Alizarine

Fastest cinnamon rolls

I made that cinnamon roll recipe I spotted on this blog via this awesome website.  It seemed too good to be true--cinnamon rolls in less than an hour, and no yeast, no punching down, no letting them rise, nothing!  I've adapted the recipe a bit--I didn't feel like dragging out a food processor, for example.  As always, the italics = me.

INGREDIENTS

For the Dough:

• 3/4 C part skim ricotta cheese (or cottage cheese)
• 1/3 C low fat buttermilk
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 4 T butter
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 C flour
• 1 T baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda

For the Filling:

• scant 2 T butter
• 2/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. ground allspice
•  pinch ground cardamom

For the Glaze:

• 1 C powdered sugar, or to taste
  
• 2 T milk, give or take
  
• 1 tsp. vanilla

Instructions

Heat the oven to 400°F. Grease the sides and bottom of a 8 or 9″ baking pan with cooking spray.

Combine the ricotta cheese, buttermilk, sugar, melted butter, and vanilla in a bowl and mix until smooth. Fold in the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda until the dough clumps together (don’t overstir). The dough will be soft and moist.

Dump the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead it with floured hands 4 or 5 times until smooth (it really only takes 4-5 times).  I didn't bother with the floured surface and opted to knead the dough inside the bowl--does anybody else do this?  It seemed to work.  With a rolling pin, roll the dough into a 12×15-inch rectangle. I discovered that 12×15 is exactly the size of my flexible plastic cutting board, so that’s a quick and easy way to size it.  This is absolutely true; what a great tip!

Brush the dough with the melted butter, leaving a 1/2-inch border unbuttered around the edges.  In a medium bowl, combine brown sugar and spices.  Sprinkle the mixture over the buttered area of the dough and press gently into the surface.

Starting at a long edge, repeat, LONG EDGE, roll up the dough jelly-roll style.  Pinch the seam to seal, and leave the ends open.

With a sharp knife, cut the roll into equal pieces (I got 8).  Set the pieces, cut side up, in the prepared pan; they should fill the pan and touch slightly, but don’t worry if there are small gaps.

Bake until golden brown and firm to the touch, 20 to 28 minutes.  Mine took 21, but we like our baked goods a little on the pale side.  Set the pan on a wire rack to cool for 5 minutes.  Run a spatula around the inside edge of the pan to loosen the rolls, and transfer them to a serving plate.

Since we don't have mascarpone cheese, I decided to go with my standard powdered sugar/milk/vanilla glaze.  Add the milk and vanilla to the powdered sugar, stir, and adjust if too thin or too thick.  It's always good.  If you want a fancier glaze, please visit Don't Forget Delicious.

So, were these true cinnamon rolls?  I'd say they're more like a biscuit/roll hybrid, and ain't nothin' wrong with that!  They didn't have that yeasty aroma, but I guess that's probably because there's no yeast in them.  But the cinnamon filling was outrageously good, right on the border between just the right amount and excessive.  I had my doubts about the allspice and cardamom, and you could leave them out if you're a wuss too, but really, why are you so afraid of spices?  The scent of the rolls baking woke up Jeff, who staggered into the kitchen from the bedroom. 

Making them again?  You'd better believe it.

Bunny In Her Basket

Oh Alizarine, my poor blog, I owe you about a day's worth of writing. Lately most of my creative energy has been funneled into my YouTube channel and just plain painting. I haven't forgotten about you. I will try to catch up this weekend!

Today's big news, as you can see, is that I've done another painting of Bunny. We recently celebrated our 12th Bunniversary (the day she decided she didn't want to be a stray kitten anymore and thought she'd team up with me) on Columbus Day.

Bun's having a pretty good autumn. I continue to take her on supervised walkabouts around the house, and her latest obsession is mole hunting. A few days ago I drew this on our kitchen chalkboard:

(She caught three and scared the hell out of one.)

This new painting was a quickie: I painted the background and basket on Tuesday and Bun on Wednesday. Fur takes a lot less time to paint than skin or petals or shiny stuff or just about anything else, apparently. You can watch me speed paint Bun on my new video, available here.

