Hat Giveaway

I know, I know, two days late with the hat contest post. In my heart, I was hoping that a couple more entries would straggle their way into my inbox.

There is something extremely funny about holding a giveaway contest and having no one enter it. I guess there's just too much excitement happening in most people's lives for the idea of a free hat to be very titillating. Come to think of it, I have about a million hats, so maybe I wouldn't be pouncing on the chance either.

Anyhoo, I can always count on my little sis to humor me. So, without further ado, here is the only (and therefore the winning) submission to my first blog giveaway:



Chilly weather is a good excuse to cuddle with friends!

Thanks B for your enthusiasm and a sweet picture of some cozy little friends. I will be mailing you a hat. Or maybe you'd prefer a dog sweater?

Next time, maybe I'll giveaway a blender...

with a hat inside.

Beautiful Butterfull Apple Pie

This week in our CSA, we were the happy recipients of some beeooootiful apples. It seemed to me that the only logical thing to do was bake a pie- my first apple pie of all time!

Unless you count being 5 years old and helping Grandma.

Buttery Crust:

(adapted from Butter Flaky Pie Crust)

-1 1/4 cups flour

-1/4 teaspoon salt

-1/2 cup butter (frozen!)

-1/4-1/2 cup ice water

Prepare crust first. Mix flour and salt in medium sized bowl. Use a cheese grater to grate the entire stick of frozen butter. Stir frozen butter into flour mixture. Add water a little at a time until the dough forms a ball. The recipe I was adapting from called for 1/4 cup of water, I found that I needed to use quite a bit more to get the consistency I wanted. Wrap dough in plastic and store in the fridge.

*I made this recipe twice, once for the top crust and once for the bottom crust.

Apple Filling:

(adapted from Sunday's Apple Pie)

-5 apples, peeled and thinly sliced (you may mix and match apples as you wish)

-1/2 cup white sugar

-2 teaspoons cinnamon

-2 tablespoons flour

-3 tablespoons butter (also frozen)

Place sliced apples in a large bowl. Mix sugar, cinnamon and flour together in a small bowl and then pour over apples. Stir until apples are evenly coated. Dice the butter and sprinkle over apple mixture. Set aside.

Assemble your pie!

Now that your filling is prepared, it's time to roll out the dough! The recipe I found suggested that the dough should stay in the fridge for at least 4 hours. I just let it chill while I prepared my filling (about 15 minutes) and then rolled it out right away. I think it helped that the butter was so cold to begin with.

Roll out two large circles of dough. (I don't have a rolling pin so I used an aluminun water bottle). Use plenty of flour to keep dough from sticking to your working surface. Press one circle into a 9" pie plate. Fill with apple mixture. Cover with second round of dough. Make at least 4 slits in the top of the pie with a knife so steam has an escape route. If there is a little extra dough left over, garnish top of pie with a shape of your choice (cookie cutters work great for this).

Bake at 350 degrees for 45-60 minutes (keep a watchful eye, some butter seeped up over the edges of my pie pan and onto the bottom of the stove, causing smoke and therefore, fire alarms).

Definitely eat a slice while it's still warm from the oven.

Yummmmmmmm!

Recipe: Loving Kindness Meditation

A Quiet Practice to Ease a Troubled Heart

Ingredients:

yourself

a quiet place

a blanket, bolster or chair to sit upon

a vase of flowers or a lit candle for gazing

Mix ingredients well. Sit and watch for at least 5 minutes.

Find a place to sit comfortably. Cross your legs. Maybe use the support of a wall behind your back. If your knees challenge you, use a chair.

Gently seal your eyes. Or set something beautiful in front of you that you may gaze at.

Begin to watch your breath. As you inhale, feel the space in your lungs. Let that space be reflective of creating space in your busy mind.

Exhale and settle into your seat. Feel all the places in your body as they connect to whatever is supporting you as you sit.

Think of someone you love. See their face in front of you. They are smiling. You smile back.

When you can visualize this person's face completely, look them in the eye and wish them love. And peace. And happiness.

Let them fade away.

Think of someone you know, but not really. Your favorite barista at Starbucks. The nice lady who cleans your teeth when you go to the dentist. Your bus driver from this morning. See their face in front of you. They are smiling. You smile back.

When you can visualize this person's face completely, look them in the eye and wish them love. And peace. And happiness.

Let them fade away.

Thing of someone who troubles you. Maybe there is a certain memory tied to this person that hurts your heart. Maybe the two of you try again and again, but cannot understand one another's viewpoints. Maybe an interaction with this person or a specific memory of them has haunted your own happiness for a long time. See their face in front of you. They are smiling. They are. Let them smile at you in your mind's eye, and you smile back.

When you can visualize this person's face completely, look them in the eye and wish them love. And peace.

And, above all, the same depth of happiness that you crave in your own being.

Let them fade away.

Picture your own face. Smile at yourself. Inhale and relish the space in your lungs, the space around your heart, and the space in your mind. Exhale and gently drop your chin to your chest. Bring your hands to cover your heart and take a few deep breaths.

When you feel ready, gently flutter your eyes open.

Namaste.

*Follow with hot tea and a cookie.

Magnolia Bakery Strikes Again

Magnolia Bakery is something I discovered almost as soon as I moved to New York City. In fact, I went through a phase that lasted several weeks when I ate a cupcake from their Upper West Side bakery almost every single day.

Ridiculous.

If you've ever had a Magnolia cupcake, then you know that their buttercream frosting is intense. Sweet, thick, pastel in color, and generously applied. After my period of cupcake debauchery, it made sense that I developed an aversion. Too much of a good thing. My teeth were aching from all that sugar and I just couldn't drink enough milk to wash all those cupcakes down. Call me Pinkalicious, but I needed a break.

