Tagged: christmas, holidays, personal
Posted on January 5th, 2012
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I’ll always remember last year’s Christmas as that Christmas–the one I never want to repeat; the one where I felt ridiculously sick while tromping through an actual blizzard only to become snowed-in due to a Sanitation Workers’ strike.
I’ll remember this year’s Christmas as the year things got back on track. We spent time with both of our families, and after reflecting for a few days, I can’t recall a single mishap or misstep: the weather stayed good, spirits were high, and we celebrated Christmas for a full week! I hope your respective holidays offered everything you envisioned and that mother nature, and your own health, cooperated!
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Tagged: personal, Year in Review
Posted on January 1st, 2012
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Don’t you hate it when your favorite television show surprises you with a sneaky ‘clips’ episode, in which the writers use a subpar story line to weave together the season’s funniest or most heartfelt moments? I’m always annoyed by the lack of new content and skip those episodes. Ironically, I’m about to do the same thing to you! Hopefully, you’re not already groaning and clicking away.
It’s a new year–and one with a much better sound to it (2011 never sounded completely smooth, no matter how many times I said it). Putting aside my pronunciation difficulties with 2011, in selecting photographs for my own ‘clips show’, I’m astonished at how quickly the year passed. I remember the impassible blizzards of last December and January with perhaps unnecessary detail. And when I picked out the pictures to share of our September trips to London and Copenhagen, I instantly felt transported back.
These photographs aren’t necessarily what I consider the ‘best’ shots I took each month, but rather they are pictures that capture the month as a whole. Below each photograph, I’ve shared a small explanation as to why I chose the image. Happy New Year to you and yours!
January
January was bitter. Between December and February, New York received a record amount of snowfall. I remember using January to practice indoor photography, read books on photographic theory, and begin researching canning and preserving.
February
We had a break in the cold in February, and I used the slightly warmer weather to resume my walks all over Manhattan. One of my walks led me to Will Ryman’s metal roses. Centered in the middle of Park Avenue, these manmade flowers were a bright spot on an otherwise flowerless walk.
March
Most people go to the Hamptons in August-we went in March! The towns were sleepy-quiet and serene. While neither of us were sold on the Hamptons, we did enjoy walking around neighboring Sag Harbor’s streets and driving out to Montauk, the very end of Long Island.
April
In April, Justin and I took a long-anticipated trip to Portland, Oregon. As you might have guessed from my various posts about Portland, we fell in love with the city’s food, culture, and people.
May
After returning from lush, colorful Portland, I resigned myself to a few more weeks of late-April dullness, both in weather and food. These flowers signify the burst of joy I felt when I first spotted asparagus, rhubarb, and of course, tulips at the farmers’ market.
June
We traveled to Washington, DC and Winchester, VA in June to visit with friends and my parents–and my parents’ wirehaired fox terrier, Bob. A visit to Winchester means at least a few afternoons of watching Bob play outside and run around the house. Here’s Bob playing with a new mustache toy.
July
In July, I interviewed Tom and Tess of Brooklyn Victory Garden, a carefully curated food store in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighborhood. In 2011, I also had the pleasure of interviewing Nils Wessell of Brooklyn Butcher Blocks and Rachel Gladfelter of Rachel’s Pies. I’m continually inspired by Brooklyn’s food scene and its hardworking, passionate food artisans.
August
In August, my twin brother and his wife KT visited us in Brooklyn for the first time! Despite the soul-crushing heat, we enjoyed wandering the High Line, spending time in Central Park, and a quick jaunt to Governors’ Island.
September
I cheated and chose two pictures for September: one from Cambridge and one from Copenhagen. Though we spent the majority of our trip in Denmark, we trained from London to Cambridge one day to visit with my college roommate, Brittany. This trip and our Portland trip are the highlights of my year!
October
Justin and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary with a day-trip to the always inspiring Storm King Art Center. We didn’t have many crisp Fall days this year, but we woke up on October 3rd to sunny skies and 60 degree weather.
November
Our friends Evi and Sam traveled to New York on another beautiful fall weekend and served as amazing subjects for my first engagement shoot!
December
We just returned from an 8 day trip to Massachusetts and Virginia to celebrate the holidays with our families. I’m eager to share some pictures from our visit. First up: a collection of miniature ornaments decorating my brother and sister-in-laws’ table.
