Weekend Roundup

In addition to the sweet guest room and hallway action, this weekend was a fun little whirlwind of a visit. I thought I'd post a little photo wrap up of Sunday, because it was productive like crazy.

Hiking at the Redwood Regional Forest, which turns out
to be a 10-15 minute drive from our house.
How have we lived here so long without knowing this?

My mom taught me a new way to cut a
watermelon into cubes.
I accidentally bought a yellow watermelon.
But this is a much better way to cut it than my
method (cut like you're going to eat slices,
and then trim away the rind awkwardly).

We picked all of this from our garden
(plus a cucumber and 4 tomatoes).
Does anyone know what kind of beans those
stripey ones are? We thought we were growing
green beans. 

I reduced 4c of chicken stock down to a
seriously condensed, thick base.
And that's our cucumber in the background.

Oh, and my dad brought me this drum.
This is the bass drum from the set he bought
when he was 13 (his first with his own money).
(my dad was a professional drummer)
He showed me this "champagne glitter" drum
when I was a kid, and I decided it would be
mine someday. He brought it up this weekend,
and it'sjust as gorgeous as I remembered.
We're going to get a piece of glass and use it
as a coffee table in the entry-living-room we
have yet to finish.
So rad.

Photo roundup over :)

Guest Room!

Last time we checked in on the guest room, the bed had arrived. At the beginning of July, I set a goal to finish the it within the month. On July 20, we had our first guest. Last week, our friends Laura and JD spent the night before leaving on their final roadtrip before moving out of the country. Two guests in one month! I guess in some sense, that means the guest room is finished. But no, of course, it wasn't finished. Our guests are patient people who didn't mind guest-ing amongst boxes and piles of picture frames. And bless them for it.

And this weekend, my parents came to town. My parents are also patient people who don't mind a little mess. Or rather, they do, but they love us enough to not only stay here regardless, but also to dive into a little home improvement project on their vacation. The guest room still has a ways to go, but it's much more functional now, and I have to say it's looking pretty good.

An inviting space, no?
The view from the doorway.

Standing next to bed, right side; this is the "desk" area.
Also known as "We went to college, and we love the Pens".

Next to bed, left side; the junk pile
(mostly organized on a shelf)
But look! Artwork!

My dad is a baller when it comes to hanging pictures. He has a good sense of what looks good where and is super fast at hanging. I had ideas, but he often had better ones. And we even hung stuff in the hallway, which had completely fallen off my radar as a place where one can hang one's artwork. Duh.

Our hallway has art!
Will posed for the camera. Totally.
I know, the lighting is awful.

The art on the wall really makes the guest room feels homey, and the art on the hallway walls get me excited for the possibilities. Little by little, we've been adding things to the walls of the house -- I think that's one of the things that really makes a place feel settled (aside from, erm, actually unpacking all of your boxes). We've been here two years now, and we have much left to do, but it's starting to feel much more like *us* and not just like a place we're renting. 

Did you get any big projects done this weekend? Do you have art on your walls? Does your partner photobomb your pictures? Let's chat.

Free Paint? Count me in!

I have a little painting project I've been meaning to take care of for almost two years. It's embarrassing. 

When we moved in, I hired a TaskRabbit to assemble some IKEA furniture, including a lovely Hemnes 3-drawer TV stand. He did a great job...almost. He screwed two of the vertical "walls" in backwards, which means the "backside" (unpainted, with serial numbers or whatever on them) has been facing the front ever since. 'Cause you know I'm not taking that thing apart and reassembling it. Hell to the no. IKEA furniture was not built for disassembly and reassembly.

Cabinet knobs, before and after.
Yes, these were taken on my iPhone.
Don't judge the photo quality (or the mess).

Anyway, a few months ago, I finally got around to replacing the boring knobs with pretty glass ones, and I've been meaning to paint the boards to match, but haven't gotten around to buying the paint. Looks like I have a good excuse now, since ACE Hardware is giving away free quarts of paint this Saturday (August 3) and next (August 10).

I'm going to grab an extra knob (shhh I accidentally bought 6 instead of 3), get my color-match (ish - don't want to be too matchy matchy) on, grab some sandpaper, and get myself a freshly painted TV stand.

Maybe even this weekend. We'll see. Oh, the thrills!

Full press release below the jump.

On Leaning Out

There's been a lot of talk lately about Leaning In, a concept made popular by Sheryl Sandberg's book (y'all know this, I'm sure). It's been on my mind again, since she was a keynote speaker at BlogHer this year. For the most part, I am all for it. Reading the book didn't teach me much I didn't already know about workplace inequality, the need to support stay at home dads, and all the other wonderful feminist things I've been fortunate enough to be exposed to. But I understand that for a lot of women (and men), her message is a wakeup call.

But I don't want to talk about Leaning In right now. I want to talk about Leaning Out.

I spoke on a panel last night about setting boundaries: "When Yes People Need To Say No". It's part of the Organization Organizers Rockstar Roundtables (a series of monthly learning and development discussions that I help to organize), and I volunteered to speak on this one because I felt like I was awesome at saying no. I considered myself to be someone with years of experience in this area, ready to coach eager pupils in the art of setting and sticking to boundaries. "Hell yeah!" I cried to myself. "I can't wait to lay down some truth about boundaries!"

