Christy, the barista at Mosaic

There is no price structure to the drinks or food at Mosaic, so you just donate what you think your order is worth. Overall the place had a very relaxing vibe, and my chai was tasty.

Halloween’s over, but check out Maggy Mason’s nautical-inspired costumes for her family: Masons of the Sea

Life with Leila can be difficult sometimes, but I’m nowhere near here yet. Is life with a toddler really that bad? I guess it puts troubles with a 3 month old in perspective.

I have a lot of affection for my little girl. She’s still tiny, cute, and cries a lot. Her name is Leila.

I also have a new appreciation for cooking. It can take a bit of practice to cook with a baby around, but I’m starting to get the knack of it. I’m starting off with very simple meals that don’t take more than about 10 or 15 total minutes to prepare. Well, and we’re getting a lot of Thai take-out from the place 2 blocks away. More to come soon!

Today I’m two days past my baby’s due date, and my Mom arrived a few days ago to support me during labor and to help out after the birth. I still can’t believe that the months went by so quickly. But that was probably because I spent most of the winter in a fog of dreamy pastry-eating and in marathon sessions of sleep.

Speaking of pastry, Mom rubbed my belly a bit yesterday and called it a pączek (a Polish doughnut). I think pączek sounds much cuter than doughnut, like a doughy little woodland creature that darts in and out from behind a tree throwing raisins and orange peel at you while giggling. She didn’t bring us any from NJ, but she did bring us some delicious sweet rolls called bułka słodka from a bakery in NJ.

A bułka słodka from NJ. This one was filled with farmer’s cheese, golden raisins and candied orange peel.

Mom and I went food shopping a little later in the afternoon, and we saw a table of local currants for sale. Three colors: black, red, and white. She got excited about the white currants, which she hadn’t tasted since she lived in Poland (over 30 years ago!). I had only tried black currants, which I actually thought were entirely too tart at the time.

Despite a somewhat steep price, we bought some of the white currants and took them home. After washing them in my new blue mini-colander, we sat down in the 90-plus heat to try them out. Mom made the interesting note that when you first start eating currants, they seem to taste entirely too tart to continue consuming. But then your taste acclimates and they get more and more appetizing - even addicting. Also, she advised that it’s best to put an entire little cluster in your mouth and pluck off the transparent beads like a Roman empress would with grapes.

White currants

Photos via Susan Bradley

I just found some of the wall art over at artist Susan Bradley’s site. In the right design situation, it could be absolutely spectacular.

Sometimes I buy way too much fruit. I know I’ll eat it, but occasionally I wonder if I want to eat it in its natural state or take it beyond, to a more decadent and delicious place. Rainier cherries rarely need any assistance, their light yellow flesh and red-yellow skin a perfect treat on their own. The same with watermelon - I recently bought a 14-pounder, and while eating its cool watery pinkness I kept thinking about sorbet. But watermelon is so close to sorbet to me there’s no need to do more with it.

However, this week’s fruit tricked me a bit. I got two pounds of local apricots (from Goldbar, WA, if you want to know). After eating about two of them, I thought about ways to make them even more glorious. The dessert that kept popping into my head was an apricot tart.

Do you know what? Before yesterday, I never had an apricot tart! I took a look at some of my favorite food blogs and promptly found an appetizing recipe from Orangette (her recipe is based on a tart recipe from the Zuni Cafe Cookbook as well as a crust recipe from a friend). The original crust recipe called for using vinegar, but I cut it out and things turned out wonderfully.

For crust (adapted from Orangette’s favorite crust recipe):
4 Tbsp. ice water
1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp. sugar
¾ tsp. salt
9 Tbsp. cold unsalted butter

For filling:
1 lb. apricots, pitted and sliced
1/3 cup sugar
3 pinches of salt

For crust, add the flour, sugar, and salt in a food processor. Cut the butter into 1-Tbsp chunks, and drop each chunk into the flour mixture one at a time, pulsing a few times in between to incorporate. Once you have a sandy-looking mixture with a few pea-sized pieces, add the ice water one tablespoon at a time. Pulse in between tablespoons of water. At this point the mixture will look like slightly moist sand. Pour contents onto a flat surface, and push together (it will actually start sticking together!) Make a disk, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate a couple of hours.

After the dough has cooled in the fridge, take it out and let it warm up a few minutes. Turn the oven on to 375. Roll out dough and place into a tart pan with a removable bottom.

While dough is chilling, slice apricots and mix with sugar/salt in bowl. Arrange apricots in tart pan.

Bake tart 45 minutes.

Once your tart has cooked and cooled, serve with real vanilla ice cream.

Known: Linden Tree. This is one of my favorite trees, for two reasons. The first is that the perfume from these flowers is amazing, and I know of only one perfume—L’Occitaine Linden Flower, is it even made any more?—that highlights its delicious fragrance. Secondly, it’s a great shade tree for a hot day. On average it has to be 5 or 10 degrees cooler under its leafy branches.

Unknown! This cute little light green papery cone was one of many hanging from the tree I was laying underneath for a few hours. I may have to go to the local nursery to find out what it is for sure.

Do you know what this is from?

The Hummingbird Cupcake

The Statue of Liberty carries her torch for freedom, and today I carry mine for a satisfied sweet tooth.

I didn’t have watermelon or corn on the cob this 4th of July. I did have a burger from Atlas Foods, because although we can grill at home, let’s face it - if you want fries with a burger, who’s going make them at home on a hot day?

Afterwards, my sugar craving took my mind captive and encouraged me to find some dessert. Plus let’s not deny it, the 4th is a time for summer treats.

This was my first time enjoying a cupcake from Trophy Cupcakes, and I was amazed at the quality. Then again, it was a $3 cupcake, and when little cakes cost that much, they better be above average! The Hummingbird, a "Banana Pineapple Coconut Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting" was a really good choice for a hot Seattle day. OK, I’ll admit that I chose the Red Velvet but it was a little heavy compared to the tropical flavors of Mike’s Hummingbird selection. Yum.

Along somewhat similar lines, Barbara Cole was recently called in for work on an Anthropologie catalog. Barbara specializes in underwater photography, and you can see a bit of insight into her process here. The light in her photographs is distorted, played with, discovered. The colors are definitely intense, which pleases me greatly.

So, I’m just curious if anyone has an opinion on the following.

Here is the first, an original of some poppies in front of my house on a partly cloudy day.

Here is the same photo, “polaroided” by myself in under 5 minutes. I tried to add more yellows and softness to achieve the effect, which was actually a little tough because of the intense red of the flowers.

Here in Seattle we’re going on just about a month without any rain. It’s kind of unusual for this time of year. Usually the drier weather starts in July. My garden is suffering a bit, even with nightly waterings that Mike administers with great concern (will the beets make it? should the swiss chard look like that?). But two things are flourishing: our grapevines, and our lavender.

I did a little research on how to harvest lavender. The most important element of harvesting the little purple spears appears to be the following: cut just before the blooms open. You’re too late if you see the bees doing their own share of harvesting.

Megan at Not Martha had an even more useful guide to harvesting lavender, a little experiment. She actually harvested the blooms at one week intervals and then did a sniff test to see which bunches held the best scent.

Above: the line of lavender plants along the southern border of my house.

Too keep myself from going nuts and just clipping all the lavender, I came up with a limit: 5 bunches that can I can hold in one hand.

My office is in a room of the house that faces north, so it’s a cool and dark room to dry the bunches. The smell in here right now is incredible—clean, slightly floral—and the other bonus is that the color is so pretty.