all things girls can tell

beets, dc + lots of good.

i couldn't get over how much the smell of beets reminds me of my grandmother as i was peeling and chopping the bunch i'd gotten from my CSA today. beets are totally the kind of food i forget i love til the're in my face, and then i remember that they're pretty much the best thing ever. i'm hoping i manage to do them justice in preparing them, and crossing my fingers there will be more in next week's share.

this weekend was, for the most part, pretty great. we snuck down to DC for the weekend, where a lot of relaxing, napping and drinking of wine commenced. we also managed to get to the fdr memorial (the best presidential memorial - a narrative in landscape architecture - totally awesome), the national gallery, the washington monument (erik claimed he'd never been there), and we caught a sousa festival at the jefferson monument. awesome. sadly, the portrait gallery (which i've never visted but is high on my list for next time) was temporarily closed, along with the museum of american history (which is my favorite smithsonian for two easy reasons: ice cream parlor, dorothy's ruby slippers). walking along king street in old town after dinner, we happened upon a funny little independently owned theatre showing "get smart", that served wine and ice cream (okay, so maybe normal people don't pair these things, but they're both delicious and you know it). so our movie-going experience was unexpectedly fun, even if the movie was a little disappointing (sorry, steve carrell, but i really enjoyed the get smart of my nick-at-night days more).

things to be excited about this week?
tree tenders leadership training, a brooklyn cyclone's game, a revival of the philadelphia bloggers meetup group, and a wheat beer festival at the south philly tap room, for starters... yay.

newsflash

okay, newsflash: the six feet under box set arrived via fed ex this morning.
so i will probably not be leaving my house for the next month or so.

(except to sell at squidfire. and go to chicago. probably i also need to go to brooklyn for work. and the junto tomorrow. and that wedding i need to go to on saturday... and i guess see my mom on mother's day, since i'm the only daughter she has on the east coast... all this leaving my house stuff is really interupting my plans to be a hermit and watch the best. show. ever. geez.)

book reports and scrunchies.

the highlight of my train ride up to the etsy labs today was sitting behind a lady who was wearing a black velvet scrunchie, completely irony-free. amazing!

i also skimmed pretty much through your green home, and was a little disappointed because it was more about techniques for building a green home from the ground up, i'm more interested in greening the 120 year old rowhome i'm in (which is way greener than new construction from the get-go, especially since the book primarily focused on stand-alone homes). it seemed a little "too-little too late" for the set who really want to be green because it's kind of "in". it was probably also a quick read for me because i already understand wood frame and residential construction, so i didn't really need the whole bit about how houses are put together (thanks, architecture school!). on the bright side, it totally piqued my interest in straw-bale construction.

rob (kalin) has been talking a lot lately about resurrecting the etsy book club, so my new two reads will be deep economy and banker to the poor, on his recommendation.

i'm really looking forward to posting a new tutorial this week, since the acetone-transfer card making one seemed to be something of a hit (yay! the more well-received they are, the more i will want to do them!)

super explosion!

okay, so imagine this recipe, in all its delicious glory, splattered over the walls, open shelving, every last dish, cup and plate in my kitchen, my shirt, my arm and my hair: welcome to my saturday evening:

fragrant chicken curry
makes about 4 servings

3 t oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 T red thai curry
4 cups coconut milk
2 stalks lemongrass, chopped
6 lime leaves, chopped
2/3 cup greek yogurt (i subbed 2/3 cup plain yogurt)
2 T apricot jam (i subbed about 1/4 cup apricot / applesauce from trader joe's)
1 lb. cooked chicken (erik cooked the chicken in some coconut milk on a skillet and it was amazing)
2 T cilantro, chopped
ground salt and black pepper
rice for serving (i made 2 cups dry and had lots)

1. heat the oil, add the onion, garlic, and cook over low heat for 5-10 minutes. stir in curry paste for 2-3 minutes. stir in coconut milk, lemongrass, lime leaves, yogurt and apricot jam. stir well. cover and simmer 30 minutes.
2. remove the pan from heat, let cool slightly.
(this is the part i had, um, issues with. i think the fact that i didn't let it cool enough had something to do with the disaster that incurred in the next step.)
3. transfer the sauce from the pan into a blender or food processor into a smooth puree.
(IMPORTANT NOTE: at this point, the curry has muscles and brute strength you're not aware of. you can think you're holding the blender lid on, when in fact, you are not. this results in curry flying everywhere imaginable, which is apparently frightening not only to the people cooking, but also their dogs.)
4. press as much of the puree as possible through a mesh sieve with the back of a wooden spoon back into the pan, discard the gooky stuff leftover.
5. add the chicken to the sauce, and add the cilantro leaves. season with salt and pepper. serve over rice, garnish with leftover cilantro and lime leaves.

