Pajama time!

This right here? This is why I started sewing just over a year ago.

The pattern is from Weekend Sewing, which I also used to make the sweet sundress mentioned in this post. I'm happy to say the pj's were much simpler than the dress, and I'll definitely be making more as Anna grows.

The adorable fabric is Retro Rocket Rascals from Michael Miller Fabrics — perfect for a little girl currently obsessed with outer space!

Raspberry scones (and a new hack for food photos)

A while back, I mentioned that I was excited to try a couple new scone recipes. I have dutifully done so. Many, many scones have been eaten in an attempt to deliver the best recipe to you (the sacrifices I make!).

The winning recipe is a variation on one from A Handmade Life, by Molly Wizenberg, with the addition of fresh raspberries from our garden.

I also want to call your attention to the lovely photo, courtesy of my über-geek husband, David. He read about this hack for creating a light box for just this sort of thing and, the next thing I knew, he was in the kitchen building me one. It took less than an hour and was put together with simple materials we had on hand.



Raspberry scones (adapted from A Handmade LIfe)
2 cups flour
2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
4T cold, unsalted butter cut into small pieces
3 T. sugar (plus more for sprinkling on top)
1 c. fresh raspberries
1/2 cup whole milk 1 large egg

Place dry ingredients in food processor and pulse a few times. Add in butter and pulse around 10 times (you want the butter pieces to be pea-sized). Mix egg and milk in a small bowl. Add to the food processor and pulse until just mixed. Turn out onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. The dough will be dry and powdery. Add raspberries and fold together with your hands, making a flattened mound. Do your best to incorporate everything but not to over knead. It's going to be messy. Once you've got a flattened circle of dough, cut into 8 wedges with a sharp knife. Sprinkle with a bit more sugar and bake at 425 degrees for 15-25 minutes (this varies due to the wetness of the berries. If you use currants instead, for example, it would only be 15 minutes).

Note: The food processor method here is not how she does it in the book — it's my own adaptation. One of the tricky things about scones is that the dough really can't be handled much, or the butter will soften too much and change the consistency. I really recommend experimenting with this. It may take a few tries before you find a method that works for you. If you've had success another way, please let me know!

Enjoy!

A perfect weekend

This weekend was Portland at it's best. Clear and warm, with everyone finally coming out of their winter hibernation. We spent lots of time outside, eating and playing, and just drinking it all in.

For those who don't know Portland, featured locations here are Jamison Square, the Portland zoo, and Tin Shed restaurant, as well as many front yards.

Enjoy!

Spring, part 2

This weekend was typical of Portland this time of year — too many fun activities to choose from. Since we had temperatures in the 70s for the first time in months, we opted for an outside adventure. Although we had no idea what trilliums were, we headed south to Tryon Creek State Park for the Trillium Festival.

The park itself is only about 10 miles south of Portland, right next to Lewis & Clark College. And trilliums are lovely, 3-petaled flowers which bloom there this time of year. The park has lots of trails for all levels or hiker — we opted for the easiest since it was Anna's first time and I, true to form, was dressed exactly wrong for the circumstances.

We strolled for a bit, looked for wildlife, and brought home a trillium of our own which Anna and David planted in the back yard.

Christmas

Update: Click on the image above to link to David's Flickr set of all the Christmas pics.

We’re just settling back to our pre-visitor routine after about 10 days of various guests and an assortment of maladies. In the days leading up to Christmas, we were treated to many delicious dinners courtesy of Tasia’s friend David (from now on referred to as David A. to avoid confusion with my David). Our consumption of the trifecta of fat (croissants, fromage, and cookies) hit an all time high (really, I didn’t even know it could get any higher!), and we managed a few outings, including two that were child-free.

The pre-Christmas highlight for me was definitely getting a few girl-hours to shop for dresses in town with Tasia. She found 3 that are true Tas (short, tight, flirty as hell), and I found one that I love, love, love (not quite so short, but the other adjectives certainly apply :-).

