watched as well. Their six year old little girl asked in a bored tone, "why are we just standing here?"

We figured that her parents let her watch a lot of TV. She needs excitement, and she needs it now. I hope they never take her crabbing. If she can't make it through the part where you're catching a crab she'll never survive the part where you're waiting to catch a crab.

We also watched this guy fishing.

The Currituck Beach Lighthouse.

The Outer Banks Center for Wildlife Education was the best thing we did today and had the most information I could use for my article. We watched a film about the history of the Currituck beaches. We watched as the director of the Whalehead Club was filmed saying that the Club "represented the influx of wealthy industrialists to the area," as we sat in the theater, surrounded by tourists from New York and New Jersey.

Ladies who Luncheon

2008-08-11T18:30:00.005-04:00

My sister is planning a bridal shower luncheon for me next month, and I just got the invitation today. She designed and drew the postcard invites. She wanted the design to be a surprise and wouldn't show it to me before mailing them out. I loved coming home today and finding it in the mail.

I can't wait for September 13!

100 Days to the Wedding!

2008-07-31T12:19:00.009-04:00

Chris and I were taking a short break from wedding planning for the past week or so. It was getting to the point where it was all wedding, all the time. It was my idea to take a break but it wasn't too tough to get Chris to agree to it.

Now the planning is back on, with just 100 days to go!

I planted flower seeds back in June with the hopes that I could use some of the cut flowers for the wedding. Everything I planted is labeled as blooming through the fall or until frost. I can't get too attached to any particular bloom because some or even all of them may not be doing well at that time. (Luckily we have a local flower farm nearby, and we'll be talking to Dorothy about what she'll have available in the fall.) I thought the "green envy" zinnias I planted would be my favorite flower. I couldn't wait when I saw this first bud.

Here are the flowers. I love the color when they first bloom. Now some of the pink and red zinnias are starting to bloom and I think they will be a great complement to the green.

I'm going to bake cupcakes for the wedding. Here is my second test batch of carrot cake cupcakes. The recipe I used called for adding a little crushed pineapple and it was great. This was my first try using decorating tips for the icing. I'll be testing some chocolate cake recipes next, as per request from Chris. If anyone knows any good chocolate cake recipes I'd love to hear about them.

Another big wedding project I'll be working on is sewing table runners. I finally found this fabric to use. The pattern is called Bavarian Toile. Just finding the fabric was a long project. I liked these Amy Butler patterns, but Chris didn't love any of them. "Too girly." We even spent hours in a fabric store one day and left with nothing. I think finally settling on a fabric is what made me feel like we deserved a break from wedding stuff.

Here's a close-up. So now all I have to do is take these 11 yards and sew 13 table runners. Easy, right?

I know that I was worried that planning a wedding in 5 months wouldn't be enough time, but now I can't imagine mulling over all these decisions for a year or more! Deadlines are my friend.

Gorgonzola!

2008-07-13T17:25:00.004-04:00

This is my new favorite veggie meal. Chris deserves all the credit. Okay, maybe Ocean Boulevard deserves a little credit, because the inspiration for this meal came from a dinner we had there last spring.

Kale recently replaced collards as my favorite leafy green. I wash it well, remove the stem in the middle of the leaves, and tear the leaves up a bit. I put a little butter into a pan and add the kale. Once it has cooked for a few minutes I add a little honey and balsamic vinegar, cook for another minute or two and it's done!

To go with the kale for our dinner pictured above, Chris dabbed a little olive oil on some slices of bread and toasted them. Then he caramelized some onions and topped it all off with some gorgonzola cheese.

The Pastoral Outer Banks

2008-07-05T09:11:00.003-04:00

Here's a shot of a cow-bird symbiosis unfolding in Currituck County. When we first drove by one the birds was sitting on the cow's back.

Chris and I went kayak fishing on the Mann's Harbor side of the old bridge. Here is Chris catching bait with his cast net.

He caught several fish for live bait, but we didn't catch anything with our poles. According to Chris we should have gotten started at 5 a.m., which didn't happen. This is probably never going to happen. We paddled around instead.

