kitchen

My in-laws have chickens in their backyard, and while I continue to yearn for birds of my own, we have enjoyed the occasional--and incredibly exciting--gift of fresh eggs.  I'm going through the latest delivery  rather quickly this afternoon as I attempt to fulfill my nephew's birthday wish for "a layer of brownie topped with a layer of chocolate cake topped with a layer of chocolate frosting."  The brownie layer is in the oven right now...

I've been enjoying some extra time in the kitchen this week.  I'm pulling stuff out of cabinets, making piles of things to contribute to the yard sale that must--must--happen soon.  I'm cleaning, decluttering, and rearranging. 

And I am making food.  Mostly, I've been tossing together last-minute suppers, but I've got plans to try some new things in the next few weeks.  If you're looking for some fun in the kitchen this weekend, I hope this to-do list will be an inspiration:

Make your own yogurt.

Ditch your paper towels.

Dream of a fresh kitchen.

Nerd out on noodles.

Label your food.

Try a summer tomato sauce.

Get crafty with coffee filters.

Eat corn for breakfast.

Enjoy peaches for dinner.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

shifting

I'll admit, there have been times when I wasn't sure we'd ever get to this point, but we made it after all.  The wedding is over, the second reception is over, and unless that belated honeymoon actually happens this winter, we're probably not going to be referred to as "the newlyweds" again.  I might be okay with that; I haven't decided yet.

Now it's really time to pack things up, ditch the piles of wedding magazines, and start organizing the photo albums.  That part I am ready for.  My craft piles--along with all of my other piles--have been much too messy for much too long.  It's time for a fresh start.  And maybe a really big garage sale.

Some things I'm not as anxious to pack up and put away.  My wedding dress, for one.  I wore it again last weekend and was reminded of just how much I love it.  And honestly, just enough people asked me whether or not it was my wedding dress that I think I might be able to pass it off as a really, really great party dress sometime soon.

And while we are packing some things up and moving other ones out, there are also some new things in the house to make room for.  And plenty of thank you notes to write.  Fortunately, my man has us covered there, with sweet little notecards that complement our invites and all the other fantastic paper goods he's cooked up over the course of the past year.

I'm excited for all of this.  The housecleaning.  The pageturning.  I'm looking forward to taking the time to sit down and thank all of the family and friends that have played a part in our Summer of Love.  And I want to thank you, too, once again, for sticking with us through all of the fun.  I don't know about you all, but with the wedding and all of its trappings officially behind us, I can't wait to see what happens next...

one hundred

I'm happy to report that this is the one hundredth post on The Stubborn Sparrow!  It might not sound all that impressive to you, but I just can't quite believe that we've hit such a milestone.  It seems like just a few weeks ago that I sat down to create this blog in the first place, looking for a place to document the work I was doing for the Salvage Bride workshop.  Then it turned into a place to talk about our own wedding planning.

And now?  I feel safe in saying that the Sparrow will continue to grow and change.  With the wedding behind us, I'll continue to write about my favorite aspect of our celebration: the making and doing.  I'll be talking about food, gardening, and, of course, all manner of crafting.  No, it won't be a straight-up wedding blog, but yes, I do reserve to right to share wedding-ish things with you if they strike me as being especially clever and/or adorable.

I'm going to change up my posting schedules a little bit, too.  I'll be posting twice a week, on Monday and Friday.  Hopefully, this will allow me to focus a bit more on quality, rather than quantity.  On Fridays, I'll be sharing a list of links to other fun places on the Internet, just to get everyone warmed up for the weekend.

As we go along, I'd love to hear from you about all these changes.  Of course, I wouldn't be writing here if you all weren't reading.  I hope you'll help me by weighing in with your thoughts and sharing the Sparrow with your friends.

I'll be taking this Friday off to put the final touches on this weekend's celebration.  I'll be back on Monday to share a little bit about The Big Day II.  Until then, thank you, dear readers, for reading, and here's to another hundred posts...

P.S.-- I absolutely have to share this with you.

checklist

Nothing glamourous to share today, but I do feel the need to gloat about a fairly productive afternoon.  In the course of just a few hours, we managed to:

-finalize our shopping list for Saturday's big party
-arrange for the use of a vehicle (other than a Metro bus) to lug things around that day
-borrow coolers from our fantastic neighbors
-locate and purchase compostable cups and plates
-acquire sixty-some thrift store forks
-accomplish various other small things

The event is going to be a potluck.  While that might sound kind of--um--cheap, I really like potlucks because they're always such a great combination of community and food.  I love seeing everyone show up with potato salads and cake carriers.  It reminds me of the church suppers and family holidays of my childhood.