It was only after we started the planning process that I realized how terrible I actually am at this. I'm a "yes" person. I want to be a part of everything. I am overcommitted. I am currently battling a gnarly cold, no doubt the result of going to hard for too long. My calendar is full, and it stresses me out rather than making me feel blessed and excited. The truth is that while I may be pretty good at setting boundaries, I'm not so great on paying attention to my bandwidth.

So for the rest of the year, I am going to say no. I'm certainly not going to say yes to anything new. But I'm going to start actively saying no, without fear of disappointing someone (or myself). Or maybe with that fear, but an acknowledgement that it's ok to disappoint people sometimes.

What would I do if I wasn't afraid, Sheryl? I'd start saying no.


Do you feel powerful when you say no? Do you say no? Are you a yes-person?

Oh, hi there.

Since it's BlogHer Conference Time (whoa I'm actually checked into my hotel and sitting on the cushy bed!), I thought I'd put up a little post for all you new blog friends out there. Before I'd even checked in to the hotel, I met 5 lovely women, and gave them all my card, and hopefully they'll come on over here, and well, I should probably have something to say. BlogHer is a time to meet new people and make new connections across the internet, in real life, and back across the internet...so here goes.

My name is Kim. I recently put up an About Me page. It has information. About me. Some of it might be interesting. All of it is true. I mostly write about everything. Sometimes gardening, sometimes organization, sometimes The Internets, sometimes knitting, and sometimes I just share things I think people might like. Sometimes I write things for other people, which is fun.

I'm super stoked to be attending my third BlogHer Conference, and I'm ready to take on Chicago, learn some new things, shake some hands, and bask in the warm friendly glow that comes from 5,000 ladybloggers* all being in one place at one time.

My day job happens to be for a company called Disqus (I run People Operations, which is like Human Resources), who happens to be sponsoring a session on Saturday at 2:30. I'm pretty excited about it. I will still be your friend if you don't come. But it should be awesome. I mean, the woman who created Cheeseburgher (my favorite party) is on the panel. Come on. Rockin'.


So if I gave you my card and you found your way here, awesome. I hope you like it here. If not, I won't be offended. You can just back away quietly and I'll never even know. If you do like it here, say hi! Leave a comment! Let's grab a drink or wander the expo or tweet awkwardly at each other. It'll be fun.

<3

*and gentlemanbloggers

Camping Gear: Storage and Organization and What to Pack

Exciting news! I've started guest-blogging over at the Extra Space Storage blog. For each (quarterly-ish) post, I'll be posting a teaser here, and you can click through for the full post over on their site.

I'm pleased to present my first post, just in time for summer camping (or a little late, perhaps, but hey, better late than never).  Enjoy!

__________

Camping Gear Storage and Organization (Bonus: What You Should Pack)
If you’re like me, you’ve amassed quite a collection of gear over the years…and if you’re like me, you might not have a beautiful suburban garage in which to store said gear. In a small apartment, or even in a small home (ah, city life), storage space is often limited, and miscellaneous gear ends up all over the place. Whether you’re finding tucked-away corners for your gear or storing it away from your house (hello, Extra Space!) when not in use, it’s important to keep things organized.

The best thing I ever did was create a Camping Box (ok, well, now we have a Camping Box, a Backpacking Box, and a Miscellaneous Extra Outdoors Supplies Box as well, but still). Inside the camping box is (almost) everything we need for a weekend mountain getaway, and oh man, do I love it.

-Keep reading on their blog for more tips, photos, and an itemized list of everything our box contains. Oh yeah, baby. (CLICK HERE) 

Monday Harvest

Tonight's harvest: gallon-sized bags of Toscano Kale, Red Russian Kale, & Arugula/Rainbow Chard, 3 yellow squash, 3 purple beans, 4 Sun Gold tomatoes & around 30 Padron Peppers. Pretty impressive, given that we picked the plants clean on July 4th!

20 days worth of growth? Not bad!

Fermentation at work...

Ah, a pickling adventure! The purple beans were starting to lose their color...things were happening in these jars!

By day 7, they were green and murky.

Those are starting to look like pickles, no?

We finally tried them after a full week of fermentation. By far, the pickles won. They aren't perfect, but they are good. 

The beans were all too salty, and not vinegary enough. I wonder if I should have altered the recipe for beans? Not sure how to salvage them at this point. Any tips?

Guests (mostly) Welcome!

After all the drama, the sofa bed finally arrived! My dear friend Andrew came over for wine and assembly, and before long, we had wrapped it all up!

The room still has a ways to go before it's truly comfortably guest-ready, but it's functional! 

IKEA Hagalund sofa bed, closed and opened. It's pretty comfy, and the cushions fold up with a cool zipper feature to make it look seamless. Bonus: storage under the seat! 

Can't wait to finish the room now...no more living room air mattress for guests at Chez Rohrer!

Dynamextremely awful

Dear Dynamex,

Thank you for your incompetence.

