Pink Saturday!

I am so excited about today's pink stuff! I live in Abbeville, SC where there is a wonderful little place called Trinity Street Market & Gallery run by the dynamic duo of Kristin and Pat. They feature the work of over 30 regional artists, and there is always something new and inspiring to see each time I stop by.

They just finished a show with an artist who signs her works with the name Pink Earth; does it get any more Pink Saturday than that??

Kristin and Pat generously let me come in and take me take pictures of Pink Earth's (real name: Jeanette Ross) work to my heart's content; I told them I had some ladies who needed to see these paintings!

This is called Humble Beacon, and it shows part of Trinity Episcopal Church just down the street from the gallery. Yes, this 145 year old church is actually pink! It is not quite this bright; Jeanette uses a distinctive color palette in her works that is heavy on pinks, purples and aquas. I'll show you actual photographs of the church in an upcoming episode of Pink Saturday.

Here we see part of Trinity Street. That's the ice cream parlor on the right side with the aqua beams and banisters (best potato salad ever). The gallery is right across the street, but not shown in this painting. Don't you just love that pink church!

Just can't get enough...its beautiful inside, too.

The Rough House has been an Abbeville institution for over 75 years (back in the day, women weren't even allowed in here). They have a little dance floor called the Side Pocket and one Friday a month a DJ comes in to play beach music for all the shag dancers. We stop by their lunch counter so my husband can get his hotdog/moon pie/RC Cola fix every once in a while.

Even hot dog joints can benefit from a little pink.

Yummy pink bricks. The Rough House is actually not pink, but it's fun to pretend.

Here we see the Abbeville square and some excellent use of pink. I used to live in an apartment overlooking this square. If the square were actually pink, I don't think I ever would have moved.

One more view of the square; the building in the background is the courthouse where my husband and I got our marriage license.

Lovin' it, Jeanette.

More of our favorite color on the postcard advertising the show.

I hope you enjoyed the art! This only scratched the surface of the pink there is to be found throughout the Trinity Street Market & Gallery; hopefully I can go back and collect more pink specimens to share with you. Click here if you'd like to visit the gallery's site.

Happy Pink Saturday and thanks for dropping by!

Late Pink Saturday!

Hubs and I went to Savannah, Georgia for our first anniversary. One evening we had a very elegant (and yummy!) dinner at the Olde Pink House restaurant. It was too dark to get a picture that night, but before we left town we went back and snagged a nice man passing by to take our picture. So nice of him...the hazard of having someone take your picture is that you are not behind the camera making sure everything gets in. I didn't have the heart to tell him I wanted more of the house. Whole thing or not, you can definitely tell this is one Pink House! If you get to Savannah I definitely recommend a swanky dinner at the Olde Pink House.

NOTE 10/15/08: I failed to say that this anniversary trip was in May of 2006.

Prettying Up My Pumpkin!

Thanks to Jen at Sanctuary Arts at Home for hosting the Pretty Your Pumpkin event!

UPDATE-10/9/08
Finally here is my pretty pumpkin! First I have to thank my husband for his great help in making my pumpkin the prettiest it could be. Glitter doesn't like staying inside the lines (which is one reason we love it, right??) so there was a fine layer of orange glitter over the entire thing when I was done. As I pondered how I was ever going to get that extra glitter dust off, he lept into action.

Extra long extension cord? (for taking the party outside) Check!
Hair dryer? Check!
Small paint brush? Check!

And he proceeded to ever so gently blast away those errant bits of sparkly-ness. Thanks, babe!

Here's what I started with:




Check out that price!

And for the main event...Ta-da!

You can't really tell from the picture, but that stem is all sparkley black and so pretty!



It ain't perfect, but boy is it pretty!

Here's a little bit of my Halloween decor. I'll have to show some close-ups in another post.

But for now I'll leave you with this guy...he's got his slightly droopy eye on you.

Original post-10/8/08:

Oooo, time got the best of me, and I'll have to finish my post after work today, but here's a little sneaky peek to entice you to come back and see my pretty pumpkin!

TWD: Caramel Peanut-Topped Brownie Cake

Caramel, peanuts, cakes that are brownie-like: heaven!! My experience with it all: not heaven :( I had such high hopes for this cake. The picture in the book was gorgeous, and I couldn't wait for that first piece.

It was all so promising in the beginning what with the buttered and floured pan...

And the sugar and eggs...

And look how creamy and luscious it is with all those dry bits mixed in. Wait...crap! I mixed it out of order!! Forgot to mix in the chocolate first! This means that the dry ingredients will be mixed too much! Shoot!!!

It sure is pretty though. Ah, well we'll hope for the best.

