kimberly ah

Aug 10 2013

Shark Week

Do you celebrate Shark Week? We never really did until we met our neighbor friends. Tonight they are hosting a Shark Week party, complete with shark-themed cocktails, movies, decorations, dog and (thanks to me and Pinterest) a Shark-themed cake. I will share details next week, but for now, I’ll just share the shark sign that I created for the party. It is inspired by this awesome wood version. I made it a few years ago (also for a Shark Week party) and I kept my hand drawn templates online…so easy to recreate it! This year, I added glitter with my favorite glue pen…I hope the neighbors don’t mind a little shark sparkle.

Aug 09 2013

7 Comments

coffee talk, Trader Joe's

Coffee Talk | Trader Joe’s Cold Brew Coffee Concentrate

Our local Trader Joe’s (the Oak Park location) put their new Cold Brew Coffee Concentrate on the shelves last week and sold out instantly. I guess this shouldn’t be surprising, since cold brew is the latest craze in coffee brewing right now. Nonetheless, I was mad at Naoto for not snagging some up sooner. When it arrived again in the store shipment a few days later, Naoto pulled a couple of bottles for me. (One of the many, many perks of being married to a TJs guy.)

Last week, I was hitting the afternoon slump–the time of the day when, if I look at the napping cat for too long, I tend to join her. Instead, I pulled the concentrate out of the fridge with high hopes.

It’s good. Very good.

The bottle recommends one part concentrate to two parts water or milk. I like my iced coffees with cream (hot coffee is to be drunk black, unless it’s Dunkin Donuts!), so this is what I mixed up:

2 oz Cold Brew Coffee Concentrate

3.5 oz water

0.5 oz cream

splash of simple syrup

Serve over ice.

Lately I’ve been too lazy (seriously, so lazy) to make simple syrup, so I’ve been substituting with agave syrup. It’s surprisingly good!

I’ve been drinking iced coffees in the mornings and in the afternoons thanks to the conveniently chilled bottle in the fridge. And at $7.99, it’s done wonders for our coffee budget (which includes constant trips to Panera, Dunkin Donuts and Caribou throughout the week!) And it’s made us curious to try making cold brew of our own…one of these days!

Tagged coffee, Trader Joe's

Aug 08 2013

2 Comments

adventures, cocktails, what's for dinner

K&N and the Girl & the Goat

Naoto has been wanting to eat at Stephanie Izard’s Girl & the Goat for years. Our neighbors have eaten there a few times and have raved about it so much. Naoto has been trying to get us a reservation for awhile now…he was especially anxious to eat there after we ate at Little Goat and had such a delicious experience.

Last Friday, we were able to go after one of his co-workers offered up her reservation to us. (Thanks, Missy!) So at five o’clock on a Friday night, we sat down to a dining adventure at the Goat. My favorite part was the cocktails. Don’t get me wrong–the food was AMAZING–but my cocktail, the Foghorn, was the scene-stealer (pictured above with Naoto’s boring beer). The Foghorn is, according to the menu, “SanFrancisco’s answer to the Manhattan”. It is made with gin, sweet vermouth, maraschino liqueur and orange bitters, garnished with an orange peel. So simple, but when it’s the right mix of quality ingredients and good proportions, simple can be so good! It was sweet, but not too sweet and no one ingredient overpowered the others–a perfect drink in my book. I also enjoyed the Charlie Ross cocktail (gin, sugar and bitters)…so tasty!

The menu at Girl & the Goat is separated into three parts: veggies, fish and meat. It is a small-plate restaurant, where you order several things and share a few bites of each thing. I like this style of restaurant, because if something is underwhelming, it’s good to know something new and different will be showing up at the table soon. But, at Girl & the Goat, nothing was underwhelming.

