Look at a picture of today’s weather in Los Angeles:

Why don’t we replace it with this?

Yum! Did that make you smile? (Or hungry?)

I’m sitting here warming up with thoughts of the wonderful B4D (Breakfast For Dinner) Party we had with friends last weekend.

This kind of party is easy to put together and is a cinch to host. I thought maybe if I could think of breakfast fare that can all go into one oven and cook together, it would make hosting that much easier. So on the menu for the evening was: Spinach Cheese Frittata, Baked Chicken Sausages, Homemade Waffles and fresh fruit. And oh, Mimosas! Because who doesn’t like champagne + orange juice on a Saturday night?

The Baked Chicken Sausages were a healthier alternative to pork ones, picked up from Trader Joe’s. The dish was actually an experiment. I tossed some halved fingerling potatoes (no peeling, so easy!) with some sliced onions and green peppers with some olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic powder.

Laid those in a pan around the sausages that had little diagonal incisions on top. Baked at 375 degrees covered for 20 minutes (so the steam thoroughly cooks the sausages) and another 30 minutes or so uncovered (for browning). They came out full-flavored from the browning, with the peppers nice and soft, the onions caramelized and the potatoes thoroughly seasoned. I’ll be making this several times from now on.

As for the Spinach Cheese Frittata, would you like the recipe? Fancy a Frittata for your Friday? Here ‘tis!

Spinach Cheese Frittata
8 large eggs
4 large egg whites
2 cups spinach, fresh, baby leaves, chopped
4 Tbsp scallion(s), finely chopped
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 cup shredded fat-free or lite cheddar cheese

Spray an 8×8 baking pan with cooking spray. In a large bowl, beat together eggs and egg whites; stir in spinach, scallion, salt and pepper. Pour mixture into pan, top with cheese. Bake at 375-degree oven. Mine took a while, maybe 30-40 minutes, because the eggs had to set and the cheese had to turn a golden brown. You can probably test at 20 minutes to see how “behaved” your egg mixture is. Let stand for a bit before cutting into wedges. The next time I make this I plan to throw in some red peppers and mushrooms, too! Another one for the recipe box.

The waffles were fun to make with this home-use, personalized waffle maker, the Presto Flipside (lots of great reviews on Amazon). You wait for it to heat up, pour in the waffle mix, flip it over to the other side and a beep goes off telling you your waffle is done.

Hello, Waffles. I believe it’s time you met my tummy!

We topped ours with peanut butter and real maple syrup. Yes, peanut butter. It’s an oddly awesome combination that E. introduced me to—he grew up with peanut butter + syrup on his pancakes and waffles. You should give it a try the next time you have these breakfast treats. It’s uncommonly yummy.

We finished the evening with more Mimosas and rounds of Super Mario Wii—which I’m bad at, but it’s ok. In the kitchen, I’m good. Avoiding poisonous mushrooms and snapping monster plants, not so much!

I hope you get to throw an omnommnomy B4D party of your own, too!

In a perfect world, I would have the chance to cook (and eat) every imaginable pasta shape out there. I’ve been thinking about pasta a lot recently, and this may be because I’m trying not to eat too much of it. Last night, in fact, I dreamt about making rigatoni with sausage and peppers. With homemade marinara sauce from ripe, plump Roma tomatoes, made bold with healthy servings of garlic, fresh basil and thyme, finished off with a hunk of warm, crusty bread.

In my hankering for all things pasta, I’ve unearthed these photos from one of the more memorable pasta meals I’ve made. It’s a no-holds-barred Chicken Alfredo (modified from this recipe), the kind you only make once every two years or so for fear that you’ll keel over after the last bite. The kind of pasta dish you hold in your memory—for the joy in making it as much as the joy in eating it!

I remember making this after discovering the pasta Shapes Library (yes, there is such a thing) over at the National Pasta Association website. I was looking through all the shapes and realized I’d never worked with Cavatappi before, so I promptly set about to remedy the situation by declaring dinner as an excuse to test-run this particular pasta shape.

There’s so much more out there to try! How about these interesting-looking ones for your next meal? I think learning to pair which pasta shape to what sauce is an unexplored culinary art form, and I’m hoping to get several chances this year to uhm, “enrich my studies” (read: Cook and eat more of these things!). Look, there’s even a pasta shape for a curlyhead like me!

If YOU dreamt of pasta, what kind of dish would it be?

Making headway today on my red scarf for The Orphan Foundation while watching the US Figure Skating Championships–can’t wait for the Winter Olympics. (That’s Belbin and Agosto on screen!) And I’m loving my very useful cupcake tote. It was a Christmas gift from E.’s mom T. and I now use it for my portable projects. Hope this Saturday finds you loved and warm and crafty!