oh gosh. i should have taken a photo, but, at the time, i was worried about my backsplashless kitchen walls getting stained and cleaning up in time to catch the movie we really wanted to see (well, we really wanted to see charlie wilson's war, but that was only playing at the riverview, which is really a crap theatre if there ever was one, plus it's the home of philadelphia's largest escalator, and i'm really not an escalator fan by any stretch of the imagination. so we went to see before the devil knows your dead, with the mindset that phillip seymour hoffman rarely disappoints, and we were pleased, as the movie was quite good.)

so i do hope you enjoy this delicious recipe. seriously, it might be the best dinner i've ever made, and i'd make it again if i could guarantee that i wouldn't be a spaz and destroy all sense of order or cleanliness in my house, not to mention scare poor little janie half to death.

things i'm excited about for this weekend.

super listy fun, weekend before christmas:

1. actually going to the so-called punk rock flea market (which they wisely postponed til saturday). for some reason i never make it to these, so i'm excited about checking it out, and indubitably spending money that i really don't need to spend.

2. going out in search of the tackiest christmas lights in philadelphia. it's kind of a fishtown vs. south philly contest, and i'm putting my money on south philly.

3. having a mini-marathon of christmas movies. i've not seen elf since i saw it in the theatre years ago and it's really not christmas til i've seen a christmas story at least 10 times.

4. christmas cookies. i made a batch of applesauce cookies last night for the dolly parton smoky mountain christmas version of stitch and bitch, but it just made me want to make lots and lots more cookies.

5. handmade pasta from the italian market, because my sister and i are making dinner for my parents on sunday. i keep forgetting what she said she was planning on making to go along with it, but i know my end of the deal is fresh pasta, so i'm pretty psyched for that. because pasta, bread and cupcakes are pretty much my all-time favorite foods (which, i guess, is why i will never, ever subscribe to the atkins lifestyle).

wii is awesome and old people love it.

so, the first time i played nintendo wii was at staceyrebecca's, with her unbelievably awesome little son. he probably beat me in a few of the games, but what i couldn't get over was how amazing wii is, how it totally transcends age and is probably fun no matter who you are (unless you are just not fun). lately, i've been pretty enamored of wii bowling, and i'm totally determined to win one game of wii tennis (someday, someday). anyway, so when my friend, eric, posted at geekadelphia about a nintendo wii being stolen from an old person home, i was appalled. why would someone do that? i mean, i understand wanting a wii really badly (um, hello, it's the funnest game on earth and if i had one i would never leave my house) but stealing from old people? no good. anyway, eric's collecting donations to give the home some games (the replacement wii system is already on its way), so if you have a little money kicking around your paypal account this week, consider popping him a line and giving a few bucks. it's old people. it's christmas. it's wii.

and, i'll post this since the unofficial theme for the day is video games, despite that i really don't ever talk about or think about or play video games. i caught this funny article in the etsy forums yesterday, and it made me laugh, so i'll repost it here.

okay, back to handmade! enough about video games!

off kilter and back in the swing of things.

so i feel a little off-kilter today, as i've been in brooklyn at the labs for a couple days, and being away always throws me off. i come back and feel like janie's even weirder than before, i feel completely out of the loop socially (although sometimes i feel like i feel like that all the time, and i'm just a sensitive sad sap for no reason sometimes anyway), my house is a wreck and i have so much catching up to do, even if i was only away for 48 hours.

i managed to get out about half of the orders i have that had remained unfilled or accumulated while i was away (you're all so sweet, this holiday season at girlscantell has been overwhelmingly wonderful) this morning and also get a lot done for work, which is good because the reason i was in brooklyn was for meetings. and, boy, did we ever have meetings. but it's all very inspiring, and makes me feel so very lucky to do what i do. it's totally my dream job, and even when people drive me totally batty (seriously, there is no reason for anyone to send 5 emails about the same thing to the teams inbox, you know?), it's still something i totally wouldn't trade for anything. and i don't think that's something many people say about their jobs.

