I have my doubts, but the buzz is that Cincinnati just might actually get some real snow this weekend!  While we all like to gripe about shoveling our cars out from under 3 feet of snow, or how hard it is to walk the dog through a permanent snow drift, when there’s none to be had we tend to miss it.  Okay, I miss it.  I just want one solid snow to run around in, make snow angels or snow men in, put on heavy boots and stomp through, and then I want the whole adventure to culminate in a cozy evening drinking David Lebovitz’s hot chocolate (my absolute favorite) with my David after a glorious day of trekking through the park with Bear.

Either way, this weekend is going to be full of painting, a visit to an exciting place (the story next week!) on Saturday that perhaps bodes well for my future school endeavors, and a 21st birthday lunch on Sunday for my little  younger brother Ed. Hopefully all doused in some heavy snow!  Here are some fun things to bring a happy end to what has been a boring work week (all pictures are links!):

I love the processes involved in making Maple Syrup.  I’ve also read (ahem* Little House on the Prairie) that Maple syrup poured on top of fresh, clean non-city snow is good. 

My good friend Kate told me about/made this completely amazing slow cooker Tikka Masala recipe.  I tried a bite today and it is just as good if not better than what she was saying.  Her only tip is to add plain yogurt to the end result as well.

The Beautiful and The Damned cake by Poires au Chocolat in a state of tantalizing disarray.

Does anyone else remember loving these illustrations as a kid?

Helena Bonham Carter is so saavy.  Did you know that she and significant other Tim Burton live in two separate houses in Belsize Park, London that are connected by a doorway? They both agreed that they needed their own personal space, but wanted to maintain a close and happy loving relationship.  How cool!

This chair. Yes please.

If you’re dreaming of warmer months, how would you like to have a tiny summer-house inspired by Virginia Wolf’s garden room, or George Bernard Shaw’s writing room?

Get bundled up to go out and explore, baby its cold outside!

Aesthetically and otherwise I am deeply entrenched in a life long affair with espresso and coffee. Deeply. Entrenched.  I enjoy a good espresso or coffee in the same soul nourishing way I love to enjoy walks in the park in the early fall wearing a light sweater, or rain in the spring when the sun is out, or fluffy snow at Christmas time, or curling up with a new mystery in bed surrounded by pillows and blankets, or laying in front of a fire.  It’s simply an intrinsically joyful affair.  Today I can’t stop thinking about a good double shot of espresso and a quick stroll out in the cold air to wake me up. Yawn, is it Friday yet?

If you’re in Cincinnati and need to snag a cup of coffee or shot of the strong stuff my favorites are (in no particular order):

• Dojo Gelato (Findlay Market location)
• Coffee Emporium (Downtown or Hyde Park)
• Red Tree (Oakley)
• Iris Book Cafe (OTR)
• The Blue Manatee Decafe (Oakley)
• Taza (Clifton/Correyville) 

Although our new apartment redo is progressing at a respectable pace, it is still early days.  However, that hasn’t stopped me from daydreaming about all of the wonderful art I want to tastefully display on our lovely and empty walls!  Have you ever walked into a friend or relative’s home and been immediately struck by a really stunning piece of art, displayed just-so?  I have, and I am excited to see what David and I can do with our new(ly painted) walls. 

While some are able to splurge on expensive and gorgeous art most of us wont ever have a random $300 dollars hanging out in our checking account with which to purchase wall art.  Even if you do have the money to do it, sometimes making it yourself is just more fun.  If this sounds like your situation, click here to see Apartment Therapy’s “10 DIY Wall Art Ideas That Anyone Can Do”.  I personally love the concept behind the first one (see above). Here are some other fun DIY ideas:  

• Framing silk scarves - you can find beautiful ones at vintage shops 
• Do you have your old paper doll collection? Frame a few of your favorites!
• Make your bookshelf a colorful work of art
• Sun Block Prints to take you back to your childhood
• Does your sister take amazing Instagram photos?  Snag a few turn them into wall art via Printstagram

Or, lastly, if you are of the painterly persuasion hunker down and paint yourself something perfect (like Kyle and Erin’s lemon).  The cost of the supplies will be minimal, and you’ll have something no one else can replicate.

