March 2013 - mirror mirror

WTF Friday: Dot Dog Bags

March 29, 2013 By Paola 5 Comments

So now you’re thinking that I’ve gone and lost my mind. Those little leather purses are adorably cute! I would definitely walk around town with one of those swinging from my wrist.

And so dear reader would I.

Except they have been specifically designed for the transportation of dog poop. Next time you see an impossibly chic Parisian woman (because of course these are a French design) wearing one of these, know that she has a bunch of poop dangling from her wrist.

There are reasons we don’t have a dog (most of which are to do with scooping poop), so I pass this off to the dog owners amongst us.

Do you guys really carry poop about all day? Would such a cute designer purse actually be of use? Or should dog poop be scooped into a plastic bag and DISPOSED OF IMMEDIATELY? I am unclear as to the etiquette here.

I found this on the blog of lovely commenter Cate. Her pet blog Under the Blanket features a ton of cool finds for the creatures in your life and she also sells really cool and innovative pet name tags which are attached to an online database of information in case your pets ever go missing. I reviewed them here.

The Big Kitchen Remodel: Buying a Retro Fridge

March 28, 2013 By Paola 44 Comments

I’m a firm believer that when you’re doing a room (or planning an outfit for that matter) that you should have one striking architectural feature, or piece of furniture or art (or clothing or jewellery) that acts as the focal point of the scheme, adds the wow factor and provides an anchor to build everything else around.

Unfortunately our boxy rectangular kitchen has not a single architectural feature of merit, and it is difficult to create a wow factor out of cheap Ikea cabinets. So that left the fridge as the only real possibility.

Our Big Chill fridge in a finished kitchen

Sadly most fridges available here in the US are either white or stainless steel boxes – gigantically huge, fabulously functional in a way that European fridges can only dream of, and boring as hell. After a great deal of online research the following are the only interesting fridges I could find, all retro-styled. Wouldn’t it be fab if a fridge manufacturer could come up with an eye-catching contemporary fridge design?

First of all I thought of getting a Smeg fridge. I had one back in London and they are so ubiquitous in the European design world as to have become a bit of a cliché. But for some reason THEY ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE T TO FIND IN THE US.

West Elm has started selling the small standalone Smeg fridge in a variety of gorgeous colours, but these are tiny even by European standards.

Teeny tiny Smeg fridges

Smeg does manufacture bigger fridge-freezers which would have been perfect for us, but they are NOT available in the US. This is criminal Smeg US! Get with the program!

Smeg fridge-freezers out in the wild. Though not in the US obvs.

Since we definitely need a freezer, I searched for retro-style fridge freezers and came across NorthStar fridges made by Elmira Stove Works in Canada. It’s important to note that both these fridges and the Big Chill fridge we bought are just retro cases screwed on to a cheap white box fridge (Elmira uses Amana fridges) so they’re by no means state of the art when it comes to internal features. We liked the look of the Northstars very much, but since they are imported from Canada they work out even more expensive than the Big Chill. Here’s a great discussion outlining the pros and cons of Northstar v Big Chill.

Very cute and expensive Elmira NorthStar fridges

Big Chill Fridges are based on Whirlpool white box fridges. I have to admit that it was a difficult decision to spend so much money on what is merely a tarted up $800 fridge – as it was being delivered up our stairs I was given a graphic illustration of just what we’d bought, as all the fancy panels were unscrewed and removed so it could get up the stairs. But once seen I had to have it, and we are delighted with its prettiness.

Another Big Chill fridge in a finished kitchen

Seems to me thought that there is a huge gap in the market for some manufacturer to produce a nicely-styled colourful, CHEAPER fridge-freezer from scratch though. What do you think?

Check out this fabulous post (with extra fridgeporn) from Nicole Balch of Making It Lovely for advice on how to style the top of your retro fridge. Fortunately since we have a cabinet over our fridge, I do not have to make these difficult styling decisions.

The Best Traditional Easter Simnel Cake

March 27, 2013 By Paola 1 Comment

Last year, in typical organised fashion, I managed to post a recipe for a traditional British Easter Simnel Cake a week after Easter. So this year I’m posting it up again, BEFORE the actual date, to give you a chance to actually make one for yourselves. Don’t say I don’t love you.

So, Simnel Cake.

I know I should have posted this last week but I actually wanted to try the cake and see if this recipe was worth sharing with you. And wow it really is. Suffice it to say that four days after Easter this cake is already but a distant memory. Do yourselves a favour and bookmark this recipe for next year.

