Spice Dish

Creativity Sparks

Dali Themed Street Art. Creative.

I went to a book club a little while ago. It was full of strangers. I’ve never, in my life, done that before. We had an amazing conversation and I left completely creatively energized. It wasn’t just that I was using my critical thinking skills for the first time in months, but that I was trying something new. I realized that I needed to do lots more of this sort of thing--  not in the interest of 'self improvement' but simply for the sake of experience. For fostering creativity. For enjoying life. So I came up with a list of “Creativity Sparks” (i.e. stuff I’ve never done before but am going to try in  order to keep  my brain excited and to experience new things) Hey if Stephen Fry can get pierced, I can find things I've never done!

I’m not calling it a ‘bucket list’ because I don’t care if I do or don’t do these before I die. Dying is not the point. Some are little things, some are big life altering things. Some are free and some make me thankful I have no kids in need of a college education. 

I think I know which one I’ll start with, but I’m not sure. I don’t even know how closely I’ll be keeping track, hell I don’t even know how many items are on this list! (Just counted... 64) Here I go. Here’s to creativity!

Ride in a hot air balloon
See the northern lights
Take a sailing lesson
Write a book
Have a conversation in a language other than english
Send a message in a bottle.
Ride a camel (or elephant) etc
Take a ballroom dance class
Learn to play a musical instrument
Take a singing lesson
Make a complete fool of myself
Eat at the French Laundry
Learn to juggle
Learn to drive a stick shift
Spend three months getting my body into athletic shape
Go fishing and eat my catch
Ride a motorcycle
Work on a farm for a day
Learn a new skill (no idea what yet)
Make soup dumplings
Run a 5k (not walk)
Find a food I've never eaten and eat it
Go to a jazz show
Play a game of ice hockey
Go horseback riding along the beach
Learn to ski
Take a fencing lesson
Go on a helicopter ride
Sleep overnight on a train
Collect fresh chicken eggs from a nest
Go to the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador
Try a new restaurant in San Francisco
See the Parthenon in Greece
Go to Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain
Read Moby dick
Visit the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy
Spend an afternoon in El Prado in Madrid, Spain
See "Guernica" by Pablo Picasso at the Museo Reina Sofia
Spend a week in Bora Bora
Attend a Japanese tea ceremony
Learn to sculpt
Learn how to perform a magic trick
Learn to knit one thing
Make cheese
Watch lawrence of Arabia
Face a fear (not sure which one)
Become financially literate
Go to an auction at Christie's or Sotheby's
Sleep in a castle
Create a well-stocked pantry
Go to a yoga class by myself
Become an 'expert' at something
Write an article and have it published
Register for NaNoWriMo and write a novel in one month
Do NaBloPoMo for one month
Write a cookbook
Audition for something
Travel to another city to go to a concert/show (performer TBD)
Try fugu
Get a tarot card reading
Get hypnotized (for what I have no idea)
Eat something I've grown
Travel solo (even a day trip)
Get rid of 100 of my possessions

 

So what about you? You have a list? 

EB

Whoopie! (Pies that is...)

Whoopie!

I know Whoopie Pies are soooo last year in terms of food trendiness, but lets face it, they are tasty treats. That and Super Bowl parties are not known for 'of the moment' foods (7 layer bean dip anyone?). I did sassy these up a little by adding bourbon, but other than that... they are plain, simple and delicious. 

Makes everything better

Bourbon Cream Whoopie Pies

Cakes:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder

1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup buttermilk

1 tsp vanilla

1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 large egg

Cream:

1/2 cup butter softened

1/2 cup shortening

1 cup sugar

1 tbsp flour

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup warmed whole milk

1 tsp bourbon

(Optional)- ¼ cup jimmies, sprinkles, colored sugar etc.

 Cake army!

For the cakes:

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

Whisk together flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Stir together buttermilk and vanilla in a small bowl. Beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy. Then add the egg, and beat until combined. Reduce speed to low and alternately mix in flour mixture and buttermilk mixture in batches, beginning and ending with flour. Mix until smooth.

Spoon rounded tbs mounds of batter 2 inches apart onto large baking sheets with silpat mats or greased. Flatten mounds a bit with the back of a spoon. Bake for 8 minutes-- until tops are puffed and cakes spring back when touched. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

 Mmm bourbon-y

For the filling:

In a large bowl, with and electric mixer, beat together the shortening, butter and sugar until fluffy. Add flour, vanilla and milk. Beat until creamy and smooth. Whisk in bourbon.

