Foodie Mondays – Crispy Bread and Pizza Crusts

Well, morning sickness has reduced my personal diet to crackers and grapes, but I did hear something magical sounding from a little birdie this week…

I know not everybody loves a really greasy pizza but if you happen to be one of those people who do like them then you probably like Little Caesar’s deep dish pizzas. And if you like Little Caesar’s deep dish pizzas then you probably love their crispy, greasy, almost carmelized looking crusts.

(And if you don’t like greasy pizzas but would like a nice crispy fried crust on, say, a loaf of bread, then keep reading.)

Upon inspecting the unusually crispy pizza crust on one of the aforementioned pizzas recently I questioned aloud to my husband and brother-in-law how they made them like that. Off the cuff, they both said, “This is just like our mom’s bread crusts. You just throw a bunch of oil in the bottom of the pan and it fries as it cooks.”

What? Fried bread crust? We use my mother-in-law’s bread recipe for things like navajo tacos all the time, so I already know her bread is good fried. It had never occurred to me to try frying an entire loaf before, though.

Here’s the recipe for one of her famously delicious (and easy!) loaves of homemade bread. To make it extra crispy, add a tablespoon or so of oil to the bottom of the pan and let it run around to evenly coat the sides and bottom. If you’re using the recipe for a pizza crust (or if you’re using your own pizza dough recipe and want it extra crispy on the bottom), use a pizza pan with sides that doesn’t have holes in it (or a flat sheet or cookie sheet with sides) and use just enough oil to evenly coat the bottom and sides.

Mama Costello’s Bread:

Dissolve 1 tsp. yeast in 1 c. warm water.
Combine yeast mix, 2 Tbsp. sugar, 2 Tbsp. oil, 1 tsp. salt and 1 tsp. lemon juice. 
Add flour until the dough sticks together and cleans the bowl. This may be more flour than you’re expecting! Make sure the dough has enough flour that you can knead it without it sticking to your hands too much.)
Knead for 10 minutes or until “like gum.”
Let rise double, punch down, put in pan and let rise again. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes.

Thanks for reading!

Project Saturday – the lathe is here!

The lathe is here!

It’s a new to me Rikon 70-100 mini lathe with 6-speed manual adjustment. And it’s sitting in my kitchen right now because we got home late last night and I still need to buy castors for the table. The table is some sort of industrial shop table with holes for a table clamp and bench dogs. The lathe came with an extension bed to turn it from a 15″ to a 40″ lathe, two fulls sets of gouges/chisels, every different kind of chuck I might want, all the little tools and wrenches it needs and random accessories like a face shield, a telescoping magnet grabber and an old school Stanley no 84 brass folding rule. It also came with a table grinder to sharpen the chisels, a set of buffing pads and wax, and a honing stone. All for $450. What a deal!

Bet you can’t guess what I’ll be doing tomorrow.

Design Friday – “In Praise of Shadows” and the traditional Japanese aesthetic

If you’re looking for a great design-related read, try picking up a copy of “In Praise of Shadows” by Jun’ichiro Tanizaki. It’s an essay, only about 40 pages long, about the traditional Japanese aesthetic.

Tanizaki covers everything in his essay from the meditative experience of using Japanese style toilets to the seductive beauty of Japanese housewives. He rails on the dizzying, disturbing brightness of Western style electric lights then beginning to proliferate in Japan, and describes in detail the murky beauty of tarnished silver, candle-lit paper and miso soup.

The beauty found in the simple and imperfect, an aesthetic called “Wabi Sabi” is another element of traditional Japanese design. Wabi Sabi glorifies the old, the impermanent and the decayed and draws up emotions related to the passage of time and the weathering effects of natural life. Trying to pin something down at an exact state or level of antiquity (whether sparkling new or on the verge of crumbling) is a failure to accept the transient nature of objects. Traditional Japanese objects are designed with aging in mind; if you feel the need to replace it, repaint it or scrub it perfectly clean rather than treasure it even more deeply in 20 years, then either you or the artist have done poorly.