 

Are you subscribing to my channel yet? Please do. YouTube gives me, like, a shiny new penny for every subscriber I get. (I'm not sure how much money I make that way, actually. I do know that it's chump change, but chump change adds up.)

Want me to paint a pet of yours in a similarly cute way? Facebook me. Tweet at me. Let me know!

And you can also buy a Bun print here!

Thanks as always for reading and watching my stuff.

Flowers for You!

I have hundreds--maybe thousands!--of flower photos clogging up my computer. These photos are of plants in our yard or from places where Jeff and I have traveled, and I'd love to do something with at least a few of them. I'd love to paint them for you!

If you've wanted me to paint something for you (either for yourself or as a gift), but you're not sure about what that might be, may I suggest something floral? Take a look at the different types of flowers I have here, and if you see one you like, send me an email at kellye05 (at) gmail.com, or tweet at me or comment here or whatever, and I'll get to work! If you want me to paint a rose, for example, but maybe not the rose I've posted here, let me know, and I'll send you lots of other options. But these are some of my favorites. Click the photos to see that row slightly larger.

Above (left to right):

Apple blossoms -- I have so many of these!

Crab apple blossoms -- I think that's what they are. They range from purple to pink to red.

Crocus -- Spring's first flower!

Daffodils -- gorgeous yellow.

Jonquils -- I love the colors in the white!

Dogwood -- ranging from red to medium pink. This one has been photoshopped a bit.

Geraniums -- more 'shopping here. That indicates a photo I'm very interested in working with.

Grape hyacinths -- How cute are these?

Helicopters -- I'm just gonna call them helicopters.

Tulips -- I have many colors and shapes, but I love this one so much.

Hibiscus - -photographed when we were in Florida this spring.

Irises -- purple ones, creamy ones.

Lilies -- red and orange.

Moss roses -- so delicate and colorful.

Orchids -- fluttery and unreal!

Pansies -- I love their little faces.

Peonies -- I have so many of these! This particular photo is awfully complex and would take me much longer to paint than some of the others. My prices are below, and I charge based on size and complexity.

Petunias -- The color mix I planted this year has been so lovely.

Red buds -- They remind me of pink mice heads!

Roses -- I have TONS of photos in lots of different colors. You name it.

Strawberries -- I wish I would have taken more photos of these back in June!

Misc. Tropical -- Other photos of flowers and plants from Florida.

Violets -- shown here with bonus dandelion.

Peonies -- I just wanted to toss these crazies in here.

Irises -- Showing another one because it's pretty.

-----------------------------------

Here is my price breakdown for floral paintings. Keep in mind that I can always go bigger with these. I'll let you know if your flower is easy or hard--they're all so different. Please know that if you select a hard one but were wanting "easy" prices, I probably have other photos of that kind of flower that are easy. Just ask me! :)

Thanks, and please know that if you want me to paint a Christmas gift for you, now's the time to be asking.

Pink Roses

New painting and new video!

A friend commissioned me to paint some pink roses to give as a gift later this year. Jeff and I were lucky enough to be in Portland, Oregon for his birthday last month, and the city has an amazing rose test garden.

It boasts a mind-boggling array of roses in every color and variety imaginable, and I was able to take dozens of photos--fodder for future paintings and for use the next time somebody wants me to paint them. And needless to say, this place smelled incredible.

Just row after row of roses like these!

I sent my client a selection of photos of pink roses, and she chose one for me to paint the one: a cluster of light peachy-pink English roses that I wanted to make slightly pinker. I set to work and completed about a third of the 11"x14" painting in that first day.

And it was nice to have the tough rose out of the way (or at least started). The next morning I worked on the other roses.

And in the afternoon and the next morning, I developed the background.

This left a gaping white hole in the picture that I was saving for last. This rose was just starting to open, and I thought it would be a good subject for a video. You can see me paint it here (sped up eight times, I believe):

  

I'm not appearing in the video this time around--I don't think I need to show my face in all of them--and to make life a little easier for Jeff (who edits these), I changed the way I do my narrations. For my other videos, I recorded about 25 little chunks of audio, each about two sentences long, and we painstakingly dropped them into the videos at just the right time. This process was tiresome, and I thought it would be a lot easier if I did maybe four long chunks. And it was. I hope people like this approach just as much, as it saves us from an hour or two of moving mini audio files around.