Christmas Eve day Anna made cookies for Santa, which she later put out with vin chaud (what, you expected milk? Americans!). Going to sleep that night she kept saying “I’m so excited,” and it was just so sweet. (Side note: a few days before Christmas we saw “Santa” riding in a horse-drawn carriage around Rouen. Anna and I chased the carriage for a block or so with Anna beaming and yelling “I’m so happy!!!” the whole time. It was definitely one of my favorite moments of this trip.)

Christmas itself was lovely, filled with the enthusiasm that only a 3-year-old can manage, as well a champagne (the real kind), and the usual goodies. We had agreed to limit gift-giving to stocking stuffers, the sillier the better. There were a few exceptions, most notably the gorgeous necklace David bought me. I had spotted it one day racing through Printemps (sort of the French Macy’s) in search of gloves (I managed to lose one each of mine and Anna’s in the first week here). He remembered and has now created a big problem, as there are 4 showrooms for the jewelry line in Paris!

Christmas dinner was the brunch we never got around to earlier, followed by the first 3 episodes of Season 1 of Californication and the finalé of season 4 of Weeds (perhaps not the expected choice for Christmas—unless you know the crowd that was present!). This is actually one of the interesting things about this trip—the dichotomy between the very old architecture, roads, etc., and the technology we have access to. Because we brought a laptop and WiFi base station, we have access to the world. Pair that with the big screen and video projector in the house and we can download and watch most anything we want. The most surreal example of this has been sitting in this funky, old, French house projecting Barack Obama in HD and larger than life onto the screen to watch his podcasts. Surreal because of what I mentioned above, but also because we are so hopeful and encouraged by who he is and what he has to say. And we just can’t believe that this man is our President, that for the first time in 8 years, we are willing to call someone our President. (Sorry for the political tangent!)

As much as we loved having our friends here to help us celebrate, I am enjoying the quiet (ok, relative quiet) that comes from just being our little family. We have time for a few more adventures and then it’ll be time to head home. Nine more days left—hard to believe.

Let's get this party started

Today was the first time since Tasia arrived (3 days ago) that she’s been well enough to leave the house. We had arranged for Maïte (the neighbor’s daughter) to come over for a few hours so we could go exploring. Tasia’s friend, David, is also here visiting (he has other friends in France) and it was Dana’s last day so we really wanted to get to have an outing all together.

Since Tas is still quite sick, we drove downtown and then meandered around, starting at the Vielle Marché, near Place Jeanne d’Arc. Tasia and David were just transfixed looking at all the different vendors with their seafood, meats, candied fruits, even one just for butter. (The butter here is seriously to die for. We’ve had many conversations about how to smuggle butter back to Portland!) After a little while Tasia needed some food (and the rest of us are all pigs and quite happy to stop for food anytime), so we went into Printemps for a light lunch. The French really have the food thing down. We had a bottle of cider for the table (minus Tasia, of course) and everyone got little open-faced sandwiches on thin-sliced, toasted bread. Mine was roasted aubergines (eggplant) with tomates and fromage. Trés delicieux.

After lunch we walked around some more, spending an inordinate amount of time in chocolatèries. I also bought yet more xmas gifts for Anna. (I just can’t resist art supplies. Total projection! Thank god she’s finally starting to get into crafts.) Sometimes I feel like I am single-handedly (single cardedly?) keeping the economy from total collapse!

After a few hours Tasia had had all she could handle and we came back home. The two Davids went in search of fixings for latkes for dinner tonight (did you know it’s the first night of channukah?); Tasia, Anna, and Dana napped (separately); and I got in an hour of work on the annual report.

With the exception of an ugly, lingering cough, I seem to have gotten over all the mishaps of the previous few days (thanks to all who sent well wishes!) and I’m encouraged that Tasia was able to get out today. And now it’s time to get this party started. This is what I envisioned when I was back in Portland imagining our time here.

Happy Channukah everyone!

Bumps along the way

It's been a somewhat rough day or two. For me, it started with the beginnings of a cold which has morphed into a pretty nasty cough. Then, yesterday, I did what David and I have been fearing since we got here. I fell down our steep, narrow, twisty, dark stairs while carrying Anna. Thankfully I didn't have far to go and I was able to keep my wits about me enough to protect Anna's head. My body took it a little harder. I bashed the side of my face into a wall and banged-up both my legs. Fortunately the only lasting impact a day later is that my left ankle/foot is a bit torqued. I am very grateful that I can walk today and that Anna's just fine.

