Fridays are for Inspiration: Blog Colours and Design

Welcome to a new feature called Fridays are for Inspiration. Fridays will now be the day to share pictures, links, blogs and websites that inspire me. 

This post shows how I came to choose the colours and design for my blog.

 

The blue is inspired by my beloved Colonial Blue by Denby.

I chose this pattern when I was 17 (my parents owned a china store) and Mami decided to help me build my collection slowly by giving me a piece or two every birthday and Christmas. Admittedly, receiving china when you’re 17 to 20 isn’t exactly thrilling but I sure felt grown up when I first moved out and I was one among few of my friends who owned a full dinnerware set. Colonial Blue has since been discontinued and despite many years passing, I’m still in love with the clean crisp blue.

The red is inspired by my red accent pieces.

  

The integration of red into my collection happened unintentionally. It started when I first moved out and desperately needed a few more kitchen essentials. Mami being the generous soul that she is, gave me the few Emile Henry red pieces she had collected: an olive oil bottle, a salad bowl and a pie plate (okay, so maybe that wasn’t a kitchen essential) and it was a happy coincidence that they complemented my Colonial Blue beautifully. Eventually I began to add more accent pieces including a salt pig, a kettle and a mini Tabasco bottle.

The Tabasco bottle sits on top of the oven and above it is a vibrant print that we purchased in the Caribbean while vacationing there when I was 15 (16?). It sat in the basement for years and only after I'd moved out (to a basement suite no less) did it meet a frame. I like to think that my love of this print subconsciously guided me to collect red and blue.

 

 Here are the open shelves above the kitchen sink. Tres jolie, non?

 

Okay, I admit that the above photo was slightly staged. Ordinarily there are two liquor bottles anchoring the cookbooks.

Okay, okay, okay! If I'm totally honest, usually the pestle sits in the citrus juicer, which balances haphazardly on top of the mortar. Moving on!

The simple white background is inspired by Leo Babauta, writer of zen habits. I enjoy blogs with clean layouts and I try to keep mine clutter free.

The About Me section isn’t necessarily inspired by anything but just shows how much I love lists. In fact, there's another list in the screen cap. Spot it?

• Lists, handwritten with my favourite purple pen,
• Google Calendar,
• and NowDoThis keep me organized. (See what I did there? List.)

And we're done like dinner.


Now if only I could figure out how to fix this (which never leads to more to read). Update: It's somewhat fixed.

 

read more "Fridays are for Inspiration: Blog Colours and Design"

Lemon Loaves & Baking New Recipes

Mrs. Stark's Lemon Loaf recipe just wasn't cutting it any more. 

In theory, the loaves I bake now should far exceed the ones I used to because I know more about baking and I have better equipment but the exact opposite is true. It's as though ignorance was bliss with her recipe. I've made many great loaves since she gave it to me when I was 11 (12? 13?) but for the last 5 years, I haven't had stellar results (my case in point. Appetizing? Hardly.) My successful loaves could have been due to a number of things including: 

• technique - using butter and eggs straight out of the fridge, totally breaking baking law
• pans - I swear Mrs. Stark's original loaf pans made the edges of the top crust lovely and crisp. They have been lost since the move from Waterloo to 36th
• equipment - I used a cheese grater for the lemon zest. I'm sure I ended up grating a lot of the lemon pith but it's all I had access to
• oven - the oven at our Waterloo house was straight from the 40s with a door that required a Franken-coat hanger to keep closed (so ghetto). I doubt it kept anything at a steady temperature

The short story is that I found a new favourite Lemon Loaf recipe. The long story is that I documented how I approach new recipes. I cleared an afternoon to bake Dorrie's version that I'd had marked for a while. 

Baking new recipes starts with choosing one from the many cookbooks that litter my bed (nighttime reading.) I love them and am quite proud of how few I own considering how many are on my Want This list. On my night table: Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorrie Greenspan and Simply Perfect Every Time by David Herbert.

On my bed: The Pioneer Woman Cooks by Ree Drummond and The Main: Recipes by Anthony Sedlak.

The next step is clearing out the sink. I am tragically terrible at putting things away but doing this eases the cleaning process.

Pull out all required ingredients.

Put a temporary garbage bag at the corner of the sink. Super helpful for lemon stickers and egg shells.

Measure ingredients. When I'm trying a recipe for the first time, I nearly always measure with measuring cups, then, if it's a recipe worth keeping, I'll convert everything into weight measurements.

Use a container to corral measuring cups and spoons.

Continue measuring and putting each ingredient in its own bowl/container.

Thank you for being so handy and within reach, Garbage Bag. PS, my grandmother has been using a garbage bag/bowl-on-the-counter trick long before RR started marketing it.

Save the egg carton for math lessons.

 Dirty dishes in the (emptied!) sink.

All ingredients measured and lined up left to right in sequential order (as listed in recipe).

Oops, forgot the lemon zest.

 

Use a post-it note to mark place in recipe. Girl, your recipes are wonderful to read in bed but hard to refer to in the middle of a project. I still love you.

Again, dirty dishes in the (emptied!) sink.

Learned this neat trick from this fab food blogger. Piping a line of butter down the middle ensures a beautiful crack.

Ta da!

read more "Lemon Loaves & Baking New Recipes"