To make the pies, spread a rounded tbs of filling on flat sides of half of cakes then top with remaining cakes. If desired, roll completed pies in a bowl of sprinkles.

 

Enjoy!

EB

Resolutions 2012!

Happy New Year's!

Again, I'm not a New Years resolution kind of gal, just never have been. But lovely Marisa, of Food In Jars inspired me this morning. Just because I don't do personal resolutions doesn't mean I can't make some bloggy ones! So here goes, my Blog Resolutions for 2012:

1- To post more vintage cookbooks (you guys seem to like those)

2- Maybe a little re-design (change is good right?)

3- In general, just be more consistent with my posting (I can do it!)

Sound good? Ok then. Happy 2012!

EB

Of Anniversaries and Things

My first picture posted

I started SpiceDish four years ago. FOUR. It’s strange where life takes you in four years. I’ve never been a diary keeper (too embarrassing) but I realize now that SpiceDish is a diary of sorts. Looking back on past posts I can see when I was happy at my work (fewer posts), when I needed escape (more posts), when I was engaged with the blogosphere (lots of comments), and when I was playing recluse (no comments).

I can see when larger life issues, very personal ones, took precedence over posting or when I was compelled to post by those same issues.

I have met some truly amazing people because of SpiceDish. People like Bethany, Victoria, Sarah and Jessie.  I have been let into many other worlds in the past years and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

Like a lot of you, I’m at yet another crossroads in life. The ‘what’s next’ type. The ‘can I really make that happen’ type.  I have no idea where I will be come next October’s blogiversary, and that’s a bit scary. I do know that I’ll be able to look over the year’s posts and see where I’ve been. And that is comforting.

Here’s to another year.

Enjoy-

EB

 

How Do You Know It's Christmas in San Francisco?

You Know it's Christmas in San Francisco When:

1. You're watching men frolic in tights.

2. You're dodging drunken Santas.

3. You're trying to figure out just how many NYE house parties you can hit before you will be too drunk to go on.

4. You're listening to SomaFm's Xmas in Frisko.

by MooHaHa
5. You're asking your father to buy you a month's garage parking as your big Christmas gift. 

Happy Holidays!

EB

Summer Fling!

Okay. Yes I’m a teacher. When people find out they invariably say “ooh you’re so lucky to have summers off!” Yeah. No. I don’t get summers off. I’m a newbie on the professorial circuit and I’m still paying my crappy schedule-summer session-not getting paid dues. However, I do get a day or two off a week during the summer. Which yes, is awesome (although a paycheck would be awesomer!) I am going to take full advantage of these few precious days. I plan to not only catch up in the blogging world but to also to make the most of the summer by doing all those things I've yearned about all winter like:

Photo by pedrosimoes7
1. Go to PARIS!

2. Go to a ball game or two.

3. Catch up on This American Life at the gym.

4. Go organic in the garden.

5. Improve my Spanish.

6. Explore my city with Mundane Journeys.

7.Read. For fun. Honestly. Just one book!

8. Drink beer and go for the brass ring.

9. Cook from my sorely neglected, ever growing collection of vintage cookbooks.

10. Go to the park. Manshelf?

What will you be doing with your summer?

EB

 

Creamy Snail Mail.... Mmmmm

Mail is a good thing right? I mean, when it's not a bill? Like when it's a postcard from someone nice? Someone nice who really likes ice cream? Would you like some nice, not bill-related, but ice cream offering mail? The real kind? In your actual, attached to your house mailbox kind? Yes, I thought you would.... 

Join the Ice Cream Recipe Postcard Swap from Scoopalicious!

Have Fun (and send me mail :)

EB

My Last Supper

My Last Supper by Melanie Dunea has been an obsession of mine for a while. As a photographer, Ms. Dunea captures the essence of very famous chefs and their dying wish meals in pictures. It's not your same 'ol bio and 'what are they cooking now' type of book. It's a collection of those last shebang dying wish meals.You know the game… you have time for one last meal on earth… what do you eat? Who do you eat it with? Would Tony Bourdain gorge on Grays Papaya? Would Wylie micro-freeze something? Would Ferran Adria make faux-food or something from his mother’s kitchen? Would Eric Ripert dine on bone marrow? I’m not tellin’ because I highly recommend you check out the book. The photos alone are worth it, but the real treat is some of the very surprising food items that find their way onto these chef’s tables.

