Finding beauty and delight in life’s little pleasures
After a couple weeks of steaks, rich curries, burgers and salted caramel ice cream, it’s time to scale back a little bit.
Don’t get me wrong; eating to oblivion is a pleasure like no other, but when even your fat jeans are screaming murder and your zippers are one panini away from becoming an explosive device, it might be a good time to revisit your vegetable drawer– and not just to dump out faded, forgotten friends.
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Want to see up close what a slice of $200 cake looks like?
I say that because I am an idiot, and as such, I do dumb things. And it’s a good thing this cake is as memorable and luscious as it is because I think that in the process of sharing it with my Meals on Wheels clients, I did something stupid and I am going to be paying through the nose for it.
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Quick question. If early adapters are on one side of the spectrum and late adapters on the other, where do you think you fit in?
For example, were you one of the first in your coterie to get a smartphone — or the last? What about a car that wasn’t a Honda or a Toyota? And were you watching Walter White in Breaking Bad from the first episode, or did you binge watch later and see the whole lot during one debauched weekend?…
Scored this beauty of a pan this week at the Goodwill bins.
I remember these spendy pans being sold at Williams-Sonoma (I used to write recipes and copy for them many years ago but still pop in to their stores from time to time in to check out new arrivals and drool). I always thought they were charming but couldn’t justify the price as I had no need for something called a Charlotte Mold.
A Charlotte is a sponge cake or cookie-lined cake in which layers of fruit or custard also play a role, and are either served cold (making it like a trifle) or warm (as in Apple Charlotte). They can be baked or unbaked. Some say it originated in Britain, others in France. Who knows? All I know is I bake all the time, and I even have a daughter named Charlotte so you’d think I would have come around to baking one, but no. And no immediate desire to do so, hence I can’t justify buying a new pan just because it is Valentine’s week and it’s cute as a button.
That doesn’t stop me, however, from enjoying a cute tin-lined steel pan when it crosses my thrifty path. Now I can’t imagine coming home from the market and not having this little French-made cutie to corral my room temperature produce.
Charlotte molds — not just for dessert anymore.
Approximate cost @.89 per pound = .97 cents
I love acrononyms, don’t you?
They make our life so much easier. They abbreviate our speech so it is not bogged down with long unnecessary explanations and redundancies….
I have heard that if you want to de-clutter and simplify your life, you should only buy or possess things that either are supremely beautiful or unquestioningly useful.
But what if you want something just because it is neither possesses great beauty or promises utility but you just can’t stand how cute it is, and you want to protect it from the landfill? Or you want to pretend that you are the kind of person who walks around with supplies for every possible contingency?
I found this rain purse this week at the bins — I knew I would find something interesting in the bin because I found a bunch of older items that had probably not sold at an estate sale and ended up amidst handwritten recipe cards (most of which had gotten damp and were nearly illegible), dingy Tupperware and tangles of old ribbon (none of which grabbed me). And then I saw her.
Standing just over an inch high (and barely that much wider), she was in pristine shape and apparently had never been opened; a quick peek inside proved that a bonnet indeed awaited inside. She looks like something a Barbie would carry around, but I would imagine it was something a woman would carry around in her handbag in the event that inclement weather threatened her ‘do.
I had to wonder. Did she buy it in a store or did her hairdresser slip it to her after a long appointment on one particularly blustery and rainy day? As it still appears to be factory-fresh and still unused, how many years was she waiting for that one special time to use it and never did– thirty, forty, or more?
If anyone knows anything more about approximate age or providence of this piece, I would be thrilled to learn more. In the meantime, I will hold on to it for safekeeping — a girl should always be prepared for anything.
A couple years back I bought one like these from an artist specializing in vintage and repurposed items. She had the top seam finished off with a reprinted vintage Christmas Card, folded over. This week I found a total of five of these empty stockings at the bins, and next Christmas I am going to take that same basic idea and do that with these.
Perhaps I will then fill them with tiny packages of homemade treats — or just with purchased mini treats of a similar theme (nuts? wrapped truffles? breakfast treats?) and then leave the filled stockings on the doorknobs of friends’ front doors.
Wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing to wake up to?
(approximate cost of items: a quarter)
When you need some down time, what do you do? Curl up with a good book? Take a bubblebath? Binge watch your newest TV obsession? Fall down the modern rabbit hole of Pinterest?
Me, I pack up water, cash, and a small snack and then I hit the road; for just a few hours I then become a modern day pirate in search of lost treasures. My hunting ground? I go to the Goodwill Outlet stores. …
So I was coming home through Grant Park, dog in tow, and the walk was allowing my mind to wander and tackle some of the big issues rattling around in my brain. Was there any leftover bacon in the fridge?
And then I saw it. Out of the corner of my eye, almost missing it. Parked there, quietly, minding its own business. I couldn’t quite compute what I was seeing – a computer on a car?…