Once you graciously moved my delivery date from Monday to Tuesday (no, truly, I do thank you for that), thank you for refusing to accommodate when I asked to move the date a second time. I know it's annoying, but I had a last-minute schedule change at work (requiring my presence on Tuesday) that I was trying to work around. As I juggled my schedule, I really appreciated your refusal to move the delivery to Thursday, stating a rule that "deliveries have to be made within 3 days of the originally scheduled date, so Wednesday is the last possible day." Since I was unavailable on Wednesday, thank you for warning that if I didn't accept the delivery, it would be sent back to IKEA. Thank you for telling me a 4-hour window was the shortest you could offer. At least that's better than Comcast.

And despite the fact that I had a scheduled delivery from 10am-2pm today (supposedly the very first window of the day), thank you for calling me at 11:30am to "schedule" my delivery as if I wasn't waiting at home for a previously scheduled (and thrice-confirmed) delivery. It was really no big deal to rearrange my day around this delivery, so it's really no big deal that it didn't actually happen. It wasn't stressful to call a friend (Dear Laura: you are a superhero, and a tribute to all things Friendship) to come sit at my house so I could run into work (30 min away) for 3 hours, just in case you showed up (this wasn't your fault, but if I'm going to move my ish around for you, the least you could do is show up). Thank you for calling at 1pm to say you couldn't come today after all.

Thank you for offering such helpful information as, "We should know if we can make a delivery today after 2pm. We can let you know by 6pm for sure. Maybe we can deliver tonight, maybe before 7 or after 8, depending on the schedule. If not, we can definitely deliver any other day and give you a 2-hour window."

Thank you for this flip flop. I do appreciate your offering Saturday 8am delivery to me (hmm Saturday is more than 3 days after my original date, though isn't it?). That 8-10am window would have been great as a first option, but I understand if that's only available to people whose deliveries have been so screwed up that they call repeatedly to complain. If I'd had that option when I originally scheduled my didn't-happen-anyway delivery, I wouldn't have had to get all twisted up running back and forth trying to get to work and back, but thank you for getting my heart rate up. I probably needed it. Thanks for confirming though, that someone would definitely call me before 6pm to let me know if delivery tonight would be a possibility. I started feeling sorry for the drivers who would return at the end of their shift to be told they had one more delivery to make. I started picturing the effusive thanks I would give for their unexpected above and beyond service. I waited for the phone to ring, ready to pour my gratitude upon the person calling to say they'd made it work.

It's 6:15pm. Thank you for not calling me. And when I called you, thanks for having no idea what I was talking about, and instead insisting that I am scheduled for 8am on Saturday and there is no option for delivery tonight. Thanks for offering to check with your coworkers (always with the "let me check with my coworker") and confirming that there's no way it can happen this evening, and you're not sure why someone would have told me that. Thanks for laughing a little bit, as if this idea was just the silliest thing ever. Thanks for confirming that the note on my account says 9am delivery, when just 5 minutes ago, you said 8am. Thanks for being so reassuring when you said it will "definitely be there by 9:30 though". I have no reason to doubt you, of course.

Thank you for at least having customer service reps who try to be nice. They're mostly sweet, despite their apparent ineptitude and lack of interdepartmental communication skills. Maybe this isn't their fault. Maybe the system really is extraordinarily glitchy. Maybe they're being told different things by different people all day long, and they're just doing their best.

Thank you for not delivering my furniture today. I look forward to waking up for an 8am for a delivery that's not likely to arrive on time. My husband thanks you too.

All the love,
Kim


Update (7.17, 9am): Husband said he could be home for a Thursday morning 8-10am delivery, which would be preferable to Saturday. I called this morning (Weds) at 7am to see if that was an option, fully aware that I am possibly a crazy person. The woman on the phone (whose name, again, I forgot to collect) said she wasn't sure and would have to call her dispatcher. And then...the best part? She confirmed my Saturday delivery window as 9-11am, saying they don't deliver earlier than 9. So now I've heard "we don't deliver before 10", "we can deliver from 8-10", and "we don't deliver before 9". I am officially confused, and awaiting a call back. Thanks, Dynamex, for securing my confidence in you.

Update (7.17, 11am): Spoke with Dynamex Manager Hector, who (after I explained my frustrating experience so far) said they could deliver tomorrow (Thursday) between 9-11am. When I asked if I could have the 8-10 window I had previously been promised, he said it's impossible because the trucks leave the warehouse at 8am. BUT I got him to promise me that he would make sure our delivery is the first on the route (and Hector, we confirmed twice, and you guaranteed it!), so while he can't guarantee an arrival time (traffic and whatnot), it's looking good that the delivery will happen before 10am. Fingers crossed for a smooth delivery and no more problems.

Update (7.17, 1pm): Got a call from the call center confirming my delivery for 9-11am tomorrow (Thursday). When I asked if a note from Hector was on my account, the woman confirmed that it said, "Deliver this first!" -- ok, Dynamex. The ball's in your court. See you in the morning!

