Wallpaper on Lead Paint and Lead Paint on Windows

After the initial lead paint panic and subsequent freak out, things have started to settle down and I'm able to be a little bit calmer about the lead paint issues in our house.

A few months ago we qualified for a grant with the county that pays for us getting some windows replaced in our house. We're sort of at a bit of an impasse. We have beautiful original windows on our house (it's hard to capture in a picture) and we want to preserve them as much as we can. Unfortunately, abating the lead means that we're going to have to change them in some way because windows are obviously high friction areas. We're going to be checking out some of the work that the organization has done on other homes where the owners has wanted to preserve as much of the original stuff as possible.

In the meantime, a quick update on the rest of the lead. Turns out that, other than the windows, we don't have nearly as much lead as a house built in 1927, which is good. There is some in the soil, which they recommend covering up with mulch or grass or stones. And there is some on a few walls, which are just sort of considered undisturbed surfaces.

The one area that I had really been concerned about was the front hallway. The hallway was covered in a few layers of wallpaper and then paint. Before we got lead testing, I did the scraping in that hallway. I took a few precautions, but probably not as many as proscribed by lead-safe work practices. I also got lead tested after we found out we had lead in our home. The good news is that I don't have lead poisoning.

So what did I do while scraping the wallpaper off of lead paint? I worked wet (very, very wet) with a very sharp blade. I sprayed all the surfaces with water both to get the wallpaper off and also to keep any lead dust down. I laid down plastic that I could just roll up and dispose of in a garbage bag tied with duct tape. I cleaned my clothes and myself immediately after I was done working. I did the whole thing in one day so that I didn't have to keep coming back and cleaning up.

Now, I'm not saying that that's fullproof or that that's even close to lead safe work practices (they would recommend sealing off the entire area, which I did not do), but it's what I did to get wallpaper off of a wall that I now know had lead paint and the levels of lead in my blood were negligible after that project. One of the reasons why I'm posting again on this is because when I was dealing with the whole wallpaper on lead paint issue, I did a lot of searching on the internet and didn't come up with much. Also, I took a lead-safe work practices class as part of this grant and even that class didn't cover this issue or how to deal with it. Again, not to say that I dealt with it in the best way -- just adding my experience to the mess of information.

New Ideas = New Stuff on Etsy

Do you ever just take for granted that there's one way to do something and then when you figure out a new, different way to do it, it's a completely life-changing event?

I figured out a new way to sew the quilted coasters that I make for my etsy shop. I used to battle and fight my sewing machine and just thought that was how life was. Turns out, life doesn't have to be that way! I made the tiniest change to how I make them and now I know that we don't have to wake up every morning and yell and shout at our sewing machines while they tear at our seams. I hope everyone plans to drink lots of sweaty beverages on unvarnished wood surfaces, 'cause I'm gonna be makin' a lot of coasters.


I will, perhaps, one day post the tutorial that changed my life, but for the time being I'll post pictures of coasters, which you can also check out here.

Locavore Experiment: I am shamed

This weekend I took a spur of the moment solo road trip to visit my friend Sarah in Lawrence, KS. She was celebrating her birthday and a kick-ass new job and I wanted to surprise her. The seven plus hour drive was totally worth the look on her face when I walked up to her at her party (and the chance to see a really cool part of Kansas).

So, of course, before I left Minneapolis for KS I was having pretty typical unprepared locavore difficulties. I figured I'd need to eat on the way down, so I decided to stop by the co-op to pick up some local corn (that I peeled in the parking lot and then ate raw, which I love), some dips and pita chips made at a local restaurant (although I'm pretty sure it's impossible to get chickpeas locally), and some chocolate covered raisins made locally. I loaded up my water bottle from the tap and was on my way. I was feeling pretty good that I had planned that far ahead.

I wasn't hungry before the party, so I just headed over and decided that, locally made or not, to not accept the cans of Budweiser that Sarah was plying me with would just be looking a gift horse in the mouth. The party was in the back alley of a downtown bar. It was lit with strings of white lights in the way that all alleys should be lit and a country band was on the stage. I was having a great time chatting and comparing accents with her friends, when I met a friend of Sarah's from high school and her husband. I was dumbly rambling on about the differences in the landscape from Minnesota to Kansas and the striking beauty of wind turbines in Iowa (which I then photographed from the moving car on the way back), before I finally started to get around to talking to them about what they do and where they live. I should be prominently featued in the magazine "Modern Jackass" (thanks, This American Life, for coining that phrase).