Harbinger Lavender Farm

2008-06-21T15:39:00.010-04:00

My mom and I visited the Harbinger Lavender Farm for their Open House last Saturday. It is a small family farm where they grow lavender (using no chemicals) and make products with dried lavender and lavender oils. We even had lavender lemonade and lavender sugar cookies. They grow Provence and Grosso varieties at the farm.

The farm is located across the bridge from the Outer Banks in Currituck County, so they have sandy soil just like we do. The plants love it. The lavender ladies recommend mulching with white sand or gravel for the sun to reflect light and keep the plants dry. The humidity of our area is a challenge for them -- at the farm they set the plants wider apart so that air can circulate around them.

The ladies recommend that lavender plants receive at least six hours of sun per day and excellent drainage. In the fall they prune their plants by one-third into a dome shape. In late winter they add lime to their fields.

After looking around we hit the field and clipped a bunch of lavender to bring home to dry. Hang lavender upside down to dry so the stems remain nice and straight. Drying will take about two weeks. At the farm they hang their bundles in an old barn that is dark, dry, and well-ventilated. They propped the door open and I took a picture. It smelled great in there.

Seafood and Spice

2008-06-11T17:02:00.003-04:00

For a few weeks I was on a major seafood kick. I would stop by the seafood market on my way home from work and cook it up. Now the tourists have invaded and I don't want to drive anywhere. But here are a few of my latest favorite dishes.

Shrimp and Grits

We visited Tybee Island in February for Kate's birthday and had a great version of shrimp and grits at a restaurant there. I've been making shrimp and grits with okra and tomatoes ever since. First I prepare the grits according to the directions on the package. I love Bob's Red Mill grits. Then I slice a couple of spicy sausages. I use aidell's sausage, the cajun style andouille flavor. Then I peel the shrimp. If you're cooking this dish with a friend and the friend asks if they can help you with anything, look busy and say: "oh, maybe you could peel the shrimp while I'm getting everything else ready." If I'm using large shrimp I de-vein it so it has a nice butterfly shape. Also a good thing for someone other than you to do.

I cook the sliced sausage while I dice the tomatoes, okra, and garlic. Throw in these three ingredients with the sausage. Add a little butter and white wine. Add a little salt and pepper at some point, but not too much if you're using spicy sausage because it adds lots of flavor. Wait to throw in the shrimp until everything else is almost cooked, because shrimp only need a few minutes. Cook them until they are pink and no longer translucent. Add some green onions just a minute before you turn off the heat under the pan. Serve over grits. Drink the rest of the bottle of white wine with dinner.

Blackened Trout

This is an easy way to prepare fresh fish. I have experimented with making my own blackening seasoning, but for this dish I just bought pre-mixed seasoning at the seafood market. While I heat up an iron skillet I coat fillets of speckled trout with the seasoning on both sides. I add butter to the pan once it's hot and cook the fillets for a few minutes on each side (for thin fillets like these a few minutes will do; add more time for thicker fillets.) Only turn them once. Top with a pat of butter and sprinkle some chopped cilantro on top. Chris made the potatoes, and I just lightly steamed the sugar snap peas to go along with the fish.

Lemon caper flounder

I stole this flounder recipe from Back Porch restaurant in Ocracoke. Lightly dredge flounder fillets in a breading of flour, cornmeal, salt, and pepper. Pan fry it a few minutes on each side. For the sauce, melt a little butter (I just did this in the microwave), add some lemon juice and a lot of capers. Pour over the flounder after assembling a plate with flounder and white rice. I used Basmati rice and it was excellent with the sauce. I also made a tomatillo and corn relish to go along with the flounder. I also couldn't resist the softshell crabs at the seafood market, so Chris panfried a couple of those to go along with the flounder.

The softshells were so fresh they were still alive. They cleaned them for me (removed the lungs and intestines) at the seafood market. The woman came out of the back with the cleaned crabs and was chuckling (in a creepy way, I thought) about how the crabs were still moving.

"They don't know they're dead yet," she said.

"Yeah," I said, "I feel kind of bad about that."

"Just don't name them," she said.

This meal was awesome with the new Radler beer from the local micro-brewery Weeping Radish.