We ordered six dishes (pictured in order below): Squash Blossom Rangoon (crab and yogurt inside a lightly fried squash blossom), Kona Kompachi Crudo (raw fish with aioli and pork), Bristol Bay Sockeye Salmon (salmon with a peach panzanelle salad), Roasted Cauliflower (pure heaven, with pine nuts), Sweet Corn Goat Cheese Wontons (goat cheese wontons served with tiny heirloom tomatoes, sweet corn and popcorn!) and Wood Oven Roasted Pig Face (pork cheek served with a fried egg and potatoes). Every dish was really creative and interesting, but my favorite was probably the most simple–the cauliflower. Naoto and I roast cauliflower pretty often around here, and it’s pretty delicious, but it’s nothing like this. I can’t stop thinking that they must really have a secret to making it so good… I’m glad Naoto let me eat most of the cauliflower, and because of his generosity, I only had a bite of the pig face. He was crazy excited to eat Girl & the Goat’s most popular dish. Of course, we had to get coffee and dessert. Naoto got the Miso-Butterscotch Budino (a creamy miso and butterscotch pudding with cashews, pineapple and bacon toffee on top). After this dessert, and the other miso dessert at the Little Goat Diner, I’m convinced that Naoto has the utmost respect for Stephanie Izard and her skills with this Japanese ingredient. I ordered the Goat Cheese Bavarois (brown sugar cake topped with blueberries, caramel krispies and goat cheese). I would tell you that the creamy goat cheese was the best part of this dessert, but then I’d be leaving out how amazing the brown sugar cake was, and the blueberries, and the caramelized krispie gems…What I liked best about Girl & the Goat was that it’s a casual restaurant…no white tablecloths or pretentious servers…it’s just incredibly creative food in a comfortable atmosphere. We definitely want to go back again…the menu changes all the time, so it would be fun to go back in another season to see what’s new. And to get another Foghorn.

Tagged adventures, cocktails, coffee, food, summer

Aug 06 2013

4 Comments

Forest Park, Oak Park, gardening, summer manifesto

Garden Update: Leaning Towers of Tomatoes

This week at the garden, I was informed that I bought “terrible tomato cages”.

Thanks for the “advice”, fellow gardener…a couple of months too late.

This first year has been all about learning. I didn’t remember from my dad’s garden (which is about twenty times the size of our plot) that tomato plants grow this much. I didn’t do a lot of research about each of the tomato varieties that we planted, but if I had, I would have learned that Brandywines (the tomatoes pictured above) are very heavy, and tend to weigh the plant down a ton. We should have staked it with a pile driver. (Kidding.) Now that we are harvesting the tomatoes, I feel like as long as we can keep the plants standing and producing, we’ve succeeded for Year One.Right now, since we cannot turn back time and buy sturdier cages, we are doing what we can to keep the plants stable and (as much as possible) out of the walking paths in the community garden. We bought some sturdy stakes and have tried to situate them in a way that holds up the cage along with the fruit-laden plants. We also brought some twine to the garden so we could tie up the wayward branches (as seen above on one of our Early Girls). Our garden plot isn’t going to win any Garden of the Year awards–especially considering the Wild West portion (pictured above…seriously, have you ever seen such a mess of plants?!) but we are really happy with our tomato harvests so far. We’ve pulled juicy red tomatoes from each of our four varieties and they are all sweet and delicious and there are many, many more green ones in waiting. As long as we can keep the plants standing, I’m sure we’ll be eating tomatoes throughout August and into September. We’ve also harvested a few more peas and some lima beans–not quite enough to make a side dish, but enough for me to have a first little taste of freshly picked peas and limas…a win in my book.

Tagged food, forest park, garden, gardening, homemaking, summer

Aug 02 2013

3 Comments

gardening, home is a 1970s apartment, homemaking, summer manifesto

The Summer Balcony

The balcony is in full summer mode right now. Everything is blooming like crazy, even my old geraniums! (They started blooming in mid-June and have been going strong ever since!) And, I’m happy to report that it’s August 2nd and ALL of my plants are not just alive, they are thriving! I think this is only partly due to the fact that I’ve been diligent about watering, but mostly due to the mild weather and the fact that I picked pretty easy going plants this year.

In the spring, Naoto and I relocated the bird feeder to the north end of the balcony. We also decided to stop filling it during the summer. The birds can find plenty of food in nature right now, and the birdseed makes such a mess on the balcony and blows into my flower pots, starting weeds in my flowers. We’re happy to fill it up again in the winter to feed the birds when they need it most and (more importantly) to give Presley back her birdwatching pastime. Once we created more room, I made a little conversation area on the south end of the balcony. It’s hard to work with the space, since it’s only five feet wide. There’s not much room for walking (as you can tell by the fact that the chairs are soooo close together!) It’s not perfect, but it’s fine for small gatherings. We’ve had our neighbor friends over quite often lately and it’s been wonderful to take advantage of the mild summer nights out there. On the north side, we have our little bistro table and the “potting area” (the pile of pots in the corner). In the morning, this area is nicely shaded for early morning letter writing, reading and crafting. (You know…the things I should be doing instead of watching the TODAY show!)