First up a bit of history. Apparently Simnel Cakes go back at least to medieval times when they were traditionally served on Laetare Sunday, a day in the middle of Lent when the Lenten fast was relaxed (sounds like cheating to me). Since this day coincides with Mother’s Day in the UK, it was apparently the thing in Victorian times for daughters in service to bake a Simnel Cake to take home to their mothers.

Nowadays it’s thought of as an Easter cake, though it’s not very often made. I think this is the third one I’ve made in my life. Which is a shame, as it’s extremely delicious and not at all difficult.

Traditionally it’s a light fruit cake, stuffed full of vine fruits and spices, with a layer of marzipan baked into the cake and more toasted marzipan placed on the top. There are always eleven marzipan balls placed on the top to represent the Apostles minus Judas Iscariot. I also like to add a puddle of icing and some Cadbury’s Mini Eggs (they’re in the Bible somewhere, right?), but anything Easter-y such as chicks or flowers would do. I think it’s safe to say that if you don’t like marzipan you will not like this cake. If you do, though (and as far as I’m concerned marzipan should be a separate food group) then this tastes a little like a fruity, squidgy, non-bready stollen.

If you live in the UK or anywhere where it is possible to get hold of good marzipan, then you need to buy around 450g/1lb of the stuff. However, making your own marzipan is very quick and easy and it certainly tastes infinitely better than the peculiar canned almond paste I’ve found in the US.

I’m afraid I haven’t had time to convert to cup measures. Time to get out those weighing scales!

This recipe is a combination of two or three recipes I found on the BBC website. Most traditional Simnel cake recipes are very similar though.

Ingredients

For the marzipan/almond paste

250g/9oz caster/baker’s sugar

250g/9oz ground almonds/almond meal

2 free-range eggs, beaten

1tsp almond essence or to taste

Mix the sugar and almonds in a large bowl and add the almond essence and enough beaten egg to turn the mass into a soft, sticky ‘dough’. Knead everything together for one minute or so, until it becomes smooth and pliable. If it is too sticky add a little more sugar and almonds. You want a workable mixture that is possible to roll out. The marzipan will happily wait a day or two in the fridge.

For the cake

110g/4 oz raisins

110g/4oz sultanas/golden raisins

110g/4oz glacé/candied cherries (in the UK use those delicious undyed ones, I’ve yet to find a supplier of non-HFCS, undyed cherries in the US, if you come across such a delight please let me know)

110g/4oz currants/Zante currants

50g/2oz chopped candied peel (in the UK, you can buy pots of mixed peel, in the US I mix my own from orange, lemon and citron peel)

225g/8oz butter, softened

110g/4oz light muscovado sugar/soft brown sugar

110g/4oz caster/baker’s sugar

4 large eggs

225g/8oz self-raising flour (or 8oz all-purpose flour with 1 tsp baking powder)

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 lemons, grated zest only

2 tsp ground mixed spice (or 1 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice, 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg, 1/4 tsp ground cloves. You could also use pumpkin spice but it will taste a little different).

For the glace’ icing

225g/8oz icing sugar/powdered sugar

Enough water to mix to a pouring consistency.

