Fall 2011 at Joe Fresh

It's both a blessing and a curse to have such cute and affordable clothing available at the grocery store. A harmless trip to get milk and vegetables then becomes potentially dangerous when it comes to bypassing the goods from Joe Fresh. Like tonight, for instance, when I came across this pair of black leather ankle boots. At $79 they would have been a steal, but on top of my $12 grocery purchase, my visit would have sunk me in over $100.

I realize that the grocery store down the street doesn't have a clothing section, and that I could just avoid going to the larger store with the clothing section altogether, but some of my favourite wardrobe staples have been found there on a whim. For instance: my favourite brown suede boots that I've had for over a year and don't have much wear left in them (beyond sad). I'm hoping to track down these brown lace ups in my size:

fall essentials: pendleton for madewell blanket. striped wool coat, joe fresh. landscape sweater, joe fresh. braided chain bracelet, joe fresh. the marriage plot, jeffrey eugenides (fall reading). leather tote, madewell. wool skirt, joe fresh. bobbing for baubles, essie (currently wearing). suede lace up boots, joe fresh. 

image via polyvore

Designer Pumpkins

I would rather spend my time baking with/eating pumpkins than carving them. For me, the best part about carving pumpkins is getting to cook the seeds while someone else does the more labour-intensive handiwork with sharp utensils.

That said, I wish I were talented enough to recreate some of these pumpkins (especially this hexagonal design and Steven Alan's birdhouse). Here's a no-carve alternative that I plan on doing next year that involves melting crayons and potentially lots of glitter. 

waris ahluwalia. shipley & halmos. steven alan. warby parker. chrissie morris. moss lipow. richard chai.

all images via vogue.com

Fall Coat Inspiration: Menswear and the Sixties

I have a thing for coats. It's probably got something to do with living on the east coast above the 49th parallel, but of all the things in my closet, if I had a disposable income all year long I would lavish it on coats (good, well-made, perfectly-tailored-in-beautiful-fabric coats) for every season and possible weather scenario. 

I'm in the market for one right now. Last year I made do with a (surprisingly spot-on) wool peacoat from the little boy's department at Old Navy. It actually reminds me a lot of the one from Built by Wendy that Andrea Linnett wrote about here, minus the insanely tempting gold lining. 

As usual I look to menswear and the 60s for inspiration. I love the tailored boxiness of these coats, the silhouette of the swing coats, and as usual am gravitating towards their neutral tones. I can't get enough of gray and navy, so I'm especially grateful these days for my red leather gloves, the only pop of colour I currently wear. They're beautiful fleece-lined gloves and are perfectly worn in from years of wear by my grandmother.  She gave them to me the last time I saw her almost ten years ago; it was in the middle of February and I tried to talk her out of it, but she insisted, and a month later she passed away (she wasn't ill, but I do think she knew). She was a very stylish lady and always favoured a classic silhouette; I think she would approve of these:

images: 

Kirsten Dunst in Carven coat 

Club Monaco

Calvin Klein Collection coat  

Club Monaco 

J.Crew

Rochas  

SJP 

A.P.C.

Dream Shoppe

source 1 & 2

The Selby featured this delightful pie shop in T Magazine today. It's called Four & Twenty Blackbirds and is located in Brooklyn, and now I'm sad because even though it hadn't crossed my mind to call my (non-existent) pie shop Four and Twenty Blackbirds, now I can't name it that, just like I can't use Queen of Tarts.

I was (half) joking with an acquaintance from my undergrad who I haven't seen in years about dropping everything and opening up a pie shop this past weekend after commiserating over the dismal outlook for those trying to enter the workforce with a graduate degree in the arts. Dismal. Hence, pie, because who doesn't love pie?

Sisters Melissa and Emily Elsen love pie and opened their pie and coffee shop over a year ago. Funnily enough I actually came across their recipe for maple buttermilk custard pie last week while searching for recipes for the pumpkin custard tart that I planned to make for Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday. It so happened that such a recipe doesn't exist, so I made it up myself and was quite pleased with the results (see recipe below), but didn't take any photos because I was too busy brining/roasting a turkey and making cranberry sauce, roasted vegetables and garlic mashed potatoes, all while it was almost 30 degrees outside. Unreal.

all photos from The Selby via T Magazine

Pumpkin Custard Pie
*filling adapted from blackberry custard pie recipe; Sweet Tart Pastry from Baking Illustrated

Filling:
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup superfine sugar
1/2 cup ricotta
3 eggs
4 tbsp heavy cream
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Pastry:
1 large egg yolk
1 tbsp heavy cream
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups flour
2/3 confectioner's sugar
1/4 tsp
1/2 cup butter

Kelly Green With Envy

all images via pinterest

Wild Blackberries

My hands and feet are covered in scratches from my forage into blackberry bushes this weekend, but it was so worth it. I picked about 2 quarts worth in less than an hour, and then spent about 4 hours in the kitchen creating these beauties:

The peach and blackberry galette was inspired by a recipe I found via gojee.com (my go-to lately for searching recipes by ingredient) which I decided to make with the excess pastry left over from the tarts. Because the tart pastry was so sweet it ended up tasting like a giant shortbread cookie (not a bad thing, in my books), and the peaches and blackberries were such a good complement.

The blackberry custard tarts are my best recipe find in a while. They were fairly time-consuming (such an understatement considering I picked the blackberries myself in addition to the many stages of pastry prep). Since I was using mini tart pans I had to halve the custard recipe and even then I still ended up tossing a bit of the custard mix down the drain, so next time I will either buy more tart pans or get a regular size pan. These are too good to waste.

There are still lots of blackberries remaining from the weekend, some of which I tossed in a salad (the blackberry juices were really good with the olive oil and balsamic dressing I made). I think the rest will go in a blackberry apple crisp later this week ...

Feast For The Eyes

I am admittedly late getting on board Katie Quinn Davies' foodblog, What Katie Ate, and only accidentally happened across it recently on pinterest, of all places.

I was searching for images of cake (why not?) and kept coming across these ethereally-lit photos that were more like paintings than photographs. After following several links I came across Katie's website and have been pouring over her archives ever since. It has all the right ingredients (ahem) that one would want in a foodie blog: recipes, well-written anecdotes about food and travels, and pictures - oh, the pictures! Some of them remind me of rustic Renaissance still lifes, but mostly they just give me mad cravings:

chocolate ganache, raspberry and pistachio pancake layer cake; chocolate fudge cake; roasted tomato & capsicum; paprika & basil soup; pomegranates

all images from Katie Quinn's website and blog