angry chicken

shape shifting

While I was at the Decorette shop a few weeks back I thought, while I'm here, I might as well get some chocolate molds. These were the closest ones to my hands while I was watching the girls. I thought they were cute.

I melted some milk chocolate chips, filled these up, scraped the top (after I took this photo) and then put the tray in the fridge. How easy is that? I am so pleased. Now instead of buying some junky god-knows-what chocolates for Valentine's Day/Easter, I can just make some with these molds—melting the chocolate I want, like organic milk chocolate, or whatever. It's so easy to find high quality non-creepy chocolate now, but not in fun shapes, just in bars. I get most chocolate at new seasons but online, chocosphere is my absolute favorite place to order from. Now I have a reason to get even more molds.

So, I didn't temper these. Or if I did, it was by accident. But, since I used chocolate chips, I don't think I could have tempered these even if I wanted to. I have never tempered chocolate. It hasn't really come up before. Usually when I dip something in chocolate, it goes right in my mouth, so no tempering is needed, just digestion. But all this candy making has gotten me interested. Well, not really interested, but mildly curious. And then, as fate would have it, this week in FOODday in the Oregonian, there was an article on tempering chocolate and how easy it is. . .you can even do it in the microwave. So, I may try it after all. Or not.

I was just looking for old Valentine's day stuff in my archives to link to and then found a post last year where I was looking for old Valentine's day stuff in my archives to link to. I'm not sure if this means I am incredibly predictable, a complete freak, or living some sort of Groundhog Day style spiral. And I fell off the sugar wagon with a biscotti, but come on! I am back on now, though. For reals.

a valentine and other stuff

I cut this for Pete for Valentine's Day. But he hasn't seen it yet. Honey, stop reading.

After a total sugar freak-out I am limiting my intake to weekends only. And not all binge-y either, but a normal amount. It all started with the caramel corn incident, which I will blog about very soon. It's a lot of words to type. And then the chocolate experiment, also forthcoming, and then ice cream cake. Ugh. I have had so much sugar lately my eyes hurt. So I need a break. But, I did make brown rice pudding for breakfast, but I don't think that really counts exactly.

I got the new Alison Krause/Robert Plant album and it is really good. I kept hearing it was—and it is. It's very restrained so I was happy because he does get all Robert Plant on a few songs. He's like William Shatner, you know? You just can't keep the Shatner in. I love hearing this album and then imagining Robert with his jeans all freaky low ala The Song Remains the Same. Not that I really like this image, it's more like I find it very amusing. My mom saw a part of that movie and declared his jeans "obscene" which is hysterical coming from my mom.

fixation of the week-

I have been obsessing a bit on getting these. We eat a lot of soup and sandwiches around here. Growing up, we had some tacky luncheon ones I loved from Wendy's—the kind you would get free with a kids meal, or something. They were red and hard plastic with Wendy's writing on them. We loved them. What's not to love about the food-in-compartment thing? Secretly, I am a food mixer. I love a good segmented tray as much as the next person but when I do eat, I tend to mix, dip, or just mess it up.

These are at Uncommon Goods and Amazon (I got a ton of new and vintage links from the eggplant) These are new, obviously, and that's my tough decision—do I buy new or get a lovely vintage set? And I need 3 sets, or preferably 5. . .oh, these decisions and issues. There's something so clean and simple about these, although looking at them now, they do look like a set for dog food. hmmm. Maybe vintage? But the shipping on ebay for ceramics is such a buzzkill. In another lifetime I would actually leave the house and thrift for these.  .  . .

the aprons are up!

Dang. . . dang, this new gallery for the Polka Dotted aprons looks so good! Thank you all so much! This one here is designed by Meg and I am very excited that she is now selling the pattern, you can get yours here. Please head on over to Tie One On, pop over to flickr, and take a look at all the apron goodness. You can see the new theme there, too.