Pardon me.

Contrary to what you may be thinking, I’m not flipping you off!

I burned three fingers on my right hand yesterday. And what you see above is my hand with burn cream on it. The stuff was supposed to sit in a thick layer on the burns for a good half hour. Which resulted in my weird (and kind of obscene) crab hand. If I wasn’t careful, I’d get the cream on everything, so I had to hold up my hand and fingers like that. Fun times.

Well, not really. I burned my fingers on a bowl from a microwave, out of all things. I heated up some food, the bowl got super heated and I picked it up without thinking. I couldn’t imagine a supposedly microwavable bowl would get that hot, but it did. It got SEARING hot, and it gave me the NASTIEST burns I’ve ever had (and I’ve been burned in the kitchen A LOT). They were so painful I had to focus all my energy into not going into shock. My brother’s girlfriend said that it probably hurt that much because fingers have a lot of nerve endings, because we use them to touch and feel surfaces, temperatures, etc.

I had to grip a bag of fake ice as we half-frantically dashed in the rain to the nearest pharmacy where I found this Burn Jel stuff. There was a whole bunch of other burn remedies on the shelf, but between you and me I picked this one out because it has a picture of a baking lady on it. Hee.

I didn’t get it on the burn immediately, so it took about an hour to really work. It has lidocaine in it and some aloe vera.  I had to use it for a long time before it finally worked—some cushy gauze helped. I had to wince my way through a stirfry and the simplest things, like turning the key in a lock or zipping up my jeans.

Today my fingers are doing better, but I had to wrap them for  a good part of the day because I kept hitting the sore parts. But the Burn Jel has really helped—as I write this I have no blisters and the pain is almost all gone.

I’m writing about this because I realized last night if I had damaged my fingers beyond repair, I wouldn’t be able to cook or craft. It’s my cautionary tale to you—PLEASE don’t be a klutz like me in the kitchen (well, anywhere for that matter)! Believe me—you need your fingers!

Just a quick post to let you know that Craft Hope Project 6 is underway. The deadline is February 14, 2010.

Craft Hope is a collective crafting movement. The site sets up projects that anyone can make handcrafted gifts for. In the past year, they’ve sent dresses to little girls in Mexico, dolls to children in Nicaragua and quilts for homeless children in Michigan (among others). Each one of those projects were loving gifts, handcrafted in a unique, special way. I haven’t had the chance to jump in and join in all the craftgoodness, but this time I’m going to join Project 6. How timely it is—it’s a crochet (or knitting) project, and I had just written about the grandma who taught me how to crochet.

Project 6 will be in partnership with The Orphan Foundation’s Red Scarf Project.

The Orphan Foundation serves thousands of foster teens throughout the U.S. They provide college scholarships, connect them with mentors and internships, send them care packages, and testify for them before Congress. Each year 25,000 students ‘age out’ of the foster care system and the Orphan Foundation is committed to helping them become tomorrow’s successful citizens. They launched the Red Scarf program in 2005 to send red scarves to warm the hearts (and necks) of college-bound youth. They began taking these donations to include in their Valentines Day care packages.

I’m excited to work on my first project for a cause this year! I’ll keep you posted (and you can keep me accountable!) of my progress.

I’m missing the holidays, even if they DID drive me mad. I decided to make most of my Christmas gifts, and my hands were busy all the time. Sometimes, I’d even fall asleep with bits of thread and cloth in my hair. But all in all, I really DO love making gifts for friends and family, no matter how chaotic it all gets.

I’m sitting here thinking about all the lavender sachets I made for friends (so easy because I used precut charm packs from Moda):

And the all tha packaging fun as I made this version of Bake It Pretty’s Russian Friendship Tea (lemonade+orange drink+instant tea=yum!):

After all that craftmadness, I’m kind of itching to make something again, and soon. Oh, wait. Isn’t Valentine’s coming up?

I’m writing this post today because it’s my grandaunt’s birthday.

Ma. Luz Pura Ykalina Fuentes was simply Lola Luz to me. Having never married, she lived with us up until her death several years ago. I had other talented grandmothers who introduced me to the crafts I’ve grown to love and practice today. But it was only Lola Luz who taught me ganchillo, which is the Spanish word for crochet.

She was a schoolteacher and so had the skill and patience to teach an overly anxious, impatient little kid like me how to sit still and be quiet with some thread and a crochet hook. My first attempts at it were disastrous. Angsty even at eight years old, my first projects were granny squares so tight they curled up into tight little wads of jumbled thread. And I was a perfectionist even then, so I would throw my projects on the floor with a frustrated wail and with hot, fat tears rolling down my cheeks, I’d dramatically declare: “I’m NEVEEEERRR going to be good at this!”