I’m a little nervous that August is going to be sweltering since we’ve had such a perfectly mild summer so far, but for now, I’m just going to try to soak up as many hours as I can outside.

Tagged decorating, garden, gardening, home, home improvement, homemaking, summer

Aug 01 2013

4 Comments

gardening, homemaking, Simple Summer Suppers, summer manifesto

Simple Summer Suppers: Homegrown Panzanella

Tuesday I was watching the TODAY Show (Don’t judge…it’s a sickness, I know.) and Giada was whipping up a dish with bread and tomatoes and artichokes and vinegar and basil–panzanella! I could not stop thinking about it. So I decided, eying the fresh harvest of tomatoes and basil sitting on the counter, that we would have to have panzanella for dinner.

Panzanella is the perfect summer meal. It’s the ideal recipe for fresh garden (or farmers market) tomatoes. I can’t imagine this dish could ever be enjoyed in the winter with the mealy, barely pink, imported grocery store tomatoes. Nope…better enjoy it now while we are harvesting the rich red tomatoes of summer.

Homegrown Panzanella
(slightly adapted from Giada’s Artichoke & Tomato Panzanella)

3 cups bread, cubed into 1-2 inch pieces (I used ciabatta)

3 large tomatoes, cut into 1-2 inch pieces, or sliced (I used a mix of tiny Juliets and two big Brandywines, all freshly picked from our garden!)

1 can artichoke hearts, sliced in half

handful of chopped basil

2/3 cup good olive oil (For salads, we love Trader Joe’s California Estate Olive Oil.)

1/4 cup white wine vinegar

drizzle of olive oil for cooking

salt & pepper

Preheat a grill pan on medium heat. Toss your bread and artichokes with a little bit of olive oil. Sprinkle with a little salt and pepper and add the bread and the artichokes to the preheated grill. Turn every couple of minutes until each side is golden brown. Remove from the grill and add to a serving bowl with your tomatoes and basil. Toss to combine.

Whisk the good olive oil and vinegar together and add salt and pepper to taste. Pour over the salad. Toss and serve.

You could add olives, red onion or parmesan cheese.

As it was, the panzanella was amazing. We ate it as our main course, with a side of fresh green beans from the farmers market and a couple of glasses of red wine. We took advantage of another mild summer night and ate outside…it just might have been the perfect summer meal.

Tagged food, forest park, garden, gardening, homemaking, summer

Jul 30 2013

3 Comments

adventures, gardening

Oak Park Conservatory–Uncorked

I am a sucker for local events. The Oak Park Conservatory is hosting Uncorked Summer Nights on the last Fridays of the next few months. The first one was last Friday and I went with Naoto and our neighbor friend Karen to check it out. For $10, you get two drink tickets, a tour of the conservatory, passed appetizers and then a chance to mill around with other plant lovers both inside the conservatory and outside on the patio.

I’ve never been to the conservatory…what a shame because it is such a local treasure! The actual conservatory was built in 1929 and it holds more than 3000 plants. There are three sections in the conservatory–the fern room, the rainforest room and the desert room. Our docent gave us a thorough tour of each room and I took plenty of pictures.

Above is the view as you walk into the fern room. You are overcome with green, in the best way possible. Here are some other views from the fern room. I’m not sure what the first two plants are (I just loved their interesting shapes!), but the last one is a lemon tree.

As we walked into the rainforest room, we could feel the change in humidity. Three birds live in this room (they chatter at you as you walk by!) and there’s a river running though the room with a few large, colorful koi fish and a tiny turtle! (It’s hard to see the little guy in my picture, but he’s right by the koi’s tail.) We also saw a cacao tree (third picture down) and a huge fiddle leaf fig (not pictured), the biggest “thing” in home blogging since chevron.The last room, the desert, was dry and warm (obviously). I was most looking forward to seeing the century plant, an agave from Mexico that only blooms once every thirty years. The picture below is from a few weeks ago when the plant started growing through the roof of the conservatory. The book club ladies and I walked down one evening to take a peek at it poking through the roof of the conservatory. Sadly, before it had a chance to really flourish, it broke off in a bad storm the week before. But we got to see the blooms up close on display since the conservatory staff was able to save those from the broken plant. From the inside of the conservatory, the base of the century plant looks like an enormous, Dr. Suess-ish plant with a giant asparagus poking out of it. I’m really not a desert person, but I loved seeing the cacti and succulents up close. There were so many interesting ones! The one below was part of a series of enormous aloe plants. Naoto cut his leg on one. (We were warned not to touch the cacti!) There were also plenty of little mice frolicking about the plants in here. It was alarming at first (they were really out in the open!) but they quickly became fun to watch (as long as they didn’t run out into the walkways!) Karen took this picture of Naoto and me in front of the century plant. I decided to wear my new floral dress (as a departure from my usual summer black and grey and cat shirts) for the gardening occasion. I’m already looking forward to going back and exploring more during August’s Uncorked event!

