Cooking and Pictures

I just found an old interview with Amanda Hesser. I didn't read the whole thing, because some of it's a little boring, but there were parts near the beginning and near the end about Cooking for Mr. Latte. She is one of our cooking inspirations, of course, but did you know she can inspire our culinary photography too?

Talking about writing the columns that eventually became the book:

AH: Because it was so personal it ended up being a really fun project because they wanted me to be involved in all aspects. On the second page there was always a photograph of the food.

RB: So you styled the photo?

AH: We did this at my house. They were my plates, I cooked it. We had this team of photographers…

RB: Who ate it?

AH: We all did. After the shot we all dug in. (laughs)

RB: So you became popular with the photo staff.

AH: Exactly.

Kind of a fun detail, I thought. Too bad they don't have the pictures in the book!

Kindred Spirits Version 2.0

The Kindred Spirits are having an identity crisis.

We've committed the ultimate blog sin. We don't post.

So in a burst of inspiration we've decided to breathe a little life into this empty void and start talking about what we like to do together most: Cook...and Eat.

The new design and focus doesn't mean we won't ever talk about anything else, but expect to see recipes and pictures from our dinners together.

The "drastic" template change has special significance. One of our favorite summer treats is fresh frozen blueberries (i.e., buy them fresh and freeze them, don't buy a bag of frozen blueberries - makes all the difference in the world). The new color scheme reflects this. Expect a new color for fall!

BAM!
Brooke, Amanda, and Melodee, for the Kindred Spirits

PS - in the tradition of our usual KS silliness, you should watch this video: They're Taking the Hobbits to Isengard! Legolas and techno...a surprising mix. (Thanks for the link, Dan.)

On the lake at Coeur d'Alene

Not what I was gonna post...

But I'm too lazy to post pics from Coeur d'Alene, and I've spent the last hour sitting in bed with the laptop, enjoying the White Stripes very much. They're one of those bands you'll probably either love or hate, not feel in between about, but you can watch some of their videos here. (Try "My Doorbell" and "Hotel Yorba". Rats, I can't get "Seven Nation Army" to work.)

I Dreamed a Dream

This spring Rachel and I both got to see performances of Les Miserables, just not together (her in Denver, me in London). She was just playing this song on the piano, and I'm posting about it as it's one of my favorite things, in a heartbreaking sort of way. You can listen to it on the official Les Mis site. (Pretty cool that they have whole songs.)

btw, Andrea, how come you didn't list yourself under "must reads"??

Can you feel it?

The excitement? The anticipation? We all have our sporting weaknesses. For Melodee it’s baseball. This is where its at for me. Here is the entire schedule.

My pony.
I have to make a correction
My team is not called the group of death they are in the group of death. The teams are grouped according to their standings. Argentina is in group C and ranked 9th in the world. The other teams in group C are ranked 8th and 32nd and 44th. Which means any of the teams could win. So these should be good games.

Argentina has just scored their firt goal of their game. Yes

Happy Friday

I woke up this morning very excited that it was Friday, and it hasn't worn off yet. Why, I'm not sure. I get to wear my MZUNGU shirt today (which I could have worn any day, but was saving for Friday), but that's not really so exciting. At work I have a lot of marketing stuff to try to figure out marketing stuff, which makes time go by faster; and when I need a break, I can look out the window and watch the gophers frolicking around. (Although they're about to smoke-bombed to death, poor suckers.) Plus it's almost the weekend, where all I have planned is doing laundry and going to a wedding. But now I'm off to eat some leftover apple-oatmeal creme brulee. Gotta start those mornings out right...

I hope you guys have a great Friday, too!

I'm back...

and am still trying to catch up on sleep, so this is going to be a short post before going to bed. But I wanted to say hi and, if you're bored, I think you should check this one apartment, six drummers video out. (I haven't watched the whole thing yet, but it's somethin' else...)

I made it through a whole day of work today, in our very cool new building (I'm excited to have my own office, with automatic lights that switched off on me twice - guess I was being too quiet). There are still boxes everywhere, but at least the ones in my office are empty now. And I'm not exaggerating, I almost got lost several times.

Speaking of Lost...I watched episodes 20 and 21 tonight. I did NOT see that coming, did you, Andrea?