Lola Luz loved us with her own brand of stern. So when my would-be doilies ended up on the floor, she didn’t coax me back to them with a gentle voice. She would knit her brows, purse her lips and with a harrumph say something she often repeated to me as I faced the challenges of growing up, “Indi ka mag siling indi! Kabalo ka gid lang pro!” (“Don’t say ‘never!’ You KNOW how to do it!”) The confidence in her voice often snapped me back to my own. And I would somehow sniffle my way to a semblance of calm as she sat there quietly working on her own project, patiently waiting for me to come around. I would eventually, though pouting the whole time, reach for the yarn to try again. It took several tries, I actually think it even took years, before I really learned to do it correctly—with the right thread tension, the right way to hold the hook, the right way to crochet, just like Lola Luz.

This is one of my own crochet projects from last year.

It’s going to be a Babette Blanket, a crocheted throw made of different-sized granny squares joined together. (Like the one you see below, from The Purl Bee. If you’re interested in the pattern, you can purchase and download it from the Interweave online store, HERE.)

I had to abandon it because I still tend to be much like the impatient little kid when I was eight. It’s somewhat of a large undertaking. I have to crochet more than 60 granny squares, some of them very large, some of them tiny. I was off to a good start, as you’ll see. But I was soon overwhelmed by the enormity of it. And the longer I spent away from it, the more I couldn’t bring myself to go back to it. (If you crochet, you’ll understand that your tension changes when you’re not working on a specific project anymore.)

But I’m looking at these pictures, all my beautiful thread colors and remembering Lola Luz, I HAVE to go back to it, don’t I? If I said I’m going back to it to honor my grandma’s memory, I don’t think she’d like that very much. That was her way. I think if she were alive she would say, “Do it because I KNOW you can.” Her confidence in me then is something that I have, in the dregs of crafting or through the anxieties of everyday life, learned to unlock from the rooms of my mind.

And so maybe this weekend, in a little spot of sun somewhere, in a tiny patch of quiet, I’ll loop yarn through my fingers the way she taught me and crochet again. With confidence.

Happy birthday, Lola Luz. Thank you for everything you taught me. And like you always used to tell me, ten cuidado, wherever you are.

—

Thank you to Tito Boy and Tita Edwina for all those awesome, old-school Fuentes photos from days of yore.

We were up at Lake Arrowhead at S.’ family’s house this weekend. It rained all of Saturday, so we spent the afternoon indoors making a big, glorious mess out of powdered sugar, starlight mints, cinnamon bears and all manner, shape and size of candy imaginable to build a wintry gingerbread village. All this while getting sloshed. We spent a good bit of time cleaning up after and STILL kept finding renegade candy hidden in different nooks of the house the rest of our say there. All in all, my first attempt at making a gingerbread house was smashing fun.

More pics from the construction site:

We had so much fun, even Johnny Depp stopped by!

Ahhhh, Christmas. I love you so.

I have the best friends! Thank you, Gad. I love your thoughtful, unexpected gift. I can’t wait until the holidays are over for some serious charity quilting!

Mostly because I’ve always wanted to sew for charity, and even more after discovering that Katherine Bell, who wrote this book, is a gradaute of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop (in my poetry days—yes, I had my poetry days!—several teachers spoke highly of the writing program). I found out about the book on the Sew, Mama, Sew blog today and reading about it makes me want to run to a bookstore at lunch to get myself a copy! (Though, I do have some points to spend on Amazon, which carries the book, too!) Katherine Bell says of her project:

…it’s a collection of stories about quilters who quilt to change the world. I interviewed an extraordinary assortment of women (and a few men) for this book. Some have organized groups of quilters to provide warm bedding to people made homeless by poverty, violence, or natural disasters. Some make quilts to comfort those who are sick, hurt, or grieving. And still others use their craft to raise money and draw attention to a cause—the AIDS quilt is the most famous of these. The quilters I encountered during the making of this book had a few things in common: practicality and old-fashioned resourcefulness; considerable persuasive and organizational skills; a firm belief in justice and people’s responsibility for each other; and a faith in patchwork’s ability to absorb the maker’s care, respect, and on occasion outrage, and to let whoever touches the quilt feel those as well. These needle-wielding activists made me believe I could do so much more to make a difference in the world, and I hope they’ll do the same for you.

It includes patterns and projects for newborns in need, quilts for soldiers, blankets for the homeless and gifts that support breast cancer charities, among others. Definitely something to look forward to in the new year: sewing projects that make a difference!

