On Habit (And AT {kind of a rant}) *plus, bricky-kitchen warning*

(I meant to post this a while ago but it got lost in the ether - the picture is also from a period when I had just cleaned and rearranged the whole kitchen. Needless to say it doesn't look like that right now)

I still get emails from Apartment Therapy. I was an enthusiastic participant in the website when I first found it a couple of years ago, but my enthusiasm waned as I sent in pictures of stuff I wanted advice on and got snotty responses ("get rid of the rug" was my favorite. Let it be known, the question in question had nothing to do with the rug). But the community and helpful people were addicting so I kept going back. I participated in at least two Cures and one Color contest and have learned quite a bit. One of the bigger things I learned was that I would rather share my projects with a select audience (a.k.a. you lovely readers who care enough to click on my blog) instead of tossing them to the lions commenters at AT, even though I have gotten good advice there in the past.

But like I said, I still get emails from them. Not AT, technically, but The Kitchn, the affiliated cooking blog. I still hate the spelling, but enjoy the (much less negative) commenters (although don't get them started on ground turkey, apparently it is the hot dog of the poultry world and no respectable cook goes near it. F you all, foodie snobs. You don't know where my ground poultry comes from). Anyways, my point is, they're starting the Kitchen Cure and looking for participants. And I realized, my kitchen doesn't need Curing. Maybe a quick mop and scrub, but not a Cure. This is big, people.
I am happy with my ridiculous "retro" kitchen, as far as I can be (I will say, whoever thinks a 3-D backsplash is a good idea anywhere, especially behind a stovetop, STOP NOW. Unless you want to spend your weekends cleaning it with a toothbrush). Yes, it was designed for people who don't cook, yes it is nearly impossible to clean, yes the wacky dropped ceilings mean I can't put much of anything in the upper cabinets. Yes it is the first thing you see when you walk in the door so party guests immediately settle Right Where I Am Working unless they prefer Right In Front Of The Oven When I Need To Get In There Right Now So Pick Up Your Drink And Get Out Of The Way.

But I can make Thanksgiving dinner for 30 when it comes down to it, and I can tell you it will be TASTY. I love having my electric kettle next to Matt's wacky double-decker bus shaped tea tin and my grandmother's rad old flour and sugar canisters next to the huge cutting board my dad made me that totally needs oiling right now (be right back). This is MY kitchen. Someday I will gut it and it will not be retro any more. But all my things will still be there, and then there will just be no more little undercurrent of Hate when I talk about it with people (esp. those who call it cute, retro or classic Avocado 70's, as these are inevitably people who don't cook).

Can I Get A Hmmm? (Plus Quick Recipe)

Hmm. I had a very busy weekend but need to really quickly share a recipe. We went and visited family in Woodland, Colusa (this was a LOT of driving) and Grass Valley (new baby to visit) before the weather gets crappy. And they ALL sent me home with produce. I now have a stack of tomatoes (even some green ones to fry), a pile of pomegranates and a passel of peppers (in both hot and bell varieties) that all need some love. So last night when we got back, I...

quartered and seeded a pile of tomatoes (enough to cover a sheet pan),
shucked a head and a half of garlic,
tossed them in olive oil and italian spices,
and stuck them in the oven at 275F for two hours (three might have been even better).

Then I tossed it all in the food processor (I am way too lazy to peel tomatoes and this makes the peel a non-issue) and tonight we are having fresh tomato sauce on our pasta. People put in onion, carrot, all sorts of fancy things but if you slow-roast 'em you really don't need much else other than tomatoes.

That said, I also stuck a couple of paint swatches up in the living room. I think my paint choices were too dark as my "light" color has become my go-to choice for my accent wall color. So I think I am going to have to go up the swatch for my lighter color now. Which is fine. Right now my walls look like they have patches of milky coffee all over them. And I think I am going to go with it. It's a tiny bit weird with the warm wood but I am not working around the colors of my hated kitchen just in case we never change it (if we never change it, suffice to say I will be at the very least refinishing some nasty cabinets so I can deal with that). It works with the furniture and the carpet so everything else can just fight a little bit less now.

And for my Halloween costume, suffice to say I am not hard core enough to be Lady Gaga this year (also, it's gonna be cold!) nor am I able to afford a makeup artist! So here is your clue...

Best Halloween Costume Idea Ever.

