Brown Sugar Cookies

There have been some amazing things happening around these parts since entering Funemployment.

One such thing?  I've started cooking and baking.  While I understand that these two skills are the norm for most people living in
Americathe world, I'm more than happy to order takeout from Thelonious Monkfish  4 days out of the week and subsist on ice cream from Toscanini's for the other three.

I kid, I do.  A few months ago I was able to hide behind the excuse that I was "too busy to cook", but I have a lot of time on my hands now and frankly, it was about time that I stopped being lazy and started taking action.

I'm getting there, sloooowly.  One of my biggest successes so far happened last Friday.  My mother hitched a ride with a family friend and made a last minute trip up to Cambridge to visit me and my brother.  As (my) family gatherings are wont to do, it expanded to include my cousin, husband, husband's friend, and husband's friend's girlfriend.  I love that I, along with John, have created an atmosphere where folks feel absolutely comfortable popping in for a visit.  I don't love that I never seem to have enough food on hand to feed them.

Tea time is a pretty big tradition for my family, and when 4pm rolls around if I don't have tea and a biscuit, there's hell to pay.  Tea is never lacking in our household, but I didn't feel like serving my guests store-bought treats from the bodega across the street.  For the first time since moving into our house (a year and two months ago), I had flour, butter, sugar, eggs, spices, and baking powder in large enough quantities to attempt to make cookies.  WELL, they weren't a disaster.  In fact, they were pretty delicious, and all 24 cookies were gone by the end of the night.

Because the cookies were such a success, I'd love to share the recipe with you.  It's fast and foolproof, but I was pretty proud :

Brown Sugar Cookies 
(You can find the recipe here)

You will need:
1 1/2 sticks (6 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/4 cups dark brown sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 

How to Prepare:

Preheat the oven to 375°F.

Place the butter and sugar in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a paddle and beat until smooth and creamy. Add the egg and beat well. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. 

Place the flour, baking soda, salt, and spices in a separate bowl and mix well. Add to the butter mixture and beat until everything is well incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat again.

Drop large teaspoonfuls of dough onto an unbuttered cookie sheet about 2 inches apart and bake until the edges are just brown, 8 to 12 minutes.

Let cookies cool, then serve with some tea or a glass of cold milk.  Success!

I hope you enjoy. xxxx

Emerson Fry New York

{Lang Dress}

{Big Knit Gilet}

I really like Emerson Fry New York (formerly EmersonMade?) clothing.  It's simple, clean, and so pretty.  I'm pinching pennies at the moment, but it's always good to have something to work towards!

Weekend Travels: New York, NY

I usually don't travel much in my day-to-day life, but recently I've been making all sorts of trips to not-so-far-off places.  I spent this weekend visiting dear friends in New York (Brooklyn and Manhattan to be exact) and experiencing what the city had to offer.

Cambridge is my home, but goodness I love New York.  I love the kind of energy it produces--manic, magnetic, and buzzing.  Oh--and the people--the people!  Everyone is beautiful in New York, even if they're not.  How is that? How does that work?  Is there something in the water?

Maybe I drank the Kool-Aid, but luckily I like the taste of it.  Here's a sampling of what I did and who I saw while I was there (sans photos because I am sadly without a camera and I'm not the best cameraphone photographer):

Visited my famous blog friend (who also happens to be one of my dearest real-life friends).

Ate at this delicious sandwich shop.

Drooled over the goods at this store.

Ate at another delicious restaurant.

Brunched at this other delicious restaurant.

Then I finished off the weekend by having a home-cooked meal at my parents' house in Connecticut.  Not a bad weekend if I say so myself.

Portland, ME (a cozy city)

I just had one of the loveliest weekends in a very long while.  John and I took a trip to Portland, Maine to see one of his childhood (teenagehood?) friends marry one very lovely lady.  I have lived in New England for 17 years.  Somebody please tell me how I made it all this time without visiting Maine?

Portland is the largest city in Maine and unbelievably charming.  Cobblestone streets, brick buildings, delicious food, and lighthouses.  So cozy.

I had such a good time that I forgot to take any pictures, but here's what the streets of Old Port look like:

{Photo via Google}

We eschewed the usual hotel joints and opted to stay at a B&B called Morrill Mansion.  Again, charmant.  Morrill Mansion is an 1800s era townhouse that now functions as an inn.  It's small and quiet, located in the heart of Portland's West End district.  There are seven rooms available, homemade peanut butter squares, a huge DVD collection, and...wait for it....WIRELESS INTERNET.  John and I stayed in the Burnham Room, located on the second floor next to the snacks :).  As an added bonus, our innkeeper David was respectful, nice and full of good recommendations.

