I know I said I’d only be posting on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays for now, but I couldn’t resist a tiny celebration post for two years of Kimberly AH.
I started this blog two years ago today and apparently I document this tree branch from my balcony to celebrate. (See last year’s post here.) Thank you for another year of reading!
Taking a break from regularly scheduled programming to wish my dad a very happy birthday!
Happy Birthday, Dad! May your year be filled with ripe garden tomatoes, freshly baked bread, glasses of Old Overholt and perhaps a few Portillo’s beefs.
xo
P.S. The picture is from last summer…I can’t wait to start gardening again!!
Even though I gave up making my own Christmas cards last year, I’m still going strong in the Valentine-making department. Last year, I did mostly store-bought cards with handmade garlands but this year, I made my cards again.
I love a good pun, and I wanted to use my cat template, so I came up with these cat-themed cards for my cat-fan friends. Each one ended up being a little bit different because I was spending out some Valentine papers from yesteryear. I started with a good pun–You’re the cat’s meow!–and typed it up on Paper Source 4-bar heart cards. Then I stamped on a cat and a heart. I had tiny hearts punched out of leftover paper that I glued on, along with vintage red sequins (using my favorite glue pen). 
Each card ended up being a little bit different (and each card had varying amounts of Presley fur and coffee spills.)
The non-cat people got the same heart cards stamped with something tea or coffee related…slightly less exciting than cat puns.
Happy Valentine’s Day! I hope your day is filled with love and pink mail!
On Friday night, I hosted a mini party for the Olympics Opening Ceremony. Even though it was a small party, I felt compelled to decorate just a little bit. (I find the decorations distract guests from my messy desk.) I searched Pinterest for some ideas and found this fun flag print-out.
I trimmed out the flags of participating countries (they all weren’t represented, sadly) and pasted them around some baker’s twine. (Presley helped. She’s on Team USA.)
I made two separate garlands and hung them up over the TV–front and center with the Olympic action–and right next to the official Adami Hasegawa Medal Count board. Naoto and I have a medal count competition–USA v Japan. 
For snacks, I made these cheese crackers and these salami crisps. The cheese crackers were delicious and couldn’t have been simpler. I made the dough early in the afternoon, rolled it into the log and kept it in the fridge. Then, right before the guests came, I sliced the crackers and popped them in the oven. My house smelled delicious and the crackers were amazing right out of the oven.
The sausage crisps were easy too. I used thinly sliced Trader Joe’s Chianti sausage and instead of Giada’s recommended basil, I used dill for topping…I love dill, and I felt like it was more “Russian”.
It was a fun way to welcome back the games and to gear up for two weeks of snow and ice (both on TV and outside…I don’t think our snow is going to melt until April.)
P.S. I really wanted to make these Olympic torch snacks.
P.P.S. For another Olympic party, go here.
Naoto turned forty on Sunday and on Saturday night, we threw him a surprise party. I say we because it really did take a village to pull this off. I could have never done it without the help of our neighbor friends, who sat through many planning and plotting meetings, lied their collective pants off to keep the secret and helped gather, prepare and–most importantly–hide tons of food, beer and wine. Since Naoto works a million hours a week, I thought it would be easy to plot and scheme the party details, but with all the text messages, emails, tweets and invitation responses flying around, I was on edge for a month…every time my phone would ding, ping or light up, I had a small heart attack, especially when Naoto was around.
Naoto thought a few of us were going to go out to dinner and then coming back to our place for cake and drinks. This cover story made it easy because I had an excuse to be cleaning house and decorating for the “after party”. But instead of a tiny party, I invited a lot more people–office friends, Trader Joe’s friends, old friends and new friends. And, instead of going out, we kept the party at our place and served Freddy’s meatballs, SPAM musubis and other tasty snacks.
Because we were trying hard to be sly, we decided that Brett and I should take Naoto out for a snack and some errands–some ridiculous errands, especially since it was snowing like crazy Saturday afternoon. You can see in the picture above how quickly the snow was falling and accumulating as we walked from the Vietnamese restaurant to the bar for a drink.
Stacy and Karen stayed back and set up the food and welcome the guests. Then, we brought Naoto back for the surprise. 