I'd like to thank my sister for collaborating with me and linking to my last video about a week ago, by the way, and her thousands of viewers who stopped by to take a look at it. That was truly amazing, and I hope they come back for this one! And thanks to my dozens of readers in this tiny corner of the Internet for your support over the years.

If you'd like to continue to support me, please consider buying a print of this or my other paintings, available here. Feel free to contact me via a comment, email, Tweet, or Facebook message if you'd like me to paint some roses or other flowers for you as well! Next time I'll put up a post about what kind of flowers are available.

Here are some of the roses I sent to my client--I have lots of other rose colors, too.

I also have a PayPal button on the right side of my blog for those of you who'd like to support the cause financially. Please know that it always makes my day whenever somebody notices that and sends me some money--I typically shriek and go bounding around the room, upsetting the cats, before I send a gushing email thanking you. And if you've got nothing better to do, go to my YouTube channel and watch some videos, give 'em a thumbs-up, and comment. Believe it or not, that helps!

Thanks again for watching. :)

Beautiful Spring

I just noticed that this is my 400th post!

This one is going to be packed with photos documenting the past few weeks--easily the most beautiful spring I've witnessed since I began living here. Jeff and I have been trying to improve our driveway garden over the past couple of years. Last fall I planted a few dozen tulip bulbs and was so excited to watch them bloom. The frilly ones in front are parrot tulips, and I painted the pink one recently. Backing them up are two rows of regular tulips that were supposed to be purple. I think my bag of bulbs was incorrectly marked.

But that's okay--I like these better. They're so cheerful!

We have lots of roses on the other side of this garden and are unsure about how to tame/contain them. The two large rose bushes throw out tentacles that climb up to the sky and then arch down, like dozens of this thing overlapping again and again.

Our neighbor cut down a large, dead tree, and he set the logs out by the side of the road to be removed by the city. Jeff saw one of them and thought it might make a nice display element in the roses, so the two of us rolled that heavy thing down the street (Jeff did 90% of the work while I gave it a few kicks here and there) and installed it. We like how it looks semi-human, and I can't wait for those roses to bloom.

This is the east side of our weirdo house. The redbud trees are in bloom!

I love the redbud-blooming week the most.

It's followed by redbud-confetti week.

We have other flowering trees on the south side of the house.

This one is almost embarrassingly gorgeous.

Crab apples and dogwoods decorate the west side next to the garage.

Needless to say, Bun is a very happy little girl.

She mostly stays on the path during her supervised walkabouts.

And when it's sunny, sometimes she'll just lounge.

On rare occasions she becomes SUPER FIERCE MIGHTY HUNTING JUNGLE CAT;;;;

Ohh, the colors. I still can't believe I get to live here...

...with this amazing creature...

...and my sweet girl.

Too. Much.

PS Mom cut three inches from my hair a few weeks ago, diminishing that grizzly-bear-living-on-my-head feeling. Now it's more like I have a grizzly cub up there.

I hope you're having a great spring, too!

Rose of Sharon

Jeff and I met on Match.com--ain't no shame in it!--and one of the things he liked about my profile was that I had answered the "What was the last great book you read?" question with The Grapes of Wrath. It was one of those books that had somehow slipped through the cracks of my reading life, and I remember finishing it while sitting on a bench in Chicago's Union Station. The devastating ending made me cry, and then I just stared at things for a while, a character Edward Hopper had forgotten to paint: Heartbroken Lonely Woman Crying Over A Book.

Anyway, one of the characters in that book is named Rose of Sharon, and I always thought that was so unusual--she has a preposition in her name! Last year we were shopping for plants to decorate our new patio, and I flipped out when I came across a rose of Sharon. The man who sold it to us said it was blue, which is not as common as the white and pink version, and after planting it, we waited for about a month for it to bloom. It's in the center of the above photo.

I took a photo of the first rose and saved the picture for a future painting. I started it a couple of weeks ago. I wasn't all that revved up to paint it at first, but after a day of work I was excited. I loved the light on the petals, and the variety of blues and purples I used to create the bloom was challenging.

I fine-tuned the white thing and added more details and texture to the petals.

Then I filled in the background with some bloopy, blurry colors, and I started the rocks in the lower-left corner. Most of the white areas would become leaves and branches.