July Weekend Warrioring: First Weekend Recap

On Saturday, I posted a post full of promise and motivation. Full of songs unsung and wine untasted and hopes that were high, and life that was worth living, and ok I'm done with this weird Les Miz thing I'm inexplicably doing right now. I wrote about stuff I was going to do, and then I did stuff this weekend. I did it. Booya.

What stuff?

I moved some guest room furniture around, so that the desks are in their new locations (including some very exciting cord-wrangling, and the addition of a new surge protector...ooh exciting).
I took the printer out of the living room and set it up in the guest room (slash office).
I did 5 loads of laundry.
I shredded so much unnecessary paperwork that the shredder needed a break.
I Craigslisted the dishwasher that never worked, the old printer we don't use anymore, and the file cabinet I no longer need. And they were all picked up.
I drove three bags of donations to Goodwill.
I organized the storage closet (already blogged).
I unpacked the clothes and gifts from our Portland trip.
I purchased way too much cute baby stuff for a friend's baby shower next weekend.
I got a pedicure.
I enjoyed the company of my dear friend Emika, including a super awesome slumber party where we watched Bachelorette, which is in fact, not a good movie.

Oh, and I pickled some things.

It was quite a weekend. There's nothing new that's photo-worthy yet (well, except the pickles), so this post is really more of a "hey look at me I did stuff" than a beautiful blog post full of photos and prose. Next weekend, I tackle the giant stack of boxes that line the wall of the guest room...there's a lot of nonsense going on over there, and it's going to have to get organized before the sofabed arrives!

That's all I suppose. Did you set goals for your weekend? Did you accomplish them? Is any of this interesting, or am I just navelgazing with the knowledge that when I put my goals on the internet, I'm more likely to accomplish them?

Picklez

It's always nice to visit friends who happen to have a robust garden. On Saturday, as we sat around eating homemade nachos and playing with the kids, I offered to help pick some beans and cucumbers - their vines were overflowing, and they're about to go out of town. I happen to enjoy harvesting; there's something thrilling about the hunt for fresh fruits and veggies, eating some straight off the vine and thinking about what you might like to do with the rest. And they were happy to have the help.

We picked what I thought was just an insane amount of beans (green and purple) and cucumbers, but it turns out that this is an average harvest for them, and they get this much booty every 7-10 days!

The harvest - hand pictured for scale.
We filled that silver bucket with beans three times.
All in all, it was approximately 1 bajillion pounds of beans.
That's a scientific measurement.

My goodness. Insane. And so delicious.

Beautiful tomato for good measure.

What to do with all these beans and cukes? I'm a bit of a pickle fiend, but somehow I've never actually made my own. Rather silly, really. Anyway, I couldn't get the idea of pickling out of my head, so I looked up a recipe, bought some Ball jars, picked up some spices, and got to work.

Ta-da!
One jar of cucumbers, one jar of green beans, three jars
of purple beans. Varying spice levels.

Gotta label your jars, right?

For the purple beans, I did three different levels of salt: one followed the recipe, one used significantly less, and one was half-full-salt and half-less-salt. This was sort of by accident at first (I really need some reading glasses for reading recipes on my phone, I swear), but I decided to roll with it rather than making them all according to the recipe. It's an experiment, right?

Cucumbers and green beans...looking pretty
un-pickled at this point.

The purple beans are so dark that it's hard
to see them. Eventually, they'll lose their
deep color completely and turn greenish brown.

No special canning equipment, no boiling the jars to seal them (these aren't shelf-stable and have to be stored in the fridge after they're done fermenting). So easy. Supposedly in about 3 days or so, these should be all kinds of pickled goodness. If this works? Man, do I have a summer full of pickling ahead of me!

And a little bonus organization-gasm for all you organization freaks like me out there...

LOOK AT MY FRIENDS' FREAKING AWESOME GARAGE (hipster filters optional)! This is all the husband's territory, and he's got quite a sweet system going on there, what with the pegboard for all the tools and the shelves with organized plastic bins. It's hard to see, but there's a library card catalog screwed into the workbench to hold screws and whatnot. Super cool (they're both teachers). He even has a few bunches of shallots hanging from the ceiling to dry right now. Sigh. So nice. I think he's my spirit animal. 

I'm curious to hear about your pickling adventures. Have you pickled? Do you like pickles?

Eggs and Greens and a House to Myself

My husband and a friend are off on an overnight backpacking excursion in the Desolation Wilderness, and I have the house to myself. And I'll say, as much as I love my husband, I do treasure these weekends alone. I tend to get a lot done while he's away, and this weekend, I have the added bonus of a visit from a dear friend who's currently studying at the Yale School of Drama (which, while very exciting, is very far away from me!). I don't know what it is about having the place to myself...I'm sure there's some psychological reasoning around wanting to impress my husband with the awesome work I've done, or maybe I just focus better when I have full control over the space. Either way, I look at this weekend as an opportunity to get a lot done, and I'm going to fight the lure of the sofa and the rom com and make an impact on the house, Weekend Warrior style.

Some before shots, for posterity.

Last week, I set a lofty goal for myself: I am going to finish the guest room by the end of the month.

