For the Love of Figs

Remember way back when I was on vacation and Julia was cooking me fancy-pants dinners every night because she is awesome? Well, while she was scouting recipes, she came across one in her Spanish cookbook that sounded delicious. A dessert. Hazelnut ice cream with Honey-baked Figs.

Photo courtesy of www.healthytimesblog.com

Have I mentioned how obsessed I am with figs? No? Well, I am. Every time I go to the grocery store and they are available, I feel compelled to buy them. They are delicious. I don't understand how I made it through 28 years of living without having tasted a fresh fig, but once I did I was a goner. If you've never tasted a fresh fig, please, for the love of all that is good, get yourself to a decent grocery store and buy a pint RIGHT. NOW. (Seriously, go, because they will only be in season for another 4-6 weeks, after which it will be Fig Newtons/Newmans for you until next July. So not the same.)

Anyway, this recipe called for whipping up some custard-style hazelnut ice cream and serving it along side some baked figs drizzled with a cinnamon-honey syrup. Which sounds fantastic. And also like something that takes way too much time if you're busy (lazy). So, we'd bought the figs, and I kept promising I'd get around to it, and I didn't, and I made something else out of the figs, and then I bought more figs because there they were, tempting me at the store again, and I finally, finally made the custard part of the ice cream, which you then have to chill before putting through the ice cream maker.

So it was chilling overnight and I was totally going to do the fig baking the next night. But. I didn't. It was too much work (not really - it's just that I was supposed to roast and peel and crush hazelnuts and that's at least two more things than I had energy for this week) so I decided to cook down the figs with the aforementioned honey and cinnamon and then mix them into the ice cream and forget about the nuts all together. And I did.

And it was good. Though it's a bit sweet and the nuts would probably have been good for balancing that out. Hmph.

(Limited quantity available, if you want to come over and try it.)

Crafty Broads: Maria's Wedding Shrug & Alterations

Maria called us just three weeks before her wedding in need of some alterations to her dress and hoping we'd have enough time to create a little jacket to wear over it. We had just enough time to squeeze it into our schedule, so we said yes.

I swear I didn't tell her to do jazz hands.

When we met with Maria, we hit it off with her right away. She is so friendly and has a great sense of humor. We found out that we have a lot of acquaintances in common - she works at an accounting firm with her brother, and they do taxes for many Chicago actors. Small world. Anyway, she bought a cute strapless dress at a big chain, but it seemed to have been designed for someone with really serious hips and it just wasn't fitting her quite right in the bust. We ended up taking the hip area in about four inches and doing a couple little tucks at the bust so that it would fit her well and not fall down!

Julia draping the silk shrug

She also asked us to make her a shrug to wear over the dress. Since it was ruched, we thought we'd mirror that in the sleeves. Maria brought some polyester organza fabric which matched the dress for us to use, but as we worked on draping it, we realized it was really just not the best choice for the project.

Julia fitting the shrug on Maria

So we bought some gorgeous silk chiffon, and it was so worth it. Julia did all the draping on this, and I helped with some of the hand stitching once it was all pinned in place. I got to check out the fascinating construction on the inside of this dress (really unusual lining attachment, if you're wondering - clearly designed to allow for as much machine stitching as possible) while taking care of the alterations. We made a custom label to replace the big box store label - very cool. Here are some pictures:

Front

Back

Maria asked for some help picking out her earrings. She brought a couple pairs, but had chosen a favorite. And guess what? I completely agreed with her choice. Don't these earrings go perfectly?

Shoulder Detail

Maria and Dan are got married this Sunday - Congratulations!

Live. Work. Eat. (Or The State of our Union.)

Ok, I am sorry about that punny title. A little. There hasn't been a real post here in almost two weeks. For shame! (Nah, not really. This kind of writing should be done when one has something to say, not just because it's time, right?) Anyway... When last we met, my car was full of bullet holes and life was really busy. Let's catch up.

