Living in Long Beach

Since Halloween is right around the corner, I thought I'd share more of the owls that I have collected  since my last owl post . Let's start with the most recent owl acquisition ~  this really cute owl sketch that I bought at a little art shop in Bar Harbour, ME . No matter which of my front doors you chose to enter, there will be owls waiting for you... And then once you come inside, you can enjoy the fire and see all "whoo" is on the mantle...how may owls can you find? And then if you go to the kitchen or dining room, guess what? More owls!! I think I even forgot to capture a few...like the bag clip from my nephews that actually hoots... And then of course, there are personal owl accouterments... So that's all the owls for now. But there will more be later! I have owl latch hook, cross stitch, embroidery, needle point, long stitch, weaving, pillows, etc all yet to be completed... And lest you think I've gone owl crazy (which I ...

For the few of you who have been to my house, this isn't news...but my friendly little garden gnome is now joined by some colorful mushrooms... And here's Fluffy's view... Also, my mother recently put up a post about my place and there's a picture of my deck in the post. You can see her awesome blog (which was just featured in a magazine!) here... Recollections of a Vagabonde

I am sooooo behind in blog posts. I have quite a few to write up and promise to write some more soon… I went to the Memphis Farmer’s Market today and went a little crazy buying vegetables. The weird thing is that there was hardly any selection of fruit. I did get a lot of yummy peaches – the white kind. I decided to make a recipe in one of the cookbooks I had in college that my parents brought back to me on my last visit…Light Desserts. These cook books are all from the late 80’s. There are good light recipe ideas but it is amazing how much more selection of low-cal food there now is to use that there wasn’t then. Oddly enough, while my parents were here we visited Burke’s Books and saw one of the exact issues they brought me. And it was selling for $10! So here is my altered version of Oxmoor House’s 1989 Light Desserts “Peach-Almond Crisp” on page 113: Peach-Almond Crisp Ingredients 3 medium-size ripe peaches, peeled and sliced (about 3/4 lbs) 1/4C of Splenda granulated 1...

I love collecting and reading old cookbooks. So last month I created a challenge for myself to make one recipe a month for a year from old cookbooks. You can read my original post here . I also said that if anyone wanted to send me an old cookbook, then they could chose the recipe for me to make. Well, a few days after that post I received a cookbook in the mail from my aunt. Here she is with me and my cousin (her son) on a vacation we took to Savannah, GA in the 70’s. The book she sent is the ABC of Gourmet Cooking that she got as a present from a close family friend back in 1963. The book is copyrighted in 1956. She selected the Quiche Lorraine recipe for me to make. She says she has made it (and many variations of it) many, many times throughout the years. (Click on picture to bigify it.) I was very pleased that she picked a recipe with few ingredients and that looked relatively easy. Plus, I have never made a quiche before! But before I get to the quiche, I’d like to...

So, the cat’s out of the bag. For those of you who didn’t already know, I am moving. To where? Well, that is TBD!! But I am moving out of my condo in January. Our book for the month was picked by Lora, The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid. The thing that we all seemed to like best about it was that it was a quick read! But overall, I did like this book and would recommend it, especially if you are in a book club as it gave us a lot to talk about. But then again, we are all talkers. Since it was to be my last book club and some of my neighbors did not know about my move, I decided to make them a little “Celine” gift. If you remember this post here , I had created a design for us to label my door and all my “French” food. I decided to revisit that design and make a Stoneybrook Book Club book mark! First I cut the design in half, then printed them on business cards. (This took two tries due to borders.) Then I glued the cards together…punched a hole in them…and tied a piece ...

The last time I was in Nashville visiting my nephews, I made a promise to Langston that I would make him a Lightning McQueen rainbow cake for his birthday. So the Friday after Thanksgiving, I had the boys all to myself.  All three of us made the cake together. I wish I had some pictures to show you because it was all so cute (and so professional!) Desmond, who is only three, cracked his egg without getting any shell in the mixture. (Langston and I only got a tiny bit of shell in the mixture but we got it all out.) We followed all the directions to the letter and then Langston decided on the colors. We had special Wilton Lightning McQueen colors but tried to use very little of them per instructions from their mother. She prefers that their food be as natural and organic as possible. Langston is a pretty easy going guy so he was okay with the colors being muted. We chose three colors plus the uncolored batter, which was yellow. And then we just plopped all the colors inside ...

This picture from my 365 Project sums it all up: So, as I was saying in my last post before I got all caught up with Neely, Ann, and Jennifer (the dolls!!), this year Thanksgiving was celebrated at my little place in Long Beach. We ended up having 14 people, although one didn’t eat at the table with us because he is only 4 month old! I borrowed a table and many chairs from two different neighbors. One neighbor emptied out most of her refrigerator and freezer for me to use for the week. I also used a different neighbor’s oven for several dishes when we figured out that the turkey was sitting in an oven that had been turned off an hour earlier! Nothing like a little Thanksgiving turkey drama. I made several copies of the dinner menu for guests to peruse before dinner. My mother got many compliments from Tinu’s cousins about her cheese ball. We’ve all been making her recipe for years. It’s a family favorite. She also got raves for a new recipe that she created – Blue Cheese Slaw. ...