If you're making cookies, please stick it in the fridge

I recently forgot that I had promised to bring cookies to a baby shower at work. This was at around 9:30pm on the night before the shower. Thoughts of the Vietnamese bakery down the street swirled in my head, but my pride wouldn't let me: I will stay true to the Homespun, readers.
The solution? Refrigerator cookies. Flour, butter, sugar, vanilla, rolled up in a tube shape and thrown in the fridge. The next morning, I turned on the oven when I got up, sliced those lil' buggers, threw an almond on top and baked for 6 min. By the time I was done with my coffee,the whole batch was done. I had lined the trays with parchment paper, so there was no clean up, and I was actually on time for work.
I had a vision of myself in 10 years, finding the crumpled note in the kid's backpack at 11 at night saying "bring cookies tomorrow" and I knew: No bake sale will EVER bring me down.

Sweet and Lowdown

For stylish ladies with a bit of an edge, Locher's is worth a visit. One could even take inspiration from these designs and get stitching oneself...Warning: if you are one of those readers who are sensitive to swearing (or, as our Mother would say, if you didn't work summers in a restaurant like we did and come home with Trucker Mouth for life,) this might not tickle you.

Feeling isolated? Get knocked up (or a beach ball)

If you've ever felt alone...cut off from the people you pass every day...or that you just don't get to talk to strangers enough, having a pregnant form gives you a pass to be everyone's friend. It's downright homespun how, even in the middle of a huge city, people you have never met will drop what they are doing to offer you a greeting, commentary, or 'advice.' I've been keeping a little list of some of the most memorable quips I've gotten, and here are a few:

"How many do you have in there?" (One, it just looks like a litter)
"Wow, I'll be you'll be good at breastfeeding." (Or maybe a career in adult films)
"You don't mind if I touch it, do you?) (Now that you are, it would be rude to slap you.)
"Have all the coffee you want, but don't go bowling" (And let the league down?)
"Have you ordered your epidural yet?" (I'll order it along with your tact medicine)

Any of you in homespun land made similar connections?

Shrimp-tastic

Why should a shrimp be just for 'special occasions?' They're delicious, low-cal, and give any meal a touch of Classiness. If you can get the local variety, so much the tastier.

My sister has devised the ultimate preparation method, used to great success at my wedding (actual guest quote: "We had our reception at the Four Seasons and the food wasn't half as good as this. Especially that shrimp. Mmm.")

Go to it.

Take the shells off fresh shrimp and boil them in water and some white wine, beer and spices for 20 min. Strain the shells out and keep the water. Bring this to a boil, then add the peeled uncooked shrimp, and immediately turn off the heat and cover. Let them sit for 8 min., then drain and chill.

Best shrimp ever- the shells have all the sea taste, but it takes them 20 min. to release their flavah. If you cook the shrimp that long, you’re eating pencil rubbers. This is the best of both worlds.

Homespun vs. Heat Wave

It's no news that it pretty much feels like living on the surface of Mars for much of us this summer (take that, those who thought Al Gore was exaggerating!) I have never been so thankful for air conditioning in my life, especially following a recent outage that made me wonder how in the world anyone kept their sanity without it. But, if you have to do without, or just want to try to keep cool on the eco-friendly and frugal side, what do you do?

Here are some of my favorites:

1) Tons and tons of water, jazzed up with lime, mint, fruit pieces, splashes of juice
2) Powder - unscented baby or your favorite fragrance, Bumble and Bumble Hair Powder gives a pretty good lift to your 'do as well.
3) Hide in movie theater or head to generally avoided shopping mall with iPod and good book to read in the food court.
4) Run ice cold water over your wrists at your pulse point, or dab said area with ice cube. Oooh!
5) Put away the black clothes for a bit, as painful and challenging as this may be to your style.
6) Put your sheets in a plastic bag and toss them in the freezer for a couple hours before bed. Works especially well with cotton.
7) Live like professional heat-beaters of extreme climates: get up super-early, do everything outside before 9, stay hidden indoors with blinds drawn until after 5.

What are you doing to Cool It Now?

Start your day on the airy side

Meet my new breakfast obsession: The huevos Emilia. Warm one side of a corn torilla in a dry skillet, flip it over and throw on some black bean dip and cheese (this one happens to feature Velveeta-my guilty pleasure). In the same pan on the side, fry up an egg and throw it on top of the torilla. Add salsa (mine is just cut up cherry tomatoes and parsley). Prepare to be awed, satisfied and relatively virtuous feeling: upon researching this blog, that bean dip is only 20 calories, and you know what that means- MORE VELVEETA. Mmmmmm.