Why now? As of August 1, we'll have lived here for two years. Our office/guest room has never been fully functional, serving more as a storage facility than a usable room, and dang it if I'm going to hit our two-year anniversary in this house with an unusable second bedroom! Also, I have this and next weekend almost entirely void of plans, which is highly rare these days. Once mid-July and August hit, we have work trips and camping trips and weddings and just all sorts of things that will interfere with a weekend of housework. So it's now or never.

Anyway, Will's desk is in there, but he's recently transitioned to a laptop, so while we'll keep the small desk in there for the few times when we want to work at a desk (and the printer will live in there as well), the room will primarily serve as a guest room. My wonderful friend Melissa is a professional designer, and donated a few hours of her time to help me figure out how to use this tiny room (it's 11' 7" x  7' 9", less than 80 sq ft). That was in December. Of 2011. It's just embarrassing at this point.

BUT BUT BUT!

Check out that floor. You can see it!
You definitely couldn't see it a few hours ago.
This room is hard to photograph,
especially with an iPhone.

Yesterday, I ordered the sofabed we picked out, as well as a new shelf (sorry, Melissa, I'm taking a slight detour from our original plans) to replace the file cabinets we don't need. IKEA should be delivering them in about a week.

And this morning, while the guys were sorting through their gear, I organized the storage closet off our dining room, just for kicks.
(<-- photo)

All this is to say that I've started off on the right foot.

And as a little reward for my morning of good work (I started the laundry too - I'm on a roll!), I made some eggs and greens, inspired by Smitten Kitchen's Baked Eggs and Hollandaise (from her cookbook, so I can't link to the original recipe).

I used the greens I mentioned in yesterday's post, and cracked two eggs on top. Baked for just under 20 minutes at 375, and topped with some Cougar Gold and Tabasco. I slightly overcooked the eggs, but it's still quite good. So excuse me, I have to go devour this now. Wish me luck with the whole productivity thing :)

Greens, glorious greens

I'm not winning any awards for my food photography,
but it's damn tasty, and that's all that matters.

Are you getting anything awesome done this weekend? Have any projects in the works?

Harvest Season

Summer is upon us, and the garden is in full swing! We've already had two very successful harvests, and it's looking like we'll be seeing more of the same for some time.

We planted back in May, after the annual starter plant sale at the Edible Schoolyard. But first, we had to  get rid of a few remnants from last year...

Like some insanely tall, sprawling Toscano Kale

...and a whole bin full of shrubbery, branches,
small trees, and miscellaneous dead plants.

With all the junk out of the way, we had room to plant! And plant we did! Oh man, did we plant.

What you see here is a garden, with five types of tomatoes, eggplant, red russian kale, toscano kale, arugula, basil, gold coin onions, padron peppers, three other kinds of peppers, two kinds of beans, zucchini, crookneck squash, lemon cucumber, and strawberries. Plus the padron peppers, rainbow chard, and parsley from last year (though the parsley has flowered and is basically useless now), and the lemon tree.

And that tall plant climbing up the spiral garden stake (kind of right in the middle of the picture - not the lemon tree)? That's that one remaining padron plant from last year, which looked so sturdy that we didn't rip it out. It lasted through the winter and is going crazy now! Like, super flourishing, guys. Not just "not dying" like I would have expected it to be.

This is a lot of garden, guys. It's a tight fit, but we had our first harvest a few weeks ago, and I'm pretty stoked for the rest of the summer. I'd like to thank our automatic sprinkler system, and my can-do husband, who was responsible for a large majority of the junk removal.

The first harvest:

Tops from the gold coin onions, rainbow chard, red russian
kale, toscano kale, basil, and padron peppers

And then on Monday night, when we returned from a week in Portland, we picked all this:

Red russian kale, rainbow chard, toscano kale,
basil (4 cups!), onion tops, arugula (and
flowers), and a TON of padrons!

In fact, we harvested another five padrons a few days later, and cooked them all up on the Fourth of July. We've eaten almost all of them, and it seems like I may have gotten the only spicy one out of the whole bunch! We made pesto out of the basil, have been using the arugula as a base for salad, and I sautéed that entire bunch of greens down to about 1 cup, which I'm planning to eat with some eggs this weekend. Eating what we've grown! So fun!

Yum yum peppers! I count more than 20!

We're having an excellent garden season so far, and it's only been about a month and a half. The squash are starting to come in, and the tomatoes, while not yet red, are plumping up. I have low expectations for the eggplant, but we should have some continued pepper luck. They seem to like our garden.

Unfortunately, we're starting to see some aphids and those little green caterpillars that were responsible for so much damage last year. I'm thinking about getting some ladybugs to release, just like we used to do when I was a kid and the aphids got into the roses. What will eat the caterpillars but not the greens? 

Anyone out there gardening? Harvesting yet?

Dip it Good

Oh hi. It's been a long time (and yes, the blog got a little facelift). I can't believe it's been so long since my last post. I guess that March Madness win really took it out of me. Howzabout I make it up to you with a little giveaway? 

I thought you'd like that. Am I forgiven? Thanks.

