PEANUT

the Very Friendly Elephant

and Peanut 2The pattern is from Last-Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts.

SUMMERTIME

A few weeks back we invited some friends over for a summertime backyard BBQ. We had yummy grilled shish kabobs and quesadillas, chips with Erik's homemade salsa, my guacamole, and Ina Garten's never-fail black bean salad, watermelon, Mexican sodas and horchata for drinks, and Key lime pie, strawberry rhubarb pie, and brownies for dessert. I love my lush California backyard. In our Brooklyn backyard there were too many mosquitoes to ever enjoy anything!

APRICOT JAM AND LEMON CURD

I have wanted to try my hand at canning for a long time. My mom and my grandma both canned (since they lived and worked on a fruit farm in Logan, Utah), and I always thought the process was amazing. I put it off for a long time because it seemed like it would be really hard. Turns out it is really easy. I made a little meyer lemon curd first, with lemons from our backyard. It didn't make much, but it was delicious on ice cream! The next thing I tried was apricot jam. We picked a TON of our own apricots (and plums and nectarines too) in Brentwood and I used a bunch to make jam. It was DELICIOUS! I didn't get any pictures of the procees, but if you would like to make it, the recipe I used is from Alice Waters' Chez Panisse Fruit cookbook. I love Alice Waters' beautiful and simple recipes!

NEW PAINTINGS

I made a couple of little paintings to fill some wall space in our place. I don't paint very often anymore, but I hope to change that. I really love the whole process; it can be alot of fun and also brings a great sense of accomplishment. I really hope I can get back in the habit of making artwork on a regular basis.

MY FIRST QUILT

I go to church with an incredibly amazing group of women. Most of them are quite a bit older than me, but I look up to them in awe. They love and serve others endlessly, they have been wives and mothers and had impressive careers, they have traveled the world and lived through hardship and good times too, they are fascinating and funny and are all SO engaged with life and learning. I want to be them when I grow up! A few these great women put together a quilting class for us a few weeks ago, and here I made my very first quilt. The quilt is definitely not the best technically, but I love the colors and the design that I made up. I also had so much fun working and learning with some of my new friends.

PORTRAITS

Erik is working on designing a personal calling card for me, and we thought it would be fun to use a self portrait as a background. These are a few sketches I did when I was working on a project for the new J. Crew company, Madewell. (They have great clothes, especially their cardigans!) Sadly, we moved before I got to finish my work with them, but I did get to keep my little drawings and got some great free clothes.

DAVE WILLIAMS' COOKIES

Today we made oatmeal cookies. The recipe is from Dave Williams, a family friend from my hometown. An interesting man; (he has been shot several times, survived a few wildlife attacks, pulled himself out of a raging river, etc.) he always brought these delicious treats to various functions. The cookies are awesome and always come out a little rough around the edges (kind of like Dave Williams).

RECIPE
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups flour
2 1/2 cups oatmeal
raisins to taste

Mix dry and wet ingredients separately, then combine. Put golf-ball sized balls onto cookie sheets then bake at 375 degrees for 8 minutes.