Copain / Coping

Coping
We painted the kitchen lavender...Not purple not pink, somewhere in between. It was one of those excitedly discussed ideas over our new greenish farmhouse kitchen table. An idea that could have been a "good at the time idea", but actually it has worked out quite well. It makes the room inviting and it blends into all the old reused wood in the kitchen. Everyday we look at each other excitedly and say "our kitchen is purple!!!", like we can't believe we actually did it.

This month has really been tough, exciting though. The moving came at a pretty bad time, but I am trying to sort what is important to do now, and what can wait until June. Tomorrow is the baby shower I am helping throw. I am stocked up on bubbly fruit waters: Blood Orange, Pink Grapefruit, Lemonade, Limeade. I have two bottles of Prosecco and a lot of streamers. Now all I need are desserts.
Today I am making a gluttonous amount of vegan treats:
Trail Mix Cookies
Chocolate Chip with Almond Paste
Claire's Cocoa Cookies - chocolate, cinnamon, and cayenne pepper
Sugar Cookies with Meyer Lemon Icing
Wheat Free Chocolate Ginger Cakelettes
Lemon Poppyseed Cakelettes
and the grand finale
Meyer Lemon Curd & Rhubarb Marionberry Tart

Copain

(photo by Alexandre Bettler/bread by Flourpower city bakery in London)

The other project I have been working on is a 5 foot long loaf of bread for Tricia's art final. It's been really fun and a little nerve wracking trying to practice something I can't actually practice. I can make 3 foot long loaves in the oven at Dovetail, but I can't actually make the 5 foot loaf until the day of at Ned Ludd. They have kindly let us use their oven, a 5 foot longish wood fire oven in North East Portland, and so until the day of the baking next week all I can do is practice 3 foot long loaves and hope everything will work out. In the meantime I have been talking to every bread baker I can find. I sat at the bar and chatted with the St. Honore bread bakers and explained to their bemused and curious faces about the 5 foot loaf. They gave me tips that Mark of Tastebud later thought were possibly not good for the wood fire oven. Its been confusing, but I love asking people's opinions. People love the 5 foot loaf! They just love the idea of it. They want to talk about it and impart their wisdom, and bakers can't help but tell you their opinions, can they.
I just keep telling myself, "It's just bread..Flour, yeast, salt and water...it's just bread"

Go here to read more about the project and please come to the opening at 7 pm on May 24th at 1241 NW Johnson Street in Portland.

Moving

It happened faster then we could really be ready for, even though we are the ones creating this situation. We found a new house before we had even given notice on the old one, and so now we are paying double rent and living in chaos. We are so excited about our new house that we have been frantic to get out of the old one..packing food in shopping bags without going through it, throwing everything in boxes. My desk is still set up at the old house, looking untouched and just how I left it, while everything around it is a mess. The bookshelf awkwardly on its side in the middle of the room, the untidy and mysterious creatures living under the couch, cruelly exposed to the light of day, stay in their places refusing to move..a dirty summer window fan, a stinky sleeping bag, dust bunnies, and a print goco machine huddled together. The new house has a L shaped wrap around porch, a place to get baguettes a block away, a small commercial gas stove, a claw foot tub, and a beautiful garden. The fridge is covered in old plank wood so it disappears in to the room. There are things to fix of course...The kitchen is a horrible orange, things are dusty and grimy, many things need to be painted (see butterfly table below...we did not do this I swear)

May looks like a busy month. I have a baby shower to plan, a house to unpack, new sweets to make, last Thursdays, and a 5 foot long loaf of bread to bake. Yes, 5 Feet! More on that later... off to the Farmers Market.. I have pizza to eat and elicit coffee to sip.