About a month ago, La Terra Fina contacted me, asking if I'd like to try their new line of dips and spreads. Not one to turn down free food - and definitely one to enjoy a good dip - I said I was game. They sent five delicious dips to my door, and y'all know I tried them all. I opened them up at a party at our place, brought them to a friend's party a few days later, and finished off the last one this weekend. And I kind of wish I still had some left. The best part? They're made with Greek yogurt, so they're totally not even bad for you! They would make really good spreads on a sandwich or wrap, and they're super tasty with just about anything dipped in them.

Oh, and the packaging is made from 100% recycled PET bottles, so that's cool too. 

They were all delicious, though my favorite was definitely the Balsamic Beet & White Bean. The Onion Dip was a little sweeter than I like my onion dip to be, but it was still pretty good (and friends enjoyed it quite a bit). The Kalamata Olive & Spinach probably takes 2nd place in my heart, with its tangy "kind of like spinach artichoke dip but better" flavor. The lentil dips were tasty -- I thought they'd be kind of weird, but they were totally delicious. 

One lucky winner will receive four of the following dips:

• Caramelized Onion Dip: Rich caramelized red onions with a hint of balsamic are blended with tangy Greek yogurt for a healthier and more flavorful alternative to this party favorite.
• Red Lentil Curry Dip: Roasted garlic and spicy curry add a rich layer to this blend of creamy Greek yogurt and simmered red lentils for a hearty dip.
• Greek Kalamata Olive & Spinach Dip: Leafy spinach and sun-dried tomatoes are blended with creamy Greek yogurt then finished with a fresh squeeze of lemon and Kalamata olives.
• Balsamic Beet & White Bean Dip: The natural sweetness of nutrient-rich beets is a perfect complement for Greek yogurt, with a savory touch of basil and salty Parmesan cheese and a splash of balsamic vinegar
• Yellow Pepper & Lentil Dip: Yellow bell peppers are roasted, then blended with savory red lentils and tangy Greek yogurt, for a perfect balance of sweet and savory. 

To win, leave a comment telling me which dip you're the most curious to try! Share this post on your favorite social media (Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, whatever) for extra entries - just leave an additional comment for each thing you do.

Contest will remain open until 11:59pm PDT on Monday, July 1. Winner will be chosen at random. 

Hopefully I'll start blogging more regularly soon. I have so many garden updates to share!

While I was given free spreads to review, I was not otherwise compensated for this post, and my opinions are my own. 

The Madness of March

Once again, I've participated in this thing we call March Madness.

This year, I took a chance and actually paid to participate in a bracket. With my coworkers. I picked my picks the way I always do, of course, based on mascots. I like to pretend the mascots are facing off against each other, and choose the one I think would win in a real life battle.

Usually, I do better than my friends (or - ahem - husband) who take it seriously, considering player abilities and school seed and whatnot. It just goes to show you...that...um...it doesn't matter?

This year? This year, I placed 2nd in my office pool. And I won $50*.  HECK YEAH!

Observe and bow to my greatness or whatever.

Amazing. Proof that MASCOTS WIN, BABY!!!

*actually $30, because there was a $20 buy-in.

And then there were cupcakes...

These cupcakes are sinful; there's no denying that.

I make them just about once a year, to celebrate my husband's Irish heritage and the holiday his family celebrates with such enthusiasm (my mother-in-law sends us an annual St. Patrick's Day care package, complete with Irish soda bread and some form of Jameson's somethingorother...this year it was truffles).

Rather, I say that's the reason I make them. And in some ways, it is. I mean, the "Irish Car Bomb" is a Somewhat Offensive American Traditional St. Patrick's Day Drink (though I can't say I've ever had one). But that's not the real reason, of course.

The real reason is that they are delicious, satisfying to assemble, and immensely popular. They're pretty and fun for groups and just boozy enough to make you feel a little naughty...but still, they're just cupcakes! What's the harm there?

This year, Katherine and I baked the cupcakes before starting on the Pre-St. Patrick's Day Ladies' Dinner, but by the time the other two ladies had arrived and we'd all been enjoying our Irish Stout with Vanilla Vodka (do you like cream soda? do you like drinking? try this.), and well, we decided to eat dinner before finishing the cupcakes, and then we were too full and too drunk to do anything but smile sleepily as we laughed together as ladies tend to do.

So it wasn't until Monday, two days later, when some friends came over to help organize the pantry (and you know, have dinner), we finished the cupcakes. The guys scooped out the insides and made the ganache (aww their first ganache...adorable) while the ladies organized the crap out of the pantry (and PS the photos on the blog post linked above do not do justice to the transformation).

And then I made the frosting. Oh, the frosting. This year, I decided I was too lazy to deal with the star-shaped pastry tip going to go for a more foamy, heady look. You know, to imitate the foam on the top of a nice stout? I whipped the icing more than usual, and added extra Bailey's for extra creaminess. And oh man, I think I've found a winner.

Other than that slight frosting change (and maybe a little extra whiskey), I make these according to the original recipe (from Smitten Kitchen). And I can't believe I haven't blogged them before (my brain says I have, but the internet disagrees with me).

Wondering what the inside looks like?