Everything I had heard and read about Portland prior to visiting indicated that it is a huge foodie city.  I saw and ate nothing that would indicate otherwise.  If you go, I think you should very seriously consider going to Fore Street Restaurant for dinner.  Fore Street believes that "good food travels the shortest possible distance between the farm and the table", and their menu changes daily based on what is available that day from a community of Maine farmers, fishermen, and cheesemakers.  I feel like Boston hasn't quite caught on to the farm-to-table movement yet, so this was a good opportunity for us to experience some local cuisine.  I had sardines to start, John Dory for a main(e) course, and a peach shortcake/trifle-type thing for dessert.  John had a tomato salad to start, roasted chicken as an entree, and a chocolate tart for dessert.  It sounds so simple, but I do not have the time nor the words to describe the complexity of this dinner to you.  That said, it's a great place for dinner.  A word to the wise- go with a reservation.  We went without and ended joining a line of people outside the restaurant who were waiting to be put on the wait list.  I think we ate at 5:45, which is prime senior citizen time if I'm not mistaken.

On Sunday it was raining, so we headed out to the Freeport Outlets.  This is, as the name indicates, an outlet mall.  It's also the place of the original L.L. Bean.  Sadly, we left with no fuzzy slippers or monogrammed backpacks, but rest assured--it's all there if you need it!

The wedding was pretty awesome.  Our friends know how to throw a pretty epic party.  Their reception was held at Grace Restaurant.  The restaurant is housed in a renovated church and there are high arches and wood beams, stained glass windows, and a bar where the pews are supposed to be.  The kitchen is on the altar.  The DJ spun where the organist sits, and we danced the night away under the watch of some higher being. ;)

We got on the road pretty early the next day, but not without making a stop at Portland Dry Goods Co. for a few souvenirs.  I wanted to take everything in the store home with me, but since I am on a budget, I ended up with some Portland-made earrings.  John ended up with a pretty sweet Western-style shirt.  We didn't get to visit the Portland harbor islands, but this just means that we will have to make a return trip.

I would highly recommend a weekend in Portland if you have never been.  It was such a nice respite from our daily life.  I imagine it would be pretty awesome in the colder months as well--fewer tourists!

Well, hello! It's been a while.

Hello ladies and gentlemen!

After a wonderfully eventful year, I'm back to blogging again.  I'm happy to be back. Stay tuned!

Dannijo Jewelry

I loooooooove Dannijo's jewelry and their short film debut!

Angela Chase-isms

We all love Angela Chase of My So-Called Life. She is so not a CFWG. Anyway, I stumbled upon Thought Catalog's Angela Chase-ism for the week (written by Collier Meyerson, also author of Carefree White Girl), and it happens to be on interracial relationships. It's worth a read--and brings up some interesting questions and observations about race and romantic relationships.

Why the interest on my part, you ask? My husband is white, and I identify as black and multiracial, but that's another story for a different day. Read the article below!

Angela Chasisms: Existential moments when you feel like the way you’re thinking about something is exactly the way that Angela Chase would think about the same thing, so you like, think about it, like in that way, that like, she does. This week: Attraction.

ON ATTRACTION

When someone asks you what your “type” is you know exactly what they mean and you know exactly how to answer. There is this entire coding system that we’ve adopted to answer that question without sounding, like, racist. When you hear someone say with a twinge of exoticism in their tone: “I like brunettes with dark features” you know that they’re talking about a “Jewish,” Moorish or, like, Middle Eastern looking person. They don’t need to name it. Or, someone will say: “Oh Jack? He only dates dark chicks. Isn’t that so weird? Would you have guessed?” That means that Jack only dates brown or black women and because it’s something to note, Jack is probably white. And yet, more often than not you’ll hear: “I don’t have a type, I just date whoever, I really am attracted to so many different ‘types.’” And on some level those people are probably telling the truth. But that doesn’t mean that they actually date the people they purport to be attracted to.

Most times, when you actually look around, people date people that looklike them. Intellectually, we all know that white people aren’t only attracted to other white people. I mean, secretive interracial relations during slavery prove that people of different races have always been, like, carnally into one another. But when it comes to being publicly with someone outside of your race, it’s like, a thing

I guess attraction is learned, like, algebra, or, something. So, then what about people that have been in actual interracial relationships? Are they trailblazers? Did they have to, like, unlearn the behaviors so many of us can’t seem to break from? I guess, in a way, it’s sort of heartbreaking to think about all of these people that could be together that won’t, because they can’t like, step outside of themselves

I once learned of this guy, James W. Rouse who developed one of America’s first “planned communities” in Columbia, Maryland in, like, the late ‘60s or something. His hope was to gather people from different races, ethnicities and socio-economic classes and put them together in one place so that the civil rights legislation of the 1960s could have proof that a pro-active, self-sustaining integrated society could, like, actually exist. It was pretty forward thinking I guess. I wonder how much it worked. A part of me wishes we were all forced to live in planned communities. I envision every town and city having these billboards all over the place (no longer owned by Clear Channel) where instead of a white couple drinking Corona there’d be, like, an interracial couple drinking Budweiser. And the slogan would read “The American type of Beer.”