I personally play this game A LOT. The menu always seems to change though and some strange things find their way in there. Granted… it would be a feast, and not much of it makes sense… but some of the common items on my Last Supper menu include:

 

• Lobster
• Truffled cheese
• Oysters
• Soup dumplings with vinegar and ginger
• A really good bowl of ramen
• Toro nigiri sushi
• Spiced, brown sugar bacon
• A San Francisco Dungeness Crab
• A carnitas taco
• Mac n Cheese
• Chocolate cake & peppermint ice cream for dessert
• All washed down with lots of champagne

 
What would yours be?

EB

Plush Life

 
So yes. I got to meet the incomparable Sarah of Pink of Perfection. We had cocktails at Cafe de la Presse and a great chat about what you would do if you woke up one day with a “wildly plush bank account” and (assuming you didn’t get it through criminal means….) What do you do? Where would you go?

When we had this talk, my uninspiring answer (much to Sarah's surprise I think) was that I'd pay off my student loans and my parents’ mortgages. Yes, but this was pre-vacation. I have had much beach and umbrella drink time to ponder. What would I do now? I came up with a bundle but I figured I’d narrow it to the top 10.

1. Buy many pairs of Laboutin's. Many…many pairs.

2. Buy a house in San Juan. One on a quiet side street with a pretty painted door.

3. Buy a house in San Francisco and somehow stick a pool in it. Yes this is the true fantasy.

4. Open a shop of my own. (Which if you ask D.E.M is a combo bar/souvenir shop and kitty rescue (they're everywhere in San Juan). If you ask my friends it’s an ice cream shop and I make it all (including a line of booze sorbets). If you ask me it’s a specialty foods shop.

5. Private jet. After getting stuck in Philly overnight on our return trip and thereby negating all island relaxation… I’ve decided this is a necessity.

6. Go to cooking school. Or have it come to me if I’m so filthy, disgustingly rich that I own 2 homes (one with a pool).

7. I would still buy the parents their homes. Maybe my brother if he says please.

8. Shoes… did I say shoes? Lots of shoes.

9. Travel. Italy, Spain, Scotland, back to Spain, Africa, South America, Japan, France, Canada… show a little love to our neighbors to the north. I mean hey… I’ve got the jet at my disposal yeah?

10. I think I mentioned this…. Maybe not…. Shoes.

 

So that's it. My top 10, if I had a plush life shopping list. What's yours?

Erin

Fan Letter… to My Mom

Sarah from Pink of Perfection has done it again. Her monthly project, this month? To tell someone we care about “just how exquisite they are.” She asks that participants “scrawl it on a college-ruled page or make a pilgrimage to a stationery shop” in order to let that special person know just how they have affected your life. So here goes.

Fan Letter… to my mom

That's my mom

First off, this post is waaay overdue. I should have done it at Mother’s Day. Not because I don’t tell my mom how awesome she is regularly… but because I haven’t told you people how amazing she is. I know she’ll read this too because she’s supportive like that.

She has been teacher to me, beyond being a parent, a friend, a role model, and a mentor. She’s now, and always, an inspiration. She’s strong, supportive, independent, freakin’ adorable, supportive, understanding, supportive, loving… did I mention supportive?

I haven’t always made the most parent-approved decisions in my life, but she’s supported me no matter what I’ve decided to take on. Become a bartender after she spent thousands of dollars on a college education? Ok sure. Start a real career and then drop it all to move to New York… shortly after 9/11… go ahead! Move back a year later with no money? C’mon home! Accept whomever I was dating at whatever time? Why not? Like I said… my mom rocks.

 

One reason she rocks…. Take Mother’s Day for example. Some moms require jewelry, flowers, champagne and their kids doting on them with loving, perfect eyes. My mom? Fish n’ chips and a beer at a little pub she likes by the beach. Seriously.

 

Cameron’s in Half Moon Bay is a crazy English pub with a double decker bus parked outside. They’ve got a massive menu but mom always orders the fish n’ chips.  During a fun lunch where we played 20 questions (the little electronic kind) did she drill me with inquiries as to when I’m going to have a kid? Nope. “How about we toddle through town… “ was her only request. Half Moon Bay is a small town. Once you’ve popped in the shops the only left to do is stop for ice cream. “Okie”. See… she’s easy that way.

 

My mom has been through a lot in her life. Family stuff, career stuff, relationship stuff… all the ‘stuff’ women of her generation had to figure out how to do… in a new way. She’s always stood on her own two feet. She’s always cared for others before herself. She’s always been there when her family needed her. And she’s also promised never to make meatloaf or tuna casserole ever again.

Through everything, she's kept her sense of humor and her own sense of self. My mom.... well she's amazing and I love her.

Erin