Hi. I missed my old blog template. So, it’s back. 🙂
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Happy New Year!
I hope everyone had a safe and fabulous New Year’s Eve! Ours was great, starting with a wonderful dinner at Uchi, then moving on to party after party to see friends. Aside from the occasional freezing-cold wait outside for an available taxi, it was a great night.
Today I’m relaxing at home, snuggled under my grandma’s quilt and thinking about the new year. I’m not really interested in looking back at this past year… I’m more excited about looking forward to the next. I am hoping that this year, I will stay connected with friends and family. I want to learn to speak French (as usual). I’d love to learn to play the violin. I’d like to travel somewhere new, and be debt-free. I want to cook and bake more, keep my house cute and cozy. I want to be more self-confident, making decisions because they are best for me, and not because I think others would approve. I’d like to continue to write… blogging, letters, journaling. I’d like to take lots of photos, and take evening walks with my love. I hope to visit New England in the fall again, and maybe a beach in the spring (see above hope to be debt-free… ha!). I want to be as in love (or more) with Justin a year from now as I am today.
Many of these hopes I’ve had for years, but the fact that they’re still on my list means to me that they are important, and are worth hoping for.
I have already been working on a few of them… I’ve started taking frequent photos with my iPhone and posting them here, as a way of journaling and remembering images from my day. I am trying to keep it imperfect… because my tendency to obsess over perfection is something I’d like to change. I have also been taking lots of photos with my new Holga camera, another study in imperfection for me. I know that the photos won’t turn out perfectly (or may not turn out at all – last night I took photos at Uchi with the lens cap on!), and I like that.
I’ve also been trying to keep poco-cocoa as my personal blog, writing about things that I want to write about, regardless of whether it will increase readers or please media folks. This past year has been great with all of the food blogger events, but I also became quite stressed out with this little blog, trying to keep up with events and local bloggers and what I thought others might expect to see here. Lately I’ve been just writing, just being me, and I enjoy it much more.
I have no idea what 2010 will bring. And I’m excited about that. 🙂
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Lazy mornings
I am loving having this week off! This morning I woke up and heard Justin grinding coffee beans for his ritual morning cup. I yelled out, “I’m gonna make scones!” And so I hopped out of bed, showered, and headed straight into the kitchen to bake up a batch. They turned out beautifully, and now we’re considering making fruit shortcakes with the leftovers.
I also got a fabulous new pair of shoes today, and a Holga camera! (I posted a picture of them on my other blog, which has become a daily photo blog of sorts.) I’m so excited… hopefully I’ll have lots of funky vintagey photographs to share with you soon.
I’m off to address envelopes to my mom and sister, who will be receiving surprises very soon. Shhh… don’t tell them! 🙂
Cream Scones
- 2 cups flour
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon orange or lemon zest (optional)
- 2 – 3 teaspoons cream or milk for brushing
- cinnamon and sugar (optional)
Preheat oven to 425F.
Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Drop in butter and cut with a pastry blender to pea-sized pieces.
Whisk together egg, cream and zest, if using, then add all at once to dry mixture. Mix with a spoon just until moistened. Knead 5 – 10 times in the bowl. Pat dough into an 8-inch round about 3/4-inch thick. Cut into 8 wedges and place 1/2-inch apart on an ungreased baking sheet. Brush tops with cream and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar, if desired. Bake 12 – 15 minutes or until tops are golden brown.
Makes 8 servings.
Source: The Joy of Cooking.
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Pride and Prejudice
I just re-watched the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice. Oh, how I love this movie. It’s so very romantic! Somehow, I’ve never been able to finish the book or the BBC version… they’re both so long and not nearly as poignant to me as this version. By the end of the film, I’m all giddy and giggly and in love with Mr. Darcy. I’m off to search for other romantic movies on Netflix (maybe it’s time to re-watch the Emma Thompson/Kate Winslet version of Sense and Sensibility?)… Happy Monday, everyone!
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White Christmas
Hooray for snow! It was really cold in west Texas, but it was wonderful to have snow for Christmas. We had a great time with our family, and are happy to be back in Austin with our kitty cats. Hope you all had a great Christmas, too!