Gone, Man, Solid Gone

I've been wanting to paint the Umbra OH chair I got at a garage sale (for $5!) for quite a while now. I liked it's odd, sickly ghost green colour, but I didn't know if I liked it enough to keep the entire chair that colour - I wanted more of a subtle hint of *pop*.  So I decided I'd paint it white, but keep some of the original colour showing by sticking a design on that I could peel off after spray painting with plastic fusion paint. I wanted it to have a mid-century modern feel, but I knew I was too lazy to work hard at it.  I had some Helvitica 2" adhesive letters and numbers, so I took all the "O"s and Zeroes, the insides of the sixes, nines, and eights, and cut a few eights in half and stuck them on in what I hoped would be a design reminiscent of fifties atomic olive patterns. And it's awesome! I love how it turned out! It's so rare for me to like what I create, but I keep tip-toeing into my bedroom to stare at it in delight :)

Death By Chocolate

The Chocolate S'mores Keyboard hijacked my brain, now my mind keeps drifting to Chocolate Thoughts.

By Naoko Tone and Atsuyoshi Iijima. Hisashi Hidano`s “c.red “412-810″ by HIMAA{images found swissmiss.typepad.com}

We had chickens when I was a kid, and soon we were overrun with eggs. Tired of scrambled and hard boiled eggs, my mom and dad looked for recipes that would use a lot of eggs. In an old Betty Crocker cookbook they found the recipe for Chocolate Chiffon Cake with Brown Beauty Icing. It used a glorious 7-10 eggs! Still absolutely the best American icing recipe ever. No sickening powdered sugar sweetness. It tastes like chocolate truffles. And the light chiffon cake is the perfect counterpoint. My family had this for dessert for about eleven months straight. I'm not joking. It was heaven.

When I got married and began hosting my own dinner parties, I soon learned that while planning the party I would have giddy excitement and elaborate plans to make a seventeen step Double Chocolate Truffle Sacherorte with Blackberry Coulis Reduction, or some such, for dessert. But the gritty reality was that day of the party I didn't even have time or energy to make Rice Krispies. So Peg Bracken's Pots de Chocolat recipe from her Appendix to the I Hate Cooking cookbook became my never-fail-to-please standby. It's rich. It melts in your mouth. Its simple presentation always evokes oohs and ahhs. And it takes about five minutes to make. Tops. There is a god.

I now welcome all chocolate ramblings, recipes, and recomendations. I'm sure I will also be adding more... and more... and more to this topic.