And Tasia, my girlfriend extraordinaire from Portland, arrived yesterday sporting a pretty nasty deep tissue infection. She's been sick for a week or so, and we really didn't think she'd be able to make it here, but that's Tasia. She decided she'd rather be sick in France than in Portland and somehow made it through a full 24 hours of travel alone, puking her guts out along the way. She's on heavy-duty antibiotics which are making her feel terrible. Hopefully she be feeling better in a few days. We had such grand plans for our time together in France!

And, alas, today is my love David's 40th birthday. The motley crew he's surrounded by today doesn't exactly make for an exciting soirée tonight. I am planning to make crèpes, and we picked up a nice bottle of Burgundy and some amazing looking treats from the chocolatèrie. Hopefully we can all rally to give him a proper fête.

Happy birthday, Love. Je t'aime.

Paris, again.

Our most recent trip to Paris didn’t go as smoothly as the last, but was good nonetheless. For me, this trip involved a lot of museum time, which is a big part of the reason I’m here. As a former art student, and on-again off-again fine artist (definitely more off-again for the past several years), the lure of Paris museums is irresistible to me.

On Wednesday I went back to the Pompidou, this time to see a special show of Futurist art from the early 20th century. I went ahead and bought the accompanying audio tour, which definitely helped point out details long forgotten from my art school days. It was a really great show.

On Thursday I was able to get a ticket to see the much-hyped Picasso show («Picasso et les maîtres» — “Picasso and the masters”) at the Grand Palais. I’m a big Picasso fan, and have gone out of my way to see his work many times over the years. I have to say, this was not my favorite show. The point of this show was to demonstrate how Picasso was not just influenced by, but how he directly interpreted many of the works by the masters of the art world. This show is actually being held at 3 different museums, although the one at the Grand Palais is by far the largest.

David and I saw a portion of the show at the Musée d’Orsay last week, which I enjoyed more. That part focused solely on Picasso’s interpretations of Manet’s «Dejeunner Sur L’herbe». The show at the Grand Palais had several hundred paintings (by Picasso and the others), most of which I had never seen, but they just weren’t among my favorites. Also, despite the attempts at crowd control by selling tickets for specific time slots, it was mobbed. I like to be close enough to lick the art (something I actually haven’t tried). I like to be able to virtually crawl inside the paintings — to really experience the color, the play of light, the scale, and especially the texture. This is what seeing the art in person is all about — these are the details you can’t reproduce in a book.

(Side note: this is actually something I’ve recently realized about the way I look at things: I’m very interested in texture. When David and I are out taking photographs, I’m often shooting the cobblestones or the layers of paint on a section of wall, as opposed to the landmarks of Paris. When I have some time in the coming days, I’ll start a Flickr gallery of the texture shots I’ve been taking.)

While I was taking in the art, David and Anna were having adventures of their own. Of note was the Cité des Sciences et l’Industrie, which sounds amazing. They loved it, which is great. I’m sure David will blog about it and post some of his amazing pictures soon. I have to admit that things like that just don’t hold my interest at all. I’m a big believer in playing to your parenting strengths. David and Anna can geek out together and both love it. I, OTOH, am right there for reading stories, doing art projects, cooking and baking, teaching French, etc. It sounds much more Martha than I actually am!

Bet you thought we were in the air

Yes, well...we're not. We should be, but are instead at home waiting for tomorrow to come. We got to the airport only to find the Lufthansa counter closed. Apparently they have decided not to fly on Sundays (at least from Portland) anymore, but no one told us. If you know me at all well, then you can imagine my reaction upon arriving with my family and all of our crap, only to be told to come back tomorrow. It wasn't pretty. But David and Tasia came to the rescue (David took care of Anna, Tasia took care of me!). And so now we're home, living out of our suitcases and waiting for tomorrow to be today, except with a flight that actually leaves for France. I've decided to be very Jewish about this and assume that this was the bad thing that had to happen in order to have an otherwise perfect trip. Sort of like breaking the glass before marriage. Ok, glass broken. Rock on.