Next up: I spent a lot of time with that dry grass on the left side. It had lots of different blurry colors going on. I texturized the rocks with purples, blues, pinks, and browns. Finally, I did some yellow underpainting on the leaves, masked off the major veins (seen above as yellow lines) and added an additional green glaze over the top.

More leaf work...

I added a lot of details to the leaves and attempted to soften and refine the veins.  Leaves in direct sunlight called for bits of blue, permanent green light, and a whole lot of no-paint. The bigger/closer leaves required some micro veins. This process reminded me of the way I painted the colorful leaf from my Mushrooms painting a year and a half ago. The colors in the photo above are a bit too bright--I took the picture during a thunderstorm and got aggressive with it in Photoshop.

On my last day of painting, I added a branch and some grassy shapes in the center. Those were surprisingly complex and colorful. And then, as if on cue, our new scanner arrived in the mail!

Eleven years ago I bought a kind of so-what HP scanner that did a wonderful job with my watercolors and cartoons, and Bun liked to sit on it, too. When it died in 2009, I assumed it would be easy to find a replacement. But that was not the case--the ones we've tried since then can't handle subtle color changes or things like pastel colors outlined in black pen.

Last month Jeff did some research (and great things happen when Jeff does some research). He found a used Epson Perfection V30 for only $30. A watercolor artist had blogged about this scanner and showed how to configure the settings to work for watercolors. It seemed like such a great deal, especially when you consider that I tend to pay $12-$15 per big scan at FedEx. The only problem was that the vendor was in Hawaii, and the scanner had to endure a month-long boat odyssey and cross-country road trip before it reached us.

We set it up and scanned my painting (which was too big to fit) in two sections. Photoshop miraculously pieced them together--seamless! We were impressed at how the scanner even managed to pick up on the texture (or tooth) of my watercolor paper. Terrific!

And you can find prints of this new painting if you click here!

Imagekind has finally gotten its act together, and now my other new-ish floral paintings are available as prints, too!

Click here for Wilting Parrot Tulip.

Click here for Passion Flower.

I STRONGLY URGE YOU TO BUY ALL THREE! :)

Like me on Facebook, yo!

Spring Flowers

After a month of gray-dominated paintings involving grandparents, I was overjoyed to return to vivid colors. In August I'm going to have a one-person show at the Decatur (IL) Area Arts Council. I had applied for a 2014 exhibit, but their August 2013 artist had to back out due to--I think it was a house fire...? Talk about one of my greatest fears. If our house was burning down, I know which paintings I'd try to save first, but I definitely wouldn't be able to rescue all my work. I can't even imagine how that would feel.

Anyway, the Decatur people asked me if I could display my work in just a few short months, and I said yes. So between now and then, I'll be producing as many new paintings as I can to bulk up my body of work. That kind of rules out creating month-long paintings like Treasure or Ruby Liberty Dragonfly, although I plan to paint more jewelry still-lifes for the show. But each of these paintings will feature four or five sparkly things instead of something like eighty.

But back to the flowers! This is a wilting parrot tulip after I had worked on it for a couple of days. I planted ten of these frilly, fancy tulips a year and a half ago and was beyond excited to watch them emerge last spring. They were even more beautiful as they wilted, and their petals created interesting and dynamic shapes. I took several dozen photos and saved this one, the queen of them all, for the next time I felt the urge to paint something floral.

That super-hot red is a combination of opera (out of control pink) and cadmium red light (stupefying orange). I can't tell you how pleasing it is to mix those two colors. Something scientific/magical happens.

I tightened up the petals a bit and added some freckly spots. The background came together quickly, and I painted some of that during my watercolor workshop a few weeks ago (also at Decatur). It's been a while since I've had an audience, and it took me back to my teaching days when students would watch me work. I took some photos of people at the workshop, and here is my favorite one:

On to painting two! This is a passion flower I spotted at Kevin and Natalie's home in Orlando. Jeff and I visited them last month, and as soon as I saw this strange blue flower/mini-spaceship, I knew I would paint it. To create its dozens of stringy blue petals, I masked off those parts and painted the petals and leaves behind them.