So Matt is, bizarrely enough, a big fan of Lady Gaga. He hates club music but LOVES that she writes her own stuff and he has found a bunch of videos of her doing acoustic versions of her big hits and she really has a voice and plays the piano, as opposed to so many starlets who sing via AutoTune and don't play anything. So he has kind of won me over on her behalf (I have a soft spot for small amounts of techno-ish stuff and an even bigger soft spot for those who don't lip sync on SNL). Seriously, the song is catchy but the video is amazingly well crafted. Watch the whole thing, it's a mini-movie in like seven minutes.

If I was willing to spend the $$$, we could go as the couple from this video. And that would be AMAZING. Maybe if I was Gala Darling. Not for the party I'm going to though. It should be fun, it's a lot of cool people who love special effects so the decor should be great and costumes should veer away from the slutty fill-in-the-blank.

And Matt is totally getting a Lady Gaga t-shirt for Christmas.

Holy Crap (or Things That Are Only Exciting To Me)

The electrician finally made it by today. And oh my dear lord am I happy he did. Now my house is a busy, cluttered place. This is not really my style. I have decided the best way to describe it is that I find it visually stressful. This light, while you may think it too West Elm-catalog-looking, is another little oasis of calm in a sea of clutter character. We have a lot of stuff, I think it's unavoidable living with a packrat musician who needs gear for every possible musical situation (which is fair on some level as it is his job). But it makes for a busy house when most of the front of the house has no walls so you can see every part of every room from every other room (well, living room, dining room, kitchen and bar, at least).

Every time I see the new fixture I smile (or sigh with relief). Go figure. Matt's first response was "It's boring. Is that canvas? Can I paint it?" My response to him, "That's linen, and NO". The band clarified for me though, it's not BORING, it's simple. And that's awesome, thankyouverymuch.

Brandied Pumpkin Pie Recipe (I know it's too late for Emma, but maybe somebody else can still get some use out of it)

I figured I should post something less complicated than last weekend's recipe just to balance it out. This one is simple but you do get bang for your buck! I'm not a big crust person so I have no problems making this in a premade crust. Let me know if you need a crust recipe.

2 eggs
1 can (15 oz.) pumpkin
1 can (12 oz.) evaporated milk
2/3 c. brown sugar
2 T. cognac or other brandy
1/4 t. salt
2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. ginger
1/4 t. cloves
1/4 t. nutmeg

Preheat oven to 375F. Whisk together all of above ingredients until combined. Pour into pie shell. Cover edge of pie crust with foil so it doesn't burn. Bake 25 mins. and remove foil, then bake 25 more mins. or until knife inserted near center comes out clean. Cool and eat. Whipped cream is a nice addition...

Easy stuff is nice to cook too. No picture, because I won't be making this until I have people over to eat it or I will eat it all by myself!

Edit: I still want more answers for the question in my last post... help me out here people!

Halloween Question

Hello all, I have another question for everyone. What do you folks all do on Halloween? Do you dress up? Scare little Trick-or-Treaters? Stay home with the lights off? Go on a bar crawl dressed as a zombie?

See, there are many options available in a town like Reno, and most of them involve dressing sluttily in very cold weather (you'd never think zombies could be so, um, sexy). In recent memory I have gone as a 1940s Girl Reporter (excuse to wear a fedora + suit coat = pretty darn warm) and a Mildly Irritated Scientist (too lazy for Mad Scientist + excuse to wear glasses + a lab coat = those things are warmer than they look). Not that I have photo evidence of any of these, of course. Anyways, this year some friends are throwing a Halloween party. And they are thorough. Heck, invitations are already out and it's barely October. So I want a rad costume.

My question is, does anyone have any reasonably priced and not slutty clever costume ideas they'd care to share? I have been hooked on a certain blog that makes dressing all 1940's style look super easy and I kind of want to go with that (make Matt grow a pencil thin mustache and go with me as Django, he's already got the guitar), but I have no idea who I'd be, character-wise. I can't just go as "from the 40's" (or at least I have decided I can't).

Any help? Ideas? People who are better at this than I am?

Edit: I forgot - Zack took pictures one year. Very artistically, too. Matt stayed home that year and he was my "date" and then got in trouble with some girl who didn't bother to notice I had a WEDDING RING ON that was not part of the costume. Sorry, Z.

Quickie (for Wende)

I was trying to think of the Jewish hip hop artist Wende was looking for but got distracted. By Hasidic reggae. I hate reggae, as a rule, but Matisyahu is kind of an exception. Don't ask me why.