Christmas Dinner with Julia Child

I didn’t get a good shot of the tree this year with the presents all around it, but here it is, dropping some needles due to dryness and Presley’s hourly visits to drink from the tree stand. (I know, I know…it’s not good for her but seriously, she’s been drinking tree water for all of her years…)This year, we didn’t make our Christmas voyage to Mitsuwa. I was tired of having to shower and get ready and battle weird weather and traffic on Christmas Day. So this year we stayed home in our pajamas and opened presents and made breakfast and a morning cocktail. We made the Winter Sun, and it is seriously the perfect breakfast cocktail. So citrusy and tart, perfect for a winter morning. Don’t skip the citrus sugared rim or the rosemary. Then we spent most of the afternoon and evening making Julia Child’s beef bourguignon. We wanted to try a new recipe and something kind of complicated, so we picked beef bourguignon. We watched the original episode of The French Chef where Julia makes the dish and we were enchanted with her easygoing personality and cooking flair. Her show really highlights the tips about browning the meat and sautéing the mushrooms. We felt like we learned more in that thirty minutes than we have in all our years of watching the Food Network! (We don’t really watch anymore, but we used to watch a lot in the early 2000s.)

The dish wasn’t hard. There were a lot of steps and some techniques that we’ve never tried before, but dinner was worth it!! There was so much flavor packed into this dish! And it fed us for three days. Naoto makes a really delicious beef stew, but the flavors here are totally different. We want to make it again this winter, and add more carrots and leave out the pearl onions just because they weren’t our favorite thing. (Don’t get me wrong, they’re good, but we prefer carrots and Julia only uses one which had us arm wrestling for the few bits in the dish.) We also served it over pappardelle on the second day and it was sooooo good. 

One thing I would recommend, and I’m feeling this way about almost all recipes lately: get the cookbook! Whether you buy it or borrow it from the library, cooking from cookbooks has been so much easier for me than constantly running to the computer or waking up my phone. (I know you can change your phone settings but, I don’t.) The beef bourguignon recipe is in three separate places in Mastering the Art of French Cooking and we were constantly clicking on different links and it just would have been better to have the cookbook.

I’d love to know some “complicated” dishes you’ve made that are worth the time and effort. Naoto is going to be around more in 2018 and our goal is to cook together more often.

Cheers to the last post of 2017 and hopefully more blogging in 2018!

Under the Tree

Santa was good to us again this year! Presley got a fantastic new toy that is already MIA. It came in a little party popper, that doesn’t pop because that would be scary for cats. It was a cute package though, as you can tell by Presley’s happy face. I gave Naoto a Yeti mic so he can start his podcast in the new year. We’ve been talking about it forever, so it’s time! I also gave him some “high-end” instant ramen that shall have its own post here soon. It’s really good. I also gave him some new t-shirts from Sumo Fish and some new food socks. In addition to the Putz church, Naoto got me booze…shocking, I know. He found North Shore Distillery’s fall release, Ethel’s Eye of Newt Cordial. I’m looking forward to trying it…or saving it for next Halloween. And he added to my Letherbee collection with their Autumnal release. I have been buying Letherbee’s seasonal releases for a few years now and they’re always delicious and unusual. He also bought me two Mitsubishi Kohitsu Shosha 10B pencils. The lead is the softest made and oh my, is it ever! I promised myself I’d practice hand lettering this year (instead of giving up after five minutes) and these are perfect for that. And I got an Egg-a-Go-Go tea towel with the cutest cat carrying a parcel. And I got a new cat screen print from Fancy Seeing You Here. (Thanks to Melissa for giving Naoto the hint about this!) I’m so excited to frame him up and expand my desk art!

I still want to tell you about our Christmas dinner adventures, so…be prepared for more Christmas posts into the new year.

My Putz House Settlement

Last year, I told Naoto about vintage Putz houses, the tiny Mid-Century glittered paper houses. I’ve always wanted a Christmas village but the newer ones never struck my fancy the way these old beat up ones did. They’re almost impossible to find with the glitter still shining and it’s a rare gem that still has its vellum windows and doors in tact. (Mid-century children must have loved to punch those things out!)

He surprised me at Christmas with two Putz houses–BOTH with all of their vellum in pristine condition! The green one has sweet little details like the curtained window and green door and the red one is so glittery and also has a really special door. He also got me a cast iron Santa riding a sled. I was so excited to pull the village (more like settlement) out this year!    Then, during the Forest Park Holiday Walk, Karen and I found this blue gem. The windows, as you can see, have been repaired, but its color and two-toned glitter roof really sold me. I also picked up this teeny plastic nativity for the village, because every town needs one.  Every settlement also needs a town Christmas tree, so I painted one at Creativita. Have you noticed ceramic Christmas trees are making a comeback? I highly recommend painting your own! It was such a fun activity!   