Life:
I'm told my car is no longer filled with holes (though one bullet may be stuck in there forever) and it's being painted and re-assembled and I should have it back next week. I'll note that Allstate has been speedy and helpful throughout, and the auto body shop calls me every few days to give me an update on the car.

We are still really, really busy.

Julia has been stitching away on costumes for Guys and Dolls at Theatre at the Center the past few weeks since Aladdin closed. She's about to start training to cover the wardrobe track for For the Boys up at the Marriott, after which she'll train to cover the stage manager for Sweeney Todd at Drury Lane. So - no days off for her until sometime after our upcoming trip to Portland. (Which we are so excited about! Julia has never been. My best friend lives there, and we'll get to see her, yay! It's going to be something like an actual vacation, woo!)

I had a ridiculously easy work week, with an extra long Labor Day weekend (I got Friday, Monday, and Tuesday off) which was followed by two days of work and this Friday off as well. I'm sorry, I'm really not trying to rub it in. Mainly, I say that because I got to spend most of those days off practicing being self-employed.

This morning we were talking about this blog. Julia feels like it is mine, all mine, because although way back when we started it, we actually wrote posts together and I typed "we" and "us" all the time, it somehow evolved into "I" and "me" and now you all know my writing voice and not hers. Totally true. I'm absolutely guilty of that. But. This was supposed to be OUR blog, not mine. So I'm hoping - WE'RE hoping - that in the future we'll each write about half of the posts, and maybe sometimes we'll even write together again. But probably not, because it turns out neither one of us especially likes to do that. And she made the excellent point that when we actually have time together, she would like to actually spend it with me, not writing a blog. (Please feel free to let Julia know in the comments that you want to hear from her too! And/or to send her a new computer and some extra hours in the day so that she is well-equipped to do so.)

Crafty Broads:
Here's what I was doing when I had all that "free time": setting up our accounting system, updating invoice and quote templates and actually using them to write up one of each, buying our very first advertising ever on A Practical Wedding, doing some much-needed updates to the website, and working on a couple of our sewing projects.

About the time of the last post, we took on a client who needed alterations to her wedding dress and a little shrug to wear over it in time for her wedding which is TOMORROW. Which is not a lot of time to get things sewn when we're both already working day jobs and are knee deep in another big sewing project. I did the alterations and Julia made a beautiful silk shrug. Our client was very happy with the results. We'll have a post on this project later this week, with pictures and everything.

We are less than a week away from the due date for our mockup of the wedding dress, bolero, and winter coat we are making. It is going to be so pretty. We are both extremely excited about this project. Hope to have some process pictures up on here or the Crafty Broads facebook page soon.

And, saving the best for last, Food:
Oh, boy, what have we been eating? Because of the business, we have not been cooking as much as usual. We have ordered in a few times and eaten out a few times. There goes our budget. Anyway, here are a couple things we've made at home lately that were pretty good:

Ricotta Gnocchi with Leeks and Fava Beans - So we were at the grocery store together (a rare miracle these days), and we passed the fresh fava beans, and just had to have some because they looked so good. No plan in mind for how to use them, total impulse purchase, completely against the menu planning rules. Which is ok because we didn't plan a menu at all that week anyway. Found this recipe and it was fantastic. It does take a bit of time, but it isn't particularly difficult, and it is definitely worth the effort.

(from left: shaping the dough; making the marmalade; finished wrap)

White Cheddar and Bacon Piadina with Balsamic Fig and Onion Marmalade - This was the result of another impulse buy. The Figs. They looked SO GOOD. I am obsessed with figs when they are in season. Because they are awesome. We have more in our fridge right now, which are going to be drizzled with honey and served with hazelnut ice cream. Anyway - this recipe was another easy but somewhat time-consuming one. However, like the gnocchi, it was so worth it. We didn't have brie on hand, so we substituted some white cheddar, which paired nicely. We also lacked arugula, but didn't really miss it. This Italian flatbread sandwich was AMAZING. We could not save any for leftovers because it was too damn good.

Parenthood is Scary.

Today I'm going on and on over at Zan's blog about all the scary things parenthood could entail. Check it out, and then read her blog too, because she is awesome.

