Picture of the Day: Caryatid Porch at the Acropolis

Acropolis
Athens, Greece
11.15.2009 

Canned Goods for Christmas

This year for Christmas I gave canned goods that I made at the end of the summer and early fall. I made cinnamon applesauce, pickled tomatoes with rosemary, and spearmint orange jelly. The last two are from recipes from Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publication Canning which I picked up at my grocery store last summer. I love canning and it seemed like a perfect gift to give this year.

To make the tags I cut 3/4" x 2-3/4" strips of cardstock. clipped the corners on one end to make a tag shape and used my 1/8" hole punch to create a hole for threading. I then wrote the contents of each jar on the tag.

For the cinnamon applesauce, I embellished the tag with some sticks of cinnamon and tied the tag to the jar with twine for a rustic look. To cut the small pieces of cinnamon I scored the stick with a serrated knife and then snapped off the piece.

To decorate the pickled tomatoes with rosemary I used red ribbon to attach the tag to the jar. I then hot glued some rosemary that I had dried from garden this summer to the back of the tag.

On the spearmint orange jelly, I used my hot glue gun to add an orange leaf to the back of the tag and a dried kumquat slice to the front. I then tied the tag to the jar with a lime green ribbon. To make the dried kumquat slices I cut some kumquats into 1/4" slices and then baked them on a cooling rack (not a cookie sheet - they will stick!) at 250 F (125 C) for about half an hour.  

Of course even though I have given away a lot of canned goods this year, I still have plenty left for myself. In fact I couldn't help but keep all of my vanilla pickled sweet cherries. Is that bad?

Stopover in Pittsburgh

To break up our drive home from New York, Frank and I stayed in Pittsburgh on Thursday night. Neither of us had been there before and we thought it was a great city and wished we had some time to wander around and discover the city more.

After checking into our hotel we headed out to dinner at Primanti Brothers. Opened in 1933 to sell sandwiches to truckers and dock workers in the Strip District, Primanti's is famous for serving fries and coleslaw on their sandwiches instead of on the side so that workers could eat with one hand and keep working.

Although Primanti's has several location around the city we went to the original restaurant which had cool old signage and a neat mural of Pittsburgh luminaries. Frank had a cheese steak sandwich, I had the kolbassi and cheese sandwich and we split an order of Smallman Street fries topped with chili, cheese, bacon and sour cream. I loved my sandwich and thought the combination of kolbassi, melted cheese, fries and cole slaw on soft, thick slabs of Italian bread was amazing.

In the morning we headed to Shadyside to try breakfast at Pamela's Diner. My corned beef hash was one of the best I've ever had with amazing amounts of corned beef and large chucks of perfect potatoes. Frank tried Pamela's famous crepe style pancakes which were light and fluffy and had wonderful, crispy edges.

On our way out of town we stopped at the West End Overlook which provided a great panorama of downtown and the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers. It was quite overcast but the view was still lovely and I can only imagine what it would look like on a sunny day.

If we had more time I would have loved to explore the city more and in particular visit some of the museums like the Andy Warhol Museum and the Carnegie Museums of Art & Natural History. Hopefully I'll have a chance to go back someday... 

Picture of the Day: Guard at Gyeongbok Palace

Gyeongbok Palace
Seoul, South Korea
08.08.2008 

Last Day in New York

Thursday, sadly, was our last day in New York. It was absolutely gorgeous weather. Who would have thought we would have a sunny day in the high fifties in December in New York?

After getting packed up at the hotel we headed to Katz's Delicatessen for an early lunch. Opened in 1888, Katz's is a New York City landmark and has great deli food. Katz's has also been used as a location in several movies, most famously in When Harry Met Sally for the "I'll have what she's having" scene.

There are too many amazing things too chose from at Katz's but Frank got his favorite pastrami and chopped liver sandwich and I decided on a bowl of matzo ball soup and half of a reuben sandwich. For drinks we had Dr. Brown's Cel-rey soda, a deli classic. The sandwiches were amazing with the meat practically falling apart and I've never had a matzo ball that was that light and perfect. I also loved the old signage and pictures around the deli and the ticket system for adding up your order.

