Red: The Color of Summer

It's not to say I've always wanted to be in Spain during "La Tomatina", but if the day ever presents itself I don't know that I would say no. To that end, I would feel a little guilty about throwing around tomatoes, and essentially wasting them. Sad because I am sure most of the tomatoes being throw aren't the flavorless, often mealy tomatoes that crowd our produce aisles stateside. These are most likely the tomatoes that make such a sweet, rich gazpacho -- my favorite summer treat from Spain aside from Cruzcampo.

Tomatoes always remind me of summer. I look forward to when the day finally comes that we actually have a yard and can have a small garden. Until then, our herb and flower garden on the balcony will suffice, as will weekly trip to the Farmer's Market to buy fresh, ripe heirlooms.

This past week our kitchen has been overrun with tomatoes. Last weekend we made a huge batch of salmorejo (the Sevillano version of gazpacho, which includes bread). We are still eating it, and it makes for a very filling and nutritious meal. During the week we've been preparing to make some homemade tomato sauce. This way we can have a jar of summer in the cold days of winter. Once it's complete, I will be sure to post some photos and if it turns out, we'll include the recipe as well.

I don't often associate periods of time with colors (or with vegetables, okay technically fruits), but this week has been nothing short of red, red and red.

On the road again

...On the road again

Goin' places that I've never been.

Seein' things that I may never see again

And I can't wait to get on the road again....

- Willie Nelson, On the road again

needed: more sunshine

The weekend was the perfect double dose of sunshine ... just like this double-exposure holga I took back in July.

There are a few things I always have to come to term with around this time of year.

1. It is going to start getting colder.

2. Green is going to be harder to come by in the great outdoors.

3. There is going to be less light during the day.

I haven't come up with plans to remedy all of the above, but I can at least start prepping myself for the month that lie ahead. Here's my plan thus far:

Remedy #1:

Put away summer clothes and bring out the hats, mittens and down coats. Look for bargains on sweaters and other winter gear. Until then, pm has a wonderful collection of over-sized sweatshirts. This is the best remedy of all, both for the pocket book and comfort.

Remedy #2:

Buy plants on sale and keep them alive and thriving during the winter months. We just bought a new jade plant. I am so incredibly excited by this, partly because we lost 3 jade plants just a month or two ago. I am determined to keep this new plant alive. I will not over water you, little jade; I will not over water you, little jade.

Remedy #3:

Get as many rays as you can now before it's too late. We're making a point to go for a walk right when we get home from work before it turns dark. We may also be investing in a winter "happy lamp" this year. We'll see just how glum it turns out to be this winter, before I commit.

What are your pre-winter remedies?

Looking down.

Forehead pressed against hot vinyl.

Sun blazing its summer heat.

Cool views from down below.

We just wanted to be swimming with the fishes.

Instead we watch, we watch, we watch.

Wheeee!

Oh, how I love the dog days of summer. What do I love . . . drinking lemonade on the dock, catching pan fish on every cast and jumping off the raft into the cool water. Sadly, it's been awhile since we've been able to enjoy those things, but when we did - we surely did.

We shot two rolls on the super sampler from the raft you see in this photo. We have yet to develop the second roll, and we are growing anxious with how those photos come out. I have always loved how these images turn out. Although I will say sometimes it can be somewhat of a challenge since it is hard to predict where you are focusing.

I did not even know this type of camera existed until we got married. We were hooked once we saw how cool these photos turn out. Ryan Fox is amazing! :)

Pseudo Bachelor(ette)

Flowers remind me of nature. I've never been one who likes to get get flowers. They die. I'd rather get a plant, that way if it dies it is my fault. Flowers given as gifts make me wish it was chocolate instead. I enjoy chocolate and when it's gone I don't feel guilty since you have to eat it. Flowers go bad on their own.

Anyway, I chose this photo with this post because flowers remind me of girl time. And it's perfect since, I've had the place to myself for the last couple of days. Tonight I plan to celebrate and fully intend to take advantage of my pseudo-bacheloretteism. I have a few items on the mind - chick flick, wine and my comfort food. (Okay, so it's ice cream and chocolate, no big surprises!)

Every once and awhile I need to be able to play a sappy movie and not worry about what pm will think of me and my occasional lack of taste. Today is going to be that day. In fact, I better get to it.

[I do promise to write more soon. I realize I have been seriously neglecting this blog lately. Life has gotten busy. Not that it looks to be getting (un)busy any time soon, but I am planning to make more of a commitment to writing.]

30 Days of Creativity - Day 30: Mission Completed!

First off, let me just say that being creative for 30 straight days has been a challenge. We have certainly enjoyed participated in a community effort and getting new inspirations and ideas from others. This is something that we will continue to do.

We've come to realize that it's not too hard to do at least one thing creative a day. The hard part comes with finding the motivation to post something about it. This is where the daily challenge has presented itself. Sometimes all you want to do after a day of work is relax. This is not to say that it is that hard to take some time to take pictures and write.

I've learned that I need to be better at dedicating time everyday to being creative. This involves keeping my eyes and ears open and to invite the opportunity to learn and try new things.

Hope that this challenge is only the beginning of our creative journey. (With that said: We may take a short break from posting daily. We'd like to establish a schedule we can stick to.)

So here is our last contribution, we just got the film from yesterday's photo walk (we'll post some more as soon as I scan them)

Peace, Love and Happiness. Congrats for being a dedicated creative for 30 straight days!

30 Days of Creativity - Day 27: Happy Birthday to Me

Yep. Today's my birthday. Not quite sure what the celebration will entail for the day just yet, but whatever it is I am excited for it. I like to try to do something fun and different for my birthday every year; otherwise, it just feels like I am getting older or like any other ordinary day.