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Tagged: Baltimore, personal, The Rawlings Conservatory
Posted on December 22nd, 2011
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Justin and I spent last weekend in Baltimore visiting several of our friends. We had such a fun time seeing Baltimore through their eyes: wandering around Hampden, sampling some fantastic Madcap coffee at Spro, dining at Woodberry Kitchen (two tables down from hometown hero Cal Ripken), and enjoying beers at The Brewer’s Art.
For part of Saturday afternoon, Charlie and Catherine provided a car tour of a few of Baltimore’s neighborhoods before heading into Baltimore’s largest park, the 600 acre Druid Hill Park. We drove up to an enormous glass house and decided to stop the car, as neither of them had been inside.
The glass house is, according to the sign, the second oldest surviving all-glass house in the country, and home to the Rawlings Conservatory and botanic gardens. (The oldest is in San Francisco.) The house is truly a gem, breathtaking in its positioning in the park, looming over the rest of the land, sight lines uninhibited. The conservatory houses a number of rooms, including the Orchid room, which is part of the original structure from 1888.
We had fun taking a break from the brisk weather to wander around the poinsettia display, the Christmas model train, and the arid cactus room. I especially marveled at the natural beauty found in some of the rock flowers. I could easily picture myself plucking one of the rocks and wearing it as a necklace. If you’re curious about the history of the Glass House, Peggy Stansbury recently published The Glass House of Dreams, full of sweeping photos and a more detailed history.
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Tagged: desserts, gingerbread men, recipes, winter
Posted on December 20th, 2011
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These gingerbread people are a motley crew. We (accidentally) made both overweight and extremely malnourished people, as well as legless people, headless people, and–when we started decorating–alien people. I’m confident that a preschool class could turn out better looking cookies than these.
I’m sharing the recipe here because I don’t want to change anything about how the cookies taste. Yes, I may be munching on a little man without a left foot right now, but as we all know, it’s the inside that matters. And these cookies insides are the best: they’re on the cusp of being too-gingery without crossing that line (a hard balance to achieve), crispy on the outside and moist on the inside, and just generally delicious.
I used a recipe from the Nordic Bakery cookbook. Because the cookies taste spectacular, the gingerbread people can blame their various ailments on my kitchen, not on the recipe. I floured the countertop, yet the dough still stuck. And while it’s now December 20th, my kitchen still feels like a humid late September day. When we punched out the shapes, I recognized that the dough wasn’t evenly distributed throughout the tiny ginger-bodies, but I feared that the longer the dough was in contact with the air, the more issues I’d have.
These are a cinch to make–and you can avoid making human shapes all together if you’d like, and just make gingerbread circles.
Gingerbread People
Recipe from The Nordic Bakery Cookbook
Makes anywhere from 15-20 cookies, depending on size
Ingredients:
125 g softened unsalted butter
125 g caster sugar (fine sugar)
100 ml golden syrup (this is a British cane syrup, available at Whole Foods)
1 egg lightly beaten
260 g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground all spice
2 teaspoons ground ginger (I ground fresh ginger here)
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
Directions:
1) Put the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl and cream with a handheld whisk until pale and fluffy. Your butter will need to be extremely soft for this to work. Mine wasn’t soft enough, so I briefly used the Kitchenaid.
2) Whisk in the golden syrup and egg.
3) In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, and spices. When mixed, gently fold into the butter mixture to form a dough. Don’t overmix! Roll into a ball, wrap in seran wrap, and refrigerate for at least an hour (overnight works too!).
4) Preheat the oven to 350. Prepare two baking sheets with parchment paper.
5) Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface until about 1/6 inch thick. Use cookie cutters to stamp out shapes and arrange the shapes on baking trays, leaving space in between as they’ll spread.
6) Bake for 8-10 minutes until brown.
7) Let cool slightly and then transfer to wire racks. Decorate if you desire. Enjoy!
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Tagged: christmas, ornaments, personal
Posted on December 15th, 2011
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We trimmed the tree last week, decorating it with a few favorite ornaments from our childhoods, as well as shared ornaments that we’ve purchased together.
Pulling out each ornament transports me to where we were when we picked out each ornament, or in the case of my childhood ornaments, to my house and memories of Christmas’ past (insert a not-so-subtle reference to A Christmas Carol here!).
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