Charleston Food Show

The Charleston Food show is a gathering of vendors and cooks to share tips, products and taste food. This year the Executive Chef at Saluda's in Columbia was giving a demonstration on lamb. Charley went to assist in the demonstration, and I came along for free food to take pictures! The camp stove they were using to sear the lamb exploded during the presentation shooting it's metal cap into the air and knocking Blake's hat off. Needless to say it got everyone's attention. Other than that, it was a huge success and many people commented that it was the best lamb dish they had ever tried.

We later attended a mozzarella demonstration and got to taste hot just stretched mozzarella on cracker with apple chutney. Amazing. 

We also got to sample several fine cheeses. Ginger Root beer, fancy desserts, gourmet crackers and a whole lotta stuff. 

Theme of the week: Asian Cuisine

My Darling makes the best sushi in the world :) Having watched him make it several times now, I thought "easy peasy, I can do that". Unfortunatly most times I think that, it goes horribly wrong. Like in this case I invited my friend over, couldn't find shishami grade tuna. Asked publix guy. He recommended the frozen stuff. DON'T ever ever ever ever eat frozen fish it sushi . Its gross, I know for a fact now. It's also a good idea to know what temperature to flash fry the sushi. Cooked nasty fish in sushi is extremely gross. 

Lesson Learned. On the plus side, I did discover that at Publix they have these Asian seasoning packages for general tso and other style chicken dishes. Exactly on my speed of cooking: just dump the seasoning with the liquids and add your chicken and rice. They taste just as good as takeout.

Gray and Blue Living space

 The walls would be a pale grey with dark hardwood floors, white crown and trim molding. The chairs would be recovered in the fabric below (it's a little more subdued), not the one in the picture (ew sick). Here is a breakdown of the cost not including paint or tax:

$70.00 drape

$35.00 chair

$59.00 lamp

$100.00 block

$29.00 pillows

$999.00 sofa

$20.00 shelf

$20.00 frames

$399.00 table

$279.00 rug

TOTAL: $2,010.00

facebook graffiti is so addicting

Let them Eat Cake...

cakes by my husband the pastry chef: The first cake is a Lemon Raspberry Chiffon Cake with layers of lemon buttercream frosting and raspberry mousse. The second cake is a dark chocolate cake with strawberry filling covered in chocolate ganache with white chocolate covered strawberries.

what makes the red man red ....

http://www.ohdeedoh.com/ohdeedoh/outdoors/teepee-sandbox-102749

I absolutly LOVE apartment therapy and they frequently post really cool ideas from subscribers. Some of them are okay ideas, and then this one hit the spot. Need you ask why?

1. because you can play cowboys and indians...who doesn't?

2. I love sand. I love playing in sand. I hate getting burnt.

I would have loved this as a kid. I so want to make one for my kids....(future kids...much future kids...).

so that tree painting...

I painted over the tree painting (earlier post). I had stared at it long enough to decide that I wasnt a fan of the direction it was headed. I had an idea for a "cloud study" of sorts for a while, so I started that in our little dark bedroom upstairs. I used a series of reference pictures for the clouds and I wanted the horizon/land to be somewhat like what you see when driving through Timmonsville SC. This picture is the base. In order to cover up my green trees so that they wouldn't show through the clouds, I picked a neutral grey for underneath. If you stand on an angle, you can still see the vertical lines in the finished painting. O'well.

This photo was taken in outside light and the photo below shows how it usually looks in our dark livingroom. The sky is a mix of cadmium blue and white blended in sections to acheive a unified color, although it looks rather blotchy from the pictures. You can see the difference between the base/unblended area underneath and the final coat on top.

Overall, I wasn't too thrilled about my final product because I wish I had planned the composistion a bit better. I wanted it to be like BOOM big happy glorious cloud when you looked at it...but I feel like you go..."hmm thats wierd. Is there a train down there? atomic bomb?"

the Yellow Beast

Our new chair in addition to Alice (the pink chair).
Donated to us from people on the move.
The yellow beast is sporting a newly sewn pillow for outside,
and the stack of books are the from an awesome sale at the library,
.25 cents a piece!

Lovely......

Sometimes you stumble upon images on the web that make you stop and pause. These three wowed me today. I can't get over how amazing this dress is. The texture is so rich. It looks like seafood. or like a yummy organic sculpture of textile richness.

The second picture find was just plain cute and creative. I think they used post-it notes to stick to the branches, or it's photoshopped I can't tell.  I might have to steal the idea for a photoshoot. 

The third picture of the day, I stopped because of the color  ( i guess i'm into muted colors today) and the curiosity  of the picture. The photographer or camera is not reflected back in any of those mirrors...I guess because of the angle...but i expected he/she to be there so I looked. I just recently pondered buying a old ornate mirror at Olde Town. Antiques..but alas, too pricey.

Roman Shades

Thank you Little Green Notebook!

http://littlegreennotebook.blogspot.com/2009/02/make-shades-out-of-mini-blinds.html

I made a roman shade for our kitchen window, although I was a little lazy and they aren't perfectly as straight as they could be. Baah, well...atleast they're behind the hutch.

The newlywed diet

My wonderful husband is a fantabulous cook. He is fascinating to watch in the kitchen. I just look from over the counter and stay out the way. My best dish is probibly an omlette or spaggetti. He flips, dices, crafts and pinches with concentration. If I ask, he'll explain why he's doing it that way or why the recipe calls for something. The best part is, he's humble, and doesn't complain when I try to cook something, even when it resembles a mutilated tire with blood sauce and the fork lets out a little scream on its way in.

men's shirt covers

a few years ago, my dad was throwing some shirts in a goodwill box, and i took them instead. Voila.

the Wedding is OVER ! Hallelujah!

Therefore I will attemt to blog the decoration ideas.

Michaels had their after christmas clearance out, and they had these wonderful frosted birch branches for $2.00 a bundle. They had wierd green sequens sewn through them, but they were ripped out. Also they came rather squashed together, so they had to be carefully unwoven. They were a little broken afterwards but decent enough for use. These went in the tall borrowed maestro vases that went on the food tables.

We had six tables on either side of the room. On each was a white table cloth. A little bunch of green fabric and then a big glass vase filled with what we'll call "various foliage". Underneath were mixmatched antique silver trays or mirrors. I spent the week before filling the vases and then packing them up so they could be put on the table as is. Mostly I stole from the backyard (and possibly the neighbors tree that had conveniently grown into our yard). There was an assortment of branches, pinecones, green wheat, a waxy evergreen, dried flowers and berries.

 And here are some pictures from the day itself:

My Bouquet was done by Magnolia Designs