The flocked deer are especially fond of the new tree. I had to put the village on the sideboard this year because Presley has been napping on the wine cabinet lately. I like it better on the sideboard because the wine cabinet was too high to appreciate the village anyway. This year, Naoto added to my collection with a tiny Putz church!! And again, he struck gold with intact windows and doors!! It has some faded trees, but I love the little gate and the blue walkway! This one hardly has any glitter left so I may add some…but I hesitate to mess with its worn charm too much.

Here’s a little video of the complete village…

A Cocktail Story at CH Distillery

For the second year in a row, Naoto and I went to CH Distillery in the West Loop for their Christmas pop-up, A Cocktail Story. I love a good theme party, so it’s right up my alley–all of the food and cocktails are based on the holiday classic, A Christmas Story. I wish I’d taken pictures of the menu, because I can’t remember the witty names of our cocktails, but we started with bourbon (Naoto’s was a version of an Old Fashioned and mine was similar to a Manhattan) and moved onto tasty rosemary gin cocktails.  We ate classic snacks like deviled eggs, cheese balls, and fried rice (keeping with the movie’s Chinese Christmas dinner theme.) For me, the best part of the whole experience was Eddie’s Frozen Eggnog. (Eddie = Clark’s cousin in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.) It is so deliciously decadent. I’ve been thinking about it since I tried it last year. Cheers to the holidays once again!

Holiday Cards 2017

Hello from freezing Forest Park! I thought I’d share our 2017 holiday cards now that most of them have made their way to the destinations. I mailed most of them out mid-December with little fanfare. I didn’t decorate any envelopes this year. Sad, right? I did, however, finally use my very special J. Herbin anniversary ink.

The neon pink cards are from Hello Lucky. The cocktail cards are from Made in Brockton Village. The wintry birds are from Saturn Press, and as I’ve mentioned before, they don’t have a website which makes them the most charming stationery company ever in my book.

I’ve been such a bad letter writer this year, so naturally I’m going to put “be a better letter returner” on my new year’s resolution list. Hopefully this week I can respond to anything left in my stack so I can start 2018 with a clean slate.

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas from the Hasegawas!

The Last Plot 6 Post of 2017

There’s a blanket of snow on the ground this morning, so what better time to talk about…gardening!

We put Plot 6 to bed right after Thanksgiving. It was kind of a sad year in the garden. Our tomato plants became infested with white flies so we barely had a harvest. To say I was devastated is an understatement since really, the only reason to garden is so you can enjoy deliciously ripe, home-grown tomatoes. Our kabocha squash, however, grew like gangbusters and delivered a dozen kabocha by fall. It was crazy and we’ll never grow one in our plot again, but it was a fun experiment and I’m glad we tried it. (Besides tomatoes, experiments are my other favorite part of the garden.) Our basil, parsley, lavender, and rosemary did really well, too and made great additions to cocktails and dinners over the summer. I’m 100% growing more herbs next summer. Herbs and tomatoes. That’s it. Except maybe some carrots at the beginning and end of the season. (Clearly I need to ponder on this all winter.)

On the balcony, I was able to save lots of seeds from my various morning glories so I’m excited to plant those next spring. Sometimes I feel like such a dummy about seed saving. It never occurred to me to save them from my morning glories until my dad mentioned how easy it is. Hopefully these flowers will be making a comeback next summer! 

I got this book at the library this fall and I am looking forward to experimenting with micro-greens this winter (probably after Christmas when the doldrums of winter set in.) I promised myself I’d get through the holidays before making a mess of the kitchen with more plants. (The kitchen window is the only place safe from Presley’s teeth.)

Do you have any winter gardening plans?

December…Already?

Is it too late to share a few pictures from Thanksgiving?

It’s that time of the year again where I can’t believe it’s already December, yet this year seems like the loooooongest ever. My friend and I were talking about the famous Beyoncé pregnancy photo last night and I couldn’t believe that picture was from this year. (February to be exact.) Aren’t those twins toddlers by now? At the same time, I feel like summer was just here and we didn’t enjoy it enough and fall flew by in a blink.

Now we’re in the middle of the holiday season and time isn’t slowing down. The house is all decorated, but it’s still a mess because I haven’t put the decoration bins away yet. My goal for today is to get that done, vacuum and be ready to finish my cards in front of a Hallmark Christmas movie tomorrow afternoon. As far as other holiday goals go, I’d like to:

• bake cookies
• make some Chex Mix
• host a tiny gathering (mostly because I want to make a cheese ball)
• finish my cards by the 10th (and spend out most of my holiday sticker and card stash)
• mail gifts to faraway friends before the 15th
• rate all of the Hallmark Christmas movies
• paint one of those ceramic Christmas trees
• go to Chris & Heather’s 20th Anniversary Calendar Show
• make some holiday cocktails for Hasegawa Happy Hour

Let’s see how I do with my list. Anything special on your holiday wishlist?