I am ready to pare down my cookbook collection. At least I think I am.

Morning distractions

Marie Curie says it best

I can't take credit for the design - I took a photo of a page from this art/biography of Marie Curie because this corner of the page was screaming and empathizing and reverbarating through my entire being. Dramatic? Hardly.

Bocuse d'Or Concours

It is an even numbered year, so that means it is time for the competition that chooses the American representative for the Bocuse d'Or - the ultimate international culinary competition. This is the time of year where I still get all excited and anxious and wistful. This is where I start researching the men in the running (hey look - Chef Rosendale!).

Once upon a time, I was an aspiring chef extraordinaire.

I was Chef Handke's apprentice for the Bocuse d'Or Concours - where he won the right to represent the USA in Lyon, France in 2001. I learned a lot from that experience and that man and that competition and that food.

Unluckily (or luckily), I was 4 months too old to be his apprentice for the final competition in France. The rules of the culinary world assumed someone my age would have been established and making a name for myself instead of apprenticing for another.

It is a decade later and I'm so-close-I-can-taste-it almost there. 

Cumin honey butterscotch cake is worth a visit. Macaroon sandwiches too.

Big Bear Hug makes me smile

We read a lot of kids' books. Most of the time, the kids like the book more than me; sometimes I love the book that I am reading more than the kids do; and there are times where we all love what we are seeing and hearing.

That doesn't really happen that often. 

It just happened this month.

Big Bear Hug by Nicholas Oldland makes me happy for many a reason; this is just one page that makes me smile:

***

(I bought this book after checking it out of the library more than 5 times. The link is an Amazon Associate thing.)

Negative Space (#NOPHO)

This was by far the most difficult theme of the #NOPHO challenge to execute.

Initially, I could only think of a place that I don't like - a very negative space - but I didn't want to cheat at this challenge by using the ole dry wit and deliberate misinterpretations. 

So after some serious brainstorming, I had a solid list of photo ideas that would be interesting, would use the negative space in the frame thoughtfully, and could fit my unofficial challenge to show the real details of my life.

After a week of shooting, none of those ideas worked very well in pixels.

And so I procrastinated. Which, for this photo challenge, meant that I just lived my life.

Luckily, my life includes treasure hunts with small people on sunny days.

My kids find the greatest treasures every where they look.  And I found a picture worth keeping.

Many thanks to Allie for hosting this wonderful challenge. I cannot wait to find another way to push myself behind the camera.

Dangerously close to sports talk

Whether it be at the Big House or under the Wildlights, let's hope that we see something like this Saturday:

I want to learn to sew

I like to make things.

After I made some babies, I figured I could make just about anything.

I might have found the exception and that bothers me because I want to make this. I WANT TO MAKE THIS. I feel a deep rooted need to make this.

Crazy quilts were made during the late 1800s/early 1900s according to the little information posted near two of these quilts at the Ohio Historical Society.

Scraps of fabric were pieced into nine blocks before fancy stitches were sewn over each seam. To finish, some of the fabric pieces were embellished with lace, paint or stitches.

Do you know what gives me hope? My very first search into the hows of crazy quilting resulted in the following introduction: "If you've done patchwork or counted thread embroidery, throw most of what you know in the corner for now. There are no rules here, only creative flaws. It doesn't matter what the back of your block looks like, and it's ok if your stitches aren't all the same size or going in the same direction. No Inhibitions!"

Which I read as, "Your lack of experience is great! You cannot screw this up! Something something stitches something! No inhibitions!"

But something about those stitches tells me that they don't actually mean *I* can do it.

I have a goal.

First step, learn to thread a needle. After that, I might need a sewing mentor or three.