Preparation method

Cut the cherries into quarters, put in a sieve and rinse under running water. Drain well then dry thoroughly on kitchen paper. Do the same with your peel if it is sticky with HFCS.
Weigh out all the fruit into a large bowl. Essentially you need around 500g/18oz of mixed dried fruit, so if you want to make some substitutions (pineapple, dried cherries or cranberries might be nice) or play around with the proportions then be my guest. This mix is the traditional one for a Simnel cake though. If you’re feeling fancy then you can soak the fruit overnight in some amontillado sherry, but I didn’t with this cake.
Preheat the oven to 150C/280F/Gas 2. Grease and line a 20cm/ 8in Springform cake tin.
Cream the butter and sugars together in the stand mixer until very pale and soft.
Beat in the eggs one at a time with a tablespoon or two of flour between each egg addition to stabilise the mixture and prevent curdling. If it curdles a little it’s not a big deal.
Stir in the rest of the flour and salt, the lemon zest and the spices. Mix until fully combined.
Stir in the dried fruit with a wooden spoon until it’s fully distributed through the mixture. The mixture should be of a soft ‘dropping’ consistency. If it is too dry then stir in a tablespoon or so of milk.
Spoon half the cake mix into the prepared cake tin
Take one-third of the marzipan and roll it out to a circle the size of the tin and then place on top of the cake mixture.
Spoon the remaining cake mixture over top and level the surface. I like to create a slight indentation in the centre so the cake doesn’t get too domed.
Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 2 1/4 hours, or until well risen, evenly brown and firm to the touch. A skewer or stick of spaghetti stuck into the centre of the cake should come out clean.
Cover with aluminium foil after one hour if the top is browning too quickly. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes then turn out, peel off the parchment and finish cooling on a wire rack.
When the cake is cooled, turn it upside down. If you want brush the top with a little warmed apricot jam and roll out half the remaining marzipan to fit the top. Press firmly on the top and crimp the edges to decorate. (My marzipan was sticky enough not to require jam).
Make a stubby snake with the remaining marzipan third and cut it into 11 equal pieces. Form the marzipan into 11 balls.
Brush the marzipan with beaten egg and arrange the marzipan balls around the edge of the cake. Brush the tops of the balls with beaten egg and then carefully place the cake under a hot grill/broiler until the top is lightly toasted or, as I did, use a chef’s blowtorch. If you’re using the grill be careful not to set fire to the cake.
Mix up the icing sugar and water to a pouring consistency and pour a puddle onto the surface of the cake. When set, decorate with Easter-y things.

This is what your cake should look like inside. The layer of baked almond paste makes it all juicy, succulent and not at all dry, unlike many fruitcakes of my acquaintance.

Happy belated Easter!

Eggstra Special Easter Ideas

March 26, 2013 By Paola Leave a Comment

Yay! It’s that time of year again when I get to make terrible, tired puns and pin up pictures of crafts and foods I have little chance of actually making (particularly with my current less than adequate kitchen arrangements).

Actually these decorated eggs(not edible) look eminently doable with the right sprinkles {via Studio DIY}.

Loving these beautiful painterly paints from the lovely Leslie Shewring {via Decor8}.

We have managed to indoctrinate the Minx into the true British ways of the Cadbury’s Crème Egg, which I import from the UK via the British Food Shop.

These crazy cupcakes have a whole crème egg baked inside of them {via Key Ingredient}.

These cupcakes are slightly less insane {via Recipe by Photo}.

And here are instructions to make crochet covers for blown eggs. Wish I’d seen these sooner they would be great to make for the Easter tree. {via LVLY}

Here’s last year’s round up of Easter-related puns crafts.

Time to eggs-it stage left, methinks.

Monthly Trend Report: Metallics

March 25, 2013 By Paola 1 Comment

Here’s the lovely Tina Ramchandani again with her monthly interior designer’s trend report. This month spoke to me loudly since my favourite colour is SHINY and we’re sort of considering somehow making the space around the toilet in the bathroom gold or silver. (The Husband and I may have been drinking too much when we discussed this.)

{via from top left Interiors By Studio M; Trendir; Pinterest; Mimi and Meg; Pinterest; Pinterest; Pinterest}

Hello again! It’s Tina of Life in Sketch, here with your Monthly Trend Report. Spring is just around the corner and the weather is getting warmer. I’m in the mood to redecorate, and I’m sure you must be too.

It’s always nice to see what’s in trend, and what trends are about to pop up so we can decorate our homes accordingly. After all, we want our spaces to be the envy of all our neighbors! Today I’m going to talk to you about metallics. While this isn’t exactly a new trend, it’s something that’s stood the test of time. We seem to see metallics popping up more in the spring and summer, don’t you think? I see more wood pieces in the winter, and maybe because metallics appear lighter they seem the pop up in interior design as the weather gets warmer.

You can use metallics in several ways. You can install a metallic wallpaper but if you decide to go this route be careful. Too much shine can be overwhelming, so you may want to install this in a small room or area, like at the back of a bookcase. I like to find metallic side tables, which will add a little bling to my room. Horchow has a great selection. If you’re willing to search, you may be able to find fabrics that have a little sheen, or metallic threads sewn in. This will give your room a very luxe look!

Do you have metallic accents in your space? What do you think of this classic look?

Kitchen Remodel: Progress At Last

March 22, 2013 By Paola 7 Comments

After a few weeks when it seemed like nothing much tangible was happening (though I knew a ton of stuff was happening behind the scenes) we’ve suddenly made huge progress in the last week.

