Random Thoughts

Dear Hannah,

Here are some random thoughts I'd like to share with you as if you were here and we were having one of our ADD conversations while cooking dinner and drinking wine:

I would still LOVE to know your opinion about the foyer area even though I just bought a can of Balsam (Porter color 7041-1) paint today. It is one of my favorite colors Katie shared with me (by the way Katie, if you are reading this, feel free to come by any night this week to get your paint back - thank you for letting me borrow your left-overs!). I also painted the guest room the same color. Anyway, thoughts?

As you know, I have a not-so-secret desire to be brown. I discovered the Cooking channel (Food Network meets BBC) and this show in particular: Indian Food Made Easy. I'm in love with Anjum. She's like a brown Nigela. This is the first thing I want to make from the show - Goan Pork Vindaloo, but I need this mortar and pestle to make it:



A couple of years ago, I went to some swanky bar in Chicago where I don't even own clothes cool enough to wear there and had some form of a Manhattan that was TO-DIE-FOR! It had brandied cherries in it. That's all I remember. I want to make brandied cherries for Christmas this year.

I've started buying whole chickens. After going through the sack of innards found inside the Thanksgiving turkeys with my Aunt Eee (short for Lillie Pearl), I became inspired to deal with the whole bird, guts and all. (She deftly explained all the parts and even picked all the meat off the neck for the giblet gravy, while giving me family history lessons.) The other night, I rubbed a kosher chicken with half a stick of butter mixed together with two teaspoons of minced garlic, one teaspoon of salt and another of pepper, and a palm full of spices (some mixture of rosemary, thyme and whatever else I had). Then I roasted the bird at 400 degrees in my new gas stove! If it didn't still have some pin feathers stuck in the skin, the thing would have been perfect. Cooking whole chickens makes me feel all slow-foody good.

I found chairs at Pier 1 that I want.



I'm on a mission to find tiny ottomans. Where should I look?

We had a snow day today. I wish you had been here. I made a mocha out of TJ's sipping chocolate, So Delicious! coconut milk, and coffee with marshmallows on top and missed you a lot.

Hold fast to the hope of Chirstmas and know that you are loved.

xoxo,
Ellen