Pork Belly and Painting

Oooooooo!  This color makes me want to kick off my shoes, dig my toes

into a thick shag rug, drink champagne and listen to Madeleine Peyroux.

Gray Owl Ben Moore HC52

Just so you don't think I'm sitting here idle while Renee paints I'd like to show you the Asian pork belly I am preparing for a dinner gathering tomorrow night - 

Maybe I'll get champagne after all!

Hope you are enjoying your weekend

Kyra

Works in progress

I didn't blog yesterday because I was painting at Lily's for 8 hours!!

I came home with a headache and cranky.  Needless to say

I LOVE to pick out the colors etc. but, not my favorite

thing to do, putting it on the wall.

Thank God for Renee and her love of the "flow of the brush"

Here is some more of that sunny kitchen.  These are not staged shots, but

a work in progress, so don't judge the distractions.

The tile is in, along with the knobs, some artwork

and the owners

Doesn't the tile from Island Interiors just sing?  It brought the whole space together

and really brings in the earth and water views from outside

the big windows.

I have to say that the space we started with was very 

uncomfortable, in both spacial and spiritual proportions.

But now, they have to ask me to leave.  I just want to sit on the

couch and have them bring me tea while I read my book.

 Now, on to this space - can't wait!

Enjoy your day

Kyra

Charlies Soap and my Laundry room

Late last summer all of Renee's clothes started to smell moldy.

Of course, my first line of defense was to blame it on her.

Her job was too messy, her clothes were being put away damp,

and being the kind person she is, she even bought a little dehumidifier

for her closet.  Nothing worked.

  So, then I decided it was the laundry machine.

I called Mr. Laundry himself, Barrett Gray from Boyce's Motel to

get a good recommendation on a new brand and he suggested

I try a different detergent.  

The thought of discarding my lovely packaged, sweetly scented,

made in small batches in NH, laundry powder and replace it

with Tide was just too much for me to bear.

Thankfully, that weekend a bunch of us took a boat ride over 

to North Haven to eat at Nebo.

  On the boat ride home, I shared my laundry woes under the canopy of

a full moon and starlit sky. 

 From the bow came a voice, and it said

"Charlie's Soap" 

Wendee and Todd had been turned on to it by

friends for washing baby diapers.  They said it 

was all natural and they now used it for everything.

Being humble, they didn't tell me that it would change my life.

And it has.  It is AWESOME! No mold, no stains,

not even scented, but your clothes just smell so CLEAN

that they smell good.

They even have an all purpose cleaner that I use now for everything.

I used 4 bottles of it to clean Lily's when I closed and the

grease just rolled off.

Check it out, really

Happy laundry day!

Kyra

Roasted Cauliflower Soup

This fiddlehead pattern flatware is total vintage Pottery Barn.

It was a requested gift from my parents, oh so many years ago, when I first had 

a few rooms of my own.

Setting the table last night for a guest,  I was stunned with the 

realization of how far I've come and how very close I am to where I started.

Funny.

Anyway, the soup....

The hardest part of making this soup is

not eating all the cauliflower from the tray

after you have roasted it.

No cream, no potatoes, just thick and naturally 

creamy rustic goodness in about 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 head of cauliflower

 olive oil

1 small to medium onion, depending on how big your cauliflower is, chopped

2 - 3 cloves garlic, chopped

3 -4 cups Chicken or vegetable stock

1+ teaspoons dried dill or 1/4 cup fresh, chopped

Sea salt and pepper to taste

Good olive oil for drizzling 

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.

Cut cauliflower in quarters, remove core and break into florets

place cauliflower on a baking tray, drizzle with olive oil,

sprinkle lightly with sea salt and spread into a single layer

Roast until golden brown and crisp tender, about 20 minutes.

I toss the florets and turn the tray after the first 10 minutes in the oven.

This is how I usually serve cauliflower as a side, snack or appetizer.

At the cafe I would serve a pile of it with a dipping sauce, like a pesto or curried mayo

Really, taste it, it's so GOOD.  But just one!

While the cauliflower is roasting, heat 1 T of olive oil in a sauté pan, add

onion and sauté until shiny and golden, add garlic and continue to cook

until garlic is softened, being careful with your heat that the garlic doesn't

get brown. 

Add your roasted cauliflower, 2-3 cups stock, you don't want to completely cover the cauliflower,

the dill and a bit of salt to taste.  Bring this to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer gently for about

20 minutes to mingle the flavors. 

Puree the soup completely or puree half the solids and add them back in for

a chunkier version.  If soup is too thick, thin with more stock or water.

Taste for salt, add your black pepper - a pinch of red pepper flakes would be good here too - and adjust the dill if you want more.

Serve warm with a drizzle of a nice fruity olive oil

enjoy!

Kyra

My finished Cosmo bag and unexpected life lessons

I am totally supposed to be vacuuming and cooking right now to get ready 

for a dinner guest, but I just had to share this with you.

I finished my bag! and who knew the whole experience would 

treat me to such spiritual life lessons:

Belief - that I could actually read these directions and 

figure this out without help

Trust - in Ms. Butler and associates that this pattern works

Tolerance - when my partner asked me "how many

bags do you need?"

Patience - every time I picked up my seam ripper

Confidence - in using my ten year old fusible interfacing

Self Awareness - I  SO make things harder than they are, and

I talk to myself out loud a lot while sewing

Dream realizations - it was before awakening yesterday

morning that I figured out how to put the handles on.

Joy - when things actually fit together

Satisfaction - I love it even though up close it doesn't look quite like the picture.