I am completely smitten with the completely fabulous work that illustrator Sophie Blackall produces.  Anyone who has read The New York Times with any regularity has seen (and loved) her whimsical work.  Not to mention that in 2003 M. Blackall won the Ezra Jack Keats Award (Keats is another love of mine)  for her work in Ruby’s Wish.  Luckily for all of us she is now selling prints from her Missed Connections:Love, Lost & Found book on etsy for an affordable $40 each.  Also, click here to see Design Sponge’s ‘sneak peek’ of Sophie Blackall’s Brooklyn home.  Here are a few of my favorite prints (hint, hint husband)!

This past weekend I took some time and paid a visit to my local Lowe’s to check out some paint samples.  Latte in hand, ideas written down, I hardly noticed the people around me.  In fact, I was so focused that I basically collided with a frazzled looking guy who was also completely in his own world.  His young daughter in tow he explained that he was frantically trying to pick out what looked to be different hues of red in order to complete a guest room before his very picky father-in-law arrived that evening. Poor guy!  Anyways, after an hour I went home with around 25 different samples and laid them all out on our kitchen table to look at them.  And look at them.  Aaaaand look at them.  After a few friend consultations, adjustments due to the re assessing the actual space, and conferring with David about taste I think the colors are finally nailed down (unless someone has a change of heart between now and Saturday, meaning me).

I am going to do something that I never thought I would do.  I am going to paint my kitchen a blue hue. Grand Hotel Mackinac Blue to be exact.  Originally I wanted to paint the kitchen a warm color, preferably a shade warmer than the living room to really use the available light and open the space up.  However, our kitchen is the only room without wooden floors, and the linoleum is outdated and yellowing.  After holding samples up to the wall I realized that having a warm color on the walls really wont help at all with hiding the yucky yellow.  A friend suggested a minty green to draw the eye away from the floor, and while I do like green kitchens I spent a load of time painting my kitchen mint green a few years back only to find myself unimpressed afterwards.  Blue was not an easy choice.  Basic blah blue was out of the question, I dislike powder blue and I’m not a huge fan of dark colors on walls, so I compromised and chose a hazy/vibrant blue-green that reminds me of the way the light and water look in San Francisco at the end of summer.  Blue is my last resort for any room, and especially a kitchen, which I suppose means its officially time to widen my aesthetic horizons.  With this in mind I hunkered down at the computer over the weekend and put in some research time, and here is a taste of what inspired me to take the leap:

My husband is amazing when it comes to designing a room layout. He has the touch, the eye, that certain je ne sais quoi when it comes to organizing an attractive room.  I do not.  However, the one room in our new apartment that I immediately laid claim to was the kitchen.  For me the kitchen is paramount, it is where I relax, and it is my main creative outlet.  So, my main goals are to create a kitchen that is aesthetically pleasing, and incredibly functional.  Space must be utilized and it must “flow”, or else you get halfway through making a complicated dish, arm deep in flour or a chicken, only to realize that the appliance you really need is stuck halfway across the room, and of course there’s no wall outlet over there, etc.  Plus, the kitchen is really the one room of the house that I spend most of my time in, and I just want it to be perfect really, really lovely.  Being faced with an empty, waiting kitchen is exciting and daunting.  In order to make the most of my space I’ve been scouring the web for tips on what makes a kitchen perfect really, really lovely.   Here is what I’ve found so far:

1. The Triangle - the idea of situating your fridge, oven, and chopping block/chopping area in a triangle in order to move from one space to the other easily.
2. Pots and pan storage – if they’re stored in deep drawers or cabinets they will get dusty and possibly rusty.  Amen. Get a hanging pot and pan rack (check!)
3. Open Shelving- makes a room look bigger than it is.
4. Utilize every inch-  As a friend correctly told me the other day “don’t you dare give up and inch of that counter space to a drying rack, buy a wall mounted one,you have to use every little bit effectively!”.
5. Paint mindfully-  in a small space crazy contrasting colors can make your eye “stutter”, so to streamline a room and make it look a little bigger lighter colors and subtle accents are smart.   If you’re in love with your quirky kitchen appliances and think of them as something akin to jewelry for the kitchen (like I do) painting the room light, neutral colors can be a good idea.
6. Organize- baskets and bins in the kitchen make everything so much easier to find, and put away.  Labeling them might not be a bad idea either, if your living partner is like David, and just haphazardly puts pots, pans and utensils away in random, really hard to find places.  Grrrrr.
7. Watch your electrical outlets- As in, don’t set up your baking area across the room from the electrical outlet.  You will regret it.
8. Purchase essentials strategically-  Example:  buy the garbage cans that you can open with your foot.  There is nothing yuckier than accidentally touching the garbage can with a hand that’s been all up in an uncooked chicken, if you know what I mean.
9. Lighting- If you have windows in your kitchen,  buy lightweight shades or curtains that will give you privacy in the city, while letting lovely light in during the daylight hours.
10. Pantry- line it. Honey is bound to spill, molasses is sticky and so is syrup, and basic sugar is too if it gets wet by accident.  Line your pantry with something that wont soak up liquid, and is easy to wipe clean.

Needless to say, my imagination is kinda on over drive. The first thing though, is picking out a main wall color, and David and I are going to make a trip to Home Depot this weekend to take a look at paint samples and prices (we are on a budget!).  I will also be checking out chalkboard paint for a possible wall/ container project , as well as looking into something pretty and inexpensive to line our 2 pantry spaces with.  With my kitchen in mind, here are a few things that have inspired me today:

In the spirit of starting 2012 off by putting my best foot forward, I have a confession to make. I don’t really have a kitchen in Northside.  I mean, I used to. I’m not a total liar.  It was what people call “just okay”, mainly due to the fact that it was always freezing and awkwardly situated.  Truth be told, I really haven’t missed that kitchen at all.  I currently cook out of what I call my French kitchen.  Meaning, it is/was tiny and cute.  Emphasis on tiny.  Well, au revoir my tiny french friend, I’ll never forget you but its time to move on to to bigger and better things.  My oh so  exciting New Years news is that David and myself + Pantoufle and Bear are moving!  

Okay, David and I already live in East Walnut Hills and have for about two years now.  For two years-ish we have lovingly smashed ourselves (remember, plus animals) into a one bedroom, attic apartment that has been getting increasingly, er, cozy.  We are packing up and making the short jump to another lovely house with more room, higher ceilings, more pantry/cabinet space, a small deck and a mud room/basement +backyard.  Oh, did I mention off street parking? The great part is that we have a month before we are due to be 100% moved in.  One lovely month to paint and rehab (within reason, we are still renting) and situate our belongings before letting Bear and Pantoufle run amok.  I can’t tell you how excited we are!  Color is so important to me, and I have been pouring over paint ideas and color boards for inspiration.  Four words that contribute largely to my personal aesthetic are:

1. Streamlined
2. Understated
3. Accent (or a touch of whimsy)
4. Functional

Decorating a small space to feel like the perfect home isn’t easy (especially if you’re on a tight budget), and I don’t think I’ve achieved my goals as well as I could have in the past.  Previously I would start with a vague idea of what a home could look and feel like, and by the time I was ready to move out I’d been living in some crazy mixed up apartment full of contrasting colors and pieces of weird furniture I had picked up along the way, but that I was never really satisfied with.  This time it will be different I’m on a mission to love where I live!  Here are some images that have  inspired me today in various ways:

Okay, lets talk Cincinnati in the summer- you either love it or you hate it.  Remember, this is the midwest, not San Francisco. From mid June – mid August there are no cool breezes wafting in off of the ocean, and no slight or severe dips in humidity even late at night.  Rain does not equal cool.  Those of us living in the Ohio Valley Basin have to find other ways to cool off, and unless you have a private pool (like I do!) Coney Island is a hot bed of activity during the dog days.  If you do have a private pool (did I mention that I do?) Coney Island is still a family tradition, and it’s just a really fun day.  Lay out at the enormous Sunlight Pool, take a paddle boat out onto Lake Quomo, walk down to the river by the old boat landing, almost lose your lunch on the Viking Ship ride (okay, maybe don’t do that one).  Oh, and get a giant soft serve ice cream cone.  This last one is a must.  However, can someone please explain to me why they don’t have sprinkles?

As tempting as it is to lounge around in the air-conditioning in your silk pajamas, sometimes you need to just get out and about on the weekends.  You can go to one of the many local parks, or head to Coney Island or the pool but if you have a mind to stay in the city Findlay Market is where you want to be. Open air farmers markets abound with sun ripened tomatoes, flowers, honey, eggplant, fresh eggs, amazing apples, and my favorite – peaches.  I tend to stay away from the vegetable vendors in the front, but I will always head inside to buy sausage, Amish raised chicken, spices and the occasional loaf of bread.  Oh, and to eat Dojo Gelato.  Not only do they have the best Gelato but in my personal opinion they also serve the best straight up espresso in Cincinnati.  One of my favorite moments this summer was going with Patty to eat her first ever Dojo Gelato. Definitely a noteworthy occasion!   

The major good news of the summer has been the addition of Bear, our 11 week old border collie/pit bull puppy.  He is a complete goofball, and as rolly polly as you could ever hope for-  my favorite are the grunting noises he makes anytime you pick him up (I secretly call him oink oink).  He loves everyone and everyone loves him!  He is still too little to go on long walks or hikes, but by mid to late fall he will be old enough to enjoy an hour-long trip to the woods or park and we can’t wait!

9 months ago yesterday David and I walked into the Cincinnati courthouse as single people and walked out married.  The past 9 months with my best friend have been more lovely than I could have ever imagined them to be, and I am forever changed for having David in my life. 

David and I both work slightly different shifts, and so we often times don’t get to enjoy breakfast or dinner together.   However, Wednesday night I made Amish style oatmeal to bake the next morning, a treat I enjoyed with my coffee at 8 AM and David enjoyed with his around noon.  I came home at 6 PM to a pot roast with onions and carrots plus homemade (and the best) mashed potatoes made and served by my awesome husband.  After throwing ourselves into a pre-planned food coma we revived ourselves just enough to drive to the store to buy wine, chocolate and bug repellant in preparation for the pièce de résistance of the evening.

 In the end, despite David’s expert attention, our plans to sit in our backyard with a fire for a few hours was thwarted by the wet ground and damp air.  We did get a blaze for about twenty minutes, and while David was busy trying to keep it going I enjoyed a glass of red wine, ate pieces of peanut and sea salt chocolate and admired my husband.  We finally threw our hands up, packed up camp and went back upstairs to our couch, our cat and the zombie movie Dead and Breakfast (it was hilarious).  Cheers to life, love and happiness… and zombie movies.

This weekend was lovely, weather wise and in general.  The temperatures were actually balmy, the sun was shining and everything outside felt hospitable for the first time in months.  So much so that David and I (probably preemptively) took the plastic off of the window in our room, allowing us to spend some time on the fire escape and to air out our wintered house.  Friday night was spent at home eating pizza, drinking wine, watching Harry Potter and baking two dense chocolate loaves ( I baked, David was my baking cheerleader) until after midnight.  Honestly, I couldn’t have asked for a better Friday night!