I had also heard my uncle describe the original Magnolia Bakery- a smaller West Village location where folks are known to line up outside waiting for their turn to fill a box with the pretty little cakes. You can only imagine my surprise (a.k.a. horror) when I found out that this previously impossible-for-me-to-find-because-the-West-Village-is-confusing location turned out to be right around the corner from my new job at Angel Feet.

Too close for comfort. Cupcakes anytime I want them. And it turns out, I want them. Again.

But I am willing to share.

Christmas in September?

I have been lusting after this advent calendar on Homemade by Jill since shortly after last Christmas. We used to get the paper advent calendars as kids (Grandma picked one out for us every year) and then we would take turns opening the tiny doors to see what was inside. Jill's felt advent calendar gave me visions of my own tiny ornaments dancing in my head and I knew I had to try my hand at putting one together.

Knowing that my usual speed when it comes to my crafting forays (speed of sloth), I decided to get a head start. Hence the Christmas post in September.

I'm going to refrain from showing any pictures of the whole project until December 1st, but I didn't think a little sneak peak would hurt.

Frosty contemplates the comforts of pocket #24. He may be more of a #5 kind of snowman.

You'll be proud to know that last night, while happily stitching away, I resisted the overwhelmingly strong desire I was having to listen to a Christmas station on Pandora.

What I Love Most About Fall

My favorite thing about fall is undoubtedly the return of hat season.



hanuphoto.com

I can't remember liking hats as a child- in fact, I recall disliking them very much. I think I felt that they smashed my stylin' bowl cut. But, as I have developed newfound adult affinities for other glorious things (hummus, goat cheese, long walks after dinner), so it is with hats.

In honor of hat season, I am holding my blog's first giveaway!

Here's how it'll go down:

1. Send a photo and caption expressing what you love most about fall to brennagreenjeans@gmail.com

2. I will post 3 finalists to the blog on October 15th.

3. Readers will have until October 30th to vote for the entry that gives them the warmest feelings/biggest smile/happiest memory.

4. Winner gets a snuggly new hat mailed straight to their doorstep!

So, what is it that makes you feel the coziest in this season of colors, good smells, and warm sweaters?

53 Unread Books

So, for years (well, since 2007 to be precise) I have been working toward reading the entire Strand 80. 

I'm sure all of my New York friends are familiar, but for those of you who don't know, the Strand is a famous bookstore in New York dating back to 1927. They boast "18 miles of books" available for browsing on their several floors.

The Strand 80 is a list of books chosen by Strand customers to celebrate the 80th birthday of the store. My ego just keeps telling me that I must read them all.  I don't know why. I realize that it won't make me a better person. I just want to do it. I am obsessed, and yet painfully slow, in my committment to reading my way through the thousands and thousands of pages that will lead to my completion of this list.

And so, without further ado, here is the list that is pinned to my refrigerator:

1. To Kill a Mockingbird *
2. Pride and Prejudice *
3. Great Gatsby *
4. Catcher in the Rye *
5. Atlas Shrugged
6. Fountainhead
7. Lord of the Rings
8. One Hundred Years of Solitude
9. Jane Eyre *
10. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone *
11. Lolita
12. 1984
13. On the Road
14. Gone With the Wind *
15. Anna Karenina
16. Brothers Karamazov
17. Crime and Punishment
18. Tree Grows in Brooklyn
19. Slaughterhouse-Five
20. Ulysses
21. Kite Runner *
22. Catch 22
23. Grapes of Wrath *
24. East of Eden *
25. Sun Also Rises
26. War and Peace
27. Hobbit *
28. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows *
29. Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier & Clay
30. Wuthering Heights
31. Prayer for Owen Meany
32. Count of Monte Cristo
33. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
34. Stranger
35. Brave New World
36. Little Women *
37. Middlesex
38. Moby-Dick
39. Alchemist *
40. Les Miserables
41. Tale of Two Cities
42. Anthem
43. Wind-up Bird Chronicle
44. Huckleberry Finn
45. In Cold Blood
46. Cat's Cradle
47. Love in the Time of Cholera *
48. Little Prince
49. Time Traveler's Wife *
50. Invisible Man
51. Unbearable Lightness of Being
52. Bell Jar *
53. World According to Garp *
54. Middlemarch
55. To the Lighthouse
56. Poisonwood Bible
57. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban *
58. Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix *
59. Old Man and the Sea
60. Ender's Game *
61. Bleak House
62. Beloved
63. Great Expectations
64. Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
65. Fight Club
66. Sound and the Fury
67. Mrs. Dalloway
68. Giver *
69. Master and Margarita
70. Blindness
71. Life of Pi *
72. Madame Bovary
73. Where the Wild Things Are *
74. Chronicles of Narnia
75. Odyssey
76. Da Vinci Code *
77. Franny and Zooey
78. Wrinkle in Time *
79. Everything Is Illuminated
80. Picture of Dorian Gray *
81. Handmaid's Tale *

28 down, 53 to go.

You will notice of course, that there are 81 titles.  The Strand website explains this by noting that two of the books tied in vying for a spot on the list. 

And so I ask you, dear reader, how many of these books have you enjoyed (or not)? Will you join me in this challenge? I have no end date in mind, only a constant steady plodding pace and a pile of books ordered from Amazon clogging up my bedside table. I have read halfway through Anna Karenina at least 3 times, which should count for the whole book if you ask me. But I will make it through. 

This week, it's A Prayer for Owen Meany. Next week, maybe I'll give Anna her 4th try...