Dear Thugs Who Shot My Car:

You owe me $500. Plus whatever it will cost to get my city sticker replaced. Not to mention the time I'll spend dealing with it. And I'm pretty sure Allstate would like to be reimbursed for the tow truck, the rental car, and all the repairs. I'm guessing it isn't going to be cheap, since you unloaded four separate bullets into my vehicle.

I have to say, it took me a minute to register what had happened. When I went out to my car for a quick post office run, I found this note attached to my drivers' side window:

I thought, oh, must have been some kind of fender bender or something. Nice of the police to leave me a note. I walked around my car, inspecting the bumpers. They looked fine - nothing more than the usual I-park-in-the-city wear and tear. So I got into the car to make sure it still worked. As I reached to put my mail on the passenger seat, I saw it. The entire seat was covered with shards of glass. I looked up and saw these:

With the glare of the morning sun, I hadn't noticed them when I briefly inspected my car. Still thinking that - as the notice indicated - it had been an accident, I wondered what kind of flying debris or tree branches had smacked my windshield in such an odd pattern. Resigning myself to having to replace my windshield later, I trekked to the post office on foot. I thought about the car the entire time.

The more I thought about it, the more I thought those holes looked like bullets. So when I got back home, I looked at the car really carefully. Walked all the way around, twice. The cops told me you ran away afterwards, so I'm willing to bet you didn't get a good look at what you did. Lucky for you, I've documented your artwork for posterity's sake. (Uh, and maybe also for evidence and insurance claims.)

Bullet #1: Windshield, driver's side
This was the least scary looking one. It must not have been a direct hit, because it didn't leave an actual hole, just an impact shatter. Guess it bounced off.

Bullet #2: Windshield, passenger side.

This is the one that made me think bullet hole as I was walking, and is also the cause of all the glass shards on the passenger seat.

Bullet #3: Rear door frame, passenger side. On the left, you can see the entry hole. To the right, you can see the actual bullet still lodged in the door frame, which I found when I opened the back door to start taking my stuff out of the car. I tried valiantly, but could not get the bullet out. I wanted to keep it. Or at least hold it. I know, I'm weird.

Bullet #4: Through the roof. Literally. On the left, a nice big gash in the roof. On the right, the exit wound in the interior ceiling.

Interior Damage: At first I thought this was caused by the bullet that came in through the roof, but retrospectively I think the trajectory lines up with that big hole in the windshield. Regardless of its origin, one bullet went through the shoulder of the passenger seat (shown on the left) and into the rear seat cushion (to the right), where I am fairly certain it is still lodged.

Oh, yeah, and as far as I know no one was hurt. Witnesses saw the shooters fleeing the scene. I called the police to see if they needed my car for evidence and the officer I talked to was really nice. He looked up the case for me, told me that two other cars had been shot, and that they had all the evidence they needed from the shell casings found on the scene. Allstate has been swift in dealing with the insurance claim. They hooked me up with a rental car within an hour of my phone call and got my car towed to their body shop for repairs. Minus the aforementioned $500 deductible, it's all covered.

Ah, city living.

Cake, Cake, and More Cake

Boy do I feel sorry for people who don't (or can't) eat cake. Because I love it. And it's come to pass that the tail end of summer and the better part of fall seems to be cake-making season for me. There are so many occasions to celebrate, and as I'm sure you know, I hardly need an excuse to bake. Let's take a look back at last year's sweets:

July
Our Wedding Cake Vanilla-Almond with Berries & Pastry Cream; Devil's Food with Mocha Whipped Cream; Pumpkin with Ginger Buttercream

August
Devil's Food with Mocha Whipped Cream, for Julia's brother Joel's birthday

September
My birthday. Can't remember exactly what I made, but I do remember it was the ugliest cake ever to emerge from my kitchen. Pretty sure chocolate and strawberries were involved, but it was a sloppy mess.