More on trust, I still don't believe the handles and the interfacing would have worked out if I

hadn't mirrored the pairs first before putting the interfacing on.....

I customized my inside pockets a bit by making three on one side

to hold smaller things like my new Electrify phone :-0 

Seriously with the button loop thing.  Awesome technique but I couldn't figure

the worded directions out.  Renee had to come and make it visual.

My finished bag, with it's vintage button and all that.

I have decided to make it my "briefcase".  Everything fits and

is organized.  Yeah!

Enjoy your Sunday

Kyra

Butterlied Roast Chicken with preserved lemons

All my chickens come from Old Ackley Farm.  I buy 10 a week from Bob

all summer long, hold three for me and use the rest in the cafe.  Each October

my freezer is full of enough of these scrumptious local, organic chickens

to get me thru until the end of June when he begins to produce again.

I also buy a pig in November, a few ducks, ground beef and a few steaks

here and there for Renee.

  Ground lamb from Horsepower Farm, eggs and other cuts of beef from

Quill's End Farm all winter and I don't need to buy anything but produce in the grocery store.

I'm even learning how to have a little lean-to greenhouse thing on the south side

of Lily's to grow some cool weather greens next winter to get me thru.

This is all very inspiring to me.  I began shopping at a local farmer's market in the late 80's

when I had my cafe in Cincinnati, long before it was anywhere near cool.

In fact, people thought I was crazy, but I loved it then and my passion has

only grown along with the nation's.  Local is not just a buzz word for me.

It is a way of life.  I know where my meat comes from, can even meet my pig.

How awesome is that?

Anyway, back to the chickens.  I roast at least one a week (along with other

ways of doing things which I will show you at a later date).  In fact,

when I travel for longer periods of time than my usual 3 day limit, I CRAVE

this chicken. 

 Hands down, the best way to roast a chicken is butterflied.

I talk about this at great length in my cookbook "Cooking in the Moment"

(which by the way is on sale for $12.00 at Lily's and thru the mail)

In a brief synopsis, you use kitchen shears to cut out the back of the chicken, flip it over, splay 

out the legs and press on the breast bone to flatten it out.

Once this is done, I usually salt the inside cavity and lay the chickens over some kinds of

aromatics and flavor enhancers.  Yesterday I sliced onions thinly, crushed a few

garlic cloves and remembered the preserved lemons I had made that were in the 

far reaches of the refrigerator. 

 For each chicken I sliced one small onion and laid them out

on the tray in a circle the approx width of the flattened chicken.  I then put a garlic clove in the middle of

the onions, sliced up a few wilted scallions I found in the vegetable drawer and then draped

4 slices of preserved lemons over the whole shabang.  I layered the chickens over the

flavors, drizzled them with olive oil, sprinkled them with kosher salt, black pepper and

dried rosemary and put them in a 375 degree convection oven.  Butterflying will

reduce the cooking time, so I set the timer for (3) 20 minute intervals, basting and turning

the tray at the end of each.  I start checking the temp after an hour.  165 is the goal, but

honestly, when I'm cooking for myself, I like my chicken a little over-done, so usually go to 175 -180

shhhh, don't tell my chef peers! 

Delicious!!  The onions were like candy, wait until you try this with

early summer leeks,  you will eat the leeks and forget about the chicken!

I include the back bones on the roasting tray so I can use them to 

make stock with all the other bones.  They add great flavor.

Chickens cooking, I chose fabrics for my Cosmo bag.

I had bought some Amy Butler fabric at Alewives

that I've been dying to use, picked a charcoal gray for

my solid and a vibrant ocean turquoise green for the lining.

Really need that shot of color right now.

Then I proceeded to talk myself in off the ledge because I 

didn't have the woven fusible interfacing Ms Butler requires.

I did however have 5 yards of non woven fusible interfacing in

my stash and boldly decided to use it up.  Oye, now I know how

people feel when I say, if you don't have an ingredient in a

recipe, just substitute!  What if it doesn't work?  After all that

time and money and you've made a horrible decision?

Oh well, I'll let you know, because the nearest woven interfacing 

from me would have been 1 hour away in a snow storm.

Here she is, all cut out and lined, I've got the bands on and

will tackle the handles later today.  Wish me luck.

One more perspective of this kitchen.  In remodeling, we removed the wall

between the two rooms to make it one, and took out a big boxy entry way.

Look at the light flooding in.

Thanks for listening, and enjoy your day

Kyra

A Quilt for Friends

Last night I experienced the true wonder of friendship and quilts.

In a cozy, candle lit home, almost 30 of us gathered to welcome friends

just returning from Ethiopia with their beautiful 15 month old adopted daughter.

We had been asked in January to each make a block for a quilt

to give in celebration of this wondrous occasion.

It was so awesome to be part of this.  Everyone coming together,

the blend of all our personalities, the bonding......and then

to experience the true delight from this little girl seeing the quilt

 is almost beyond words for me.

She was totally taken in by it, exploring it with all her senses,

hands touching and spirit shining. 

 I will no longer wonder if all our efforts

of creating from our hearts make a difference.

Simply put, they just do.

Here is one more picture from the kitchen we've been putting together.

Granite is in, fixture is hung, we are waiting for the knobs, but

the faucet is in, as well as the tile backsplash, artwork is hung and they are moving in.

I will have completed pictures soon.

Enjoy your day!

I'm off to celebrate a snow day by roasting a chicken and starting

an Amy Butler Cosmo bag.

I'll let you know how it all turns out tomorrow.

Kyra