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.