HAPPY HEART DAY

We went out for Valentines Day (La Mediterranee and Ici), but I also wanted to make a little festive dinner at home; a surprise for Erik. On the menu was a roasted butternut squash salad, some roasted asparagus, and a Shaker Meyer Lemon pie. I also (of course) had to make sugar cookies. These pictures are a little dark, sorry!

Mies also helped me address some valentines to friends and family. What a good kitty!

BOUILLABAISSE

I have wanted to try Ina Garten's chicken bouillabaisse for a long time, but put it off because it involved things like cutting up a whole chicken and buying saffron threads. This past week, however, was cold and rainy, so I decided to go for it.


I'm so glad I did! Delicious and satisfying, it is now one of Erik's favorites! You can find the recipe here. Making it is fairly labor intensive, but well worth it! I recommend letting the dish sit for awhile before serving (this allows all of the different flavors to come together, which makes it taste ten times better).

NEW CALENDAR

For the past couple of years we have used the Pentagram Typography Calendar for our wall. This year, however, finding it wasn't as easy, so I decided to try to make an alternative. Using big sheets of graph paper, yellow stencils, and colorful markers, I created a loose version of the famous Stendig Calendar. I like how it turned out. It's clean and modern like our old calendar choice, but now has a bit of a feminine touch with the color and the hand-done markings. This month is pink (for obvious reasons!) and each of the following months will feature a different color that fits that particular time of the year. I really liked making these; drawing them out was fun, easy, and even a little bit soothing.