New Adventure

Hi there. Come visit me at my new blog! And while you're at it, check out my new website!

Happy Birthday, Charlotte!

Here's an invite I cooked up for little Charlotte's first birthday party.

Southern Vintage, Come to Fruition

Remember those southern vintage inspired invites I designed for a friend? I printed them up using my gocco a while back, and here is a sneak-peek of the results.

The Girl Effect

I love when non-profits and other folks doing good in the world make a concerted effort to bring good design to their promotional materials. Case in point: this video from the girl effect. The clean design of the website, and catchy typography of the video get the point across... well, beautifully.

Zinc Details

I visited my folks in San Francisco about a while back, and found this great china set at Zinc Details. Swoon, swoon, swoon. Love the classic blue and white, love the graffiti, love the ice cream truck.
They also carried a very wide array of Marimekko, including these mugs, out of which I would be perfectly happy to drink my coffee each and every morning.

Easy-Peasy

We live in a phenomenally small apartment, so cooking during the summer is akin to turning on the heater. On high. Thus, meals that can be prepared without the use of the stove, or meals that can be cooked in the toaster oven are summer musts in this household. Here is one of my favorite, favorite, favorite foods with a little twist that requires no source of heat to be turned on in the house. Remember, foods taste best when made with local and/or organic ingredients!

Smoky Gazpacho

Ingredients:
1 16oz. can of stewed tomatoes
1 16oz. can of fire-roasted stewed tomatoes (if you can't find these, you can always roast them in your oven a la Sr. Bittman, although this means that the whole "keeping your apartment cool" thing is negated)
1 each green, yellow, and orange bell peppers, diced
1 cucumber, cored and diced
about 2c of diced tomatoes
1/2 vidalia onion
1/2 bunch of cilantro, chopped, plus stems for garnish
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2 limes
dash of chipoltle pepper
salt and pepper, to taste.

Yogurt or sour cream

Directions:
Using your blender or food processor, puree together the 2 cans of tomatoes, along with the included juice. Stir in the peppers, onion, tomato, cilantro, and cucumber. Juice the limes, and add the juice. Add the chipoltle pepper, salt and pepper to taste. Chill. Serve topped with yogurt or sour cream and topped with cilantro. Preferably with quesadillas that were made in the toaster oven. Enjoy!

Southern Vintage

Sorry for the hiatus. In the last month, we moved, I finished my semester, we visited my parents (hi mom and dad!), etc. I guess the time just got away from me.
On to the crafting: my friend Sarah, who you would not know to be southern until you get her all riled up about something and her accent gives her away, is having a vintage inspired southern wedding in September, where her colors are going to be whites (cream, blush, white), navy and silver. Here is the invite that I came up with for her. The grey will be printed on my trusty gocco in silver.

...and the RSVP card. We are still working on the phrasing, but the "is comin', y'all" kind of fits...

EEP!

Traci and I put together some pics to send over to Abby at stylemepretty.com, which is for serious one of my favorite websites, and she posted them today- I am SO flattered. Not that our wedding is even in the same ballpark of some of the soirees on Abby's website, but I feel so honored that she put us up. Yay!

It's Official!

Spring has officially sprung. I went this Saturday (very early, thankyouverymuch) to the greenmarket in hopes that the ramps had come in. There is usually one farm that has the best ramps (they also sell delectable potatoes), so I made haste to go hover by the truck. By 7:30 there were a few more people waiting with me, and by 8, there was a full-on ramp riot. In some parts of the country, I guess, there are actually celebrations of the first ramp harvest. I don't blame them- it really makes one believe that there will be other produce at the market besides rutabegas and mealy apples once again.
I scored 3 bunches, and dreamed all day of all of the ramp-y fettucine and scrambled egg goodness that I would be whipping up that evening and the following morning. Here is a recipe for ramp fettucine, inspired by the one over at tiny banquet committee. She seems to have it together enough to prep while she cooks, but over in this kitchen, that tends to lead to a lot of swearing and getting burned.
This is one of those recipes where I would recommend practicing the fine art of mis en place not only because it makes cooking less stressful, but also because you can use that extra hand that's not furiously chopping to sip your wine.
Fresh pasta with ramps
Serves 3-4.

3-4 bundles of clean ramps (you've got to get in there and scrub- take off the roots and any slimy outer layer, and rinse thoroughly and then rinse thoroughly again)
10-16oz. pound fresh pasta, any flat ribbon shape (tagliatelle, linguine, fettucine), depending on how you like your veggie-pasta ratio.
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 to 3 tablespoons butter
salt and freshly ground pepper
1 egg, lightly beaten
the best parmesan you can buy, grated on a microplane or the small holes of a box grater — at least 1 cup

Fill a large stock pot with cold water, salt it generously, and bring it to a furious boil. The most energy-efficient way to do this is to heat your water in a kettle and then pour it into a pot. I don't know why I can remember that but not where I put my shoes.

Chop off the root ends of the ramps and slice the green leaves in half lengthwise and (and again crosswise if they are long). Sauté the root ends in the olive oil over medium heat until they soften, 1 to 3 minutes. Season them with salt and freshly ground pepper. Add the leaves to the pan, along with the butter, and cook, stirring, until they are thoroughly wilted. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Cook the pasta as directed, reserving about 1/2 cup of the water before you drain it. You will want to keep the pasta slightly undercooked, as if it gets mushy, you and your ramps will be sad, sad, sad.

Return the pasta to the pot and stir in the ramp mixture, the beaten egg, and approximately 1/2 cup of grated cheese. Toss everything together (silicone tongs are great for this). Add a bit of the pasta water, a tablespoon or two at a time, if the egg and cheese mixture is clumping. Taste for seasoning (and to get some of the rampy goodness all for yourself before you have to serve it to other people), and serve with additional grated cheese at the table.

Enjoy!
Next up... what to do with all of that leftover pasta and extra bundle of ramps that you have hidden away...

Menus

My friend Dana is getting married in a few weeks and I was super excited when she asked me to help out with the paper goods- these have been in the works for a while, but I just printed them this weekend... Dana made a last-minute call on the gold (we were going to go with black and grey), and predictably, because I love all things sparkly, I'm pretty stoked about it. More pictures to come- I am finishing the program printing today.