Rubber Eyeballs, Wrestling and Uhhh, Cake?

Howdy all. Well, the fall days are just a rollin' on by aren't they? Some folks have already been snowed on and I have a feeling we are not too far down on that waiting list here in Santa Fe. Yeeeeeeesh. It makes my toes curl up just thinking about it. I am trying to keep my pinkie finger firmly pressed on the slow motion button these last few weeks of October. After Halloween comes and goes all bets are off as far as the weather goes. We have experienced winters here in NM where we could sit outside in short sleeves in January...aaannnd we have experienced winters where your eyeball cracks in two and falls out of your head upon meeting with the frigid outside air. Time will tell what Ma Nature is dishing out for us this year... but oh man are we hoping for the sunny warm option. And by warm I mean like 50 degrees. I don't want to fake anyone out into thinking we can kick it with 70 degree days in teh winter here because we can't. We don't. Unfortunately.

Weekend report... I worked on Saturday. Plllllbbbbbbth. That's all I will say about that. Sunday Michelle came over with her pregnant little self and we sat around in the living room chewing the fat (conversational fat not baby fat... yuck!) and crocheting like a couple-a old hens. Billy was an old hen right along with us while painting. Later that night we cruised over to friends Chris and Jana's house for dinner. They had worked all day prepping oodles of pizza making ingredients including killer sauce. We set up an assembly line of sorts in the kitchen and just made pizza after pizza. Rudy came with us and he ran amok with his buddy Chico while us humans carried on with mushrooms and mozzarella. Chris and Jana had bought 15 pounds of tomatoes at the farmer's market on Saturday so we ate a load of toms.






I brought a fudge cake with fresh raspberries for dessert. Along with the fact that Billy had requested to borrow a cast of a human skull from Chris it made for an interesting visual on the table. It's very "cake or death?" a la Eddie Izzard don't you think?



The night carried on with rubber eyeballs and dog wrestling until we were all pretty much falling asleep at the table and so we decided to head home.




In other news.... we are towing the Airstream up to Taos this coming weekend. We are going to hang out in town a bit and then do the loop through Eagle Nest and Red River. I. Can't. Wait. It will be a really quick trip but still.... it's been too long since we had the peanut out on an adventure. I am apprehensive about our campground choices in and around Taos. I will let you know how it turns out. They all look pretty heavy on the crappy scale to me from what I am gleaning off campground review sites. We shall seeeeeee!

I am off to work to churn the chocolate and dip the caramels. Have a lovely Monday peeps! Cheers!

Autumn Magic

Well... I just had to pop back on here and post a few more pics of Santa Fe in full fall color. It is so pretty right now and the weather is just amazing. It has been in the 70's during the day and then hitting the mid 40's at night. Heck yeah people! I can live with that!

We live about a block off of the Santa Fe River.... it is dry as a bone now but that just converts it into a great walking path to get in and out of town on for us. Right now the whole thing is lined with aspens and other bright yellow foliage. It's gorgeous.






We walked downtown this afternoon to hit the plaza for some people watching, grabbed a hot chocolate and then meandered back home. Rudy loves going downtown. He also loves people watching. He's a pro.




It's late as I write this but I just took an apple spice cake out of the oven. It's a recipe out of an old Food and Wine magazine. HERE is the recipe for anyone interested. It's a mean good cake. I would post a picture except for the fact that about a third of my cake stayed stuck to the inside of my bundt pan when I tried to flip it out. Bastard! I hate when that happens. So yeah... we are about to pig out on cake with almost a full pound of butter in it at 10:30 at night. It's always nice to go to bed feeling like you have a lead brick in your stomach.

Hope y'all are enjoying the fall weather wherever you are. Winter will be here all too soon so get out there are soak it up while you still can!

Nothing Much

Well... I just came from having three days in a row off and what do I have to show for it? Nuthin'. I still have a messy house and the inside of the fridge is like something out of a Tim Burton movie. We have been doing that thing that you do when you get lazy about cooking and you go to the store and buy three stupid things... only enough to make one half assed meal and then the next time you are hungry it's like "We were JUST at the store why don't we have any food?" And then you eat a pickle and mayonaise sandwich on questionably stale bread. I am almost tempted to take a photo inventory of some of the refrdgerated oddities we are housing right now. ALMOST tempted. But I will save you the horror.

So October is almost have gone and we have yet to take the Airstream out on a fall adventure. In a few more weeks it will be too late. Or maybe it already is too late? I dunno. I still want to do it. I want to go north to a lake and take the kayak out in freezing cold water under the electric blue NM sky for the day.

I did finally get a few new vintage listings up in my Etsy shop. The star of the show is a 1950's era Alfred Shaheen Hawaiian shirt. It's legit. Totally a collector's piece. It's a fabulous pattern in dark chocolate browns and terra cotta pinks.




The other favorite is a really sweet homemade cotton dress sewn out of the coolest woodland print fabric. It features lions, foxes, rabbits, quail and peacocks on a silver and black backdrop of leaves and foliage. Vibrant red flowers are peppered throughout for contrast. SO cute!