After Katz's we popped into Russ & Daughters for a minute to ogle the amazing foodstuffs there. It was packed so we didn't buy anything, but the pickles looked very tempting...

We then walked down 2nd Avenue to Momofuku Milk Bar to grab dessert and a copy of the latest issue of Lucky Peach. We were still stuffed from Katz's but couldn't resist getting a red velvet cake shake (it truly tasted like drinking red velvet cake batter) and a cereal milk shake (imagine the tasty goodness of the milk left over after you finish a bowl of sweet cereal in milkshake form). We also got a slice of crack pie, which is as addictive as its name implies, and a few cookies for the ride home. After our stop there I am seriously considering getting the Momofuku Milk Bar Cookbook.

After dessert it was time for us to hit the road and head back towards Ann Arbor. We had a fabulous time in New York and hopefully we will be back again soon.

If you are interested, check out the rest of our New York trip here: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3.

Picture of the Day: View of Sydney Harbor from Sydney Tower

Sydney, Australia
11.25.2010 

Seafoam Salad

I think it has to be a law of nature that every family in the Midwest of the US must have a time honored, treasured family Jell-O recipe. For my family that recipe is none other than the fabulously delicious seafoam salad.

Trotted out only for the special occasions of Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner, seafoam salad was the highlight of the holiday meals for my sister and I while we were growing up. For a seemingly disastrous period in the nineteen-eighties my grandmother tried an experiment where seafoam salad was served for Thanksgiving and a red and green Jell-O ribbon salad was substituted for seafoam salad at Christmas. Needless to say there was a major revolt in the ranks.

Even though my tastes have changed and grown, as an adult I still love this simple Jell-O recipe. Seeing the pale green Jell-O salad topped with whipped cream and maraschino cherries is like a time machine for me. It just tastes like the joy and magic of the holidays and makes me feel like a little kid again.

Ingredients List
- 1 can of sliced pears in heavy syrup, drained with juice reserved
- 1 package of lime Jell-O
- 1 package of cream cheese (8 oz.)
- 2 Tbsp. warm water
- 1 pint heavy whipping cream 
- Pear halves (optional)
- Maraschino cherries (optional)

Directions
- Over a medium heat burner heat pear juice to a simmer
- Remove pear juice from heat, stir in Jell-O until dissolved and set aside
- In a separate bowl, use a potato masher to mash cream cheese with warm water
- Add slightly stiff Jell-O and beat until fairly smooth
- After Jell-O mixture has cooled, use potato masher to mash pear slices into the mixture
- Whip up whipping cream and fold half into the Jell-O mixture
- Pour Jell-O mixture into a dish and place into the refrigerator
- After Jell-O has set up (about a half hour) finish by spreading the remaining whipped cream on top 

Tips and Tricks
- Although a potato masher works best with this recipe, in a pinch you could use a dinner fork to mash up the cream cheese and pears.
- For best success with whipping up whipping cream make sure that both the whipping cream and bowl are very cold. I like to pop my mixer bowl in the freezer for a few minutes prior to using it.
- I like to garnish my seafoam salad with pear halves that I have thinly sliced and maraschino cherries.
- To make sure that the maraschino cherries don't bleed red juice all over the whipped cream I rinse my cherries and blot them dry with a paper towel before adding them on top of the seafoam salad. 

Christmas Flowers

As a hostess gift for a Christmas Eve dinner I was attending I made this simple flower arrangement.

To begin, I bought green pom pom mums and a bag of cranberries at the grocery store. I wrapped a wide piece of coordinating green ribbon around a narrow glass vase, tucking under the end and using a glue gun to secure it. I then added a red ribbon over top which I tied into a bow in the front. 

After trimming the mums down to the desired length I arranged them in the vase. To add some extra color to the arrangement I then carefully added cranberries around the stems of the mums.

The arrangement turned out to be bright and festive and since I could make it with items from the grocery store and ribbons I had on hand it was easy and inexpensive as well.

Picture of the Day: Coral on the Fujikawa Maru

Fujikawa Maru
Chuuk, Micronesia
05.03.2008 

Picture of the Day: Scarves in the Market

Belize City, Belize
11.24.2004