love is blonde

Just a few little items today, chickadees:

1. I am minutes away from buying plane tickets to Colorado in two weeks to spend time snuggling my nephew and playing with these darlings. This makes me so happy.

2. The lovely K and I are unveiling a new (yet familiar to you old-timers) project tomorrow. So please do come back!

3. It only too me 3.25 years, but my guest bedroom has gone from this:

To this:

And that makes me pretty darn happy, too. Anything making you happy today?

One

My sister-in-law (I wish I could just call her “my sister” but it gets confusing because then you might think I’m talking about my “real” sister, and anyway…) gave me this awesome monogrammed recipe box as a gift for being in her wedding. I love the colors, the monogram, the pattern, and the lucite box.

Finally last weekend I handwrote my go-to recipes on it, including an amazing homemade Caesar salad dressing from my friend Jess. This dressing is kicky with the garlic and about 4,683,294 times better than anything you can get in a bottle. Make it for yourself, or for your honey, or for a dinner party (preferably with homemade croutons)!

Two

I took an eight-session photography class this summer to get acquainted with my new camera. I’ve still got a whole lot to learn, but wanted to share my favorite photo I’ve taken so far. It’s from a hallway at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, one of my favorite go-to places when friends and family come to visit DC.

Three

Its a bird, it’s a bird, it’s another bird! Actually I think I count eight birds in my newly accessorized powder room. I’m awaiting the arrival of some funky monogrammed hand towels and then I promise to show you the whole thing. It’s my new fave spot in the house (which sounds kind of lame…but true!)

Do you ever feel like sangria is just a bit (or a lot) too sweet, and on a really hot day in the middle of the hottest summer, you’d rather sip on a crisp, cold beer?

Yeah, me too.

I had a little epiphany at Trader Joe’s last weekend when I came across this bottle of peach lambic, a sweet peach Belgian beer.

Into each glass went 3 parts Belgian White beer (Blue Moon used here but Hoegaarden would be lovely, too), 1 part peach lambic, and frozen diced peaches (prepped earlier in the week at peak ripeness).

Lambic also comes in framboise, which is just French for raspberry. I bet this would be delicious with framboise lambic and frozen berries. Or possibly with some mixing and matching of the fruits.

What do you think– sacrilegious or delicious? What else would you add? And if you try it, let me know if you like it!

Today’s post was written for Slice of Pink as part of Pink University, and is cross-posted here. Go get your learnin’ on over there though now.

*****

Hello, lovelies! It’s Janet here from Love is Blonde. Thank you to my fellow Janet for having me here at Pink University today, where I will show you how to make delicious coffee in a french press pot.

Some of you probably already have coffeemakers, or perhaps you just get your daily caffeine fix from your local barista. But if you can learn the simple few steps below, I promise you will wow yourself and your houseguests with really smooth coffee, without spending a lot of money, and you can get rid of that ugly, hulking plastic appliance taking up precious countertop space!

Step 1: Buy yourself a french press. Mine is from IKEA (cheap!), and there’s really no need to spend more than $20 or $25. Here’s a 32 oz. one and here’s a small, pink 12 oz. one.

Step 2: Head on over to your local coffee shop to buy a pound of coffee beans, and ask them to grind your beans for a french press setting. This should be included in the price. Bonus — at my local Peregrine Espresso, a pound of beans comes with a free cup of coffee, maybe yours will too!

You don’t really need to know the difference between a french press grind and a regular grind, except to know french press is coarser than regular. Let the experts do the dirty work, just get yourself some coarse ground coffee. I like to pick a roast that has the word chocolate in the description, like this one below: “…flavors of caramel, chocolate, black cherry, and wine.”

Step 3: Boil as many cups of water as you’d like coffee. Except don’t let the water get too boiled. Ideally, you want the water to be just below boiling point when you pour it into the french press.

Step 4: While your water is heating up, measure out two tablespoons of ground coffee per cup of water, and put it in the french press.

Step 5: Take your just-shy-of-boiling water, and pour it into the french press pot, slowly to get all the grinds soaked. Give it a small stir if you’d like. (You can either measure your water before or after it’s boiling. I generally measure mine after, so the water goes from the stove, to the measuring cup, to the french press. But you could measure first, then boil, then pour. The key here is mixing 1 cup of near-boiling water per 2 tablespoons of coffee grinds.)

Step 6. Put the lid on, but keep the plunger up, and set the timer for 4 minutes. Now go do the dishes so you can enjoy your coffee in a clean kitchen.

Step 7: Once 4 minutes are up, slowly press the plunger down, which pushes the grinds down, and separates the grinds from the coffee. You’re done!

Step 8: Pour your coffee into a mug and add cream, milk, or sugar to your liking. If you’re used to highly-acidic, almost-burned coffeepot coffee, you might be surprised at how smooth and sweet french press coffee tastes, and how much less sugar you need. Which means it’s totally fine to have an extra cup.

If you like your coffee stronger, you can either increase the coffee to water ratio, or increase the brewing time. Or vice versa if you like your coffee mild. The measurements and times above are standard and will give you a good starting point. If you don’t finish all the coffee on one sitting, you can put the french press in the fridge and enjoy iced coffee later.

I hope you’ve enjoyed your lesson today, please report back if you have success (or any questions).

Signed,
Prof. Blonde

A few updates from the housewife files…(nevermind that I am not at all a housewife)

Remember this chair?

This $20 Craigslist bargain from two years ago has new fabric covering the cushions and a new home in our bedroom. I sewed the cushions myself with a little help from my DC-BFF. The pillow was clearance West Elm.

Here’s a close up the fabric. I can’t remember how much I paid for it, but it was in the ballpark of $10 at JoAnn Fabrics. So let’s call it <$50 for the entire mid-century modern chair ensemble. What do you think?

*****

Last weekend we went to Delaware for my mother-in-law’s birthday. Instead of spending a gazillion dollars on a bakery cake, I spent most of Saturday baking one, and photographing the adventure with my new camera. It was fun, messy, and more exhausting than cake baking probably should be.

But the cake was so good! My blog idol swears by Barefoot Contessa’s Beatty’s Chocolate Cake recipe so I had to make that. It calls for oil and not butter which I prefer because I think it makes for a lighter, more “box-like” fluffy cake. I knew I wanted vanilla frosting and searched some food blogs before settling on this buttercream one. Both recipes were perfect and I don’t think I’ll ever seek out alternatives (since I bake a cake only maybe once a year).

My MIL must have liked it, because she confessed to me that she woke up at 1:30am and came down to the kitchen for an encore slice as a midnight snack. And then my husband ate a piece for breakfast the next morning.

*****

While I’ve been a wee bit enthusiastic about domestic-ness lately, I must admit when I came home today to a house freshly cleaned by my monthly cleaning ladies I was soooo happy. My zeal obviously stops short of scrubbing toilets.