Tagged adventures, garden, gardening, summer

Jul 29 2013

1 Comment

adventures, Japan 2013, Office Supplies

Japan Bound

Last week, Naoto booked our flight to Japan! We were going to wait until November to go…that way we could avoid planning around Honor Flight and the garden. But when Naoto saw a deal for the first week in September (that would save us more than $400 per ticket!!), we knew we had to book the flight right away. Lucky for us, it doesn’t interfere too much with Honor Flight (on September 12th) and hopefully we will get to enjoy most of our tomatoes throughout August.

I am already plotting out my office supply shopping, washi tape wishlist, my Mister Donut menus…you know, all of the important stuff. We are staying in Tokyo for our whole trip this time. (Last time, we stayed in Tokyo, Niigata and Mie.) Most of Naoto’s family is there now, and Hisae (of the famous care packages) is coming in from Mie to join us in our adventures.

August is going to be full of Japan preparations, so I’m sure I’ll be blathering on about it here on the blog.

Tagged adventures, Japan, office supplies, summer

Jul 26 2013

4 Comments

Office Supplies, snail mail

Japanese Care Package

I came home Tuesday to a care package from Naoto’s sister (my sister-in-law), Hisae. Holy cow, was it a good one! Hisae sent Naoto some stuff (the serious looking packages on the left side) and she sent me a ton of Japanese snacks, sweets, some awesome office supplies, a huge bag of Japanese postage stamps and super-soft socks.So far, I’ve only eaten the little peanut candies (in the bag with orange and yellow stripes) and the cheese curl-like snack (behind the peanut candy)…both are really wonderful. The peanuts have a hard candy shell and tiny crumbles of peanut candy inside. Naoto remembers eating them as a kid. The cheese curls have three strong cheeses pictured on the bag (cheddar, bleu and one other), but they were cheesy and sweet…weirdly delicious.

I am most curious to try the actual Cheetos–one is salmon roe & mayonnaise flavor and the other is barbeque sauce flavor. I love when American snacks are made with foreign flavors…I usually find them far more interesting than the American ones. (It could be the novelty though…) Green tea Kit Kats are my favorite (and Hisae sent those along with mango Kit Kats!)

The office supplies deserve their own post next week once I’ve gotten a chance to try them. In the meantime, I think I’m going to try the mango Kit Kat while I clean house this afternoon!

Thanks again, Hisae!

Tagged food, snail mail

Jul 24 2013

2 Comments

Forest Park, Oak Park, gardening, summer manifesto

Garden Update: Let the Harvesting Begin!

Well, at least a small harvest can being…

Above is our first summertime harvest from the garden on Saturday. Small, I know…but things are just getting started. We picked our red Juliet tomato on Saturday afternoon before heading to the progressive dinner. We sliced it in two and toasted our first home-grown tomato. The peas were a little bit of a surprise, since they were planted in the Wild West portion of the garden and it’s hard to see what’s going on with them (a rookie mistake!) There are quite a few smaller peas still out there, but these three were ready to be picked and they were sweet and fresh and perfect.

In the “garden challenges” department…yesterday I received a tweet from Mr. Brownthumb about a fallen tomato plant. Sure enough, when I went to the garden later in the afternoon, I found this:
So, lesson learned…get larger, sturdier, more expensive tomato cages… At this point, it’s too late, but you can bet that Naoto and I will be doing some research over the winter to learn better ways to support our tomatoes next year! We just need to support them long enough to produce their little fruits and keep them out of the pathways. I re-staked the fallen Brandywine plant and tied up more wayward branches. The garden isn’t pretty at this point, but more tomatoes are turning and that’s really all we asked for in our rookie year!