And besides, we've already done our share of cooking for dozens and dozens of people this summer.  It went well in June, but I'm not really inclined to tempt fate by trying it a second time.  We are providing sandwiches for everyone, along with drinks and at least one dessert.  (I absolutely have to bake a cake so I can share our little cake toppers with our Washington crowd...)

I'm trying to dress the sandwiches up a little bit.  We'll have Mama Lil's, of course.  And maybe some roasted veggies, if I can get my act together.

I'm also thinking of mixing up some fancy condiments, like this Mojito Mayonnaise, from Jean Kelley's cookbook, Blue Eggs and Yellow Tomatoes.

Mojito Mayo

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/3 cup finely chopped fresh mint

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

2 tablespoons minced shallot

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon ground cumin

Mix everything together and put it on a sandwich.  Preferably one with pig on it.  Preferably at a festive, sunshiny potluck at a beautiful waterfront park on a fine August day in the Pacific Northwest.*

I've managed to make myself incredibly hungry just now, thinking about fictional pork sandwiches.  It might be time for me to take a dinner break...

I'll be back on Wednesday, though, to celebrate the--gasp!--100th post on The Stubborn Sparrow.  See you then!

*The ingredients are Kelley's, but I did adapt the recipe, just a bit...

redux

So, down to party planning.  My approach to Wedding Reception II has two overarching themes.  

The first: Do all those things we wanted to do at the wedding but couldn't pull together at the last minute.  For instance, we will be having balloons at WR II.  Red balloons.  Round, not normal-balloon-shaped.

The second theme: Reuse the best of what we had at the wedding.  My man's pennants, for instance.  And all those lovely family photos.  And the beautiful, hand-cut paper banners that my man's parents made for our sweet rehearsal dinner.  I love birds and I love cut paper.  Before these get tucked away forever in a scrapbook or a cedar chest, I want the world to have one last chance to enjoy them.

Granted, there are still quite a few big things that we need to figure out, like--say--the food.  But I feel much better knowing that we have things nailed down in the decoration department.

With all this planning and plotting to do, we're in for a big weekend.  I'll be back on Monday to bring you all up to date...

more slacking

No real post today, friends.  I'm headed out for dinner and fun with a friend.  I'm hoping there will be alcohol.  And maybe some giggling.  Mostly, I just want to hang out.

Things around here are about to getting pretty interesting, though.  Remember that circus of a wedding we had a month or so ago?  We'd also planned to have a Washington state reception, too, for the friends and family that didn't feel like traveling two thousand miles to party with us.  Thing is, we've been a little distracted by the fun and fireworks of married life, and we haven't done much planning for the follow-up event, which is less than two weeks away now.

We have some work to do and I have all intentions of dragging the rest of you along with me.  Here's some  festivity and celebration, just to get you in the mood...

See you on Friday!

moody

I had a day off today, which initially sounded very exciting and full of potential, but by ten o' clock or so this morning, it had already become clear that things just weren't going to live up to my expectations.

So I spent the day alternately bickering with my man and moping by myself.  It was all kind of dumb.

In these last few hours, I've been trying to salvage things a little bit.  Usually, this tactic involves food, and tonight has been no exception.

First, I made granola.  Or, to be accurate, am making granola.  It's in the oven right now.  In a few minutes, I'll go stir it and then let it bake for another ten or twelve minutes.  I like making granola, partially because it's the one baking recipe that I have entirely memorized.  I've been making it for years, and at this point, I can just kind of fake my way through with whatever ingredients are around.  It's a good granola.  Maybe I'll pass along the recipe sometime.

I was going to pull a double-header and reuse the mixing bowl for a batch of cookies, but now, due to a local butter shortage--a crisis which seems to be limited to our small household--I'm going to have to put that on the proverbial backburner.

It's too bad.  We had dinner at Delancey last night, and somehow, I let my partner-in-crime talk me out of capping our tasty pizza dinner with a bittersweet chocolate and sea salt cookie.  I've been thinking about that cookie for about twenty-four hours now.  I've even got Molly's recipe all cued up and ready to go.  Maybe tomorrow night, I guess...

I don't know why I've been so excited about food lately.  Maybe it's a nesting thing.  Or maybe I just have a little bit of extra time that didn't seem to exist in our pre-wedding life.  Whatever the reason, I've been drooling over back issues of Bon Appetit and plotting entire menus of things to serve on the fancy dishes we got as wedding gifts.

For tonight, though, I'm just going to have to be satisfied with a batch of granola and some heated up leftovers.  I'm not sure it'll be enough for me.  If it's not enough for you, either, take a peek at this--yet another food blog that's got me making grocery lists on tiny scraps of paper...