To blogger. You can now find me here: http://dulcious.blogspot.com/

Our closing is in two days, so with all the craziness of trying to organize ourselves for the move we haven’t been doing too much that would be blog-worthy. I have, however, been thinking about the one project that I’m allowing myself to do immediately: Painting the foyer. (And yes, I pronounce it “foy-yay.” Deal.)

Our lovely new house has a dirty secret, but it isn’t much of a secret because it is emblazoned across its face. Although it was built around 1900, somebody took it upon himself to close in the porch in the ’50s and create a family room and foyer. Actually, we love that it has a family room and foyer, but they were done with zero respect for the house’s architecture. I’m sure the owners thought that they were making it really spiffy by adding flagstone and glass block around the front door. *dies*

But we’ll deal with that eventually. What we’re (I’m) dealing with first is the horrid knotty pine which cover the walls of the foyer. I’m not sure if this happened when they closed in the porch or a decade or so later. But boy, is it hideous.

Do you see how wrong this is?

So wrong.

The good news is that I think it will look really nice painted. The trim is already white in there, and I love me some white trim. (And I won’t paint over the nice original wood trim, don’t you worry.)

Pottery Barn always has fine examples of entryways with painted paneling, and being that I’m a very visual person, I was excited to find the following photo which is along the lines of what I envision.

Ahhh, pretty. I’m loving that very light robin’s egg blue with the white trim.

So I need to get my hands on some Zinsser BIN primer which is what has been recommended to me for painting over knotty pine. (The shellac base is what stops the pine sap from seeping through — a most awful thought.) And then I’m off to see my old friend Benjamin Moore to see what color might work. (Pottery Barn uses BM colors, but the paint that they say they are using here really doesn’t look like it does in the photo. I believe they say it is Wedgewood Gray.)

Over Labor Day weekend we went to the Boston area for a wedding, and we spent most of our visit with good friends in Salem, MA. They have a gorgeous 1870 home which they bought recently, and they just adore their town. I was ready to adore it too. Being in Colorado now, I miss the rich history of towns along my beloved east coast. I was a bit nervous that we’d visit and want to return (and of course we are in the throws of buying a new house!)

I was glad to find that although I quite liked Salem, I did not love it. I appreciated a lot about it (especially Gulu-Gulu Cafe which we think should open out here). And, most especially, I can not wait to go back and visit again.

In the end, I was very happy to return home to Colorado. I walked around our town the next day and thought, hey - I really like it here. It isn’t perfect, but it is pretty great. It is all too easy easy to think about all those greener pastures (well, yes, the pastures are definitely greener than those in Colorado) and to remember that there is no one perfect place.

Instead, I’m going to motivate myself to pack boxes by posting here about our new house. We have about 10 days until our closing which is crazy.

As we were packing up our books, we were thumbing through all of our bungalow-related books that we acquired soon after moving into our current house. It is a 1925 Craftsman and until we looked into buying it, I had no idea what a Craftsman was. I knew nothing of Stickley or Greene and Greene. Now I know a modest amount, and I’m probably better off because of it. But now it is time to take a look at Victorians which I pretty much just think of as the “painted lady” types. Our new house is a Victorian, but it certainly isn’t a “painted lady.” She is more modest, but she has great bones. I stumbled upon the term “folk Victorian” which was described along the lines of “even regular folks could afford one of these!” Sweet. I’m hoping to find out more about the history of the home once we get settled.

Here are two photos that make me excited about the house:

I love the curved roof line.

I don’t know why, but I just love the mud room. Hello, beautiful!

Okay, time to pack up some boxes.

It has been a very long time since I posted last. Randomly (as we were not seriously looking) we discovered a house in a nearby neighborhood on the market at a very reasonable price. A lovely, two-story folk Victorian with a lot of really fabulous original woodwork. If all goes according to plan, we’ll be in this new old house at the end of the month.

The above photo is my first home purchase, a vintage fox door knocker. We saw a similar one on our honeymoon in Ireland and it really stuck with us both. I like this one’s expression.

I have way too much to do.

Before this summer, my husband and I had never been very adventurous when it came to grilling. We have had a few grand ideas but tended to fall back on fail-safe burgers and brats. Now that we have an infant and are housebound after baby’s bedtime, I guess it seems like we might as well get a little creative with the grill and hang out on our back patio as the sun goes down.

I’m sure grilling corn doesn’t seem that adventurous to many, but we’d never done it. I’ve read so many recipes that sound deliciously awesome, but it is so easy to throw some corn in a pot of boiling water for a minute and, well, I’m lazy.