Turns out that this couple, Gretchen and Randy, are living the life I want to live but will probably never have the guts to live. They have a farm with chickens and sheep and a garden. They bake their own bread and make their own yogurt and sell the wool and the lamb meat and trade chickens with other farmers for dairy and other basics. Of course, they both have to still work full time and they wake up at four in the morning to to the chores, so maybe I'm romanticizing things a little bit, but still.... Part of their reasoning is that they know where pretty much all the food they eat comes from. In fact, they eat out every once and again, but said that it makes both of them feel sick because they're not used to processed foods.

The duo has big plans -- bees and doing pressed cheeses and spinning their own yarn and eventually getting their gumption up to do their own slaughtering. They think they have little gumption.. while I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to go the next 24 hours eating local.

Later on, Sarah was talking about how great it was that Gretchen and Randy were doing this. She had also grown up on a farm but, looking back, is amazed at the disconnect in the food chain that she experienced growing up eating wonder bread even though she was on a wheat farm. She then dragged me off for egg and chorizo burritos at the local Mexican stand. Oh, Sarah, how you thwart my thoughtful eating at every turn!

The next day we met up for a bite (I had a great Turkey burger -- no idea what the origins were, but it was good) and then walked around downtown Lawrence. It reminded me a little of Madison, WI -- only a little more "grown up" somehow -- as in you'll probably see fewer people vomiting into the gutter in Lawrence.

After painfully parting ways with Sarah, I had to stop at this fabric store. It had an amazing selection of fabrics and was, appropriately named Sarah's Fabric Store -- as if she had set up the whole thing as a very-nearly-successful ruse to get me to move there.


OK, so I was less than adherent in my locavore experiment this weekend, but I'm not quite willing to give myself more allowances on this one and I'm definitely not willing to make some sort of "rules" I have about eating get in the way of traveling. Granted, I don't usually take off for last minute road trips and I think that that was my main lesson this weekend. With a little bit more planning and forethought I think I could have been more of a localist even while traveling. I could have easily brought a cooler to stock up on healthier foods. There was a farmer's market in Lawrence the morning I was there -- I just didn't make the time to get there -- and there are certainly restaurants that focus on local food. It was a trip, after all, through the country's bread basket. Eating food raised right there shouldn't be that hard, right?

Feature Friday: Wonder Thunder

My husband and I have gotten pretty good about bringing our own bags to the grocery store. The first thing I learned how to do when I started to learn how to sew was to make large tote bags. I sort of went on a bit of a rampage making them, so we have three large, sturdy totes made from upholstery fabric in patterns that do not offend my husband's masculinity too much.

So even though we were stemming the flow of large plastic bags coming into our home, we were building up quite a collection of plastic produce bags -- those thin, filmy numbers that aren't that useful (we don't have a dog).

I went on a mission to find some reusable produce bags. The Green Store here in Minneapolis was sold out of their bags, which was fortunate because one day when I was "pouncing" on etsy (pouncing is a feature that allows to see recently listed or sold items randomly), I came across some really cute pink produce bags from Wonder Thunder.


I ordered some -- and for $12 for a set of three in different sizes (sorry -- only two of my three were available for the photo shoot), I think they were a steal (handmade AND silkscreened with a cloud pattern AND machine washable).

They're not see-through, which means the cashier needs to peek into them when ringing you up (or else you need to do the whole PLU sticker thing), but they haven't been bothered by that. Some will ask what the tare is, which is great -- but at .75 oz for the big one, it's sort of negligible. My husband says he sometimes gets funny looks -- but I think that's because the pink offends some people's sense of masculinity.

Locavore Experiment: Day 4 (ish)

Yesterday my nephew (4) and neice's (1) day care was closed -- or "shut down" as my nephew said-- so my sister foisted her kids off on me for most of the day.

We made a last minute decision to go to the Minnesota Zoo. We packed up some snacks and water and juice and drove the 30 minutes to the suburban locale. It was a really nice day - beautiful weather, kids mostly under control and excited to see the sharks and bison.