I said yes

2008-06-03T08:36:00.007-04:00

Chris asked me to marry him and I said yes. Actually, I got a little choked up (who, me? Me who cries at those black and white Rice Krispies commercials?) and I couldn't say anything for a second. So I just nodded enthusiastically until I could squawk out yes. Because I started suspecting something when Chris asked me to pick out a ring, it wasn't a surprise, but I don't think I could have been any more excited if it was.

Since everyone I talked to and everything I was reading said that it takes six months to plan a wedding at the very least, I was anxious to get started since we want to get married this fall. Turns out that planning five months out seems to be working just fine. Within a week we were able to reserve the location and the photographer that we really wanted. We're also planning on doing quite a few things ourselves, with the help of my very talented mother and sister. And hopefully a few friends, too. I'll be baking cupcakes instead of hiring someone to bake a cake. I'm thinking about carrot cake, even though the time I made carrot cake cupcakes for Lori's baby shower all of the carrot sank to the bottom. So I'll do a few trial runs and take notes. My mom will be in charge of the flowers, and hopefully we can use mostly plants and flowers from our own garden. We'll start researching some fall-blooming plants. I like these. There's a great how-to on making your own bouquet on Real Simple's site.

No matter what happens with the cupcakes, catering, music, or decorations, at the end of the day we'll be married. I asked Chris what he was looking forward to the most about being married and he said, "having breakfast with you."

Oh Snap!

2008-05-29T10:47:00.008-04:00

If you want an instant gratification garden, plant sugar snap peas.

My sugar snap plants have taken off. These first two pictures were taken about a month ago, on April 27.

Here they are today. I filled this container with several snap pea plants, and planted nasturtium seeds around the border. I thought it might get a little too crowded, but everything seems to be thriving so far. Fast and easy, sugar.

Sugar snaps grow best in cool weather, so I don't think they will survive the summer heat. They can also be planted in late summer for a fall crop.

Outer Banks Arboretum

2008-05-18T18:36:00.008-04:00

This Saturday was the Coastal Gardening Festival at the Outer Banks Arboretum. Chris and I donated our extra plants that we started from seed to the Master Gardener's homegrown plant sale. It was a relief to get the extras off our hands. Chris's apartment was starting to smell like one big peat pot.

I helped my Mom with her container gardening display for the festival. We assembled containers as demonstrations, and then they were raffled off. I think these containers were the reason that they ran out of raffle tickets.

One of the best things about the gardening festival is that it draws attention to the Outer Banks Arboretum in Kill Devil Hills. Not many people, even locals, have visited the arboretum before. This is one of my favorite containers in the arboretum (also created by Mom).

This is one of the containers at the entrance to the arboretum (yep, Mom again--isn't she fabulous?).

All of my efforts to be kind to the planet were cancelled out this morning when I stopped to fill up with gas on my way to work. I was too busy selecting my gas grade to notice that whoever filled up with gas before I did failed to release the lever on the pump. Before I placed the spout into my tank gas started spraying everywhere--fast. Judging by my receipt, over a gallon of gas sprayed all over the back of my car and onto the concrete. What a waste, not to mention a mess. Has this ever happened to anyone else?

The Duck Rabbit Craft Brewery

2008-05-13T13:52:00.015-04:00

Well-loved kegs.

Chris and I made a pilgrimage to The Duck Rabbit Craft Brewery in Farmville, NC. Where? Farmville. It's right outside of Greenville, NC. Chris called ahead, which we'd been advised to do by a sales rep at Pigstein. She said if we just dropped by and it happened to be a bottling day, no one would be available to show us around.

When Chris called the owner told him to come on by. When we arrived the owner himself, Paul Philippon, gave us a tour of the brewery. He was very charming, and never once made us feel like we were taking time away from the million other things he had to do. Which we were. Paul and one other brewer, Ryan, are currently it for the Duck Rabbit Brewery staff. Paul told us he just hired a third brewer from Wisconsin. The guy brought Paul a few New Glarus beers to his interview, so of course he got the job.

Chris and I have done several brewery tours over the last few years and this was just the best. It was great to hear all about the brewing and the everything else that goes into running a small brewery right from the owner himself. We asked about everything, including the logo, which is a nod to Paul's previous career as a university philosophy professor.

