The Spastic Baker

This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

OK…So I joined the Daring Bakers a couple of months ago. I consider myself a pretty decent baker. A daring baker, even. So it seemed like a perfect fit.

Well, for the November challenge I almost burned down the kitchen, and in December when I read the 18 pages of instructions (realizing that I would need to take a day off from work, and easily spend $50 for ingredients) I bailed. So it was with great joy I found out that we’d be baking delicate French tuiles in January. There were three tuile recipes to choose from! We were challenged to pair with a fruit of our choosing! Easy and fun, right?

Wrong.

Before I got cracking, I read the Daring Baker message boards and saw that a lot of people were having problems monitoring their fast-cooking tuiles. The delicate, thin wafers (think fortune cookie) were burning around the edges easily, and difficult to work into the fancy shapes we’d be expected to. Note to self.

Given that, imagine my surprise when mine not only didn’t burn, they barely cooked. Mine were more like crepes (hey, at least it’s French!) and they puffed up and bubbled in the oven…just like a pancake...despite my slathering onto the chilled baking sheet in a thin, almost transparent layer. I figured as much would happen, since the batter was the consistency of plaster of Paris (look at me with all this French!).


And molding a cooked pancake…

…ain’t happening.

As if that isn’t bad enough, I opened up my brand new pint of organic lemon sorbet while they were baking and it was crystallized.

Merde. (More French! :-)

So, I scooped up my pieces and did what any self-respecting baker would do. I drank a margarita (to take the edge off, mais oui), and accessorized with my random tuile parts.

I had just enough batter left to try one more. This time I dropped it onto a warm (the recipe called for chilled) silpat-lined baking sheet, which helped the batter spread. Ten minutes later (still quite a long time to bake. Hmmm...), with some over-the-top “staging” and a bit of resuscitation on the sorbet, voila:

Still thick and crepe-like, but a bit better. Once again, I point you to the amazing Tartelette, for her far better execution and the full suite of tuile recipes, along with her own fantastic fillings like a Bailey’s cream that I’m anxious to try. And her photos are to drool for.

There were a couple of good things came out of this. My purchase of vanilla sugar, which will be perfect for – what else – FRENCH toast!

And the raspberry sauce I made by simply heating a bag of frozen organic berries and adding a scant tablespoon of sugar, then giving it a whirl with the emulsion blender after the berries had broken down a bit. This is super easy and very delicious, especially when paired with lemon sorbet as I (eventually) did here.

With that, I bid you adieu.

Well knock me over with a feather!

If you're willing to put in some time crawling around specialty stores to comb their off- (off-off-OFF) season shelves (or dusty boxes) you could find something perfectly fancy for 72 cents, like this fabulous black Halloween feather tree...


The other lady of the house seems to approve of the purchase, too. (Either that or she sees a bird outside.)

Is it Halloween yet?

What a week.

I finally put away our Christmas decorations last Sunday, so that certainly was a good way to start the week.

Then, I took Tuesday off so I could go here:


Dressed like this:


To see this:

Being a part of history, with my brother by my side: Priceless.

On Wednesday I met Jean from Renovation Therapy for lunch. I had won an auction on her blog that supported Katy Hughes and her mom in their quest to erase "homeless" from their bios. Not only was I happy to help out in some little way, I was even happier to receive a heartfelt thank you from Katy's mom that made me feel even better.

I had also bought a great vintage casserole dish from Jean's Etsy shop, so she schlepped that to lunch, too...packaged all pretty and stuff:

Just look at how she wrapped my coasters! Makes me want to run to Michael's to buy fancy paper cutter thingies:

Here's the casserole...

It's in such great shape!

I can't wait to find something fun to bake in it for a bloggie show and tell!

There were also a couple of surprises...

A fab-u-lous vintage coat she scored in Florida that fits me like a glove (well, fits me like a coat, really):

And the book she just finished that I mentioned I wanted to read:

Bloggy buddies really are the best. ({{Sniff.}}

I've also been amazed by the nice things people have said about me lately (maybe there have been people who have said some not-so-nice things about me, too, but it's probably behind my back so I just don't know about it. ;-).

Sheila, The Quintessential Magpie also awarded me with the fabulous Proximidade Award earlier this month. Sheila cracks me up, and anyone who can put a genuine smile on my face is aces in my book. I've gotten emails from Sheila that have given me deep belly laughs. So to Sheila I pass the Lemonade Stand award that came to me from Blondie's Journal.

Blondie called me a, "real Jersey girl," which brought a smile to my face. As a transplanted New Yorker, I was slow to embrace moving "to other side" after college, but now I embrace all that is NJ -- from the Jersey Shore (home to the shore house, naturally), to Bruce and Sinatra, to gigantic slices of boardwalk pizza. Hooray NJ! And hooray, Blondie! She's relatively new to blogging, and has jumped in head first. She has posts that inspire, posts that are sentimental and posts that just make me smile -- like the one I read today where she talked about her spunky teenage daughter, who "has also, without any regard for her safety or good hygiene, rode the dolphins in a smelly pool while vacationing in Mexico." HA!