Next I worked on the flower's amazing center, a fun combination of magenta and acid green, and painted the petals a flat blue (with dark purple and white areas). I don't even want to know how many petals are on this flower.

I added shadows to each petal (painstaking!) and lifted some highlights with a combination of tiny brush/water/paper towel. That took the better part of an afternoon, and I fell into assembly line mode. Done, done, on to the next one.

 

And here's the finished product!

It was smooth sailing once I finished that flower, although I began to suffer from dark green fatique. The bud/pod and the little springy things provided some relief. Both of these paintings are 10.5"x13.5", and I'm eager to pop them into frames.

We've reached the part of my new-painting posts where I link to Imagekind and beg you to buy prints, but Imagekind has been having site-wide technical problems for several weeks (!!). They've assured their artists that they are working on solving the problems, but many of us are understandably disgruntled. I make most of my money in November and December with a little Mother's Day bump in the spring. So the timing here is bad for me, especially now that I'm in portfolio-building mode and not painting people's grandparents for cash.

While we wait for Imagekind to get its act together, I have this gifty alternative for you:

It's my CafePress merchandise store, and last night I spent three hours uploading images and creating new products for you to peruse and enjoy. I'm sorry, but I want that bag so damn much! Please consider supporting me by picking up a thing or two, and I'll let you know when Imagekind is back to normal.

Please like my Facebook art page if you haven't already! I update it every few days with in-progress paintings, and let's face it, commenting is easier there than it is here. No stupid Captcha thing, and I respond to just about everybody, too!

Thanks for your support. :)

PS It's Bun's birthday today--she is 12!

Roger & Us

Roger. Oh my.

Jeff and I learned about Roger Ebert's death last Thursday about an hour after everybody else did. We had spent most of the day away from our computers and were enjoying one of central Illinois' first truly springlike afternoons, reprising our role as The Couple That Walks Around St. Joe Holding Hands.

Jeff found out first. We were sitting in the living room and getting set to watch Justified when he gasped. "Roger Ebert died," he said, looking up from his iPad sadly. Oh no. Instinctively my arms and legs bent in toward the center of my body--sort of a seated fetal position--as sadness swept over me.

My Facebook and Twitter notifications started erupting with "you're the first person I thought of when I heard" posts, and I responded to them for a few hours. Thanks so much to those of you who contacted me--Roger would have appreciated the immediate, easy way people were able to reach out to each other. I would love to see a map of the world dotted with those whose lives he affected and the amazing web of connections he spun between us.

My husband knows too much about cancer, and Roger's "leave of presence" message from the previous day had caused him to remark that the end was probably near. We had no idea it would happen within 24 hours, though.

As some of you may know, Roger and I were Twitter and email friends. Not wanting to waste The Great Man's time, I only communicated with him when I had something on my mind that I thought he would appreciate. And he would contact me as well. My Gmail says we had 92 conversations.

One of my favorite exchanges with him was in 2011 regarding the movie Crumb, a documentary I've loved and rewatched on VHS countless times. I had received the Blu-ray edition that included Roger's commentary track for Christmas. I listened to it as I painted one day and told him about how I appreciated his insights and how great it was to hear his voice for a while. We talked about R. Crumb's brothers and their "stupid mother" (Roger's words). It was fun and more than a bit surreal to talk about one of my favorite movies with Roger Freaking Ebert.

He especially liked it when I sent updates about nature, farming, and the weather in this part of the state. I live a few miles from his boyhood/college hometown, and I'd let him know when the corn was sprouting and show him photos of things like a cluster of mushrooms I'd found growing beside a tree stump in the yard.

As time passed, his email messages became shorter--sometimes just a sentence or two, but always cordial and often humorous. Ignatiy Vishnevesky explained why his notes were so brief in his wonderful letter to Roger from a few days ago:

"You communicated largely through your computer, but you typed slowly, your hand hovering over a key before pressing down. It could take you thirty seconds to type out a sentence."

 

Last month Roger asked me for a digital copy of this painting, which I'd sent him as a thank you gift a few years ago when he first started tweeting about my work.