Duck Rabbit beers are available in North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee. They produce an Amber Ale, a Brown Ale, a Porter, and a Milk Stout, as well as seasonal brews, which have included a Baltic Porter, a Scotch Ale, and a Russian Imperial Stout. See the beer geeks do their thing at Beer Advocate. I just know that I like these beers and I love that they are made with such care by such nice people.

Before Duck Rabbit we went to B's Barbecue in Greenville. It is located at 751 B's Barbecue Road. The pork (whole hog) and chicken is cooked over an open pit with charcoal. Chris and I had chicken plates (half a chicken each!) and Phil had the pork plate. With three sweet teas lunch for all three of us came to $20.75. B's cooks in the morning and when they are out of food they slap a sign on the front door and close it up. Fortunately we made it in time, but the sign was on the door when we left.

Movin' on up

2008-05-08T08:20:00.004-04:00

It was time for my little seedlings to grow up and get a place of their own. Last year Chris and I used plastic cups to step up the plants into a larger container before finally planting them into 5-gallon pots. This year we wanted to try to be a little more eco-friendly so we decided on peat pots. We bought them online here. They were cheap, which was good because we ordered 125 of the 4.5" pots, plus some wooden plant markers and more peat pellets. It would have been even cheaper to make our own containers out of newspaper, but we didn't discover this until after we placed our order. Maybe we'll try that next year.

I prepped the pots like this:

I filled the pots about halfway with a soil mix. I watered my seedlings, which made them easier to work with and helped minimize any transplant shock. Each of the peat pellets has a netting, which I either removed or loosened. The roots were already growing through the netting on most of the seedlings. I planted most of the seedlings so the soil just covered the top of the peat pellet. The tomatoes I planted a little deeper, as there are little bumps on the stalks that will eventually be roots.

My brilliant idea this year was to keep the plants in boxes, making it easier to tote the plants inside at night. But this is rapidly turning into a cautionary tale, because the peat pots are staying damp and starting to grow mold on the outside. Here's how I packed them originally:

This morning I found a few more boxes and spaced everything out so that air can circulate around each pot. Apparently this is a common problem with peat pots. I read online that mold is specific to what it consumes, so if it is growing on the (dead) peat, it won't grow on the (live) green plant. I never knew mold was so discriminating.

Seedling Snip

2008-05-08T07:48:00.006-04:00

Once I had a tray of healthy seedlings, it was time for my least favorite part of growing plants from seed: the snip. In each peat pellet I originally planted two to four seeds. Now that all my seedlings developed their true leaves it was time to thin them out. The true leaves are not the first set of leaves that come up, but the second. In my earlier post you can see how the first set of leaves all look the same, regardless of the kind of plant. The true leaves are particular to each kind of plant. This is a tomato plant.

I trimmed all but the strongest stalk. It's a little sad. I hope he makes it.

Wind Energy

2008-04-24T17:36:00.010-04:00

The Mighty Wind of the Outer Banks

One of our local brewpubs, The Outer Banks Brewing Station, had an Earth Day celebration and dedication of their new wind turbine. According to the Brew Station they are the only brewpub or restaurant in the U.S. to use wind power. (I did a quick search and found that at least a few other small breweries, including Brooklyn Brewery, use wind power for their brewing equipment. Here here to conscientious brewers!) To celebrate they had a pig-pickin' and served up $1 drafts of their beer, brewed right here in Kill Devil Hills, NC. The wind turbine is very good-looking, not at all the eyesore some nay-sayers might have expected. Get your own here. I hope this will only be the beginning of wind turbines here on the Outer Banks, where we are blessed and cursed with persistent wind.

Surprise! It's a lizard

2008-04-20T16:05:00.009-04:00

Check out this guy:

I think he's a Green Anole lizard. I saw him when I was leaving the house the other day, and I almost didn't stop to take a picture. But I ran back in to grab my camera because I saw him do this:

This morning I planted my sunflower seeds. Now it's raining, which is good. But it's supposed to rain for the next few days so I hope the seeds don't wash away.

If you need a laugh check out this SNL skit. It's a hoot. Especially to someone who wants to throw a surprise party for her boyfriend every year.