So to Blondie goes the You Are Truly Beautiful Award.

Maureen at Mom Times Two gave me a You Are Truly Beautiful Award. I had never heard of the award before, but love the sentiment. And I love Maureen's blog, and her wittiness (case in point: I still laugh at this photo caption of her infant daughter. Click over to see for yourself, and for a good chuckle) and kind heart. For Christmas, she gave the most thoughtful gift: She donated kids' PJs to The Pajama Program on behalf of her family members. Wow. I hadn't heard of this charity before, so was happy to see it's headquartered right by my office in NYC --and I am definitely going shopping to help them out.

Maureen's right: Who knew the Internet could connect complete strangers?

So to Maureen I award the aptly named Proximidade award above, originally from Sheila.

With that, my post has come full circle. :-)

Welcome to The Napoleon Room

No, not this kind of Napoleon:

This kind of Napoleon:

He hangs in the room we now call The Napoleon Room. The little leader was one of the first things I bought for the house, originally for the toile bathroom, but he was too big (imagine that...Napoleon was too big! He'd be so happy.). Then he was just sort of hanging out in the empty guest room all by himself. "Where's the vacuum?" "In the Napoleon Room." "Where should I put these empty boxes?" "In The Napoleon Room." So, that's how the room got it's name, and now our French ami stands guard over guests in the bedroom next to ours.

Here's the room in January 2008. We slept in here (on our air mattress) because it was the darkest room in the house (and we had no window coverings). Lots and lots of floral wallpaper:

And here it is this week:

I'd like to say we took the wallpaper down ourselves, but we didn't. We hired local handyman Noel who ripped and primed in just a couple of days. The pain, suffering and cursing we were spared was worth every dime of the very reasonable price he charged. We'd still be ripping down the three layers (I wish I had saved a piece of the psychedelic 60s race car paper behind the flowers).

The iron bed frame was...$219! We were at Raymour and Flanigan to look at mattresses, and bought the frame. I really didn't want to buy anything from the big chain stores, but we couldn't resist the price. It's on sale there quite a bit (and we had a coupon), and I have to say it's sturdy as all get-out if you're looking for a classic "iron" frame that would work in either a vintage or modern space.

Above is one of three dressers I scored on my thrifty trips this year, and I have to say it's my favorite. The detail of the woodgrain...oh...it's really fabulous. It was in mint condition. I cleaned it with Murphy's. That's it. Currently on the dresser top: A trio of thrifty treasures (the globe, the oil painting and the candlestick) that didn't even cost me $20. Love. That.

In the corner where Napoleon hangs out is a cute little table that we dug out of the man of the house's mother's attic.

And while we're in Mr. Bonaparte's corner, check out the amazing frieze work all along the outside of the portrait, all showing various pieces of Napoleon's life. It was hard to get good photos of the etching, but there's quite a bit of detail. It's signed but I can't make out the signature. This is definitely one of the things I'd schlep to the Antiques Roadshow. It cost me $75, on major sale from someone cleaning out his antique booth but still a budget buster for me. So I'm hoping Mark Walberg will trip over himself with excitement when he sees it (and guess what...the Roadshow is coming to Atlantic City, NJ, on June 6 and I just applied for tickets. Wouldn't that be fun?!)

The pillow adds a pop of color in the neutral room. I love this fabric, and wish the woman I bought it from at the Ocean Grove Craft Fair had a web site. Her fabrics were fabulous, and the quality of her sewing quite good. Plus this rather large bolster cost only $27, which I was happy to hand over to another crafty lady. (And, p.s., the color palette of the room became neutral by "accident"...we had a full gallon of Ben Moore's Fog Mist left over from the "billiard room," and the taupe-colored quilted bedding came from my mom. She was getting ready to donate it and I gladly swooped in on that.)

On the other side table is that fabulous 1950s hostess book I scored at the Ladies' bazaar this summer. I like to think that guests chuckle their ways to sleep after reading about savory and sweet gelatin molds and the proper ways to welcome your husband's friends into the home.

This little (heavy!) mirror was one of the first "grown up" things I ever bought. I got it at an auction in Windham, NY, when I was in college for around $15, I think ('cause I certainly didn't have much money!). It's plaster and chippie, but fabulous.

And here's the plate rack I've mentioned before. It's Dutch and very, VERY old. (Come to think of it, I may haul that to the Roadshow, too.) Currently I've got a couple of black and white family photos perched in there (it needs more, though I think the rack will house a rotating gallery of all sorts of thrifty oddities)...

...including one photo of the very dapper father of Mr. Shorehouse. I love this photo:

The rack is on a big empty wall. I'm fixed on finding an old faux fireplace/vintage mantle to put there, but Mr. S. doesn't "get" it. Fake? Fireplace? Why? Ugh. Do I have to explain everything? ;-) I grabbed the chair from the master bedroom that I bought from the fabulous Brooklyn-based Reclaimed Home to pop in there for a look-see. Maybe a chair could fill in the space a bit...