The kids had their snack mid-morning and then lunchtime rolled around. I knew that walking all the way to the eatery would put us dangerously close to low sugar level meltdowns and so we ended up stopping at a little stand that had hot dogs and sandwiches and pizza. I sorted out what Gus (the four year old wanted) and what I could order that Addie (the one year old) would be able to eat. They were out of chocolate milk so I got Gus regular milk and hoped he wouldn't notice. They were out of fruit cups, so I placed "potato chips" into the "vegetable" category. I didn't think the food pyramid would mind.

It wasn't until I was a good bite or two into my sandwich that I remembered this locavore experiment that had been occupying my every thought for the past three days (and truth be told many thoughts in the months leading up). The moment I stepped into kidland, however temporary it might be, all thoughts of where the food came from and the economic and environmental and social implications of food consumption flew right out the window. I had one thought "Get food in their bellies and hope that they're getting some basic nutrients."

Therefore, it is my belief that having children (and perhaps more so having them suddenly and unwittingly thrust upon you) exempts you from ever having to follow any of these silly food movements. More power to you if you can manage it, but I will not judge you if you can't.

We now have three exemptions: "Marco Polo exemptions," "I have kids exemptions," and "my husband makes killer chocolate chip cookies exemptions."

Locavore Experiment: Day 3

Yesterday I went to the Midtown Farmer's Market. I bought some corn, lettuce, carrots, potatoes, and raspberries. The raspberries were from Peter's Pumpkin and are shown below.


There are some questions as to whether or not buying from your local farmer's market is more eco-friendly in terms of the energy required to transport the goods, but more on that in another blog entry.

I also picked up some almonds. They were flavored with a tangy bbq spice by a local family. The almonds themselves come from California, but I bought some raw ones before I asked where they were from. I feel like such a sinner.

The almond guy said that he had found some almond trees that supposedly grow in zone 4. We're in zone 5 -- although we used to be zone 6. Thanks, Global Warming! He said that he would soon be trying to grow some here in Minnesota in which case they will be the first almond farmers here.

Is it cheating to buy almonds when they come from California? What if they are roasted locally? They are really good for you. Does that make a difference?

A similar conflict arose when my husband wanted to bake some cookies. He's started to just starting lumping various items that he doesn't want to give up under the "Marco Polo Rule." He makes really good cookies and they require a lot of ingredients that can easily be obtained locally (eggs, butter, flour) and some that cannot be (white sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, chocolate chips). I have to admit that I am reluctant to try his cookies with maple sugar or molasses or any other sweetener that we can get locally. Would you be able to give these up?



The other question that came up was the flour issue. Minneapolis was originally a milling town. In fact, Gold Medal flour was one of the products that was originally milled on the banks of the Mississippi here.
The mills are all shut down now, but General Mills is still headquartered here. I haven't been able to find out where Gold Medal Flour is milled now or where they get their wheat from. But let's say that the wheat isn't from here and that the flour isn't produced here, does it still count as local because the company is based here? Aren't I still supported some sector of the local economy by buying the flour? Or does buying local mean necessarily supporting local farmers and small business and NOT supporting larger companies like General Mills that distribute goods all over the world and get their raw materials from all over the place?

I'm hoping to track down more information about Gold Medal Flour, but in the meantime, I'm wondering if even if it is from local farmers and produced locally, using their flour might not be in the spirit of the localist movement.

Locavore Experiment: Day 1

Inspired by an Adam Gopnik piece in the New Yorker last year, I've decided to venture into a little bit of social experimentation. For the next month, I'm going to try out the locavore lifestyle. Doing this is based on three reasons/assumptions: eating local is better for the environment, eating local tastes better, and eating local supports the local economy. Hopefully over the next month, I'll see whether any of that is true and whether any of that really matters.

Initially, I was going to try to get my daily grocery bill to be 100% local (the co-op we used to go to regularly before we moved had receipts that noted what percent of your purchases were local items), but after seeing that the bloggers over at "Splendid Table" are only shooting for 80%, I decided to loosen it up a bit. I don't have a specific number in mind, but I'm shooting for at least 80% local (not including salt and spices as per the "Marco Polo" allowances). Since I'm terrible with remembering how far away different towns are, I've decided to define "local" as coming from Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, or either of the Dakotas. (I know, I know, why don't I just include Jamaica and Belize while I'm at it?)