Today was my day at home alone while Billy went to cook up a few batches of toffee and caramel for the shop. I tried to get some more vintage photographed but instead I ended up just experimenting with the camera and photoshop... mostly because the lighting was awful and the pics were just not coming out the way I needed them to for my shop listings.

Here are a few random results.










What? Doesn't everybody spend a Monday doing this all alone in their apartment every so often? Rudy was here with me. He took the photos. He is an excellent photographer.

About the New Header

The alternate foot note on the new header was "Takin' it to the streets." It was a hard choice but I went with takin' care of business instead. It felt right.

So pretty much all there is to say about this is that Billy and I have a habit of bringing home chairs... office chairs to be exact, that other people have left out on the curb as garbage. Why? Because we like them. Again... Why? I can't say. It's free? It's a free office chair? There is no good reason for this behavior. All I can tell you is that finding free office chairs is somehow exhilarating for both of us. And if it's wrong to feel that way I don't want to be right.

We found this one a block or so down the road from our house and Woo Hoo! We brought it home. Billy is sitting in it now to paint. The last chair we took from a curb was in this very same neighborhood a few years back and it was lovingly referred to as "the captain's chair." We sadly parted ways with it at a garage sale when we left to travel in the Airstream.

Anyway I think you can see the genuine excitement on Billy's face here about his new seat. We now have a random assortment of chairs in our living room that is really quite ridiculous. And now you know one of our dirty little secrets. We take garbage chairs. We can't help ourselves.




And if you never hear from me again it's because Billy killed me when he discovered this post.

Also...I'd like to say thanks to the good folks in the east side neighborhood for throwing out perfectly good office furniture.

Aspen Vista

I have been in a panic the past week or so to get up in to the mountains so as not to miss the aspens in full color. It does not last long once it gets rolling... it's just a short window of time for peak color. It is one of my absolute favorite landscape visuals anywhere in America. I love it. Let me show you why...





Sigghhhhhhh. Purty ain't it? Yesterday we packed Rudy into the truck and drove his most dreaded car ride up into the ski basin area of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains that back Santa Fe. It's a twisty turny road and as most of you may know... he gets wicked car sick. We made it up there puke free to the Big Tesuque trailhead that meets up with the Aspen Vista trail. We spent a few hours wandering through the woods along the edge of the creek and let the gorgeous trees and electric blue sky sooth our souls.







It was a gorgeous day. Rudy had a blast and since I have been cooped up indoors 4 or 5 days a week at the chocolate shop for the past three months (still not used to that) I felt like I was dreaming.

I found a perfectly shaped aspen to take a little break in the sun on ....

Until Rudy jumped right up on my gut and stuck his wet nose in my ear.

There are already so many leaves on the ground... the color will be gone in another week or two. Hopefully we will get back out to see it one more time before winter in the higher elevations starts to settle in.

Brief Interlude with a Snake

Crazy !

This past weekend was just nuts. I am still working away at the chocolate shop trying to get caught up (people sure do seem to need a lot of chocolate these days) and Billy was consumed with visiting the big art expo which was going on at the new Santa Fe convention center. They had art supplies at wholesale pricing and a lot of demos and workshops. Right up his alley. The expo was also featuring an opportunity to audition for a PBS program called Passport and Palette about master artists traveling the world painting on location (in obviously fabulous locations.) Billy auditioned and did really well. The producer really seems to like his art and was excited about our story having traveled the past three years in the Airstream painting all over the USA. After his interview on Friday the producer asked Billy to bring me by on Sunday and also wanted to see the Airstream.

So on Sunday morning we hitched the old girl up and towed her down to the convention center. Crazy! We parked in the loading dock area and the producer, Theodore... who is a really cool guy, filmed us in and around the trailer. Super, super fun stuff people. Apparently the footage will be up for review with the other producers and decision makers involved in the show back in New York. Tons of folks have auditioned... but I think we have a good shot at making guest artist on the program. Hopefully final word will come down within the month. So cross your fingers, toes and eyes for us! We are basically stunned by the idea of the opportunity... and would just about die to have the whole thing pull through. Hear that Theodore? Are you out there? We are dying. We are almost dead. You are the only one who can save us now. I'm listening for my phone to ring........................ ! Huh. Nothin' yet. I am ready for my close up Mr. Johnson.

Ahhhhhhhhhh. So there you have it. This weeks big, crazy news. Which could end up not being as crazy as it feels right now if nothing ever comes of it. (Psssssst! Theodore!)

In other painting news... here's Billy latest, totally fabulous little water color painting of a beach in Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard.



Good stuff eh? I love his watercolors. I think he should do more of them.


Tomorrow at the shop I hope to pull off the grand finale on The Chocolate Turtle Construction Event of 2009. I have 85 left to create. Whew. Never saw that one comin' back a few months ago when we were still wandering around in the fog up in Mendocino. Suddenly there are 225 caramel pecan turtles blocking my way on the road of life. Rascals.

Well, peeps I am as tired as a gal can be tonight. Time for jammies and tea. Good night y'all!