I wanted to highlight one of my favorite cakes for my post today: Angel food cake. I know I mentioned in a past post that I have a summer birthday and we always made homemade ice cream. To compliment the ice cream I almost always requested angel food cake. As I have gotten older I have learned that sometimes the best angel food cakes happen to be the ones that are layered with sorbet. I am partial to mango and raspberry.

So cheers to me and another year. I am very excited for what it will bring.

Here's a recipe for angel food cake from Alton Brown. (Mine didn't use quite so many egg whites, but also didn't look as fluffy when complete.)

30 Days of Creativity - Day 21: Summer Storm

Happy First Day of Summer! It's been a very busy last week of travels and changes.

This past week got me thinking about all the things that define summer. Ice cream naturally is on that list, but it goes far beyond that. It includes lake swimming, camp fires, night walks, fireworks and thunderstorms.

I just got back from northern Wisconsin, which got me thinking about summer. One of my dear pals and I took a bread making class (of which I plan to post on later this week complete with photos and recipe) and had the joy of feeling like we were living in the early 1900's. The class was at a b&b that was designed from antique store finds from this period. Amazing.

Anyway, the point I wanted to make it that less than a decade ago a tornado went right through this couple's property and demolished their barn and lot. Summer storms often bring on tornadoes. We almost got our very own taste of this natural disaster.

Just so happens that the power went off and a tornado warning was issued just as our class was ending. If I know anything - I don't want to be anywhere near where a natural disaster strikes. But.... The views of the storm from this house/lot were incredible. I couldn't help snapping photos and then driving away only to pull over and take more photos. No tornado came. *whew.

Let's hope for no more warnings this summer, and instead just unlimited lemonade, s'mores and grilled meat. No more putting my life on the line in the name of creativity. :)

30 Days of Creativity - Day 16: Millennium Park

Today we spent the evening taking pictures while walking around Millennium Park, which is a pretty miserable place during winter but also an awesome place during summer. We enjoyed watching little children playing in the Crown Fountain and the live music at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion.

We will be posting more pictures from our Supersampler as soon as we scan them, Walgreens rarely does a good job scanning film from it and most of the pictures are not framed correctly :P. We have a couple more photography projects on the works that will be sharing with you soon, so stay tuned!

30 Days of Creativity - Day 8: Sweet Tooth

My KitchenAid has been lonely. My palette has been craving something sweet. The solution: Cupcakes! I almost made my "go-to" recipe: One Bowl Chocolate Cake, but instead decided to make my cupcakes from a simple yellow cake recipe. The result, you guessed it -- delicious.

Now that it is summer I am eager to try out new dessert recipes. Cakes with ice cream, tarts with fresh fruit...etc. Since we're new to the 'hood we still have to discover all the great farmers' markets and orchards. We are planning to so check me of this over the weekend.

Anyway, a short post from us today. We don't want to delay eating these delights!

Here's the recipe:

Set oven to 375 degrees. Bake 15 minutes or until golden around edges.

Mix:

3/4 c butter

3 eggs

2 1/2 c flour

2 1/2 c baking powder

1/2 t salt

1 3/4 c sugar

1 1/2 t vanilla

1 1/4 c milk (or as I do it: one yogurt and 1/2 c milk)

+ I would have added orange/lemon zest to this if we would have had it at home. Darn!

30 Days of Creativity - Day 2: Through the viewfinder

We're not going to let the rain slow us down!

We can already tell that this is going to be a fun month. We are looking forward to keeping you updated on our projects and progresses, but are also excited to see what others are doing as well. You can check out the roster of participants here and the Flickr group of some of those taking part in 30Days.

Now on to Day 2: Viewfinder Views.

As we've slowly watched our camera collection grow throughout the years, so has our collection of cameras that have a waist-level viewfinder. These finders are great for focusing and can be a lot of fun when you use other cameras to capture the image through the finder. Our example today is an image shot from our Olympus E-510 through the Kiev 6C finder. Neat result, right? Yeah, we thought so too. [You'll have to visit again sometime soon to see the actual images shot from the Kiev. We can't turn around medium format film as fast as digital files. :))]

Through the eyes of a horse

Photo by AMB
Carriage horse right outside of the Catedral in Sevilla, Spain

Table for Two

Here's to the sunny, inviting streets of Spain. If only there was a way to bottle that sunshine for a dreary Midwestern day.

Anyway, I love this image.

I love how the old man is sitting alone at a table. He's got his cervecita (now probably warm from the heat) and is just watching the people going by. What a life!

Then you have the student walking right by the outdoor seating to get back home. Oh to be a student in this wonderful country again...

Here's to more memories and future images of Spain. :)

Creativity: Refocused

About this time last year, I got really into Etsy. While I still dream of crafting up new items to post - the reality is ... I don't. It was exciting at first to get new views, post new items & connect to the creativity community that exists on the internet. I guess my interest waned. Maybe it was that views never really became sales, and that there was never a direct "connection" with other makers. (Truth be told: There was just never enough time (or energy) at the end of the day that I could work with.)

I have, however, got very excited about home brewing. I have also rekindled my love for baking. These two activities have, as of recent, replaced my need to "make things." And, the glory is they both require a similar level of creativity.

My blog is going to be undergoing a face lift, and a slight change of course. Life's been busy - and change is good.

So here's a quick 30-minute recipe for a delicious citrus cake:
Slice of Summer
1.5 c flour
2/3 c sugar
2 tsp baking powder
2/3 c milk (or 1 lemon/vanilla yogurt)
1/4 c butter
1 egg
1 tsp orange extract
zest of 1 lemon

Combine, mix, blend. Grease pan.
Preheat oven to 350, bake for 30 minutes. Great with whipped cream on top - enjoy!