WEARING THE SKY

Elizabeth,

You should teach me how to make scarves like these by Maria Alexandra Vettese.
Doesn't it remind you of one of my favorite childhood books?

{As seen on Oh Joy!}

HOT CAT

Cleo's discovered the joys of radiators. Wish I could laze around all day next to a heat source.

Oops, I woke her up.

THE 3RD OF DECEMBER

Today is a very special day because it marks one year of amazing challenges and accomplishments for my dear sister, Elizabeth. Today is her birthday and I want to wish her the very happiest from across the country.

Elizabeth you are an amazing person. In one year you have done so much (which I have listed off in your card, which hopefully arrived this morning) and I find constant inspiration from you, as I have my entire life.

I went through all the photos of you I had from this past year and there were so many good ones! I wanted to make a slide show -- but I simply do not approve of over-the-top embarrassment on birthdays. So please have a happy birthday, drink champagne, eat the most decadent food and RELAX!

I love you,
Your sister

BUSY BUSY BUSY

Sorry about the total lack of posts. Mary and I are both working all the time, she at her million jobs and over-the-top homemaking (sorry Mary, but you're just so good at everything), and me as I prepare for Smart Design Mart here in Montreal.

As you can probably tell from the image above, Smart Mart is a curated showing of some very talented designers and craftspeople from in and around Montreal. It opens this Friday (my Birthday!!!) and I'm rushing like mad over the next three days to finish sewing styles, print business cards, complete the clothing rack and table I built and take a bath at some point, hopefully. I'm lucky and happy to be a part of the event but it means this week is basically a write-off for me. Hopefully if you're in town you'll stop on by Friday, Saturday or Sunday to say hello.

If you'd like to see what I'm up to please visit my other blog, ursaminorstudio.blogspot.com, or check out my Etsy shop *here* for new clothing styles as I make them.

And don't forget to visit Mary at her seriously beautiful blog Mary Hudson (aka anemone, honey) if you'd like a study in ideal living.

A NEW CAKE

Something happens to me when RB's on band tour. About halfway through the time he's gone I find myself NEEDING indulgence. But then I have this little inner conflict were one side of me is like 'mmmmm, cake would be good!' and then the other side says 'but elizabeth! you can't eat a whole cake yourself!' So I usually push these thoughts out of my head until about the three week point where I finally break down and have to make 8 batches of cookies or something. Of course, it's timed perfectly cause I can pretend that I only made whatever sweet confection I did in anticipation of RB's arrival. Ha!

Sorry baby, it's really all about me.

So on Sunday I tried out this new ginger cake recipe that you can find here. Let's take a look at the mise en place, shall we?:

This cake contains flour, a bit of sugar, cinnamon, black pepper & cloves, water, vegetable oil, eggs, molasses, baking powder and 4 oz fresh grated ginger.

I don't own a kitchen scale so I really just faked what I thought four ounces might be (I tried to imagine four shot glasses). Anyway, there was a lot of ginger-peeling and ginger-grating going on until I felt like I'd accumulated enough.

Mixing+ melting+ creaming + an hour later:

And the verdict? Well, I think this is a rather nice little cake. I could've upped the ginger content quite a bit without the flavour becoming overpowering, nevertheless the cake was lovely and moist and tasted delicious. It's really not very sweet at all and so would work great as a base for, say, a rich cream cheese icing (which I don't like) or maybe a quick salted caramel sauce and spiced whipped cream (which I do like, very much).

Go forth and make cake.

they say it's your birthday....

We could say a thousand embarrassing things about how amazing we find you and how we both wish we were there to help you celebrate "Hudson style" but how about we just leave it at: we love you. Happy Birthday big/little bro.

DEAR ELIZABETH:

I think it's time for us to plan another sister trip, don't you?
Here's some ideas of mine:

Prince Edward Island

{photo from HSien's flickr}

Savannah, Georgia

 {photo from terryballard's flickr}

Cinque Terre

{photo from noah*75's flickr}

Madagascar

{photo from Ze Eduardo's flickr}

Okay, where do you want to go?

IT'S A YOUTUBE KINDOF DANCE NIGHT

Holy splits!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY POPS

We're sorry we aren't there, but have a good one. Go fishing? 

Love, 

your daughters.

BLENHEIM

Looking back to April to some England photos this morning. I really do need to sort through them once and for all -- I've put it off so long that I might as well go back and take some new shots.

Photographs from Blenheim Palace.

SPOOOOOOKIEST COOKIES.

It was a dark and chocolate night....

Cleo and I needed a treat last night. This year we're spending halloween all on our lonesome since R is away on band tour and my dress-up friends are visiting New York, boo hoo for us. Lucky these cookies help soothe a couple lonely girls while also containing the requisite orange and black of the season. Essentially just chocolate chip cookies with the addition of sweet/sour, chewy dried apricots, these babies have quickly become my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe of all.

First start with some good chocolate. I like to use super dark, bitter bars but regular chocolate chips work fine and I've even used chopped-up leftover chocolate truffles at christmas which made for some truly amazing cookies.

Next some apricots. The best kind to use are the brown, wrinkly organic ones which have not been treated with sulpher dioxide, but my little local grocery only had the plump sunmaid variety. Oh well, the colour's right.

Chop up 1 1/2 - 2 cups of chocolate and 1/2 cup dried apricots.