The Addictive Nature of Baking

I think I just plain have baking in my blood. I can't help myself. Growing up I saw my Gram bake something pretty much every single day... it may have been anything from a grape pie to dinner rolls to sugar cookies. Most all of these things she did not even need a recipe for she just knew how to do it. Rock solid. My Mom is (of course) a mean baker too.... whipping out cheesecakes, German chocolate cakes, molasses cookies (the best ones you ever had) and too many items at Christmas time to even start to try to list. Ask anyone who is a recipient of one of the famed Christmas Cookie Trays and they will tell you, it's an easy 5 pound weight gain situation no matter what. There is no escape. But it's worth every pound. You can work it off after New Years.

There is just something so indulgent about the actual experience of baking... it's all about the smells and textures and watching the ingredients melt together. Sweet cream butter, sugar and Madagascar bourbon vanilla in a bowl? Pure heaven! Having your house filled with the scent of a Nectarine Golden Cake (which is what happens to be in my oven right now) is totally soul soothing.

The only problem I run into here is that there are only two of us to eat whatever we bake. Well, three if you want to count the small, furry scavenger who is addicted to pie crust bones. This is dangerous ground to tread on unless you really want to look like a muffin top in your jeans. Sigh. I guess I just have to look to the fact that my Gram is well into her 80's and spent her life eating fresh baked goodies.... she lived to tell and hopefully so will we.

So again with this month's issue of Gourmet magazine. I'm tellin' ya it's a humdinger loaded with great recipes. Tonight I made the Nectarine Golden Cake which was exceedingly easy to make. Nectarines are at their peak for flavor right now... the ones from California are just fabulously sweet and perfect. Grab some and whip out one of these beautiful little cakes!










Of course you have to make fresh whipped cream to go on top. It's the law.

In other news... Rudy is still a pain in my butt. His new thing is to stand around growling at me and tapping his empty food bowl with his toenails. This has been going on for hours tonight. At first I kept giving him more food and he kept on eating it... but now all bets are off. I'm done. He has got to be kidding me, right? He just did it again! What a weenie.



Billy is painting away as always. He spends his days pouring over cookbooks in between painting sessions and then when I get home from work there is always a beautiful table of food waiting for me. Here is his latest... this is a scene from the Scarborough Marsh area just south of Portland, Maine. We really love this place... I can't wait until we can make it back up there in the Airstream in the early summer time.



Tomorrow I head back to work for a three day stretch that is guaranteed to kick my ass. I'll try to catch up again with y'all come Sunday.

I May Have to Change the Blog Name to....

Full Stomachs. For real. It seems like every single time I sit down to write a new post it is about what we have been eating and not much else. And here I am again about to do it again.

So what HAVE we been eating? Some good shit people.... some gooood shit. Last night we had three things made from the September issue of Gourmet magazine. Billy made the Italian parsley and beet salad with fresh ricotta while I made the cold cucumber and cubanelle soup with cashews and chives. They both turned out to be fabulous recipes and I would make both of them again for sure. We lucked out and had a great wine to drink with the meal... 2008 Fetzer Gewurtztraminer. It could not have been a more perfect match up. And it is an inexpensive bottle of wine which makes it even better.





Our third recipe form the Gourmet mag was the indulgent one... the apple pie with cheddar crust. I can't find the exact recipe online to link up to. Anyway, Billy made the crust and I made the filling.... then I assembled the pie. Due to the influence of the Gewurtztraminer and the fact that I was listening to my George Michael/Michael Jackson station on Pandora I neglected to add the 3 tablespoons of flour to the apple filling which resulted in a pretty watery pie in the end. It is still incredibly delicious but I was pissed at myself for flaking out and messing it up. Oh well, it will not stop us from eating it! And allow me to say this... do not be skeptical of adding a half a pound of sharp cheddar to your pie crust. People, it is waaaaayyy better than you can imagine.





What have we been doing other than cooking up a storm and eating? Well... working, that's what. My work at the chocolate shop is insane busy right now. I can't even keep up. The owners are out of town for a few weeks and the whole sale orders just keep rollin' in along with the fact that the walk in traffic is three times as much as what would be traditional for this time of the year. All this adds up to mean one thing... my co-worker Marie and I are getting our butts kicked.

Billy snapped a few shots of what I was working on today. Here I am dipping Spats which are caramel (made by Billy) topped off with tamari roasted pinon nuts and dipped in dark chocolate. I am doin' the dipping here....

And here is a close up to really get your mouth watering...

I am also knee deep in a special order for a couple of hundred turtles. Normally we do a caramel with toasted pecans dipped in chocolate called a Don Juan Pecan but these are amped up a notch to look like an actual turtle. You get more pecans... which is always a good thing.



So there you have it! Food seems to be the dominant theme in our lives of late. I have been missing the Airstream these past few weeks so we are hoping to take a long weekend in October and head up into Northern New Mexico to a lakefront campground with the trailer and kayak and get one more go at it before the real cold weather sets in.

Drop me a quick comment and say HI readers! How is everyone doin'? And thanks for staying with me through these slow posting times... Cheers!