October
Ellen mentioned cake on facebook, so Julia told her she should come over and I'd make her one, and a few days later I did. Sadly, I no longer have any recollection of what kind of cake it was...
Green Tea Cake with Red Bean Paste filling for Alice's birthday (which was light and delicious and really needs to be made again soon). And yes, I know her birthday is in July, but this is when we all had the same free spot in our schedules to actually get together and celebrate it.

November
Would ordinarily be a month for making Julia's birthday cake, but last year I made pie. Apple pie with FRESH FIGS. It was the BEST. PIE. EVER. Almost made me convert to a pie-as-dessert-of-choice girl. Almost.

The cake schedule is a little lighter this year, thankfully. But Joel's birthday came around again, as birthdays do, and so there was a Heavenly Chocolate Cake Roll (gluten-free!) with strawberries added to the whipped cream filling.

I should have probably made a cake to celebrate the arrival of our new niece, Sophia, on August 16th, but I don't think she's picked a favorite flavor yet...

And last night we threw a party to celebrate marriage equality in New York. [Yeah, I know we live in Chicago, but a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, or whatever, so eventually it's gonna walk this way, right? Plus, we were raising money for LAMBDA LEGAL, and you can never go wrong with that. And, you know, we're still not equal enough. And further more, we were celebrating in solidarity with a bunch of other people at other parties all around the country. So. A party was had. Cake was eaten. Champagne was consumed in copious amounts. Drunken neighbors crashed. But I digress, as always.] Ahem.

So. Naturally, I made some Marriage Equality Cake. The purple side is Devil's Food with Mocha Whipped Cream (are you sensing a pattern here?) and the green side is Vanilla-Almond with Apricot-Almond filling. Both were quite tasty, and I'll be eating the leftovers all week.

Which brings us back to my birthday. I'm just gonna let you drool over what I have planned:

Twelve Layer Mocha Cake

I'll wait while you pencil in the date on your calendar. That's September 18th, my place, 3ish. See you there.

Restaurant Review: Chalkboard

Let's make this one a mostly wordless post, shall we? I'll caption the photos so you know what we're eating, but you don't really need much description. (Please don't take this as a sign that I'm about to become a regular Wordless Wednesday kind of girl. Cause I probably won't.)

In short? The service was outstanding and the food was amazing. We will definitely be back to Chalkboard soon. Possibly for their Fried Chicken & All-You-Can-Drink Champagne Wednesday night special. Want to join us?

I attempt to make my hair look nice by drying it in pin curls. Result? It lies even flatter than when I do nothing. I redeem myself somewhat by wearing a shirt that Julia loves, putting on a skirt (no pockets! Oh, the sacrifices I make...), and going so far as to apply lip gloss.

Julia looks super cute in this skirt she literally made in the three hours before we walked out the door for dinner. She laments not having enough time to add... pockets. Which means it's a night of purse-carrying for both of us. Well, one of us (me) - because we are good at sharing. Or, as we call it, "Will you carry the purse? I don't want to."

Private Dining. It's what happens when you make your Friday night reservation at an old lady time like 5:30pm. Yep.

Finally using the toasting glasses we planned to use at our wedding. They are really, really nice. Also - heavy.
And? The bubbly was quite good, amazing since we generally find champagne to be too bitter for our tastes. [It was Pierre Delize blanc de blancs, if you're wondering. We're told it can be purchased locally at Lush. UPDATE: I was thrilled to discover it is also carried by our neighborhood grocery store, Devon Market (on Devon, just east of Clark St. in Rogers Park) - and for a very reasonable $9.99!]

Chicken Liver Pate, with Toasted Brioche and an assortment of complimentary flavors - white beans, onions, mustard, radish, olives.

Watermelon Salad with grapes, crème fraîche, and some kind of little flowers.

Seared Scallops with vanilla sauce and olives.

Duck breast with Tzatziki sauce and fries.

Hangar steak with white beans and pesto.

 

HAPPY. MARRIED. PEOPLE.
(who happen to be eating chocolate chip cookie dough eggroll with chocolate ice cream.)