Any ideas?

I hope you enjoyed finally meeting The Napoleon Room. Blogging will continue to be a bit sporadic. I am crazy busy at the day job so please forgive me if I'm absent from your blogs, too, for the time being. Google Reader just told me I have "1000 +" posts to catch up on. Gulp.

Baby it's cold outside.

I don't know where the weekend went. The shore house residents are quite busy these days. But we did manage to make a trip to the beach with Maggie yesterday. It seems with her, the colder the better.

Even when we got back home, she looked out lovingly at the snow...hoping to hop back out.

The human residents had other ideas. Like a hot shower and cocktails.

I hope to visit all of the homes on Southern Hospitality's Best of 2008 tour this week...the ones I have seen are amazing! Nice work, everyone, and thanks to all the people who came by and said such nice things about the shore house. I'll be stopping by your online homes soon.

I did manage to finish a project -- finding a home for Grandma's teacups. Instead of relegating them to my mom's basement for storage, I lined some of them up in the china cabinet. China...china cabinet...it's kind of meant to be, don't you think?

I also took pictures today of the bedroom we call The Napoleon Room. Hopefully I'll steal some time this week to get them up here on the ol' blog.

Shore House Before and Afters

Well, 2008 was a big year at the shore house. Mostly because it was our first year at the shore house. One year ago, we were sleeping on an air mattress, watching television on a 13” set with rabbit ears. We had a card table and two metal folding chairs in our living room. In fact, our insurance company dropped us in February because when they drove by to check up (I didn’t know they actually did that) they deemed the home uninhabited. Good times.

I thought I’d have more “before and after” DIY projects, like painting furniture found at thrift stores and yard sales, or rewiring lamps. But the truth is, most of the stuff I found just needed a (really) good scrub and some TLC, like the dresser my new boudoir lamps (from my last post) are on. It was a steal at $125 if you ask me.


The wood isn’t perfect but I love the patina so I’m sticking with her, as-is.

However...the rooms themselves have gone through some big time transformations in the year since we bought the shore house. We looked around this weekend, a little awestruck by how much we were able to accomplish in one short year. Maybe not awestruck. That sounds a little much. Anyway…

I wanted to share some of our progress for Southern Hospitality’s Top Ten Projects blog tour. I'll start with our latest completion (or close-to completion. Is a room ever really done?!), the office.

Here’s a look back at the raw before – dark, crazy, deep knotty paneling. Which actually looks better in this photo than it was. Clearly an homage to the 1970s:

And here's the room now:

Back in April, we started by “distressing” the walls (as if they weren’t distressing enough!). I’d like to say we did something fancy, but we used leftover white paint used for our ceilings. Volia; distressed driftwood. You can read my original post, which was midway through the project, here.

We’re not thrilled with the sleeper sofa, but it was the smallest, most comfortable we could find. And at the time, we had no furniture so were desperate to purchase something to sit on while we shopped for our living room furniture. I wish it were lighter and a tad more mod, but I’ve covered it up with pillows to “hide” it as best as I can. Plus it took four guys to wedge it through the door, so we're quite literally stuck with it.

I also have a couple of black and white sailboat prints from HomeGoods that have already been replaced by the more colorful vintage-looking amusement park poster, which I’ve had for years. I re-framed it in a $25 frame from Michael’s (got to love those 40% off coupons) to breathe a little life into.

I just bought the lamp this weekend (HomeGoods, mais oui), and left the tag on just in case I change my mind. Which happens. Often.

And I really do love the New Jersey school map I scored on one of my adventures:

Other re-dos in 2008 that were big for us include “The Green Room,” our guest room that started out as a bright blue boys’ bedroom for the prior owners, seen in these photos (what you can't see is the blue paint splattered ALL over the woodwork. Tape, people!):

And, less than $500 later (right down to the doorknob) it became our beachy keen guest room. Here’s a few photos, but click here to read more about where all of the stuff in the room was found:

Then, there’s the room that started it all – our living room. Here she is before:


And after, back in April. Our first room done:



I need to stage another “after-after” shot that includes our newer round dining table (the dining table in the above picture is now my desk!) and the fabulous china cabinet.

Next up, “The Napoleon Room.” That’s what we call it, and soon you’ll see why. It’s one of our biggest transformations, mostly thanks to the undoing of some serious floral wallpaper. And I mean serious. I still need to take photos of this room so come back on Friday and I’ll hopefully have my act together. (Actually I can’t guarantee I’ll ever have my act together, but at least I’ll have photos of the room taken.)

Last but not least, I have to give a huge thank you to Tam over at Yakiddy Yak Yak for kicking-off my new year with an award!

"This blog invests and believes in proximity"...which I read online to mean, "nearness in space, time and relationships." I went on to read that, "Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated." Well isn't that just the sweetest thing ever? I think everyone who is kind enough to come here for a visit deserves to cut these ribbons, too. Thank you all...and here's to more bloggy friendships and DIY fantasticness in the new year!