Measure out 2 cups of flour and add 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt. Meanwhile melt 3/4 cup butter (you could certainly use margerine but I use butter because butteriness is next to godliness) and let it cool slightly. To the melted butter add 1 cup packed brown sugar. Beat an egg and add to the sugar/butter mixture (+ an extra yolk if you have one, if not don't worry about it). Also add 1TB of vanilla (and PLEASE, if anyone is going to Mexico in the near future, I am almost out of vanilla and in desperate need of more. Bring home vanilla!). Beat lightly.

Add dry ingredients to the wet until just combined and gently mix in chocolate and apricots. Oh, and you should've pre-heated your oven to 325 and lined some cookie sheets with parchment. Drop heaping tablespoonfuls onto cookie sheets, spaced at least 1 1/2" apart and cook for 12 minutes. You should end up with about 16-18 cookies.

And if you're like me, you'll eat them for breakfast the next morning. Be like me, do the breakfast cookie thing, it's fantastic. On the other hand, DO NOT be like me if you feel the urge to watch Paranormal Activity right before bed the day before halloween. Watching a film about a demonic presence literally making things go bump in the night when you're home alone for two weeks in a relatively new apartment? And it's 100 years old? And the plumbing's not great? And you've just turned the furnace on for the first time? Yeah, great idea dummy.

A DISH BEST SERVED BLOODY

There is a certain sort of film I like more than most any other. Perhaps it stems from my fierce sagittarian pursuit of justice, or maybe it has to do with vicariously avenging petty wrongs committed me in my bullied youth. Could be I'm just really insecure, good at remembering every negative in life and equipped with an ever-present thirst for power, POWER!

Whatever the case, my favorite story in film is often that of pure, unflinching revenge.

I adore She-devil, The Witches of Eastwick is like candy to me. The scene in Braveheart where William Wallace slits the English lord's throat delights. I've seen the Bourne trilogy a million times and Once Upon a Time in the West is a personal favorite (the soundtrack is on constant rotation in my studio.) Taken was fantastic, who doesn't love a good middle-aged ass-kicking, and Oldboy? genius insanity. Phantom of the Pardise pairs high camp tragedy with complementary brutal retaliation and Straws Dogs is a violent fantasy of vengeance. The list goes on and on.

However in my book the world's best revenge film remains Brian de Palma's 1976 classic Carrie, aka: the greatest revenge story ever told. Every element is there: teenage angst, religious fanaticism, maudlin emotional highs and painful pubertal lows, oh, did I mention telekinesis?
In honor of Halloween, and just cause it makes me happy, here's the entire climatic finale via our friends at youtube, enjoy:

HALIFAX MINI-BREAK

R and I enjoyed a mini-break in Halifax last weekend while his band, The Famines, participated in the Halifax Pop Explosion. 28 hours of driving for 35 hours of visiting time, retarded right? Anyway, it was really nice to go back to Halifax, however short the stay. I hadn't been there since 1999 when I visited a friend attending NSCAD......and whoosh, seems 11 years of my life flew by just like that.

We stayed with friends of Garrett's, Zane and Alexis, who have a fantastic condo in a 100 year old schoolhouse just across the water on the Dalhousie side. Zane owns a really special cafe called 'Two If By Sea' a few blocks away from their house and we were treated to amazing homemade croissants and perfect americanos both mornings of our stay.

As with most port cities, my favorite time was spent with my honey, wandering along the wharf, smelling the sea, watching the boats sail by.

Gulls.

Gull snacks.

Mmmmm. Breakfast Seafood.

And, of course, shenanigans.

Necessary Evils

Ever since we moved out to Montreal people have been telling me what to expect in the winter. It's cold, wet, dark, grey, sleety, icy, bone-chilling, evil. They'll tell me this over and over till I'm like, OK, I get it, it's gonna be hell. Their response is always 'no, you don't even get it'.

Now, I know that I'm spoiled coming from Alberta with it's dry, sunny, snowy winters, and I know that Montreal winter is gonna be a shock and I'll probably just stay inside for four months straight, but dudes, I'm queen of the pessimistic imagination, I GET it.

So anyway, I bought new boots in preparation, I needed to in fact as I gave all my winter boots away before I left Edmonton. I actually ordered them online from LL Bean which kindof makes me feel like a super-nerd, but they just seemed like the perfect thing to make a wet and freezing winter palatable. And hey, did you know that LL Beans come in AA widths? Well now you do! So now I'm basically just waiting for a chance to wear them, though I'm told that the real snow doesn't start here till Christmas. In the meantime they've become my new work slippers as I refuse to turn on the heat till November.

I feel like Martha Stewart and I should be trekking through the back 40 or something.

A NEW ADDITION

The bf and I got a new kitten yesterday. We are in love. Our adult cat Ruby is not, but she'll get there.

JOYRIDE

So as Mary mentioned, the two of us, as well as the hubby and the bro, enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner with the Shanks and Galway families just east of Kingston this past Saturday. The food was delish and it was lovely to spend time with a side of the family we rarely get to see, even if they are merciless teasers. The best part of the visit though? Golf cart joyride, of course! RB, Patrick, Mary and I borrowed two golf carts and rode them all over the family golf course, so much fun!

The golf course and clubhouse themselves are very beautiful - rustic and rolling and green.

We started out with Mary and Patrick in one cart, and RB and myself in the other.

And then we switched.

And then, wait for it, Mary took the wheel. This is the first time Mary has driven.... EVER! Look how much fun she's having.

Afterward we walked across the street to Ruth and Keith's farm where we explored the barn and met a friendly sheepdog. It was just a beautiful day.