Even though I live in Minnesota, a place where the black earth offers up abundant local nutrition, I decided to stack the deck even further in my favor by doing this little experiment in August, the month that gives us the greatest cross section of late summer and early fall harvests. Perhaps one day I will try this experiment in the dead of winter in Minnesota, but not, perhaps, before we have a large deep freeze that I can spend the summer months stocking or before I figure out a way to turn potatoes into blueberries.

I also knew that this month I would be just returning from a trip to the east coast where I would have enjoyed loads of seafood and various other cuisines (like sushi and dim sum), the consumption of which this experiment would severely limit.

I just got back into town, so today was my first day. This morning I ventured to the local coop for my first entirely local purchases for breakfast and lunch. Last week, I had tried the Birchwood's Granola that my sister had brought along on our trip back east. It was delicious and local, so I knew that that would be an agreeable way to start my morning. It's also berry season here and raspberries and blueberries make the perfect topping to this treat.


Getting local milk in the upper midwest is pretty easy, but I'm lactose intolerant. I typically eat my cereal in and my cookies with soy milk. Right away, I was having a hard time finding a local non dairy alternative. I made a new rule for myself -- anything already in the fridge or pantry is fair game. If eating local is, in part, motivated by the desire to limit one's ecological impact, wasting perfectly good food already in one's home seemed to be utterly counterproductive.

As luck would have it, I had some soy milk in my fridge -- enough to tide me over until I can find another local option.

At the coop, I also bought a nice loaf of hearty, grainy bread made in St Paul and some Wisconsin cheese and sprouts. I had my breakfast and lunch lined up.

I was feeling pretty good about my purchases (in spite of the fact that the granola was $7), but when I went to double check the ingredients, I remembered that one of the things that makes the granola so delicious is the coconut. I was somewhat sure that the grains had all come from Minnesota or at least nearby (the packaging includes a thank you to Whole Grains of Welcome, MN), but I was also pretty sure that the coconut could not possibly come from, well, pretty much anywhere in the continental United States.

It made me wonder about the bread. How many of the ingredients had come from the five state region I had restricted myself to? Even if the food I buy is made locally, how I can be sure that the ingredients came from local farms? Does it even matter if they do or don't? If part of the reason behind this is to support the local economy, aren't I doing that by supporting the local restaurant that's making the granola or the local bakery that's making the bread?

For dinner, I was largely able to put those questions aside. We had enough patty pan squash from the most local place I could get it -- our backyard garden. I stuffed it with some pantry bread crumbs, the cheese I'd bought, and some bacon from Kerkhoven, MN that I bought that the Farm in the Market at the Midtown Global Market and had some tomatoes from the garden on the side.

Admittedly, some of the greater challenges came from the back and forth with my husband. The Global Market had a great deal on rainier cherries, one of my husband's favorite summer-time indulgences. Picturing them being driven half-way across the country, I passed them up. My husband was not pleased. I'm finding it's easier to convince myself to go without than to force this experiment on others.

Feature Friday: Letterary Press

A few weeks ago, I ordered this card from Letterary Press on etsy for a friend whose grandmother just passed. (She has a great sense of humor.)

The card is not only super cute and vintage-y, but it's also well-made. Letterary has other vintage designs and cards that feature quotes. A few more samples:

Tutorial: Napkins with Rik Rak Trim

This is a pretty easy project. It's great if you've dusted off your grandmother's old sewing machine and are trying to get started learning how to use it.

Itty Bitty Bird (aka Chelsea Ann) contacted me a couple of weeks ago after she spotted some cute fabric in my etsy shop. She wanted me to make napkins for her out of it and add some ric rak around the edge. It was a fun project and I love the fabric she chose. In fact, after I mentioned it to my husband, he was excited about the idea of using cloth napkins so that we can cut down on our paper napkin use and I made an extra four for our household. It's a green project too!

Here's a picture of what the final napkin can look like.

The final product is between 12 and 13 inches squared.

The best part comes first: choose and buy a yard of fabric and 6 yards of matching rik rak. (This is enough for a set of four napkins.)

Wash and dry the fabric! (This will make your napkins machine washable once they're completed.)

Iron. Iron. Iron. (As with most sewing projects, ironing is a key step to this one.)

Cut the fabric into 14" x 14" pieces (four of them).


Use your ruler and your sewing pen (with disappearing ink) and mark the fabric on the right side 1/2 inch inside of each edge.


