Pastel Macaron: Done!

These things are a lot harder to draw than I thought they'd be. They're round and cute, but when you start getting into it, you realize there are all these crevices in the "feet." Yes, I have the i heart macarons book, but no I have not actually made anything from it; I just like looking at the pictures :]

I actually got 2 more to draw, one rose-flavored, but I ate them instead! I want to like rose-flavored things, but they taste kind of weird, to be honest..

Pastel Macaron

It's funny how an hour ago I thought I was done with this, but now looking at this photo of it, I'm not so sure anymore. It could use some brighter colors (though I don't think it photographed quite right) and the composition could be improved, but all that will have to wait till tomorrow. Good night!

Hibiscus Tea

What a beautiful day! It makes me want to take a nap, though I think this might be the opposite reaction I'm supposed to have when San Francisco gets one of its rare summery days. I really love sleeping in the sun, though!

Another one of my favorite things to do on a hot day is make hibiscus tea: organic dried hibiscus flowers my friend W gave me from her husband's parents' tree, steeped in hot water and sweetened with some yuzu jam from the Korean market. I was going to add lemon, too, but the only lemon I have is all shriveled up (I don't know why I still have it! And even as I type this!). Of course, Martha Stewart has an amazing-sounding recipe for a Strawberry Hibiscus Lemonade that sounds right up my alley.

Afternoon Tea

I went to afternoon tea yesterday with N, my bestie from high school, and of course yesterday was THE worst of the recent rainy days. Ugh, I knEw I should've worn my rainboots, but of course I wanted to wear my recently favorite outfit which required my mouse shoes. Which were completely soaked by the time I got home—I mean there were rivers in the streets. Well, as much as a city built on hills can, I guess.

So there are no pictures from the tea that I took personally, but the one above is from the official Crown & Crumpet website. How cute is that. I'd been to Lovejoy's before, but that one was like...musty Victorian dollhouse and fun to go to once...but maybe not again. Crown & Crumpet was lots more modern and less scary, and even though I've been wearing a lot of black and other grown-up colors lately, I'm still a girly girl at heart, so this Cath Kidston-themed tea room was totally my thing. Though I think I was the bigger fan of the two of us...In fact, I don't think N is even a tea person! We sat at the table where you can only see that one chair on the very far right. That was my chair. :]

We got the Tea for Two, which means we each got our own pot of whatever tea and then a three-tiered tray of sandwiches, scones, crumpets, etc. The teapots they have are custom-made clever little things: You can hoist the leaves out of the water when the tea is done brewing without having to look for somewhere to put the mesh ball. Why aren't there more teapots like this? They actually sell them in their little shop, but I got this instead:


Cat pencil not included! Ha, that is one of my childhood pencils that I recently rediscovered. So this is a Cath-Kidston print tea-and-saucer-slash-plate set. The picture was taken back at my house later that night—I had a private midnight tea as well—with the leftovers from that afternoon that N had kindly let me have. I really should wear a tiara on my head sometimes.

Like a close-up shot was necessary, but here you go anyways. The lighting makes everything look kind of weird, but it's been grey and dark out all weekend so a picture this morning would've been pointless anyways. I was sad because the fruit tart was soggy by the time I got around to it, and fruit tarts are my favorite. The Halloween cupcake was surprisingly good—hard icing! Soft frosting = bad. One thing that was kind of weird was that they called what we got "Tea for TWO," but some of the things came in odd numbers. Like there were THREE scones. And there was only one each of the more interesting finger sandwiches. And like that tart was the only one. Stuff like that. I felt like everything should've been divisible by two. Good thing N is not as needy an eater.

What else. I did not get a parking ticket even though we went over the 2-hour limit on the street. I mean they validate the first 1 and a half hours at the garage, but we always spend so long talking and eating and the garage is $2.50/20 minutes so it would've been expensive anyways. And I was going to show you a picture of the only other Cath Kidston thing I have, which is this recipe binder that's SO cute. But sadly yet unsurprisingly empty of any recipes at all. And it just would've been another incandescently-lit picture anyways, so I'll just leave this here for now.

Russian Goodies

Last weekend, a British lady I met mentioned that some of her favorite teas could be found in Russian grocery stores. Inspired by her and krisatomic's lovely photos of gourmet Moscow, I went tea hunting in the Avenues this afternoon. While I wasn't able to find any in cute tins today, I did find many pretty paper boxes of them and at super cheap prices, and got the two Akbar brand ones you see in the picture. The colors and pictures felt oddly familiar and comforting, though these styles are definitely from a time way before I was born. And I thought it was interesting that on all three packages the graphics are horizontal on one side, and vertical on another. I wonder if it's just a coincidence or if it's something they make a point to do a lot in Russian packaging, but it really does make for very versatile arranging in the kitchen!

And then the cow crackers I spotted in a 79-cent bushel and figured why not? The only thing on the packaging in English is the ingredients list, so I tried to imagine what they'd taste like based on that, but I mean what can you really tell from a list of popular baking ingredients? But sugar's pretty high up on the list, so these "cream flavor" crackers are very potentially delicious.

I'm picking up my sewing machine tomorrow from the repair shop, so hopefully it will be in super perfect condition because I really need to have the lace on my camisole sewn on and ready to go for Wednesday. More on that and the sewing circus that was last class another day.

i own a piece of a farm

So I picked up my very first box of Eatwell farm-fresh veggies and eggs. Oh, I should've taken a picture of the eggs, too, but here are my heirloom tomatoes (and the gypsy peppers underneath) in the cardboard box they came in. The box also came with a melon, thyme, a brown bag of different kinds of little potatoes (authentically dirty, too), yellow plums pointy at one end, 2 red onions, a basket of cherry tomatoes, and a newsletter inviting me to a tomato sleepover at the farm! So cute. If I were the pitch-a-tent kind of girl. Or if someone pitched it for me.

Silver Belle Update: the bottom skirty part is done, and I've experimentally [that's not the word I'm looking for, but I can't think of it] knit one sleeve and am now up to the body part. I don't think I'm going to want the sleeve to be as fussy as it calls for in the pattern (and I'm thinking I might not even have enough yarn for it), but I figure I'll just knit it up and piece it together to see how it fits before I decide what to do with it. Anyone else making this?

Idea #5

Haha, look at all the things you can do with a boiled egg! I dug this Japanese bento recipe book out of the bookshelf because I've decided to try to make my own lunches to take to school, now that I have class from 10 to 4. Okay, so there are only two more weeks left and I've been eating at Greens (this expensive organic restaurant that is too convenient to be good for anyone's wallet) for the past four, but maybe I can get a B+ for future effort. Anyways, the one in the top right hand corner is supposed to be a chicken, but I think it looks like a bleating baby dinosaur bird. And the one below it is supposed to be a raccoon, but I thought it was supposed to be a frog. But then the one next to it I think is the funniest-looking: it's a guy zooming around in a baby-carriage-looking car with his toupee flying behind him! Hahahaha! I don't know if you can tell from this photo, but trust me, it's funny. I'll try to upload a better picture of it later. I know y'all can't wait.