I hesitate to call this particular embodiment of chocolate a “cake”.  To me its more of a cross between a chocolate pound cake and chocolate bread pudding,  either way to eat this is to love it.  I came across the recipe in British food writer and journalist Nigella Lawson’s How to Be a Domestic Goddess, one of my all time favorite cookbooks.  Her recipes range from decently indulgent to incredibly basic, and are broken up into user-friendly chapters (with beautiful pictures) such as chocolate, bread, christmas, etc.  Plus, I have real respect for Ms. Lawson herself on a few levels, one being that she is not a professionally trained chef but still cooks and bakes with imagination and confidence in the arena that she does.  Also, as you can imagine, the title of the book has received a decent amount of criticism, to which Ms. Lawson has countered “”Some people did take the domestic goddess title literally rather than ironically. It was about the pleasures of feeling like one rather than actually being one”.  I for one (speaking as a young, educated,politically minded/forward thinking woman who has a full-time job and deeply enjoys many of the normative domestic traditions ascribed to women historically) can appreciate this. 

 I don’t necessarily want to say with any sense of finality that this is an age in which all young, western women are able to have their cake and eat it too , but I can say with certainty that the false dichotomy of needing to choose totally between a career path and a domestic path has thankfully been blown clear out of the water.  As Nigella says, many of us are able to experience and choose the pleasure of the domestic, be it when the mood hits us, or on a daily basis.  The age-old question of ”what does an empowered woman look like, talk like, think like and act like” (apart from being impossible to answer if you only factor in the experience of gender, and the myriad ways in which a person experiences gender), is constantly being renegotiated on an individual/national/global stage in our viral, internet based world.  And isn’t it interesting the ways in which the individual affects the larger stage of actuality and existence?  I vote yes!

I got an arm workout making this bread, it is very literally a labor of love.  The most important step in the recipe is incorporating the flour/baking soda and boiling water alternately, spoonful by spoonful, and folding it slowly into the batter.  Due to this, it does take a decent amount of time to make the actual recipe, and even after its done baking I recommend letting it sit for a full 24 hours before eating it to let it settle and meld.  However it is COMPLETELY worth it.  Saturday morning I wrapped one of the loaves and drove it to Brighton for the U Turn fundraiser that night, and I kept the other one safe from David all day until the evening when we served it with ice cream to my parents, for dessert after dinner at our apartment.  It was dense and bittersweet, perfectly rich and just a little bit pudding-ey which in my book equals damn near PERFECT.  The only thing that would have made it better ( which I’m not sure is even possible to be honest, and this may just be fussy) would have been a pint of Jenni’s Salted Caramel ice cream.  But I digress.

Nigella Lawson’s Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake

1 cup soft unsalted butter

1 2/3 cups dark brown sugar ( I used light, but dark is always better)

2 large eggs, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 ounces best bittersweet chocolate, melted

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons boiling water

9- by 5-inch loaf pan

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees, and grease and line the loaf pan. The lining is important as this is a very damp cake: use parchment or one of those loaf-pan-shaped paper liners.
2. Cream the butter and sugar either with a wooden spoon, then add the eggs and vanilla, incorporating completely.
3. Next, fold in the melted and now slightly cooled chocolate, taking care to blend well but being careful not to overbeat. You want the ingredients combined: You don’t want a light, airy mass. I use a rubber spatula to complete turn the batter, which helps to avoid incorporating air into the mix.
4. Then gently add the flour, to which you’ve added the baking soda, alternately spoon by spoon, with the boiling water until you have a smooth and fairly liquid batter.
5. Pour into the lined loaf pan, and bake for 30 minutes. Turn the oven down to 325 degrees and continue to cook for another 15 minutes. The cake will still be a bit gooey inside, so an inserted cake tester or skewer won’t come out completely clean.
6. Place the loaf pan on a rack, and leave to get completely cold before turning it out. Leave it sitting out for a full 24 hours, and don’t worry if it sinks in the middle, in fact expect it  as it’s such a dense and damp cake.
7. Serve with ice cream, or (as Nigella suggests) a rum custard. Mmmm.