The big news is that, not only do we have primed white walls and ceilings, but the floor has been laid. I am so pleased with it. I was a little worried that it would be too dark but I think it is warm and inviting and will hopefully look even less forbidding when the whole symphony of white above it fully unfolds.

Here is what the ‘symphony of white’ is going to look like. I realise you can’t see any difference at all between any of them on your screens, though they are there. I have to run off now to a meeting at the Minx’s school, so I think we’ll talk about whites in another blog post.

The other big news is the arrival of a jolly green giant this morning in the shape of our new Big Chill fridge (of which more too next week). And it fits into the space we left for it! Much excitement all round here as it slid smoothly into the allotted gap.

Again I am delighted with it. It was a ridiculous amount of money of course, and it’s huge design blogger cliché, but I do think it gives the room a focal point and the green reflects all the light in the kitchen and appears less sickly than it seemed from the sample.

All hugely thrilling, I am starting to see light at the end of the tunnel.

How To Temper Chocolate

March 21, 2013 By Paola 2 Comments

So today, chaps, we’re going to do some science (cue sound of frantic scurrying in opposite direction).

Fortunately this science involves the melting and eating of chocolate, which makes me wonder why they didn’t teach this sort of science at school (though I was always quite partial to Chemistry, which is really just cooking for people who don’t like to eat).

But I digress.

Last month I was looking for a quick, easy and luxurious Valentines’ treat that I could make for my beloved family, which didn’t actually involve much, you know, actual work.

So I hit upon the idea of chocolate dipped strawberries. Obviously this was not a particularly original Valentines’ idea, so much so that even my local rather crappy supermarket was equipped with the right sort of hideously expensive, resolutely hothoused, absolutely gigantic, long-stemmed strawberries that you need (and that I never, ever saw in the UK).

The only tricky thing about dipping strawberries in chocolate is that the chocolate needs to be tempered, so that the chocolate you end up with after melting and cooling remains glossy and has that perfect chocolate ‘snap’ to it, instead of being dull, mealy and soft.

This is because cocoa butter has a crystalline structure. In properly tempered chocolate (like the stuff you buy) all the crystals are lined up neatly and in the same direction, which gives the chocolate its texture and sheen. When you melt chocolate the crystals get all higgledy piggledy – the chocolate tastes the same, but the snappy texture and glossy sheen will have disappeared – UNLESS you bring it back into temper again.

There you go, the science is over. You can take you fingers out of your ears and stop singing lalalalalala now.

Tempering chocolate is one of those things that sounds scary but really isn’t. I’d never done it before making these and ended up with a pretty good result. The one thing I’d say though is that if you’re a beginner, you’ll need a good food thermometer. The temperatures have to be precise, and while it’s apparently possible to discern changes in the texture and look of the melted chocolate when it hits the right temperatures if you’re experienced, I really couldn’t see much difference.

Method

And now that I’ve put the fear of God into you, here’s what you do.

First break your chocolate into chunks or, as I did, use Guittard chocolate wafers. Chocolate chips made for cookies are not suitable for tempering.

Using a double boiler, or a glass Pyrex bowl over a pan of simmering water, bring your chocolate to a melting temperature ie. 115 degrees F (46 degrees C) for dark chocolate and 110 degrees for milk or white. Be super careful not to heat it too high otherwise it will seize. Also WATER + CHOCOLATE = TROUBLE. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

At this point if you have a cold marble slab in your kitchen you can pour the chocolate out and start throwing it around so that it cools to the correct temperature. You’re on your own with that though. I’ve never done it before.

If you’re not using a marble slab, grab a handful of unmelted chocolate wafers or chunks of chocolate and add them to the chocolate and stir as if your life depended on it. This is called ‘seeding’ and the fact that the crystals in this tempered chocolate are properly arranged will help the crystals in the melted chocolate to arrange themselves accordingly. Keep adding a few chocolate wafers and stirring the chocolate until the temperature drops to the recommended temper point – 88- 90 degrees F (31-32 degrees C) for dark chocolate and 80-82 degrees F (27-28 degrees C) for milk or white. This will take about 15 minutes and is hard work.

If the chocolate gets too cool and too stiff to work at this point you can reheat it a little with a hairdryer, but be careful not to take it warmer than 92 degrees or else it will be out of temper again.

Once you’ve got your melted tempered chocolate, things get much easier. Dip the strawberries in the chocolate and lay them on a sheet of baking parchment or Silpat (I learned to my cost that the baking rack isn’t a good idea as things stick).