Starting in the middle of one side, sew the rik rak onto the front of the napkin following the one inch line. (Some people like to pin the rik rak before they sew, but I prefer not t0.) Be sure to backstitch a few stitches at the beginning.


At each corner, leave the needle in the down position and turn the rik rak 90 degrees to that it runs parallel to the next side. (i.e. The rik rak is done in one continuous piece and not cut into four pieces.)

Backstitch a few stitches at the end.

(Sorry about the sudden change in rik rak color in the following pictures.)

Iron the edge of the napkin to create a crease along the stitch line so that the rik rak is now on the backside of the napkin with the edge of the rik rak peeking out on the right side.



With the wrong side facing you, turn the raw edge down 1/4 inch so that it meets the 1/2 inch crease line. Iron.

Turn down the 1/2 inch crease again and iron once more.


Basically, you've just folded over the edge of the napkin twice to create a clean edge that won't unravel.


Stitch the edge in place.

Iron again. Voila!

Feature Friday: Maybe You Should Die

WARNING: This post has some content that is probably not mom and mother-in-law appropriate. You have both been warned.

So every so often I stumble across something really cool on etsy that I end up buying. In the spirit of mutual promotion and appreciation and encouraging the spending of money and the stimulating of the economy, I'm going to periodically feature a handmade seller.

The first one is Maybe You Should Die. I actually came across their wares at the No Coast Craft Fair here in Minneapolis last year where I took this picture.

They have great cards...
but also great "mean bags" -- bean bags (or actually rice bags) with bitter, funny, mean sayings on them that you can chuck at your friends... or enemies.

Since they're based here in Minneapolis, I doubly had to order something from them. I took a phrase from Tobias in Arrested Development. You can check out the episode here.

It matches our dining room and living room (you can order it in a variety of colors). It's well-made, handy, smells like Jasmine rice, and is fun to throw at your husband when he's being a "douchechill." Check out Maybe You Should Die here.

Farmer's Market Last Weekend

We've got a tiny little farmer's market a few blocks away from us that runs on Saturdays and Tuesday afternoons. Here are some pics.

You Might As Well Tag These Books with the Words "READ THIS!"

A meme that’s been floating around the internets. These were the most often “challenged” (ie someone tried to have them banned from a school or library) books last decade.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
(You can also underline those that you read in school -- I read many of those that I bolded in school, but it's getting too late to go through and do the underline coding.)

1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
2. Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
8. Forever by Judy Blume
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson (I still sob every time I read this.)
10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry (If you’ve never read this… go and find it now… you can finish it in one sitting and it will be a well-spent sitting.)
15. It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
19. Sex by Madonna
20. Earth's Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous (Can you even become a “woman” without reading this book?)
24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
27. The Witches by Roald Dahl
28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry (So being a nerdy girl is offensive to some?)
30. The Goats by Brock Cole
31. Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane (Apartheid probably would have never ended without books like this one.)
32. Blubber by Judy Blume
33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
34. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
35. We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
36. Final Exit by Derek Humphry
37. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (… and just reread it last week. Atwood is a prophet.)
38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
39. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
40. What's Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (… find me a reader who doesn’t list this book amongst their top ten and I’ll show you someone who’s lying to try to appear noncomformist.)
42. Beloved by Toni Morrison
43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
45. Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
46. Deenie by Judy Blume
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
48. Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
49. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
50. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
55. Cujo by Stephen King
56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
58. Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
59. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
60. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
61. What's Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
62. Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume (Really? Nerd girls, cool girls… all of them read this. It’s like the bible.)
63. Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
64. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
65. Fade by Robert Cormier
66. Guess What? by Mem Fox
67. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
71. Native Son by Richard Wright
72. Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women's Fantasies by Nancy Friday
73. Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
74. Jack by A.M. Homes
75. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
76. Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
77. Carrie by Stephen King
78. Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
79. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
80. Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
81. Family Secrets by Norma Klein
82. Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
83. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
85. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
86. Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
87. Private Parts by Howard Stern
88. Where's Waldo? by Martin Hanford
89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
90. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
91. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
92. Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
93. Sex Education by Jenny Davis
94. The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
95. Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
97. View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
99. The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
100. Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

Bring Bar Food Home: Super Easy Onion Rings

(Serves 4-6)
3 yellow onions
2 c buttermilk
1.5 c all purpose flour
1/4 cornmeal
1 quart vegetable oil
cooking thermometer that goes up to at least 350 degrees

Peel and slice the onions to desired thickness (about .5 -.74 inches). Envy the Shun knife on my cutting board below.