Can Jam'07

Some readers have pointed out to me that the pickling onions concept sounds hard. Au contraire, mon frere (et mes soeurs). Pickling is just shoving the vegetables in a jar, mixing up vinegar and spices, pouring into said jar, and boiling it for 10 min or so. You don't even need special equipment, although like a jog-bra with dry-wick fabric, it does make the experience a little nicer. And it's not too expensive- on amazon.com they have the complete kit for $35.00 or so, and that's everything. You could get by with just the tongs that lift the jars out of the water.

Don't be afraid.....come to the canning world....don't be afraid.....resistance is futile.....

The Starbucks-ization of the Home Bar

You've heard of "Starbucks-ization", right? Take something simple and cheap (cup of coffee for 50 cents), sexy it up (grande latte) and sell it for much, much more ($4.29). Well, I'm not necessarily for that, but I have to say the home bar has just gotten a serious, Starbucks-level upgrade.
It's canning season, boys and girls, and the household spent this week pickling garnishes for the home bar. Jalapenos for western-style martinis, Dilled green beans for bloody Marys, and pickled onions for the ol'fashioned Gibson. It's great to make fabulous drinks at home, but even better to garnish them with something other than the teeny olives out of the little jar. I'm telling you, those pickled onions swimming in gin bring tears to my eyes (and not because of the onion- they're very mellow pickled). Beautiful. Tasty. Homespun. Gin. Mmmmm.....

A Perfect Pair

Try to restrain yourself from hightailing it to Whole Paycheck in search of this one, especially if your name is Emily: the prettily packaged and terrifically tasty Vosges chocolate line (I did a taste test of prime chocolates for a magazine and two of their flavors topped the list) has now been enhanced with one of nature's most perfect foods:
Bacon.

If you grew up in Maple Syrup land like we did, you know how perfect a sweet touch goes with a nice, salty piece o'pork (or turkey or faux meat if you are on the wagon.) I'm guessing this will rock many a world - and that it tastes a lot better than chocolate potato chips.

Still too hot...

...so I'll let someone else do the work. The Boston Globe mentioned this website: http://www.hertzmann.com/. This is a guy who has a blog and just wrote a book on knife skills, which apparently is incredibly detailed. Even if you don't need to know 6 ways to slice an onion (although it's pretty cool), check out the "tools" section of his website: not only is there a great measurement conversion calculator, there's also one for brining. Don't forget about it when you're standing out in the snow over the Coleman cooler the night before Thanksgiving...

too hot....can't blog......

Seriously. I can barely move around. I think I may only eat cereal and ice cream today, and good thing I made ice cream at the beginning of the week when it was not in the mid 90's in a town (and apt.) that's not regularly air-conditioned. I made a Mexican Chocolate Ice cream out of this book:
by David Lebovitz. It's a great book of unusual but accessible recipes, and his copy is pretty funny. The "Aztec" ice cream incorporates cinnamon and cayenne pepper, and he did warn that you should add a little bit and wait, as the pepper tends to get hotter as it sits. I added the minimum amount, but he wasn't kidding. It's a bizarre sensation to eat something cold and creamy that also makes your mouth burn, but maybe it's a good thing. Hot weather locales tend to eat spicy food so they can sweat out the heat, right? Excuse me while I sit very still, lick my ice cream cone, and gently perspire.

A chicken in every pot

That's a campaign slogan that needs a comeback- maybe Edwards will adapt it to his folksy style. I've been buying small whole chickens and roasting them in the early morning when it's not too hot (no air condition in the kitchen this summer, so you've got to plan ahead). After it's done, throw it in the fridge, have it for dinner and let the leftovers roll you through the dog days of summer. I have to admit, I've been off chicken for a while simply because I work at an elementary school, and chicken seems to be the only protein (except for hot dogs) the boys will eat. During the summer, the teacher tries to keep as far away from all things school as possible. I'm back, though , and with a vengeance: it's so tasty, and you can vary it a little each time. I always jam a little butter under the skin for tenderness, and I've mixed it with fresh herbs from the city garden (plot of dirt next to the hose), gone Asian with ginger and garlic in the butter, soy sauce on top, and summery with lemon and rosemary. They're all good. After dinner, pull the meat off, boiling the carcass with some water, add any leftover rice/noodles/veg, etc. and freeze: you've got yourself a nice lunch once winter rolls around and the only thing going on in the city garden is a pile of dirty snow.

Throwaway yet Museum-Worthy

I think the tendency to stock up on condiments whenever possible is genetic, a quirk you get from your mother. I have it (well, a modified version) and felt validated to discover that those little tubs and packets cannot only save your life (a man trapped in his car in a remote location once ate Taco Bell hot sauce and ketchup for days, true story) but are also mini works of art.

They must be, because they have their own online museum. I especially like the honey, and was surprised to find that there is a Finding Nemo hot sauce...thought he would be more suited to Tartar.