He wanted to include it in a blog he was writing and credited me there, mentioning (incorrectly) that he owned two of my paintings. I sent Roger a quick "I'm pretty sure you just have the Art Theater" message, and he responded with,

I believe I have that one and the child with the book shelf. I've been in the hospital so it's hard to say…

Anyway, I feel like I have 2. And it sounds better  :)

Cheers,

R

Sometimes he'd send emails to me accidentally--meant for other people--and I'd let him know. In February I got one containing some confidential information regarding Ebertfest and his health. He had some big, wonderful plans for the last day. I told him his secret was safe with me and he called me a dear friend. Imagine!

It's hard to describe what it's been like to have known him even in my minor way. He had over 800,000 followers on Twitter and followed 255. I had the extreme good fortune to be one of them. Whenever I tweeted something, I asked myself, "Is this Roger-worthy?" So there were no "going to the library LOL" tweets from me. He was my writing's conscience, the little voice I heard and continue to hear before I hit "post."

Just when I thought he wasn't reading this blog anymore--the man was beyond busy--I'd get a comment (!!!!!!) or a retweet. He even read at least one of my recipes. He made my month when he told his Twitter followers that "damn it, she's right" when I ranted about how most fruit crisps contain too much fruit and nowhere near enough crisp. Roger Ebert cared about the fruit-to-crisp ratio!

So the past few days have been loaded with Roger memories.

I was in the right place at the right time when he discovered my watercolors. He gave me confidence to pursue my dream. I've made new friends because of him. I've sold watercolors and prints because of him. He gave me the idea for one of my best paintings. He sent me messages from the hospital asking me how I was. He told me "I'm there with you--thank God for Jeff" during my cancer scare.

I was lucky to have met him in person two years ago. He looked at me and applauded. He wrote in his notepad that I was an artist and underlined it. I'll never forget it.

Roger did so much for me, and he didn't have to do any of it. But he did. He did, and I'm one of many, many people who have been saying things like this over the past few days. I can't thank him enough, but I think the best thing any of us can do to remember Roger is to try to be as kind, thoughtful, and appreciative of beauty as he was.

What a life. What a hero. I miss him very much.

 

SnowBun!

For the first time in two years, a medium-sized snowstorm hit our town yesterday, and today as Jeff and I wolfed down our lunch, I mentioned that I wanted to make a snowman. Surprisingly, Jeff was into the idea--"Let's do it now!" Of course, we couldn't do the same old played-out normal snowman. We made a snowBun.

It took us a little while to get on the same page as to how this snowBun would come together, but soon enough we established the Garfield-ish main form and began fine tuning it.

I messed around with the photo settings on this one to make the profile more visible.

We took turns making the face--I roughed in the main shape and eye sockets while Jeff refined the ears and added the features. He was charmingly businesslike while I emerged as the project's cheerleader.

It's my belief that if Bun had existed during Biblical times, people would have created golden idols in her image. So it was all too appropriate for Jeff and me to make a snow sculpture of a creature that we basically worship every day.

That face cracks me up.

This is the view of our snowBun from the house. She's not long for this world--this weekend we'll have highs in the fifties with a good chance of rain.

But this was so much fun, and for about an hour we felt like a couple of kids. We came inside soggy and gleeful. Bun groggily hopped downstairs, glanced at her giant likeness out in the yard, and demanded some wet food.

Misc. Winter Things

The photo above is a shot of our side-yard one afternoon last week, back when we had a dusting and a half of snow. The light seems to be changing just a bit now that December is over, and spring is obviously just around the corner.

Not really.

I'm going to spend the next ten weeks enveloped in various fleeces and plan to amuse myself with new recipes, including two you'll see below. But first, I wanted to show you a couple of photos of Poof from Christmas at our parents' house.

She was sitting there looking so blissfully content that I had to ask her to freeze while I took a photo.

I like how her senior photo seems to be peeking at her happy future self. What a beauty. I love her so much.

And now, the recipes!

This is a Pinterest recipe I found and made almost immediately. It's from something called "jujugoodnews" and is a black bean salad with corn, red peppers, and avocado-lime vinaigrette, minus the avocado for now. It's shockingly tasty and healthy to boot! I've tweaked it a bit (see italics).