Does he look surprised? I think he was. It was incredibly hard to keep a straight face as we walked down the hall to our apartment. And the group was so quiet that Naoto got almost all the way into the dining room before he realized anything was happening. It was awesome. 
I was so thrilled that so many people were able to make it in spite of the weather. Our good friends from Iowa made an attempt to drive to Chicago, but sadly, they got snowed out. That was the only bummer of the night though…otherwise the party was perfect and Naoto was joyful. (Even more joyful than normal.)
I ordered the cake from Kay’s Bakery in Forest Park and it was delicious. Chocolate cake with fudge filling and white buttercream…yum! I had them keep it simple and then I made an easy cake “topper” with some scrapbooking numbers I had in my stash. Karen and I made the “pouf installation” last week using our handmade tissue poufs, my gold glitter New Year’s Eve garland and some gold glitter rosettes (made by Jackie and me) . It added fun color to the corner of the dining room. It’s going to hang up there for the rest of the month (at least). 
I made my usual stamped kraft paper table cloth (it featured Happy Birthday, coffee and random Japanese stamps) and because I am foil-printed coaster happy lately, I ordered some special coasters for the occasion. The only other decorations at the party were adorable pictures of young Naoto scattered around the apartment. (I shared one yesterday.)
Thanks to everyone who made the night possible and so much fun. It meant a lot to Naoto that you braved the snow and the cold weather to celebrate this milestone with him. And a huge thanks to Naoto’s colleague Kristen for taking most of the wonderful pictures in this blog post. (If it weren’t for Kristen, there would be no pictures!)
Happy 2014!
Our New Years Eve was just about perfect–Karen, Naoto, me…Manhattans and steaks at Golden Steer, wine and sweets at home, and an Adami Prosecco toast at midnight…
It snowed in Chicago, making for the perfect wintry backdrop to the festivities. In fact, it’s pretty much been snowing since New Year’s Eve, making for a quiet start to 2014. 
All we did on January 1st was watch Law & Order…it’s kind of a tradition on New Year’s Day to get sucked into TV marathons and Law & Order is our favorite. I should be embarrassed to admit that I watched from 9AM (January 1) until 2AM (January 2), but I also hung up my new calendar and wrote out a few New Year cards, so we’ll call that a productive first day of 2014.
Today, I’m putting Christmas away and trying to get organized for real…a constant battle around here.
I hope your new year has been equally fantastic.
The new year is catching me completely off guard. Thankfully, I have a few calendars to keep me on track.
I bought the Sakana Saijiki fish calendar for Naoto. It is full of amazing illustrations of sea life and calligraphy that I cannot read. I’m excited to have a grid again. The calendars that I bought last year were all more decorative than functional. The fish calendar will hang in the kitchen, so it will be nice for Naoto to see what we have planned for the month.
The little “Things With Faces” calendar was a gift from Mollie. I’m looking forward to breaking out my colored pencils or watercolors and filling the pictures in each month.
And the Orange Beautiful calendar was a gift from Donovan. The colors and the fonts are perfect.
As far as a datebook for 2014…well, I’m still waiting. After a couple of months of waffling, I decided yesterday to go back to using Franklin Covey. Once my pages come in (MID-JANUARY!!) I will do a little post on my set-up.
Today I am cleaning house and stringing up a garland for our teeny New Year’s Eve party tonight. We are having dinner at Golden Steer and drinking cocktails at home and maybe making a few resolutions…
Happy New Year!
Last Saturday, we had a Pleasant Home Book Club Christmas Tea at Peggy’s house. 
There were so many of us that we had to sit at two different and wonderfully decorated tables at Peggy’s.
We enjoyed ham salad (made by me), egg salad, cucumber sandwiches, cherry almond scones, homemade ricotta, homemade lemon curd and homemade Meyer lemon curd (so delicious, I can’t even explain), Christmas cookies, champagne cocktails, tea…my tiny plate above was the first of many. 
After we ate, we moved into the sitting room and talked about our book–The Cat by Colette. (By the way, The Cat deserves its own blog post sometime in January.)