In Tanizaki’s essay, it becomes apparent that what gives such dark, murky and even dirty objects their beauty is the environment that they are placed in. Traditional Japanese houses were places of shadow, covered by massive roofs with deep eaves that allowed very little light into the rooms themselves. Before Western electric lighting, houses were lit with candles and other small flames that left rooms dim and glowing. In this state of half-light, dark lacquerware was dramatic and mysterious, grime had a glow and materials like jade and tarnished silver had the depth of a thousand years. Even something as bright and untarnishing as gold takes on a new character in this atmosphere, reflecting back tiny sources of light with a vibrancy that makes it obvious why ancient peoples valued it so.

Have you had any experiences in which an object looks much better in a certain room, atmosphere or lighting level than others? Do you have any objects you value for the coat of dark age on their surface? Comment below or request to contribute to the Design Fridays Pinterest Board in the Contact section.

Thanks for reading!

Babies Thursday – Morning Sickness and Announcements

Today I decided that pregnancy is just like starting your period. It doesn’t matter how much people tell you about the statistics of who experiences what symptoms; it doesn’t matter how much people tell you these symptoms are “normal”; it doesn’t matter how many horror stories and home remedies you know… you still will never know what a hell pregnancy and/or menstruation are until you experience them for yourself. They are your own special versions of hell. Nobody else’s hell will be just like yours. The exact balance of mood swings, hot flashes, blood, nausea, cramping, bloating and headaches will be all your own.

That said, for day 3 of morning sickness, I think I’m doing alright.

Of course, I can say that now because I’m currently not experiencing any nausea due to the ginger tea I brought for lunch 5 hours ago, but still; all in all, today wasn’t so bad. I have definitely experienced more pain and physical discomfort in my life than I did so far today.

My cheerfulness today might in part be due to the fact that I got to skip the first hour of uber-early work today because I was lying on my bathroom floor feeling like I was going to vomit. Yay for not having to go to work at 5 am!

It is definitely also due to the conversation I had with my boss when I got to work. As context, my boss is a pretty serious guy. I don’t know very much about his personal life except that he has a woman and a baby and he likes motorcycles. I’m expecting the conversation to be a little awkward.

Me: “I was late because of morning sickness… Oh by the way I’m 6 weeks pregnant. So I’m nauseous off and on all day…”

My Boss: *nods knowingly* “Oh yeah, I know all about that. But don’t worry, it’s worth it in the end. My son is a champ. He refuses to walk yet, but he’s a champ.”

Me: “How old is he?”

My Boss: *animatedly* “11 months. He’ll hold on to the couch and walk around, he’ll hold on to the coffee table and walk around. He’ll hold on your two fingers and walk around, but if you so much as remove one finger he’ll plop right down on his butt. And if you try holding him around the middle to support him he just lifts his legs in the air and looks at you.” *shakes his head* “You just have to get past that *gesturing at me* stuff, then it’s worth it.”

Suddenly he’s smiling on the inside and he pulls out his phone to show me a picture of his son sitting with his legs scrunched up inside a tiny plastic tub. I’ve never seen him so adorably excited about something. Suddenly I am seeing him in a whole new light.

Then he says, “I talked to Thayne [his boss, our supervisor, whose wife recently had a baby, too] about it already and we just want you to know that if there’s anything we can do to help, let us know.” Any anxiety I had about my being pregnant and sick at work is now gone. Thank heavens for two very understanding bosses.

As a related side note, though, basically everywhere on the internet says, “Don’t announce your pregnancy until 12 weeks!” I remember reading that two weeks ago and thinking, “Right… so you’ll just be puking all the time at work and no one will figure it out…” Seems I was right to be skeptical. It’s true we’re at 6-ish weeks now (I never got back to a regular period after stopping birth control, so I’m not sure exactly how far along I am yet), and we’ve managed to only tell our parents, my little brother and my bosses, but still. I’m supposed to go another 6 weeks without spilling the beans to anybody??

Well, unfortunately for the internet, my 21st birthday is right around the same time as our first doctor visit at 8 weeks, so we will definitely be telling all of my close friends at the party that weekend, because when else will I be able to tell everyone face to face? Sure we can save a big “Facebook official” announcement until 12 weeks, but I want to see my best friend Grace’s face light up with excited screaming when she hears the news.