How are you coming along with Christmas gifts this year? I’ve decided I’m going to MAKE most of mine, which means these past days I’ve been sewing like mad. Tote bags, drawstring pouches, lavender sachets, scarves! I won’t be able to show you exactly what I’ve been making because a lot of the recipients read this blog, but I CAN say it’s been a lot of hectic, crafty fun. I’m desperately trying to squeeze in time to make all of these by Christmas, so please cross your fingers for me!

On the non-handmade front, I’ve been spending lots of time on The Open Sky Project recently. It’s a fairly new website that has experts (and usually bloggers) from many varied fields (crafting, food & beverage, baby and gardening, among others) recommending products they actually use, which you can then buy right on the shop. Through it, I’ve discovered many nifty new things—and lots of other awesome blogs, too!

My favorite things from The Open Sky Project:

The Knit Kit recommended by Vickie of Vickie Howell (knitting)

Tulumba Dolma Roller recommended by Dede of Dedemed (Mediterranean cooking)

Clover Pom-Pom Makers recommended by Amy Powers of Inspire Company (crafting)

Sylvie Bird Pillows recommended by Jay Johnson and Irwin Weiner of Design2share (interior design)

Chronicle Books Confection-ery Box Of Labels recommended by Kelly Lyden of The Party Dress (entertaining)

OXO Convertible Colander recommended by Kath Younger of Kath Eats (healthy eating)

Space Invaders Cutting Board recommended by Lisa Rogak of Behind The Knife (kitchen toolery)

Great website, and something you might want to check out as you’re deciding on Christmas gifts yourself.

P.S. If you know me and you love me but don’t know what to get me for Christmas, those Clover Pom-Pom Makers would make me all sorts of happy!

UPDATE: Vickie Howell has some $15 off coupons to give away on The Open Sky Project! More details HERE.

Here’s what came of my first improv-pieced quilt block, from that class taught by Alissa over at The Urban Craft Center in Santa Monica.

My very first improv half apron! Made with scraps from my stash and muslin. Inspired by Denyse Schmidt’s Shimmy, Shake and Bake Apron.

Ever since that class, I’ve been quietly rooting through my fabric stash and building a new one—for my new fascination with modern quilting. It’s this pseudo-serious project for me, because now I’m starting to recognize fabric I can just live with, and fabric I NEED! I’ve also joined the LA Modern Quilt Guild, read Denyse Schmidt’s book as much as I can, read up on color, even art (which is a stretch for me!).

It’s opened a lot of doors in crafting for me. I’m falling deeper and deeper in love with this craft, and can’t wait to keep trying my hand at it until I get better.

THIS is kind of that moment in my crafting life I’ve waited for. I don’t know if you’re a crafter, or if this has ever happened to you, but I’ve collected fabric for along time, with pieces I knew I could NEVER cut into because they were too special. With improv piecing, no block you ever make can be wrong. With the freedom modern quilting allows, NOW I know I can, have, need to use this fabric!

L-R: Japanese cottons from a recent trip to Manila; Italian Cottons from a trip to Bassetti Tessuti in Rome

All this makes me really miss my grandmother. Lola Acay was the big quilter in my life, and though she made very traditional pieces, she had an artistic eye for fabric and color, and would LOVE all the things I’m discovering as I learn more about modern quilting.

L-R: My first improv-pieced block, my grandma’s rail-fence throw-pillow case

I think, one of these days I’ll visit her old house in Dumaguete, just to piece a couple of improv blocks on her manual sewing machine, the one she used to make all those quilts up until her 90’s. That would be awesome: me with my FreeSpirits, Heather Rosses and Alexander Henrys, sitting at Lola’s decades-old sewing machine.

I loved barrettes as a kid. Remember these classic ones from Goody? I wore mine to death!

If you want a quick, handmade gift for a little girl, how about something lovely for her locks? With a little glue and ribbon, you can make a fun, personalized gift in no time.

Start with some plain silver barrettes. The ones I used are made by Darice—and I found them at Jo-Ann. Other materials you’ll need are ribbons in different colors, glue (plain white tacky/crafter’s glue will work) and a bit of needle and thread.

I made these for my niece’s birthday (I only realize now that I made a lot of stuff for her big day!). You’ll see that I found some ribbon with birthday cakes on them. I cut a length of ribbon to cover the top of the barrette with the ends tucked underneath, and glued it on.

I anchored a “tail” of coordinating ribbons to the barette by sewing tiny stitches through a whole at one end. I did this through the end opposite where the barrette opens. This also serves to reinforce the ribbon to the barrette. I then curled the ribbons by running the edge of a pair of scissors over them.

Look how cute!

There are a million and one ways to make these, and I’m excited to try them all. I just hope my niece doesn’t get tired of wearing them!

Happy weekend, world! I’ve got a train ride and lots of quilting up ahead (not at the same time though—haha!) Hope yours is equally fun and crafty.