The Dedicated Dabbler

A fun fact about working at Martha Stewart: Every couple of weeks, eggs (and in the summer months, produce) from her farm are brought into the office for employees to take home. :)

Homemade puzzles.

We recently celebrated my nephew’s first birthday party. I wanted to give him a homemade gift and decided on these simple puzzles made out of wooden blocks. To make them, I bought eight blank wooden blocks—enough for two puzzles—and sanded them down well. My husband drew four animal stencils (we went with a dog, dolphin, elephant, and dinosaur). After tracing the shapes onto the blocks, I painted them with non-toxic acrylic paint (no sealant required). I like how open-ended they are; he can use them as puzzles or just mix them in with his other blocks. Happy Birthday, Tony!

Sage ice cream.

I bought some beautiful fresh sage at the farmer’s market, and after using it to make a crispy sage
pasta, I still had a bunch left. So I decided to try making sage ice cream. Turns out, sage ice cream is DELICIOUS—it has a sophisticated, lightly herbal flavor that’s not at all overpowering. It would be terrific paired with lemon pound cake or a berry crisp.

I didn’t feel like bothering with egg yolks, so I made a simple Philadelphia-style ice cream. Here’s the recipe:

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup whole milk
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup fresh sage leaves
• Several strips of lemon peel (get an organic lemon if you can; you’ll avoid pesticides)
• Pinch of salt

Pour 1 cup of the cream into a medium saucepan. Tear the sage leaves (you want them to release their oils but be large enough to easily skim out later) and add to the saucepan along with the sugar, salt, and lemon peel. Heat and stir until the sugar dissolves, then cover and set aside until cool. Stir in the rest of the cream and the milk. Taste the mixture and steep it until you’re happy with the flavor—I let mine steep for a couple of hours in the refrigerator before skimming out the leaves. Chill for at least three hours or overnight (I let my mixture sit overnight with the lemon peels still in it but barely noticed any lemon flavor in the finished product), then churn in an ice cream maker. Note: You can make this ice cream even if you don’t have an ice cream maker—just follow these simple instructions.

Thrifted!

While in Maine on vacation, I went to an estate sale and scored this vintage linen tea towel for $1. I loved its charming retro design—and the fact that it was unused and came with the original paper tag. When I got home, I googled the name on the towel—Robert Darr Wert—and discovered that he was a textile designer and printmaker from Gill, Massachusetts (1915-1966). He also made this delightful teapot-print tile, available right now on Etsy.

Easy cast iron chicken.

I’ve discovered an easy, near-foolproof way to roast a whole chicken. It’s a combination of Ina Garten’s Perfect Roast Chicken recipe and another I found from chef Linton Hopkins, plus a few tips I picked up along the way. 

The result is a juicy bird with irresistibly crispy skin. Here’s how to do it:

1. Rinse your chicken inside and out, pat dry, and salt liberally inside and out.  Place the chicken on a few folded paper towels on a plate and put it in your fridge, uncovered, for at least a few hours. The salt will help draw out extra moisture, and the bird will dry out a bit from being uncovered in the fridge. This is a good thing: The secret to crispy skin is starting with a bone-dry bird.
2. Preheat the oven to 450.
3. Bring the bird to room temperature for a bit, pat it dry with paper towels (take your time and make sure it’s VERY dry), then season again with salt and pepper inside and out. Stick half a lemon, half a bulb of garlic, and a bunch of fresh thyme sprigs in the cavity and tie the legs together with twine. NOTE: This is for an average 3-pound bird. If you’re working with a larger chicken, you can probably fit a whole lemon and whole garlic bulb. 
4. Place the bird in a large cast iron skillet and stick it in the lower third of your oven. Set the timer for 20 minutes.
5. While the bird is cooking, prep any veggies you’d like to roast along with the chicken. Ina suggests carrots, fennel, and onions, which work wonderfully. But Hopkins recommends adding them halfway through cooking, which I agree with—it keeps them from getting too mushy. Toss the veggies together in a bowl with a little olive oil or butter, more fresh thyme, and salt and pepper.
6. When the timer goes off, add the veggies to the skillet and cook for another 25 minutes or so, until the chicken’s juices run clear. (Again, this is for a 3-pound bird; if your chicken is larger it’ll require more cooking time.)

Jillian Tamaki’s embroidered book covers.

How lovely! You can read more about the illustrator and crafter’s project for Penguin Classics on her blog.

My new Cathrineholm collection.

I recently picked up a few pieces of Cathrineholm—mid-century enamel cookware from Norway—on Ebay and Etsy. Cathrineholm has surged in popularity in recent years, so while there are still plenty of pieces out there, the days of finding them at yard sales for $1 are (mostly) over. I was patient and got these for a little less than the typical asking price. They weren’t cheap, but they’re lovely, and they’ll be gracing my kitchen(s) for decades to come!

Dining room chair facelift.

We bought this mid century modern dining room table and chairs a few years ago on Craigslist, and I’ve been meaning to recover the chairs ever since. Today, I finally got around to it. I need to fix the crooked left stripe, but anyway: What do you think of my fabric choice? I was concerned it might be too busy/dominant in the room, but since we’re leaving the walls white in our new apartment, I feel like we can go a little crazy with color and pattern elsewhere (as long as everything ties together). Below is a “before” photo: The chair on the right shows the herringbone fabric that was on the chairs when we got them (which almost worked, but had a dated 80s beige hue), and the chair on the left shows what I discovered when I started taking the cushion apart—houndstooth! I normally love houndstooth, but it would definitely overpower the room—and this particular fabric also looked dated.

Cute little soup bowls.

On sale right now from Etsy seller CometWreckage for $6!  The mushrooms remind me a little of the iconic mid-century Kaj Franck/Esteri Tomula design.

Etsy shop: Camp Pine Needle.

My ridiculously talented sister-in-law, a professional illustrator and full-time resident of Cape Cod, has started selling hand-drawn garden stakes on Etsy. They’re AMAZING, and she even tested them year-round through brutal New England weather to make sure they’ll last. Pick some up for your garden now, before they start showing up in your favorite magazines!