Pig in the Snow

Today Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States.

And Piggy played in the snow for the first time.

Pig Bed

Cuddling, sleeping, relaxing, and snuggling are all very important to the life of my cat, Piggy. She loves sleeping in or on suitcases, in addition to the bed, the porch chairs, the living room chair, the couch, the office chair, and various places on the floor throughout the house. However, she has never liked any of the store-bought cat beds I've purchased for her over the years. I saw this idea on a website a while ago, and when I saw a cute old suitcase at the Salvation Army thrift store for $2.99, I decided to go for it.


Here she is, mid-yawn. The suitcase was a bit water-stained, so I covered the back portion in fabric. On the other side, I put down quilt batting and just tucked in fabric over it. I intended to sort of half-fold the suitcase, with the non-cushiony portion raised up. But, true to form, Pig liked both sides - they provide different cuddling experiences, I guess. Because I had all the supplies already, this cost me just three dollars. Here's what I used:

Vintage suitcase
Remnant fabric (mine was upholstery grade, but that doesn't matter)
Batting
Glue gun

Indian Spiced Carrot Soup with Ginger

Everyone loves soup in winter, but I always crave pureed soups: smooth, silky, focused, and - hopefully - simple.

I turned to Epicurious.com, which I love not only for their huge catalog of recipes but also for their ratings and comments. There are so many wonderful recipes to choose from that I generally never make anything that has not received the highest rating (four forks, la-di-da).

Indian Spiced Carrot Soup with Ginger caught my eye, and I was halfway through it before I realized I was out of curry powder. No worry! With the internet, an otherwise well-stocked spice cabinet, and a coffee/spice grinder, I was able to make my own in no time. For this, I turned to another trusted source: Food Network's website. In this case, I used Alton Brown's curry powder recipe, and it turned out wonderfully.



The toasted chopped peanut garnish was my idea, and a brilliant one it was. Highly recommended.

Keep On the Sunny Side

After moving to Durham a little over a year ago, I'm still not decided about living here. I think it's a wonderful town, creative, historic, diverse, growing, liberal. But I'm just not sure if it's a fit for me. Nonetheless, it's easy to create list of things to love about Durham:

The Durham Farmer's Market
The Durham Bulls
Self-Help Credit Union
Taquerias! Panaderias! Pupusarias! and more
The American Tobacco Campus
Wednesdays and Saturdays at Bahn's
The Regulator
Duke
The Carolina Theatre
Downriver
Watts Grocery
WUNC
Thrifting: Granny's Panties, the junk houses out on Highway 70, the Salvation Army, Goodwill, and tons more
Full Frame Documentary Film Festival
The Center for Documentary Studies
Locopops
Portobello Road
Burt's Bees (made here in Durham)
The Scrap Exchange
The YMCA (really great here!)
The Goathouse Refuge (which is actually a refuge for cats)
Fair Trial Initiative
UNC


And of course: being just three hours from either the mountains or the coast.

Kitchen miracle?

Visiting the metropolis of Atlanta last week for a friend's wedding, I made the requisite trip to Ikea. *Chorus of Angels here.* The closest Ikea to our home in Durham is in Washington, DC. I always go when I'm visiting Atlanta. Since Dan is traveling back and forth regularly, he can transport things to0 big, heavy, or breakable for my suitcase.

Anyhow, the kitchen. We've been trying to work out our kitchen floor plan. If I was any good with Photoshop, I'd whip something up and post it here, but I'm not, so I won't. Suffice it to say that the plan has been less than ideal in any configuration because of our budget constraints. Without major renovations, we have to work with the bones of what we have.

Along comes the Emsen sink from Ikea. This little baby has two wells and is made to fit in a corner. The way this would work in our kitchen is amazing - we'd actually increase our useable counterspace AND keep virtually all of our precious under-counter storage. And having the sink in the corner would still preserve the ever-so-important fridge-stove-sink triangle...though I think the trianle would be stretched into scalene territory. Or is it obtuse? I hate geometry.


At Ikea the sink was mounted in a counter, and it was a little weird standing in the corner at the sink. It would certainly make our kitchen a bit different than others on the block. But the genius of this design given our space might just trump all.

Kitchen Ideas

So, I created this blog late one night in a fit of boredom-and-self-pity, but here 'tis and I might as well use it!

We're planning to start phase one of our kitchen remodel, which will almost be more like just demolition and not so much remodeling.

Phase one will involve, I think, taking out cabinets on the shared wall with the dining room, moving the stove over, and perhaps figuring our whether we're going to remove part of the wall between the kitchen and dining room.

Phase two is removing another cabinet and putting in a dishwasher, which leads to...

Phase three: figure out where to put all the crap that we just took out of those cabinets!

Immediately ahead of us are the dirty, expensive, and ugly parts of the job. It's not going to be pretty until we can replace this ancient washer and dryer:


Once these are replaced with Energy Star stackables, we'll be able to replace some of that bottom cabinet space and extend our counter top. In the end, here's what I want to do:

1) Install dishwasher, washer and dryer, and new stove, taking moving/altering
existing cabinets where needed.
2) Remove part of wall to dining room
3) Repair/replace molding where needed
4) Replace countertop
5) Replace sink and faucet
6) Paint all trim and cabinets
7) Replace hardware on cabinets, including new (modern and hidden) hinges)
8) New light fixture
9) Open shelving?
10) Vent over stove
11) Other lighting?

And in my dreams...

11) An alcove over the fridge
12) Drastically remodel the pantry, perhaps adding in a pocket door pantry (I'm not sure what these are actually called, but I'll find out and find a picture).

Beginning

I'm not sure what this blog will be: probably equal parts ephemera, adventures in cooking, thoughts, projects, tales of Piggy, and other cataloging of life's varied minutiae.