If you want to make artsy white chocolate dribbles, snip the corner off a small Ziploc bag, fill it with melted tempered white chocolate and wave the bag about over your chocolate covered strawberries.

And that’s it. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Mad Men Season 6

March 18, 2013 By Paola 1 Comment

I SO cannot wait.

And aren’t these promo shots by Frank Ockenfels freaking GORGEOUS!

Sadly it looks like Megan Draper is going to be just as pouty and irritating as she was last season (she is SO high on my ‘irrational hatreds’ list she needs oxygen).

Here’s writer/director/producer Matthew Weiner talking about this season, a fascinating interview with photographer Frank Ockenfels about making the shots, and here’s my post on Megan and Don’s new apartment which was featured in the LA Times (thereby marking one of the pinnacles of my blogging career).

The show premieres on April 7th in the US.

Project 52 PRO: A Weather Poster

March 18, 2013 By Paola Leave a Comment

This week’s Project 52 PRO challenge was to shoot a poster for the Seattle Chamber of Commerce advertising the weather in Seattle.

Seattle is of course famous for its rain, but also has glorious clear bright days of sunshine, the most amazing sunsets and the most incredible cloudscapes it has ever been my good fortune to see anywhere.

For the entire week of the challenge though, we were blessed by unremittingly boring, flat, grey, overcast skies leavened by the occasional bouts of weak-willed drizzle. Not even the rain was photogenic.

So plans had to be changed and this is what I ended up submitting.

Please ignore the amateurish graphic design – we weren’t being critiqued on that, though I’d love to improve my graphic design capabilities (can anyone recommend any good books or courses I could do?).

And although this isn’t at all the sort of photography I want to do, it was interesting and challenging to spend the afternoon with my coffee machine in the kitchen, trying not to get too many distracting reflections on the shiny bits.

Kitchen and Bathroom Remodel: Paint Colours

March 15, 2013 By Paola 9 Comments

So today is a momentous day in Kitchenlandia (and in Bathroomlandia too).

The whole shebang is going to be sprayed with white primer and we shall finally be rid of the burnt orange and baby poop coloured walls and the tongue and groove ceilings should fade into oblivion.

I am SO excited.

There hasn’t been much to report the last couple of weeks, as much time has been spent working on the electrics and plumbing and new shelving and drywalling etc. But now instead of destroying stuff, the contractors will actually start rebuilding and we should see it all start to take shape.

We (by which I mean the Husband, with me backseat driving) have been using some fabulous free 3-D drawing and planning software called Google SketchUp and this is what we’ve come up with so far.

The floors are going to be a dark brown laminate. I wanted to have something dark to ground the space and was initially drawn to dark cork, but was told that dark cork (which is simply dyed) was very susceptible to visible scratches and scrapes. So laminate it is. We’ve chosen one which looks a bit knobbly and distressed, to go with the old fir floors in the rest of the house (though I couldn’t bring myself to match their horrible orange colour).

The counters will for the most part be a nice matte white honed quartz from Pental. Blew our budget a bit with that choice but I needed something lovely and neutral after all the year of forest green laminate.

For the sticky out island bit to the side we’ve chosen some walnut butcher block. Again it was rather more than we were expecting to spend, but it will be fabulous for baking bread and making pasta (and for taking food photos). There will be a hinged piece at the end to add extra countertop space when I’m cooking.

We’ve managed to include a pull-out larder cupboard and a rolling aluminium appliance garage on one wall which I’m super excited about and the big mint green monster you see is the retro style fridge which will be delivered next week, of which more then.

We’ve also extended the shelves on the back wall. These will be stained to match the walnut butcher block.

So now I have to choose paint colours. I am tempted to just paint everything white, but a little scared that it will end up looking like a clinic, what with the white cabinets and counters. However, I have a lot of colouful kitchenware which will go on the open shelves, and we do have the big green fridge to contend with. But still it’s tempting to do something whacky with the back wall with the shelves on it. Or at the very least a soft mint green. What would you guys do?

If we do go for all white, can you recommend a nice soft white you’ve used recently? Especially if you’re in the Pacific Northwest with our grey winter skies and dazzling summer light (kitchen faces south and west). I don’t think I’ve ever painted a wall white in my life. (Oh and ignore the greyness of the SketchUp pics. It’s just trying to render shadows.)

Just in case you’re feeling nostalgic, here’s a final glimpse of the burnt orange walls and wood ceiling.