INGREDIENTS

• 2 15-ounce cans black beans, rinsed and drained
• 3 ears fresh cooked corn, kernels cut off the cob <-- I used a bag of thawed frozen white and yellow corn, something like 12-16 ounces, so yeah, I went *heavy on the corn.* I've adjusted the lime juice, onion, salt and olive oil amounts below to accommodate the extra corn.
• 2 red bell peppers, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• generous 2 teaspoons salt
• generous 2 tablespoons minced red onion
• generous 2 tablespoons sugar
• 10 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon lime zest (be sure to zest limes before juicing them) <-- I zested 2 small limes
• 7 or 8 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro, plus more for garnish <-- I used Italian parsley because I have a problem with cilantro
• 2 Hass avocados, chopped

DIRECTIONS

Combine the corn, beans, and peppers in a large bowl and mix well.

Mince the garlic and mash it into the salt until it becomes a paste. Put it in a small bowl along with the lime juice, lime zest, olive oil, and onion. Whisk and pour over the corn mixture. Mix well.

Cover and chill for a few hours or overnight. Right before serving, add avocados and mix gently, being careful not to mash avocados.

Serve at room temperature.

Jeff and I decided to turn this salad into some tacos. He has a quick guacamole recipe that he likes to throw together (avocado, traces of lime juice--he had a bad experience with too much last month--a grated clove of garlic, a tablespoon of jarred salsa, and salt to taste). So: it's a smear of guac and a little pepper jack cheese on a blistered corn tortilla topped with the above salad.

This made a fun 1:30-ish kinda-lunch! Also there's no meat here, although this made us want to add some carnitas into the mix, but not enough to actually get in the car and drive 10 miles into town to our favorite carnitas provider.

Next up: spicy brittled peanuts from that Smitten Kitchen cookbook I've been talking about lately. Oh man, these are incredible. That amount of cayenne down there is perfect, and it quietly buzzes around in the sweet-salty background. If you're not allergic to peanuts, you will find yourself saying lots of double-negative things like, "Life would not be worth living if I couldn't eat peanuts."

You're going to have to work for these way-better-than-CrackerJack peanuts, but not too much. It's mostly just a lot of stirring over a medium-hot pot, and some of that stirring is very interesting because science.

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon flaky sea salt
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 cups shelled raw or roasted unsalted peanuts, papery skins removed <-- I used blanched peanuts

DIRECTIONS

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicon mat. If you don't have either, coat your baking shee with a thinslick of vegetable oil.

In a small bowl, whisk together the baking soda, sea sat, and cayenne, and set aside.

In a large saucepan, the heaviest one you've got, heat the sugar, butter, and water over medium-high heat until it just begins to turn golden, about 7 to 10 minutes. Add the peanuts and start stirring, coating them with the sugar mixture.

After a minute or two, the sugar will sieze up a bit, making the peanuts look grainy and crusty, and it will be harder to stir them--you'll be convinced that it's gone irreversibly south, cursing me under your breath [This cookbook is so conversationally awesome and you need to go buy it--K], but fear not, keep stirring, and in about 3 minutes it will melt back into a golden caramel.

That part actually took more like 5 minutes. I'm sure this was because my idea of medium-high heat is a little low, as I am afraid of heat.

Keep stirring, breaking up any clumps with your spoon, until the nuts are evenly coated, then remove the pot from the heat. Stir in the baking-soda-spice mixture as fast and evenly as you can, then spill the caramelized nuts out onto your prepared sheet, spreading them in a single layer and breaking up any clumps that you can before they set. Cool completely.

Once they're cool, break the nut clusters into smaller pieces and put them in a serving dish. The nuts will keep in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks, but rarely do because they are habit-forming.

She's not kidding. These were gone in two and a half days.

In other food news, yesterday I tried one of David Leibovitz's recipes for a flourless chocolate cake that was great but, disappointingly, not awesome. I already make a couple of F.C.C.s that beat it handily taste-wise and are a lot prettier to boot. So we're off to a disappointing start on that cookbook, but I'm nowhere near giving up. You should see some of the photos in that thing.

Finally, Jeff and I spent last week watching Mad Men's directors' commentaries for season five, and I was amused to discover this not-at-all-Photoshopped! insert in the packaging. I love how ticked off Betty looks.

PS Jeff thinks that Jon Hamm has an enormous head, especially in the image above, and he asked me to tack on this video.