On Christmas Eve, my fiance and I traveled up to his family's home in Alexandria, Va., where I tied on an apron to cook with my future mother-in-law.
Miss Margaret is quite the gourmet cook, but even she had never tackled puff pastry and invited me to join her in recreating the New York Times' Fig and Stilton Cheese Tart for our Christmas Eve feast.
We started out by cutting onions in long slices, shaped sort of like parentheses, and I plucked sprigs of rosemary.
I also crumbled a wedge of Stilton blue cheese -- very, very creamy.
Meanwhile, the onions slowly caramelized in butter and sugar for 30 minutes, before I added sherry vinegar to pull up the brown bits. *We would have used more sherry vinegar than the recipe calls for.
Miss Margaret has a bountiful fig tree outside that yields so many green figs, she gives them away to restaurants. They were very ripe and had been frozen, so they were practically oozing. She sliced the figs in half while I was crumbling the cheese.
Once the onions were finished, we placed them in bowls with an egg mixture, then, using a fork, placed the onions in the center of a sheet of thawed puff pastry, leaving an inch to create a border.
Seriously. How gasp-worthy beautiful is that tart? Gotta love natural light, something my apartment has never seen.
Then we both brushed the remaining egg mixture along the sides of the pastry.
The most fun part: pinching the corner up around the center.
Finally, we popped them into the oven to bake. Fair warning: the egg will spill a little, so we had to do a little clean-up after that, but Miss Margaret said it would be just fine.
Ta-Da! And I helped!
In all seriousness, the tart was a masterpiece in terms of loveliness. It was maybe the most gorgeous, magazine-worthy item I've made.
Flavor-wise? Well...that's a bit of a different story. The recipe said it could be served fresh out of the oven or at room temperature, so we put some plastic wrap over it and left it out for half the day, then tried it as an appetizer. Room temperature was not so great; it definitely needs to be at least warm.
Also, we would have added some salt or more Stilton to counteract the sweetness of the ripe figs; the flavor of the cheese got a little lost. The consistency of the puff pastry was great, however, and the onions tasted just right.
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What would we all do without friends who have trucks? Miranda and Travis saved us again this weekend, which was jam-packed with rearranging, decluttering and organizing.
At the rate we're moving, we'll be decorating for Christmas in January. While most people were digging out their ornaments and lights this weekend, we were making messes upon messes in an effort to get organized.
We were fortunate after our wedding to receive many of the things we asked for, albeit without anywhere to put them. Our kitchen cabinets were stuffed to the gills; I had two drawers so full of linens you couldn't really open them.
Once we stuffed all the leftover wedding stuff (centerpieces, decorations, napkins, etc.) into the guest room, we piled the gifts in there, too and suddenly it went from neat and tidy to an episode of Hoarders. And if you saw my collection of empty boxes, that's not far from the truth.
We agreed the solution would be a china cabinet, but to make that happen, we had to move our big IKEA Expedit bookcase out of the dining area and into the guest room. And to make that happen, we had to clean out the guest room. You can see where I'm going with this, can't you? That was our entire weekend.
We bought this Federal-style china cabinet with George Hepplewhite-style drawer pulls off Craigslist. Although the wood is quite pretty, I'm not a dark wood kind of girl, at least not in an apartment that gets almost no sunlight.
I can't paint it just yet, since it's winter (I would totally take the risk if Sean hadn't stopped me), but I wanted to do something to make it a little more me. I sloppily (I'll admit it) lined the back of the cabinet with gold metallic kraft paper I bought at Target. It looks sort of Christmas-y and festive. When I can paint it, I'm thinking white or a whitish gray on the outside, with a blueish gray on the inside, possibly with stripes.
I was excited to finally display all my pretty things in one place. The William Rogers silverplated dessert plates came from Plantiques in Newport News; the Wedgwood pieces were my grandmother's and the gravy boat is from Crate and Barrel.
The jadeite cake stand is a new purchase! I spotted it at the Williamsburg Antique Mall (my fave!) and had to have it. The teal pressed glass sundae cups are from there, as well.
For our honeymoon, Sean bought us the creamer and sugar bowl from Heath Ceramics in San Francisco. Their color is more green than you can tell in this picture. The dessert plates also came from Plantiques.
Another new purchase! Zinc placecards from Paper-Source.
I was most excited to have somewhere to stash my linens, especially because I just bought a pretty white linen tablecloth in Alexandria, along with a taupe hemstitch linen runner.
And voila! The only scary part is that the whole thing wobbles a little when we pad by it, so I've been walking very, very quietly. Also, the glass is loose in the right pane there, so that will eventually have to be addressed.
Tomorrow I'll show you some incredibly embarrassing pictures of how messy it got in the guest room. I'm redoing it again, and my goal lately has been to bring more cohesion to my home. I'm trying to prune out my belongings a bit, and repeat colors and patterns. Wish me luck!
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Another relaxed summer wedding inspiration board for you, with a touch of red, white and blue to continue this week's color motif. And what's more summery and Fourth-of-July than a picnic? Print save-the-dates or invites on brown paper lunch bags to give guests the idea of what's to come. Set up a swing and some lawn games, and maybe decorate with some paper lanterns hung in the trees. And again, if this idea seems too informal for a wedding, it would be perfect for a welcome party or rehearsal picnic luncheon.
Mood: breezy summer picnic Palette: brown, green, red, pale blue
Alison Bank from First Comes Love Photography sent over this charming wedding, and I think both the photos and the story from the bride are great reminders to anyone out there who feels like pulling their hair out over wedding planning. Says the bride, Carolyn:
"Don't plan too long or too hard. You have to listen politely to the suggestions of family and friends but in the end this is your day and it should be what you want so don't feel bad about saying no. We planned our wedding in less than 5 months with very little stress and I think that relaxed and fun attitude came through on the actual day."
And they came through in the photos, too!
Close friends played music during the ceremony and reception.
Carolyn wore a sundress by Ralph Lauren for her August wedding.
From the bride, "We had a lot of help from friends with various areas of expertise which really helped keep our budget down. The invitations, flowers, wine, music, and some of the produce for the dinner were all provided free of charge by friends in those businesses. We purchased all our liquor at Costco and hired a bartender, which greatly reduced cost of the open bar. We let the setting be the decor and kept the linens and decorations simple."
Check it out! The fabulous Jordan Ferney invited me to join the first monthly Craft Night at her studio in San Francisco, 7/8. I can't wait! See more details at Jordan's blog.
wedding planning ideas, developing a wedding checklist, organizing wedding flowers, catering, photography. wedding planner is a professional who assists with planning and organization of weddings