Maybe it’s a good idea to wait until 12 weeks (“just in case” I guess?), but considering the convenience of this party, I think we’re still going to give it a go then. I’m pretty excited!

And when 12 weeks does finally roll around, I’m thinking of doing a redraw of this doodle by one of my favorite sketch bloggers:

For any of my pregnant/parent readers, when did you announce that you were pregnant, and how did you do it? Also HOW DID YOU DEAL WITH MORNING SICKNESS AT WORK???

Thanks for reading!

Quick Tips Wednesday – Ginger Tea and Embedding Pinterest

First off, I’m sorry I never got a real post written for People Tuesday. Morning Sickness reared it’s ugly head this week in combination with a nasty head cold that both my husband and I got at the concert from hell over the weekend. Lets just say I was a little down and out yesterday, and I’m only on today due to the sweet encouragements of my husband, who really would like to see me succeed with this blog.

And on top of exhaustion, headache and morning sickness, there’s this little gem from work: since we got Labor Day off this week, we get to work 4 ten hour shifts (instead of the regular eight hour shifts) in order to “keep up with production demands.” That means waking up at the lovely hour of 4:30am.

Ok, ok, done complaining. (I’m really, really secretly worried that I’m going to become a really grumpy, complain-y, naggy pregnant lady and I don’t want to be that lady.)

Luckily today I discovered ginger tea! Ginger is of course known for its nausea-calming properties, and it certainly did a number on my queasy stomach. The recipe:

• Grate/mince about 1/4 teaspoon of fresh ginger very finely and put it in a mug.
• Pour steaming hot water over it.
• Add a 1/2 teaspoon of sugar, stir well and let seep as the tea cools. 

Voila! Ginger tea! Simple, I know, but the sugar takes the bite out of straight ginger and the ginger takes the bite out of morning sickness so it’s basically perfect!

Also, I’ve decided to change my direction on Wednesday posts a little. This is because it’s been a week now since I started this blog and while I am growing more and more confident in my ability to continuously come up with new material for basically every other day of the week, writing an entire essay of totally new, cohesive material every Wednesday has only started sounding more and more intimidating. So… Quick Tips Wednesday! For all those little things (like ginger tea recipes) that I’ve been doing and thinking about that aren’t quite big enough to merit their own post.

I’ve been taking DailyPosts’ “Blogging101” course and today I learned that it’s super easy to embed from Pinterest and a bunch of other places (like urls that lead to plain images and gifs; thus, above). So I just thought I’d throw in, for all you Pinterest lovers, an embedded link to the Design Friday Pin Board! If you like Design Fridays and want to respond to posts or help contribute towards future posts, just shoot me an email so I can invite you to the board, and you’ll be right in! (Also, if you happen to know more fancy easy tricks connecting WordPress and Pinterest and how to get people invited to/access to boards without the long email me/invite you process, please let me know!)

Also I bought a wood lathe and I finally get to pick it up this weekend! I can’t wait to tell you about it!

Thanks for reading!

The “Basically Everything” Philosophy

I’m currently taking Blogging101 and Writing101 through WordPress’ DailyPost program. This post is a response to the first prompt from both programs, “Introduce Yourself” and “Why Do I Write?” 

Throughout my life I have always been that girl who “does everything.” A little bit of sports, a little bit of academics, a little bit of music, a little bit of quilting, sewing, knitting and crafting, a little bit of cooking and baking, a little bit of painting, drawing and sculpting, a little bit of wood working, a little bit of stone carving, a little bit of graphic design, a little bit of photography, a little bit of writing, a little bit of math. And so on, and so on. Some of my friends would complain at me: “Why are you so awesome? How can you be good at everything?!” And I would always think, “I’m not good at everything, I just do everything.” For me it’s not about being the best at any of those things, or even particularly good at them. It’s always just been about becoming someone capable of handling herself with any tools she sees fit to employ; being unlimited. That’s my ideal.

