persuasion

12/9/10

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!}

12/7/10

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.

12/3/10

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

11/30/10

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.

11/16/10

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.

11/15/10

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.