These babies are so tasty I've been thinking about making them again, and not waiting very long to do it. What's an excuse to make them in April? :)  

Or perhaps I'll change it up and go with a lemon cupcake, filled with Limoncello ganache (is that a thing?) and a strawberry champagne frosting? Oh, the possibilities...

Garden Season is Upon Us!

Spring is here, and for the first time in months, I found myself with a weekend and nothing to do with it. No plans, no travel, just rest. So of course, I woke up at 9:30am. After a few hours of vegging out on the couch with HGTV, I cooked up a delicious breakfast with St. Patrick's Day leftovers (corned beef with scrambled eggs and Irish cheddar, fried mashed potatoes, sauerkraut, and dark rye bread). 

I decided to take advantage of the lovely weather to take care of some much-needed weeding out in the garden. This time of year, the Nasturtium goes absolutely nuts, and will take over the entire garden if we're not careful! Our Dinosaur Kale, Rainbow Chard, and Parsley are still doing incredibly well, and I didn't want them to become overrun with Nasturtium. And I know, Nasturtium is edible and whatnot, but when I see it taking over the yard like this:

I just want it gone. Anyone have any killer Nasturtium recipes? Let me know. I'm sure it'll be back by the time we're ready for planting.  Anyway, this is what it looked like after approximately 3 minutes of pulling (Nasturtium is incredible easy to pull out of the ground).

Check out that Rainbow Chard (left, front) and Parsley (left, back - it's like a bush)! There's also one last Padron Pepper plant that looked alive enough to save...we'll see how it does over the next few weeks. Oh, you want to know about the sideways W (or backwards 3, or capital letter E) in the middle of the picture? Oh...um...that's the Dinosaur Kale.

The Dino Kale has been growing horizontally lately, sprawling along the ground instead of growing straight up in the air. I'm guessing it's because they're so top-heavy, and because they lean into the sun. After some iPhone Googling and some pacing across the overgrown grass, I determined that sometimes kale just gets tall and falls over. Sooo there's that. 

I hacked a little solution, by way of a large tomato cage. It was tricky, because the stalks have spent so much time crawling along the ground that I didn't want to accidentally uproot them by forcing them in the opposite direction. Eventually, I got all three healthy stalks up into the cage, and tied to the top rung.

I have no idea if this will actually work or if it will just make things worse, but at least they're not sprawled out in the dirt anymore. Maybe this will even help the tiny-chalky-white-bug infestation problem?

I also clipped a few blossoms -- Kale and Nasturtium:

And lavender (which are a little too short for the bud vase - I need some rocks or something, I think: 

The garden's looking almost ready for planting now. We'll have to do a little soil turning-over I think, and figure out what to plant this year! Definitely thinking strawberries in the half wine barrel, and maybe bell peppers in addition to the Padrons this year? 

What are you planting these days? Are you still covered in snow?

Spring Cleaning: Pantry Party

The pantry, before and after. Detail shots below.

The pantry has been bothering me for quite a while.

For months, it's fluctuated between "messy but I can deal with it" and "I can't find anything and I'm afraid to reach into the back, both because I don't know what I'll find and because something might fall on me".

But last night, we had a few friends over, one of whom really wanted to help me with the pantry. Honestly, one of the reasons it's taken me so long to do it is that I promised I'd wait for her (reason, excuse, whatever).

Can't disappoint a friend.

Anyway, after some Chinese takeout, we set to work. We took everything (and I mean eve.ry.thing) out, I wiped down the shelves, and we set to organizing. The biggest changes were the additions of the lazy susans and plastic bins, and the reorganization of the risers -- both things that helped immensely.

I'll explain via these detail shots :)

Top two shelves before and after.
Soup and oils/vinegars got the lazy susan treatment, with
the exception of the giant canola oil and the PAM.
Tea is coralled in two plastic baskets on top of a riser
(hot cocoa is below), honey is right nearby, and little-used
crackers are in the back. Canned tomatoes, beans, olives,
pasta sauce jars, and chicken stock are on the shelf with
the oils for easy use -- I think I'll get another riser for that
shelf to make can-stacking easier.

Middle two shelves, before and after.
This was just a mess. Now it's not a mess, thanks to a lazy
susan (for sprinkles and sweet spices like cinnamon and
nutmeg) and some plastic bins and repurposed risers.
Baking supplies have enough room to be stored,
grabbed when needed, and easily put back.
Little-used spices are in a little basket, and the smaller,
loose items are corralled in bins for easy access.
That's what she said.

Bottom shelf, before and after.
This shelf is for the things I use least, like boxed bread
mixes, assorted jams, oatmeal, jello pudding mix, etc.
Also: the big pot that's not nonstick,
and an empty plastic bin.

I'm already loving my new setup -- it was so easy (and dare I say fun?) to spin the lazy susan around tonight when I needed some balsamic, and being able to see everything is definitely helpful. We threw out a good amount of expired stuff too (though honestly not as much as I anticipated), which is always good. Hopefully, having everything at our fingertips will mean less stuff will go bad from now on!