If there’s one thing that I would cite as the source of all misery, unhappiness, low self-esteem, laziness, boredom, tendencies to complain and general dissatisfaction with life, it’s this: people don’t understand the principle of becoming. People are unhappy when either a) they are so intimidated by their ideals that they never make an attempt to attain them or b) they have low enough or few enough ideals that they reach them too quickly and don’t know what to do afterwards.

Foodie Monday – How to Make Your Own Coconut Milk!

The aftermath and about a third of the total coconut milk we got out of our one small coconut.

This week my husband and I decided to have another go at a promising mango curry recipe that we’d tried before but which hadn’t panned out correctly yet. The directions are a little vague if you don’t have a lot of experience with the ingredients, so most of our previous attempts had ended up really watery. The recipe calls for “1 cup canned coconut milk (the thick part)”. The first time I remember thinking, “Uh… The thick part?” I had vaguely remembered opening cans of coconut milk that had separated into a thick, creamy white part and a translucent part. However, when we opened our Asian Market can (the regular grocery had been out), there was maybe a half of a cup of white stuff in the bottom, and the rest was the clear stuff. Also, when trying to pour the clear stuff off the top… the white stuff immediately homogenized into it and everything became a white slurry. After adding the full cup of water to dilute the already watery coconut milk… we ended up with a super watery curry. Go figure!

The recipe does have an optional substitute for the canned coconut milk and water combo though: “If you’re using fresh coconut milk, use two cups of the first extraction and skip adding any water.” So, for our most recent go-around, we decided to try buying a coconut and extracting the milk ourselves!

Project Saturday – Alphonse Mucha Menu – Part 1

Ever since discovering these cute little Alphonse Mucha dinner party menus I have been trying to figure out how to turn them into a giant wall-mount menu. This is partially a way to add some class to our little married student housing apartment, partially a desire to make the food more of a centerpiece at the dinner parties we like to have every now and again (something that regularly surprises me about inviting guests over is how little attention they actually pay to the food itself), and partially because we have a massive white wall in an odd corner of our dining area that is the first thing you see when you walk in the front door; obviously, it needs a little spice.

It took me a while to realize that the reason I couldn’t find giant poster prints of these pieces the way you can get basically any of Mucha’s other work is because they were originally printed on small pieces of cardstock (think 5×7″ range) in a pack of 10 for domestic ladies to use as… menus for dinner parties. As good modern technology is, getting a lithographed 5×7 to look good at 22×30 is just not something we’re capable of.

Mandalas and Fractals – Design Friday

Recently I happened across some intricate line drawings on Pinterest captioned “mandalas.” Most were circular doodles reminiscent of henna tattoos and dream-catchers. In Wikipedia’s words:

“In various spiritual traditions [mostly Eastern], mandalas may be employed for focusing attention of practitioners and adepts, as a spiritual guidance tool, for establishing a sacred space, and as an aid to meditation and trance induction.

In common use, mandala has become a generic term for any diagram, chart or geometric pattern that represents the cosmos metaphysically or symbolically; a microcosm of the universe.”

The radial symmetry of mandalas is what makes them beautiful, as well as their ability to handle great complexity while remaining unified and composed. And although much of the art I saw was pen and ink line drawings, whether freehanded or carefully planned with a compass and ruler, mandalas are just as eye catching in natural forms.

Discovering – Babies Thursday

In the words I used to tell my mom: I peed on a stick and apparently my body is producing hCG.

Watching that faint little blue line appear on my $5 grocery store pregnancy test is at the same time exhilarating and… weirdly not. Just before bed I show it to my husband, and we smile and hug each other really tightly for a few minutes and then we stop and look at each other and go, “Now what?” Suddenly I realize just how little I know about babies and pregnancy. Behind my husband’s smile I can see the wild terror mounting.

A little later, I inspect myself before going to bed. My body doesn’t look any different, and besides the mild soreness in my breasts that tipped me off before confirming it with a hCG test, I don’t really feel any different either. My brain keeps trying to project the size and location of a tiny, poppy-seed sized growth in my abdomen, but is it really there? Just how accurate are these $5 grocery store tests anyways? That blue line does look rather faint after all…