Cardboard Jungle

Posted by fredlet

AHA!

Posted by fredlet

BREAKING NEWS: “we at ercol are just about to start making the day bed again.” -ercol
(check out the comments…)
Yay!

Found it!
I saw this picture ages ago, but it was in a blog feed somewhere organized by color and didn't really go into the details of the picture (either that, or more likely, I didn't pay attention to the details and attribution).

(Sunday lounging by Christianna's Earthly Delights)

Here's another view of it:

I've been looking and looking and looking for the daybed and finally landed back on this page…its an Ercol vintage daybed.
WANT.

See also:

(Ercol daybed by skinnylaminx)

and

(Ercol Daybed by Kokor Hekkus)

I'd put white canvas or linen covers on it and then toss a bunch of down filled kilim pillows all over it.
Such as these from Ten Thousand Villages:

Craigslist here I come.

Posted via email from fredlet’s posterous

Read about more Ercol studio daybeds:

Yeah

Posted by fredlet

coming up on the final hours until I have to have the house DONE.
(It isn’t, of course… Tex got broken and hasn’t been able to do anything for the last week…normally that would be ok, but it meant that I had to take care of him and Bunny and do everything. Feh.)

OK, pics tomorrow when I have done the last minute stuff.

Emerging from the fog.

Posted by fredlet

I had possibly the worst headache I have ever had that wasn’t a migraine last week.
Ended up staying home from work 2 days (and missed the layoffs… my timing is amazing. Just was a little trepidatious going back to work just in case they saved my pink slip for me to be there. They didn’t, am still gainfully employed…phew.) and not doing anything for a solid week (last weekend was a complete wash, but then I didn’t know if I had a flu or what and didn’t want to expose others much less move from my bed.) Being home with Bunny was nice though. She was sitting on me most of the time save when she got a bit too cold and then went back to her heating pad.
This was on the heels of having one of the most awesome Fridays I have had in a long time.
Tex stayed home with Bunny and let me go see Zoe Keating and I got to know a person from work better (she’s awesome… now I think I am separated at birth from several people now… very strange.) Anyhoo, completely wonderful concert.

Bunny is doing pretty well. Tex works Saturdays and is home on Mondays, and since he is available to be her beck and call boy, we have instituted “snot Mondays”. Its not really snot, but you wouldn’t know to dish up this cat food. Its Hill’s Prescription Diet Feline k/d with Chicken and it is possibly the most disgusting substance ever created by man. She loves it until it gets oxidized and then won’t have anything to do with it. So Tex dishes it up on Mondays in tiny little bits until she refuses it.
This seems to help with her stomach acid problem over and above the pepcid I give her every night. The vet said that it shouldn’t be a big deal if she eats only the Royal Canin pouches all the time, but it makes a difference nonetheless. So, we do it.

Remember when music was EVERYTHING? (and, of course, it might STILL be for you, Rob Gordon)
You didn’t have to obsess over mortgages, side businesses, kids, illness, daily pill schedules and all that other pesky shit that being an adult entails.You could focus on the newest music (work in a music shop then discover music that no one’s ever discovered right in the back of the shop, on the left!), make mix tapes WITH DEEP PHILOSOPHICAL IMPORT and do cover art that is teh awesome and immerse yourself in it… wallowing in the angst (and joy) like a dog rolling around in something smelly.
Anyhoo, in the midst of my terrible weekend and ensuing bad week, I Netflix’d Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist and sat down to watch it.
Its another “all night teen adventure” movie, but it was definitely cute and the music kicked ass. Brought back those old immersion memories.

Seriously this last month and a half has kicked my ass 9 ways from Sunday.
But I just keep trudging though (its what I do) until I get through to the next part where it might not suck so much. Its just that sometimes its very tiring to do so.

There’s another post worth of crap to talk about, but I’m not in the mood to weed through my melodrama, so I will leave you with a charming photo of my shower curtain because I know that is why you read this…
showercurtain

New Year’s Day and beans.

Posted by fredlet

I grew up with the dictum that you had to eat black eyed peas on New Year’s day for some reason (there actually is a reason, it just never made it into my skull) also I hated them, so I would eat 1 pea and run away.
Then I found a cheap store brand of canned black eyed peas that didn’t taste like playground sand and suddenly I put them in lots of things.
And when recently broke out my crock pot [black beans, beef stew] that had been languishing in a cabinet as it didn’t have room to work anywhere until I cleared off some things… and made some black beans that were utter heaven, I decided to try my hand at black eyed peas for New Year’s Day.