It happened to be the Winter Solstice, so we got to enjoy Peggy’s beautifully lit sitting room as the sun went down. It seriously is Christmas heaven over there…so many twinkle lights!
Thank you to Peggy for another wonderful Christmas time!
On Saturday night, Naoto and I cashed in our silent auction winnings from the Forest Park Community Garden fundraiser. We hosted a Whiskey Chat and invited friends over to hear Nick speak about the history of whiskey, the different whiskies, the process of making whiskey. While Nick was talking, we enjoyed sampling different whiskeys and eating tasty snacks. 
We had everyone bring a bottle of whiskey so we could have a little variety to sample and Nick (a whiskey aficionado) brought his entire collection with him so we could sample a wider variety…isn’t that incredible? (That’s his collection up there on my china cabinet…plus he brought a ton of tiny “airplane bottles” of mainstream whiskeys and weird flavored whiskeys like Jack Daniels Tennessee Honey–ick). Naoto was really excited to see that Nick had a Japanese whisky in his collection. They spent some time comparing his to our bottle…both bottles tasted pretty peaty to me!
Nick had a powerpoint and handouts so it felt very formal and informative but fun and casual at the same time. It was a small enough group that we were all able to sit around our dining room table. 
In addition to the obligatory pistachios and cheese array, we made “funeral buns“. I found the recipe on Pinterest and they sounded just decadent enough to go with whiskey…a hearty and buttery bite. We substituted turkey for ham and they were delicious! They will be the next party staple. 
Our friend Karen made pimento cheese spread–another future party staple. In our research of things to serve with whiskey, pimento cheese came up…and I’m so glad it did!
In the kitchen, we had a little “bar” set up with ingredients for Old Fashioneds and Manhattans. I typed up the recipes on little cards so people could help themselves. I think most people ended up drinking the whiskeys straight, but a few of us enjoyed the classic cocktails.
Oh, what a night!
In case you’re interested, here’s a list of the whiskeys we all shared:
Cedar Ridge (my personal favorite bourbon, from Iowa)
Old Overholt (a $15 rye, recommended by Kathy, that has been my Manhattan staple lately)
Breckenridge (a Colorado bourbon)
Eagle Rare (a Kentucky bourbon)
Koval (a Chicago bourbon)
It’s not too late to share our Thanksgiving, right?
Naoto and I hosted my parents for Thanksgiving dinner last Thursday afternoon. As usual, we had a grand time with them, cooking, eating, drinking and cleaning up the massive kitchen mess. And as it has been for the past seven years, Naoto did all of the cooking (except the cranberries!) and I did all of the cleaning and decorating. 
In honor of his Thanksgiving duties, I gave Naoto this apron that I bought from Nourishing Notes during Show of Hands. He rocked the apron with his pajamas all day long. (It was a very relaxed holiday.) 
Ever since I made the vintage ephemera Thanksgiving invitations, I had visions of incorporating some more ephemera into the table centerpiece. And, since I was using old paper, it only made sense to get vintage colors and vintage dishes into the mix. The wonderful thing was, other than the flowers, I had everything I needed right in my china cabinet and buffet. (It pays to be a dish hoarder sometimes.)
I was excited to use my vintage Taylor Smith Taylor dishes. My mom and I found a whole set at a thrift store for $10 a few years ago and I bought them with the intent of using them for Thanksgiving. They were perfect for the table this year. (And thanks, Mom, for hand washing them after dinner!) 
Naoto’s turkey was perfect, the stuffing was amazing (in spite of a close call with an almost-forgotten egg) and, along with the cranberries, we enjoyed fluffy mashed potatoes and gravy, roasted cauliflower, Hawaiian rolls and a tasty caramel apple cheesecake that my mom made. There is a reason I look forward to this meal every year. (But man, am I ever ready for pizza after the long weekend of leftovers!)
The chef was glad to have another successful year under his apron belt. 
Today I am (finally) putting away Thanksgiving for another year, and hopefully dipping into the Christmas decorations. We are hosting two small parties the next two weekends, so time to break out the Christmas spirit. It’s one of those years when retailers make you feel like you’re running behind…cheers to enjoying the season!
If you’d like to relive Thanksgiving 2012, go here.
kimberly ah 