Bread Baking and other Disasters

2008-04-15T14:08:00.006-04:00

James Beard would not be proud of the Brioche Bread I made this weekend. The dough rose nicely the first time, but then something went awry. I don't know if I let them rise too long after I shaped them into loaves, or if I used the wrong size pan (well, I know I used the wrong size pan, I just didn't think it would make a huge difference).

Everything was going well at this stage:

and at this one:

But here I can see that maybe I've let it rise a little too long. There were some pockets of air on top of each loaf. They deflated a little when I brushed the tops with egg wash.

So the bread browned up nicely, but you can see the loaves are a little stumpy.

But they tasted great. So maybe "disaster" is too strong a word. Overall, this is a fun recipe. There is no kneading required. The dough is soft and after you mix the ingredients together it's ready to rise. It's very hands-off, which I like. You can get all kinds of things done while simultaneously making bread.

Next time I make a Brioche loaf I'm going to use less butter (this bread is so buttery that when I make toast I worry the toaster is going to catch fire). I'll also let the dough rise longer on the first rising, but keep my eye on the clock for the second rising. I'll use smaller pans, too. Turns out an extra inch or so does make a difference. Sorry, James.

You can find James Beard's recipe for Brioche Bread from Beard on Bread here.

After the Rain

2008-04-12T16:42:00.006-04:00

The lavender is blooming in the front yard. All of the rain has made everything beautiful.

There is a lavender farm in Currituck County called Harbinger Lavender Farm.

I used some lavender to decorate the bathroom like this:

Today I finally got around to planting my sugar snap pea seeds. I've never grown these before so I experimented with all manner of planting them. I started some in these peat pots (5 inches in diameter), a few in a recycled yogurt container, and several in a large pot so they won't need to be transplanted. I still have seeds left over, so if I think of a new way to plant them I'll try it. The seeds are so big I didn't think they would do well in a peat pellet, so I skipped that option.

A reminder of the kids' visit, on my coffee table.

The table was made for me by Carl McCoy. He uses salvaged materials to build amazing furniture. He and his wife Kim own Spring Tide Studios in Nags Head. Their shop is on the Beach Road right across from the Nags Head Pier. You can read a little more about Spring Tide Studios here.

Wunderkind

2008-04-09T18:43:00.006-04:00

My niece and nephew came for a visit. It rained the entire time (we're going on five days in a row now) and they didn't mind a bit. We had all kinds of fun. They planted some seeds themselves.

I was telling them about the different seeds I had, and I described one packet this way: "these are a mix of white, pink, and red flowers." To which T replied, "hmm, sounds like cosmos." He planted cosmos (clearly he is a fan) and daisies. Ry planted sunflowers, cosmos, and Shasta daisies. We recycled a take-out sushi container for their seeds. Eight large peat pellets fit just fine, but the lid was a close fit. T wanted to turn the seed growing into a competition, and he wrote out some rules on the back of their seed labels.

Our favorite produce stand Tarheel Too is now open! I bought some local asparagus and it was amazing. I couldn't get over the purple tips.

I added a little olive oil, salt, and pepper and did a quick broil. Which means I put it in the oven on broil, checked it, decided it needed just another minute, forgot about it, remembered it, then ran to the oven to pull it out. And they were cooked perfectly! Works every time.

I also cooked shad roe and lemon rice. This is supposed to be a quintessential spring meal. I found the recipe here.

Water and Wait

2008-04-03T12:58:00.008-04:00

Starting from Seed
I started these seeds on March 23 (Easter and Chris's Birthday). This year Chris and I expanded both the number and variety of seeds we planted. I had good luck with these last year: Jubilee (yellow), Brandywine (pink-ish), and red cherry tomatoes, and asian eggplants (millionaire hybrid), so I planted them again. Plus I added two new tomatoes: a Jelly Bean hybrid (grape tomatoes) and a yellow pear tomato. Then I also planted leeks, cilantro, sweet basil, and a mesclun lettuce mix. For flowers I planted cosmos and Shasta daisies. The beautiful flowers in the vase on the table are from Blooms to your Door (www.bloomstoyourdoor.com), located in Point Harbor, NC just across the bridge from the Outer Banks.

I'm keeping track of what's what with these labels:

Here is everything as of April 3.

The lettuce sprouted first, within a day or two!

The Shasta daisies took the longest;

they only came up a few days ago.