O. My. Gawd.
They were fantastic…and when I put a little brisket juice in there I just about wept.

We also put up the Stolmen in the kitchen (in between me eating huge serving spoonful’s of beans and Tex gnawing on the brisket like a great white shark on a dead whale); it looks rather nifty. (My arms don’t work very well anymore, but such trifles…)
I got one more stacking shelf on top of the one I have already, tucked it in to the area that the freezer doesn’t take up, and now I have a nifty set of shelves for my 400,000 pound cast iron enamelware pot that I… um… can’t currently lift, my other enamelware pan that is mocking me as well and my electric kettle that doesn’t get used too terribly much lately, the rice cooker (a.k.a. quinoa cooker) and some odds and ends.*

I also broke down and spent $11 on a wee tiny crock pot (<— 1.5 qt ChefMate @ Target, that image isn’t exactly it, but it is close.) so that I can lift it, clean it quickly and store it in the shelves easily.

crockpot2 I returned the 1.5 qt crockpot in favor of a 2.5 qt version. It isn’t as pretty, I did like the all white, but I needed that extra quart.

I’ll be doing little batches of beans here and there so this should make it lots easier. I’ll still have my monster crock (6qt) for parties and potlucks at work (I’ve been recently adopted by the Sales team who seem to like my cooking) and the occasional meal, but frankly, I think the size of it in my small kitchen kept me from using it more often.. not to mention that it doesn’t really fit in my sink to wash and it is stoneware, so it weighs a ton. After all that buzzing around, I’m too pooped to wash it immediately.
Bad.
It gets soaked with some soap in it more often than not.

(Also, I can’t wait to test the little guy with the Kill-A-Watt to see how it performs. I bet I could run it easily on a solar panel.)

I need to put together the last two magazine storage boxes from Ikea that will house things like travel mugs, tea cozies and other infrequently used linens, my KitchenAid mixer attachments (juicer, meat grinder), party ware (cups and plastic ware that I still have after years) and a few other odds and ends that I don’t need to get to on more than a monthly basis. I put a clothes rail on the long section so that I can hang my veggie hanging basket, but otherwise, aside from still being cluttered from the rearrange, its almost done.
Yes, I will post a picture soon.

Black Eyed Peas
Mine were done in a 6 quart slow cooker, it filled about half the pot when all was said and done.

1 pound dried black eyed peas
1/3 pound bacon
1/4 white onion chopped
4 tbsp unsalted butter
1/4 tsp (?) minced garlic

1. Put the peas into a large pot covered with 2 inches of water over the tops of the peas.
2. Bring peas to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for 15 minutes.
3. Turn off heat and let peas sit for 1 hour
4. Drain peas, remove unpretty and icky looking peas from the bowl.
5. Pour peas into slow cooker (its still off at this point)
6. In a pan, melt butter and saute onion and garlic until onions are translucent
7. In another pan (or the same one if big enough-I do all of this in my cast iron enamelware pot.) cook the bacon, then chop into 1 inch pieces.
8. Pour ALL of this onto the beans in the crockpot (bacon grease and all)
9. Add water to cover about 1 inch over top of beans, set to LOW and cook for 12 hours.
NOTE: I tend to start these around 8 pm the night before and then add a bit of water just before I go to bed to make certain they don’t cook off too much water and dry out.
10. In the morning, about an hour before you are ready to spoon them, up, taste the beans. They may need some salt. I usually add about a tbsp of coarse sea salt and give it a good stir. Adding salt at the table for individual tastes at this point usually is pretty easy to make it right.
BONUS: If you have a brisket cooking as well, add a spoonful or two of juice to each bowl of beans you spoon up…

I’m seriously pondering using the big pot again next weekend and making a soup of collard green’s, black eyed peas, brisket meat and naming it New Year’s soup.
Spicy cornbreads to accompany it, natch.

Next experiment might just be a gumbo.
My uncle makes them so I guess its in my genetic makeup to be able to cook them (as well as being genetically a smart-ass and having a predilection for puns).
[Mom, send me Unc Gary’s number please. Thankyouvermuch.]

*I’m not experiencing any strange neuralgia or weakening in any weird medical sense, but I go crazy cooking, cleaning and rearranging furniture after not doing it for a while then my poor little arms get sore. But really, those damn enamelware pots are fekkin’ heavy regardless.