Things We Have Eaten Lately

I'm trying to come back friends. Really hard. I'm finding myself at a loss for words (shocking, I know) when it comes to these posts, and maybe it's just because I'm busy and burnt out, or maybe I'm not sure where this blog is going, but I'm gonna try to just write and see what happens. As always, your comments are appreciated! I can take constructive criticism, for real. Tell me what you most enjoy reading about. (You're only here for the food, aren't you? That's ok.)

So, because it's been a while since any food was featured, here's a roundup of some of the things we've consumed recently:

Three-Bean Salad with Gouda (vegetarian) - I LOVED this dish. Julia was not a huge fan, but I think that was mostly because I bought smoked gouda and she does not enjoy smoked cheeses as a rule. Too bad for her. I love them.

Ghetto dinner. Ok, this is no high-class meal, but sometimes? You just have to pick up whatever you can eat as soon as you get it home. So. Salad. Chicken. Forks. Wine. DONE.

Oh - you may remember me mentioning how awesome my wife is? And that on my vacation, she totally pampered me food-wise, even though she was NOT on vacation? She made a whole menu of really nice meals, mostly from a Spanish cookbook we have, and let me pretend like I was in a fancy restaurant, where I didn't have to cook or clean up! And she was all sweet about it, like it was no big deal for her to spend several hours cooking every night for me while I sat on my butt and did nothing. I love her. (Duh.) Here are some of the things she made for me:

Grilled Basa with Chickpea Salad - Julia says she put too much garlic in it (as you do, because the amount of garlic in every recipe should always be doubled. You do that, right?), but I thought it was awesomely garlicky. Then she made this lovely little bean salad with chickpeas, tomato, cilantro, and red onion. I wasn't expecting it to be a cold salad, and it was really refreshing. Also just as good warmed up the next day.

Potato, Spinach, and Pine Nut Gratin - I'm sure you can guess that this was delicious. I don't think I need to say anything more about it. By the way, that little salad? Mixed greens with tomatoes, nothing fancy, but the trick is that instead of our usual dressing, she drizzled it with olive oil and cracked a bit of fresh pepper on it. So simple, so good.

And then? Then there was the night she took a couple sea basses, wrapped them in Serrano ham, and stuffed them with more of the ham and garlic. Crisp, salty ham around tender bites of flaky fish? Holy crap, that was yummy. And I haven't even told you about the vegetables. They were stir-fried with a sesame sauce and amazing on their own. Five star meal.

Oh, and I almost forgot - it was followed by dessert. To be fair, I actually made it, because, you know, I am the dessert-maker. I know what's what when it comes to custard. (Ask Keely about those Napoleons I made her that one time. Or anyone who ate the top layer of our wedding cake.) Anyway, I digress as usual, I made Crema Fritta. Literally it translates to fried cream. But essentially, it's custard (think flan or crème bruleé, minus the bruleé), and then it's battered and fried. And drowned in blackberry sauce, and topped with whole berries. It was SO. GOOD. Not the prettiest thing I've ever made, but really really tasty.

And I'll leave you with that to drool over.

Another Guest Post

...because clearly, I care more about posting elsewhere than here. No! It's not true. It's just - other people give me deadlines, and my deadline is "whenever I get around to it", so... you all know what that means. I guess I should pick a couple days a week and stick to them for posting like the real bloggers do. But I digress...

If you're wondering what I think about using mics (or not) for your wedding ceremony, you can go read all about it over on Frugally Wed.

I really promise to post soon. If you want, you can put a deadline in the comments for me. (It's got a pretty good chance of working, actually. Especially if you include a topic I should ramble about.)

What I Love About Chicago

(Hint: It's not Navy Pier or the Mag Mile.)

Oops, I blinked and missed it - my guest post has been up on Sarah's blog since Tuesday! Go check it out if you want to know what we love about Chicago.

I'll be back soon to tell you all about the belated anniversary dinner we had at Chalkboard on Friday night, and some of the drool-worthy meals my lovely wife has cooked for me on my vacation this week. (Which is sadly ending today.)