{grown-up mac-and-cheese}

This is what's in my oven, to be shared at our friends' potluck BBQ! Happy Fourth of July!

Homemade Macaroni & Cheese with Buttery Crumbs

Ingredients
6 T unsalted Kerrygold butter (divided into 3T and 3T)
3 T all-purpose unbleached flour
2 cups 2% milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
16 oz Sharp Cheddar, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
8 oz Monterey Jack cheese, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 T honey mustard
1/2 cup frozen organic peas
1/4 t ground nutmeg
1# whole wheat tubular pasta
1-1/4 cup whole wheat bread crumbs

Directions
Preheat oven to 350.

Butter shallow, 9"x13" glass or ceramic baking dish. Melt 3 T butter in large saucepan. Add flour & cook over moderate heat for ~2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add milk and cream, and cook over moderae heat. Whisk constantly until thickened, ~3 minutes. Add half the cheese cubes and cook over low heat, stirring, until melted. Stir in honey mustard & nutmeg.

Meanwhile, cook macaroni in large pot until al dente. Drain very well. Transfer macaroni to baking dish and pour cheese sauce, remaining cheese cubes, and frozen peas over macaroni, mixing until well-distributed. In small saucepan, melt remaining 3 T butter and add bread crumbs.

Sprinkle crumbs over top of macaroni and bake for 30 minutes, or until bubbling & golden on top. Let stand for 15 minutes before serving.

{designer fabric virtual yard sale}

i'm getting ready to do a major destash of designer and japanese quilting cottons that are just languishing on my shelves. we can all agree that this is absolutely criminal, right?!?


designers include (in no particular order): amy butler, sandy klop, denyse schmidt, sandi henderson, robert kaufman, farbenmix, heather ross, darlene zimmerman, alexander henry, jennifer paganelli, tula pink, urban chiks, prints charming, joel dewberry, michael miller, yuwa, lecien, decole, shinzi katoh, kokka, and more. lots of these fabrics are out-of-print and hard-to-find.


i'm not kidding when i say that this is a major destash :-)


here are the parameters:
1) a flat rate priority envelope stuffed to capacity, as in bulging costs $20 including domestic S&H, or $30 for international buyers. you will be getting far more fabric dollar-wise than you are paying for!


2) requests by color are honored, but requests for specific designers or patterns will only be honored as available (i.e., better to order sooner than later). hint: it is easier to honor what you don't want than what you do. the contents of your box will be a mystery other than the colors, but you will not be disappointed :-)


3) sizes range from FQs to 1/2 yard to full yards ... most are unwashed and contain their original sizing. some pieces may have cutouts; because i'm selling these for such a bargain, i just can't take measurements since i simply don't have the time!


4) if you're interested, email me (kim dot steckler @ gmail dot com) 2-5 color requests, 1-3 positive preferences (likes, and i recommend limiting them to 1 designer) and 1-3 negative preferences (dislikes). and be sure to send me the email address to which i should send your paypal invoice. once i receive payment, i will assemble your package and mail it to the address in your paypal account. then you will have your package in 7-14 days (possibly longer if international). voila!

{candy corn girl}

my nearly 4.5-year-old went dressed to her school's halloween parade as candy corn ... and here's a glimpse of her dad trying to coax our usually gregarious girl into partaking in the fun.


and here she is before we left for school, thrilled with the costume that she and her mama planned together. i whipped it up with eco-felt yesterday in about an hour — hooray for fray-free fabric!

{true that}

i haven't yet mentioned it here, but over the past few months (the same months that it's been dormant over here, come to think of it!) i've been contributing to everyone's favorite source for all things textile, true up. i've been reviewing books, conducting interviews, and writing original content on things like flea marketing. i'm enjoying it immensely, so much so that i'm carving out increasingly more time to contribute even more articles. so, on that note, look out for this year's vintage fabric collector series interviews, and some upcoming articles on vintage fabric!

{feeling dotty}

beacuse i have nothing better to do than to play around at bighugelabs, i thought i'd create a mosaic of my vintage dotty fabrics. you've gotta admit that it's cheerful, though, right? and that alone should justify the waste of time. achem.

{pop-up general store}

my husband and i are *superexcited* to have placed our very first pre-order with our local pop-up general store. it's a quasi-underground, artisanal market with rotating, seasonal offerings that meets just once a month. as we easily could have gone crazy with all of the amazing offerings (even for vegetarians), we decided to treat it as an extension of our food shopping and thus restrict ourselves to just one treat (and even that we fudged by getting a half-dozen cupcakes). there's also day-of shopping, though i don't think we'll be able to make that happen with the kids in tow. we feed them early so we can get them to bed early, because our rooster (21-month-old durham) wakes us all up too, too early (anywhere from 5:45am to 6:30am).

here's our shopping list:

* Amy Cakes: Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Goat Cheese Frosting
* Ghost Town Farm: Mixed Produce Box
* Studebaker Pickles: Pickled Haricots Verts avec Cardamon
* Mike [the bejkr]: Pain Biologique
* Katz: Rock Hill Ranch Extra Virgin Olive Oil
* Chris & Samin: Tuscan Tomato and Bread Soup
* Chris & Samin: Mozzarella Curd

this is the kind of thing that we'd have been devotees of back in our childless brooklyn days, but now that we have kids, and all-over-the-place schedules, it's taken us a few months and bit of luck to make this happen. let's hope it's not the last time!

{bringin' back the pb loaf}

on this afternoon's agenda, courtesy of the metropolitan cookbook, copright 1964. i scored this cooking pamphlet, published and distributed by the metropolitan life insurance company and stamped with the salesman's name (robert l. johnson) and office address (petaluma, calif. 94592), at the alameda antiques faire yesterday. (my substitutions are italicized in parentheses.)

peanut butter loaf
1-3/4 cups sifted enriched flour (unbleached all-purpose flour)
2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/4 t baking soda
1/3 cup shortening (kerrygold butter)
3/4 cup crunchy peanut butter (natural crunchy peanut butter)
2/3 cup sugar (organic unbleached cane sugar)
2 eggs, lightly beaten (large organic grade-aa eggs)
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (2 or 3 medium bananas)

set oven for moderate, 350. mix and sift first 4 ingredients. cream shortening (butter) and peanut butter; add sugar gradually while creaming. continue to cream until light and fluffy. add eggs; beat well. stir in dry ingredients alternately with mashed bananas; mix well; but do not beat. spoon batter into well-greased loaf pan, 8 by 4 by 3 inches. bake 1 hour (50 minutes).