In the meantime let's tackle this caramel business. 5 minutes came and went...10 minutes came and went...15 minutes came and went...and then 15 minutes 30 seconds came, and I happened to sit down for approximately 10 seconds to eat a sandwich for goodness sakes and suddenly the caramel was all, "Oh, well you've missed your chance my friend. I am now officially much too amber".

I was worried...but I decided to go ahead with it just in case the combo of the pretty but mixed out of order cake and the possibly burnt caramel would turn into magic.

Ooo-whee! That's a pretty cake! My cake did sink in the middle as it cooled, but Dorie warned us of that, so I was not alarmed.

Upon tasting I was a tad disappointed. The cake was a bit dry which I was sure was due to my mixing error, but I did read that some of you other TWD-ers also ended up with dry cake. And to me that caramel does taste a bit on the toasty side, though it's not a hardship to eat it with the cake. I really want to take another crack at this cake and do everything just right because I believe this could be one of the most delicious cakes I've ever had.

Meanwhile, Abby did her glamour thing in the sunshine...tell me turtles don't smile.

What a ham...

Pink Saturday

Pink Saturday! Today I'm sharing a couple gorgeous items from Pom Pom Interiors in Los Angeles, CA. I live in South Carolina but went to LA for business in June and managed to snag a day of sightseeing before flying back home.

I was in pink/white/seashell/shabby chic/French flair HEAVEN during my visit, nay my pilgrimage, to Pom Pom.

This was one of the first things I saw, and it was SO hard not to lay down the serious money it would have taken to make it mine.

But you know I couldn't leave without taking some of that delicious pink home with me!

You can see more of Pom Pom as the February 2007 Cottage of the Month at the Old Painted Cottage; click here for more pink and some linen and silver, a little furniture...I'm telling you, the place is heaven.

TWD: Crème Brulée

Its Tuesday again and Dorie's here! Crème Brulée is up to bat, so let's get started.

Abby thought some calisthenics were in order in preparation for all the working out she's going to have to do to burn off the heavy cream.


This recipe said it yielded 6 servings so I tried to pour equal amounts of the base in 6 ramekins.

Took a hair over 60 minutes before I thought these seemed firm enough to take out of the oven, but here they are.

Chilled over night and then torched! My husband Walt actually brought the little torch you see right there to our relationship. Somewhere around our fourth or fifth date he packed a picnic that we enjoyed next to a little pond (this man knew what he was doing). When we got back to his house he busted out this torch to finish off the crème brulées he had made! Can you even imagine how impressed I was!! Well, I married him :)

The creme was a bit melty, but I could have popped it in the fridge for a few minutes like I saw several of you mention on the TWD crème brulée post; I'll probably try that tonight when we take down two of the four ramekins left. Yum.

I was very pleased with this experience. It was easy and the results are pretty impressive.

Autumn Recipe and Tablescape Exchange

Heidi of Foxgloves, Fabric and Folly has put together an idea exchange to celebrate the beginning of fall (the best season of them all!). Head over to her round-up to check out more Autumn themed tablescapes and recipes contributed by some great bloggers.

This is my first Autumn tablescape! I just got excited about DIY nesting this year and the wonderful ladies in blogland have inspired me to make some beauty happen every day using things I already have or things I can get on the cheap, so I'm learning slowly, but surely.

My ode to Autumn is very simple (so simple, in fact, that I forgot to put out glasses...). I've had the feather wreath, napkins, cream pillar candles and jewel tone fruit for a couple years. More recently the candle holder and orange pillar candle came from Pier 1 (half price of course!) and the little pumpkin candles came from Cracker Barrel.

Look at the detail on these plates; love these.

And here's my little secret about them; can you believe that price??

What is a table without something delicious in front of you? This perfect-for-fall recipe is from Epicurious, and it is indeed delicious: Butternut Squash, Rosemary and Bleu Cheese Risotto.

Last fall I finally made up my mind to try my hand at making risotto. I'd never eaten it but had heard such good things about it and had to try making it myself. I live in a bit of a rural area and arborio rice was nowhere to be found so a brief internet search assured me basmati rice would be a reasonable substitute. It turned out wonderfully! It even made delicious leftovers.

My changes:
--used Basmati instead of arborio rice
--referred to Betty Crocker's trusty veggie cooking chart and microwaved the butternut squash to soften it up before chopping. Have you tried to cut one of those things raw? It's way hard and a hazard to my fingers' health.
--didn't use the whipping cream in order to cut down on a couple calories

Pulled out all the stops and made the roasted pear and walnut salad Epicurious suggests to go along. Verdict: easy and yummy.

If you were here right now I would serve you a big bowl of risotto at my Ode to Autumn table. Enjoy!