Mix together the buttermilk, 1.5 t salt, 1 t pepper. Add the onions and let soak for at least 15 minutes.

Combine the flour, cornmeal, 1 t salt and .5 t pepper in another bowl.

Fire up the oil. You can use a large pot. Dump the oil in and bring the temperature to 350 degrees. The temperature will fluctuate as you add onions, so you'll need to keep an eye on the thermometer. Alternatively, you can use the "cool daddy" (the larger version is the "fry daddy"). We got ours as a shower gift and it has been awesome. We've been able to fry up wontons with various fillings and use Eric's grandmother's doughnut recipe.

Drench the onion in the buttermilk and then cover it in flour before adding them to the oil. Do only a handful at a time (depending on the size of your pot) so that the temperature doesn't drop and each onion has enough space to bubble.
It should take about two minutes to get them golden brown. Turn them once while cooking.

Let them drain on a paper towel-covered plate before moving them to a cookie sheet. Sprinkle with salt. Keep them warm in the oven while you cook up the rest.

Don't forget the ketchup. We had them with steak, beer, and watermelon. A great summer meal!

(Adapted from Barefoot Contessa at Home.)

Eggs on Eggs

My mom is something of a holiday decorating master. With each holiday, she pulls out a giant plastic bin stuffed full of various tchotchkes to wow the neighbors, provide a cultural experience for the hoards of foreign-born Americans that have been part of her life since she married my foreign-born father, and generally baffle and amuse her children.

This spring, Mother Nature must have heard about my mom's decorating prowess. She wanted to get in on the game.

The focal point of my mom's Easter display is a large wreath that she hangs on the front doors of the house. The wreath is made of straw and grass and twigs and other natural items and then covered in unnaturally pastel ribbons and oversized wooden eggs.

This past Easter, she put out the wreath as usual, but this time some birds decided that my parents' front door was as good as spot as oh say a tree or a birdhouse, to build a nest. My mother left the nest undisturbed and before she knew it, there were four bright blue eggs in it -- hanging right on the front door.

Here's a picture.



And a close-up, just so you can see that I am not messing around with you.


I did not initially believe my mother. Why would birds build a nest in an area with so many people coming and going? Why would they build their nest on something that actually moves, swings in and out with some regularity? Won't they get seasick or doorsick or something? There was no appropriate answer to this. Perhaps the birds were kind of dumb. My mother took care of them as if they weren't. In any case, I had every cause to believe my mother. She does not lie. Or at least if she does, she fesses up to it almost immediately. It's like a tic.

The eggs, as you can see in the picture, were the bright blue green of robin's eggs, but strangely large. "It's as if," my mother said, "the robins are trying to compete with the large, fake Easter eggs." Compete indeed.

As these things go (see "birds and bees"), a short time later, my mom found these:

And once again, a close up:

Baby birds can look a little creepy -- they are so wide-eyed and wide-mouthed. Sorry, the angle isn't great, but my mom didn't want to freak out the birds too much.

So why, you might wonder, am I only blogging about this now, months after the event. For all of her decorating, traveling, and nurturing over-achievements, my mother is not as tech savvy as digital cameras require (yet). The pictures were trapped in her camera until my brother made it home for a visit.

Digital pics set free, my mom downloaded and attached these photos for me. She even wondered if it was an event she should blog. I'm saving her the trouble (or biting her idea, maybe).

The Green Poppy Bag: A Star

I know, you're probably sick of seeing this bag, but it got a shout out over at Independent Design, a blog by Amanda Archer, a designer on etsy. Check out her shop here. I wish I'd found her (or she'd found me as the case may be) before I got married.


But at least I've found her now so that when I win the lottery I can afford to have my own personal designer.

All right.. only one more etsy post this week. I promise.

Soo VAC Sooo Awesome

Lars and Addie bags are now available at the gift shop at the Soo Visual Arts Center (Soo VAC) on Lyndale in Minneapolis. Some of the bags at Soo Vac are (currently) not available at the on-line shop, so stop by to see something new and to check out their latest exhibit! You can also visit Robot Love, which is right next door, for some really cool toys. Thanks to the Soo VAC! (I don't have pics of the ones that are at their gift shop, so I've just included more pics of those in the etsy shop.)