Last night we decided to grill some pork chops and I was determined to do corn as well. I googled and found a recipe online that did not involve wrapping the corn in its own husks or soaking it in water or any of that nonsense (then you are essentially just steaming it, so what is the point?) I wanted those puppies on the grill grate!

This recipe was easy and so very summery. The original recipe called for parsley, but the basil is overflowing in my garden, and I just prefer it.

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Grilled corn with basil-garlic butter

Adapted from recipe on kitchendaily.com

Ingredients

4 ears sweet corn in their husks

6 tablespoons butter, at room temperature

2 tablespoons fresh basil, minced

1 clove garlic, minced

Coarse salt and black pepper

You will also need: Butcher’s string

1) Set up the grill for direct grilling and preheat to high.

2) Fashion the husk of each ear of corn into a handle, tying back the husks with butchers string, and remove the corn silk.

3) Place the butter, basil, and garlic in a mixing bowl and whisk or beat until smooth and creamy.

4) When ready to cook, lightly brush each ear of corn with a little of the garlic-parsley butter and arrange on the hot grate, positioning the ears in such a way that the husks are away from the fire. Grill the corn until the kernels are handsomely browned all over, 8 to 12 minutes in all, turning as needed, brushing with the remaining butter, and seasoning generously with salt and pepper. Remove the corn from the grill and serve at once.

I discovered this bad boy at Target last week. I really liked its clean lines, the fact that it is a dark gray, and it pulls out into a little twin sleeper. Oh wait, here’s the best part. It was $150. I didn’t actually think I’d be able to find an affordable and non-ugly pull-out, but surprise! The cushion just pulls out and folds out flat, so it isn’t the most plush thing in the world. But it will do the trick. The above is what the chair looks like on the Target website.

The below is what it looks like in the office with a baby on top.

I love this torte. I’ve made it so many different ways and it is always beautiful and delicious. It is simple to make but it makes you look like you know what you’re doing. Believe me, I never have any idea what I’m doing.

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Peach-Strawberry Torte

Adapted from the wonderful Hay Day Country Market Cookbook

Ingredients

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

8 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

1 ripe peach, pitted and thinly sliced

4-5 large ripe strawberries

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

2 teaspoons granulated sugar

1) Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly butter and flour an 8-inch cake pan; pour out any excess flour.

2) In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and baking powder. Set aside.

3) In another bowl, cream butter and 3/4 cup sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each one. Beat until smooth. Blend in the vanilla and zest. Add the reserved dry ingredients and mix to form a smooth, thick batter. Spread the batter evenly in the prepared cake pan.

4) Toss the fruit with the lemon juice and 2 tsp granulated sugar. Arrange the topping decoratively over the batter, using just enough fruit to cover the batter in a single overlapping layer. Bake in the middle of the oven until lightly browned around the edges and just set in the middle, 30 to 35 minutes.

5) Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the pan for at least 20 minutes. Top with flat plate and gently flip the plate and cake pan over, turning the cake out of the pan. Invert the cake once more, this time turning it right side up onto a serving dish. Slice and serve.

There was a time, quite recently, when I rushed home from work to see if my new J.Crew catalog had arrived in my mailbox. Chances are, I had already looked at the new arrivals online. Still, to flip through the pages gave me great joy. Aren’t I interesting?

Back in the heyday (lets say 2005-2008) J.Crew had somehow tapped directly into my fashion subconscious and delivered, at a fairly unreasonable price, exactly what I wanted in clothes. That being a fashion-forward preppy look in stripes and tweedy wool with nice cuts, basic but not boring. As I held up a catalog page showing a cashmere-clad model holding the reins of an elegant bay horse, my husband asked, “how is it that they can see directly into your brain?” Good question.

They no longer have any insight into my brain and have chosen to move away from my east coast roots and off to the shores of Europe, or as the New York Times recently put it,

This summer, then, what is the new J. Crew ideal? Not the East Hampton WASP, not anymore. Rather, it’s the sultry au pair watching the children. In sequins.

Wonderful.

Still, I’ve reviewed the August catalog, formerly one of my favorites because fall is the tweediest of all seasons. There were a few things that were lovely, but overall I continue to be disappointed. And the pricing is just insane. Insane.

Some highlights:

Very basic, but the trench and the cords are lovely.

This Sasha peacoat intrigues me, especially in the color “Baked Squash.” Delicious!

Normally I don’t care for things that are studded, but these Girandole ballet flats are quite pretty (and ballet flats are quite important in my wardrobe).

These men’s boots, the Alden cap toe cordovan boots are heart-stopping. But not as heart-stopping as the price of $595.

And then I just have to laugh at this next bit of ridiculousness.

It looks like a row of harpies. And the prices? Absurd.