And with the Spring Equinox tomorrow (officially), I feel like I've gotten a little bit of a head start on this whole Spring Cleaning thing. Perhaps I'll make it a real thing this year, since I've been feeling a bit restless as far as cleaning and organizing the house goes...I'll do my best to photograph befores and afters and blog about it. Because nothing says interesting blogging like home organization!

Are you getting in the spirit? Do you find yourself overcome with the urge to organize? Tell me I'm not alone!

Say Cheese

Oh, friends.

As usual, I've been meaning to post for weeks, but life has been getting in the way. Yada yada, things have been crazy and good and the blog once again took a backseat.

But that's changing tonight, because I can't wait one more minute to bring you this post.

I first met the folks at Sartori Cheese at the annual San Francisco Food Fete last year, and was really into their flavored BellaVitano cheeses -- raspberry and rosemary and espresso...these cheeses were interesting and delicious. This year, they presented some new flavors (chai!?), and they, too, are delicious. Oh, cheese. Cheese pleasin' me.

Sartori was kind enough to send me some samples for (ahem) further review, and I set up a taste test with a few friends. Everyone had one that he or she liked the best -- I wish I could tell you that one was the clear frontrunner, but we had 5 cheeses, and 5 people, and 5 favorites!

Perhaps you should try them for yourself.

Leave a comment on this post and you'll be entered to win a fabulous prize package...a Sartori cooler bag filled with cheese! You'll get the BellaVitanos (Chai, Espresso, Black Pepper, and Raspberry) and the SarVecchio Parmesan as well.

mmm cheese wedge

These are award-winning cheeses, folks. You should probably enter now.


Rules and Whatnot:

• Leave a comment about your favorite cheese to enter.
• If you Tweet/Facebook/G+/Whatever this, come back and leave a comment for each thing you do.
• No limit to number of times you can Tweet/Facebook and come back to comment.
• Each comment = 1 entry.
• Winners will be chosen via random number generator.
• Contest closes at 11:59pm PDT Friday March 22.

Full Disclosure: I was not compensated for this post, except for the free cheese. All opinions are my own. I love cheese.

Happy Birthday

I've been thinking about this post for weeks, without knowing how to start. I know what I want to say, but not how to say it. But because today was her birthday, I think today is the day I'm going to try.

About two weeks ago, our dear friend Sean lost her battle with Leukemia. It was sudden, and took her life only a year after she beat breast cancer. Sean spent 2012 eating organically, exercising, and generally getting her health on; she told me once that she felt like she was given another chance, and she wanted to live the healthiest life possible. When she told us about the diagnosis in December, she laughed and said, "Well, I guess that was a bunch of crap, eh?"

Sean was one of the most generous, beautiful, open-hearted people I've ever known. I loved our evenings spent comparing marinades as we prepared our meals over the campfire, and she spent more time than she needed to listening to my ramblings, endlessly supportive and encouraging. Quick to laugh, and laugh heartily, she brightened even the sunniest days. I know, it's cliche and maybe even a little quaint, but it's true. She was just good.

And it's not fair. It's not fair that she doesn't get to live out the rest of her adventure-filled life. It's not fair that her wonderful husband doesn't get to grow old with his wife. It's not fair that we all have to live without her. It's not fair that she had to suffer.


I think the hardest thing to reconcile is the absence. In a way, it's all still so surreal. Like we all had a party to celebrate Sean, and I just didn't see her there. Like this has all been temporary, and actually she's fine, or getting better. Like it can't be possible that she's just gone. Because...how is it possible? Young people - healthy people - good people. People we love. How can they just be gone?

I know how, of course. I understand reality, and I'm not under the impression that I can change the present by wishing it were different. Of course. But it still seems so unlikely. So untrue. So unfair that a person so good could just be gone, and that's it. It's over. The finality of it is arresting.


I've spent the last several weeks thinking about loss. About grieving. About life, and death, and the choices we make, and about celebrating the people we love every day. I've talked to friends, and my husband, and my therapist. I've read far too much on the internet. And still, there are no answers. I don't think there ever are, really.

It's times like these that make me wish I believed in a higher power. I consider myself to be pretty much agnostic in matters of religion/faith/spirituality - I don't know what I don't know and all that. I wish I did, or believed that I did, because it seems that at the very least, it would be comforting.

But where I don't find that type of solace, I do find peace in knowing that Sean lived her life with positivity. Hearing her friends and coworkers speak at her memorial two weeks ago only reaffirmed what we all already knew: that this was one truly special woman. Someone told a story about becoming fast friends with Sean, and admitted (jokingly) to being thrown off by other peoples' stories -- she had thought that she was Sean's special friend. But Sean made everyone around her feel special. It was just her way.

Even Sean's occasional complaints were tempered with silver linings, or at least a good joke; she was welcoming, joyful, and pretty much just the kind of person you'd want to have in your life. Her memorial was really a celebration of her life, and I think she would have enjoyed it. I am trying to keep little bits of her spirit in me from now on - life should be celebrated, and lived with an open heart.

Grief is a funny thing. But in choosing to celebrate, I think I can honor my friend. Here's to you, Sean. You look gorgeous.