in other news, i just got the only non-handmade thing i bought for myself this christmas in the mail - a big ol' pile of cd's from the merge records online store. yay. i'm importing them into itunes as we speak. i had been considering doing some kind of series of year end lists, like some people do, but i really don't consume enough new music or movies to make it interesting. a list of top ten albums or films from me for 2007 would basically be a list of *all* the movies or music i saw or got in 2007 (and might not even add up to ten of each). so i'll leave those lists to the professional appreciators. (i'm declaring myself an amateur appreciator, thank you.) and if i were to make a list of my top 10 favorite etsy shops, well, that would be silly. i have waaaaaaaaay more than ten favorite etsy shops, and i kind of shout them out all the time anyway, right? no need to wait til the year's end.

the image above is from the philly etsy team trunk show at the mew.
see you all sunday, 1-6pm, at tattooed moms for my last show of the season!

love letters (yet again)

dear weather,
awww. walking around, flyering for the philly etsy team trunk show this friday, was positively delightful. it finally felt like winter, and, although i grumbled a bit at first because of the cold, i did eventually rather enjoy how red my nose and cheeks got, the little sniffles, and feeling the flurries falling on my coat and tights. luckily, my walking and flyering involved popping into lots of coffee shops, which of course meant much access to hot beverages, so i think that might have had something to do with my not minding the blustery snowiness. yay. keep it coming. just don't let the snow overstay its welcome and get all gray and gross in the gutter, okay?
xox,
sara girlscantell.

ps. oh gosh. so i was introduced to dexter earlier this week? ah. maze. ing. totally. if you loved six feet under (which i did, immensely), it's the perfect follow up. and michael c. hall? is effing adorable in it. (i KNOW, he was barely good looking in six feet under. nate was adorable in that show, and yet his new show? boo.) anyway. dexter. so good. must watch more.

okay. back to work!

winterizing wonderland.

this morning, i did my friend who works for the united way a favor and let them come over and winterize my house as a segment for the fox philly morning show. so, at 5:30am, the camera crew came over and we did a handful of little clips about bundling up my water heater, sealing the old windows in my office and kitchen, and adding weather strips to my front door. anyway, that's all pretty lame compared to how hilariously entertaining jennaphr frederick is in person.

here's what we learned from jennaphr:
she really likes reality tv, especially the show about the celebrities who ride bulls (i had no idea such a show existed), and she also likes the show about the little people. a hybrid of these two shows would be amazing.
she kept calling me an eco-freak, mostly after i explained that my kitchen was painted with a clay-based eco-paint (does that make me an eco-freak? i just don't like VOCs), and she talks about tofutti a lot. i told her all about etsy, and that she should buy handmade for the holidays, and after a little convincing, i got her to mention buyhandmade.org on the air, and gave her a bunch of promos.

so, that was my morning. i'm hoping they put clippits on the fox site, i'll have to do some searching later to find some. i think bits of it were actually pretty entertaining, like when she forgot the word for 'water heater' and just general silliness. annnnnd... now i want to go back to bed. eep!

edit: okay, the best i could find was this clip. i'm not in it (wooohooo!) but they're making my office all winterized and cozy. wheee!

a needy little post.

i'm at etsy today, so you get a photo leftover from yesterday. terriers! yay!

so, this site is hilarious to me.

anyway. girlscantell has been quite a-buzz lately, and i just figured it was because pretty much all of etsy is breaking records and being awesome lately, but then in a convo someone mentioned girlscantell as having been in the this month's craft: magazine. so if you send me a link or scanned image of this mention, i'll totally mail you a set of potholders as a gift (you can leave a comment here and i'll contact you to swap info). sweet!

last night was an adventure in dyes. i really hadn't dyed much before (well, except that summer i worked as a camp counselor... dying is a requisite for camp counselor jobs). overall, i'm pleased with the results, and, unless some major catastrophe goes down in the next 48 hours, i'll be posting some of the fruits of my labor in the shoppity. yay.

finally, my netflix queue is reaching an all-time low. give me your netflix recommendations! i need movies!