Moving on Out.

Well, after 8 years the time has come to give up this loft I love so much. We are putting our place on the market today. Instead of blogging lately, I have been cleaning, and purging, and organizing. I have very mixed emotions. My family is ready to move for space and schools and other things so I will go along with them knowing that I have gotten to live in my dream building and that hopefully someday I will get to live in an industrial space in the city again. Several readers have asked to see photos so here they are:


Almost everything in our house is from Ikea, Homegoods, or Lakewood Antiques Market which I dearly miss! I love these Flor squares covering our concrete floors. They are great because they are tiles that can be replaced one at a time if your kids are too messy!


The building we live in was built in 1913 and was a Seed Factory. When we moved in, our space was raw and my dad, who is a builder, built it out for us. One of my favorite things we did was build this table into this strange hump that is the headroom to the common area building basement. It is great for serving and working puzzles. You can see this hump, minus the table of course, in the opening scenes for Sweet Home Alabama which was filmed in our space before we converted it. Our space was used for the NYC fashion design studio shots.



The red seats are some that my grandfather got from the old Fulton County stadium. And the Texaco sign is from Lakewood and special because Brandon's dad worked for Texaco for much of his career.


Here is Delaney and Ford's room. Delaney hopes to get her own room soon so she can have more of her "ownself time". Their bunkbeds are from Ikea as well as their storage area. The diner is from a friend who got it at a garage sale.



This is my studio. The cabinets are Ikea and can be customized with photos as doors like I did to the middle row.


This is a view from my studio looking back over the main room. You can see our little catwalk library to the left designed by metal artist, Andrew Crawford. We added that on more recently than we converted the rest of our place.



Our bedroom photos give you a good look at the awesome columns in the building. They are giant poured concrete.


The doors to our closet are from Lakewood and are out of an old Chicago hotel. My dad gave them to me for Christmas one year when my favorite song was Martina McBride's "You Must Think My Heart Has Swinging Doors".

If you are looking for a place, here is the listing.

Indian Birthday Party

We celebrated my mom's birthday with an Indian themed dinner party at our place. I have always loved Indian food and am learning more about it these days. I owe a lot of my new found knowledge to Aarti Sequeira, winner of last season's Food Network Star. I love her show Aarti's Party and her blog. For this meal, we used mostly her recipes. I love her tin of spices called a masala dabba which are found in most Indian kitchens. I found mine at World Market for about $10.


We started out the evening with her recipe for newspaper nuts. I upped the flavor by adding a bit more spice than she calls for and I added raw sugar at the end for that wonderful, sweet gritty texture that I love it for.


For dinner, we ate a roasted root jumble over polenta with haloumi cheese. This was my first introduction to Haloumi cheese which was available at my local Publix. I thought it was a wonderful cheese to grill, saute, etc. It holds up well instead of melting similar to a Feta but with a less intense taste.


We also enjoyed beef kababs stuffed with dried cherries and cashews which is a recipe I will be making again and again. I loved them! I used Trader Joe's Naan bread which is a staple in our freezer and my husband will eat anything I ever cook as long as he can wrap it up in this bread. It is that good.


I made lychee aqua frescas with lemongrass and coconut. It was a very different taste for me that I have not ever had before. I thought they were refreshing and would prefer them on their own rather than with a meal.


We preferred this selection of beers with our food instead.


For dessert, I deviated from the Indian theme to make my mom's favorite dessert (and mine too cause nothing beats it). It is a Rachel Ray recipe that I have made for years that is a quick twist on Baklava and Ice Cream. You should definitely make this!!!

Here is the recipe:

• 3 (13 by 17-inch) sheets phyllo dough
• 4 tablespoons melted butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons cinnamon
• 1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts
• 1 pint vanilla bean ice cream
• Honey, for garnish

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Spread a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Top with a layer of phyllo and brush or using a spritz bottle, spray with butter. Combine sugar and cinnamon and cover the sheet of pastry 1/3 cup sugar. Repeat with 2 more layers of pastry, then top with the finely chopped walnuts. Cut pastry into 3-inch squares with sharp paring knife. Cover the pastry with another sheet of parchment paper and another cookie sheet. Place pastry in hot oven and bake 10 minutes or until golden. Serve warm squares of pastry with ice cream and a drizzle of honey.

Fig Ginger Jam

It's fig season. We were the lucky duck recipients of a bag of fresh figs from our friend, Brenda, who picked them at her mother's house in Reidsville, South Georgia. My mom has a delicious recipe for Refrigerator Fig Ginger Jam, so we thought it would be a great way to use our figs.

The figs were so tender and soft that I let the kids chop them up themselves. It was their first time ever getting to use a sharp knife in the kitchen and they did great keeping their non cutting hand far away from the cutting area.


This is one of those recipes that is so easy that the kids were able to do every step themselves. They squeezed the lemons and pulled the stems off the figs and measured and stirred all the ingredients together.


We filled our jars and are so proud of our finished product. Delaney helped me decorate all the labels. The jam is delicious. Last night we made grilled cheeses with the jam, bacon, and swiss cheese!

Here is the recipe in case you'd can get your hands on some fresh figs this summer:

4 C coarsely chopped fresh figs (about 14 large)
2 C sugar
1/3 C water
¼ C fresh lemon juice (plus thinly sliced lemon halves including rind)
3 T chopped crystallized ginger
¼ tsp. salt

Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan; bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, 30 minutes or until thick, stirring frequently. Cool. Pour into airtight containers. Makes 3 cups (or 3 jelly jars)

Refrigerate in airtight containers up to six weeks

Celebrating the 4th

We enjoyed a wonderful Fourth of July weekend.

It included road tripping from Atlanta, GA to Charleston, SC to Shallotte, NC.


We saw many sights, ate boiled peanuts, drove across this beautiful bridge...


And stumbled upon a few superheroes along the way.


We loved riding around in Grammy and Gus's driveway...

And playing in the giant waves at Holden Beach.


We baked red, white, and blue cupcakes and it was a whole family affair.

Finally, we got decked out in red and celebrated living in the USA!

Strawberry Shortcake's Ice Cream Pie

Delaney's favorite movie is Strawberry Shortcake: Cooking Time

She watches it to the point of ridiculous. Every time it is her turn to choose a movie, she chooses this one and poor Ford is sick and tired of it! She repeatedly asks if we can make the recipes that Strawberry and her friends make in the movie so today her wish was finally granted. We bought the ingredients to make an ice cream pie.


We added a few more ingredients to ours so that the cooking project was a bit more drawn out. I figure if kids are going to be in the kitchen and cook and make a mess anyway, it should take up a bit more time in our day than dumping a carton of ice cream into a pie shell!


First we set out our ice cream and kept checking to see when it was soft. While we waited for that we crushed up coconut cookies with a rolling pin.


Then we added chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, and almonds to a bowl with the cookie crumbles. When the ice cream was soft we mixed it into the bowl and stirred it all up really well. We scooped our new ice cream creation into a chocolate cookie pie shell and topped the whole thing with Whipped Cream.

We put it in the freezer until dinner time.

After dinner, we sliced it and served it up and it was delicious. Strawberry Shortcake would be proud!

Yeah!!

Our favorite "green" burgers and fries place in Atlanta is Yeah! Burger. We love everything about it from the yummy food to the easy decor, the great funky wall murals to the perfect outdoor patio and the grassy area to play on after dinner. Tonight there was a storm on its way which gave us perfect breazy weather and a bit of extra play time!