A Spring Feast

Despite  it being St. Patricks Day weekend, my culinary mission of the evening had no traditional Irish food whatsoever.  The courses where planned with my mom’s tastes in thought, being her birthday the previous day, and a lovely afternoon of shopping and evening of cooking began.

For the hors d’oeuvres, we served graffiti eggplant, caramelized onion and walnut crostini which were quite delicious, if I don’t say so myself!

Our second course was a salad from “Barefoot in Paris” by Ina Garten.  It’s fantastic because the salad is so simple yet so elegant and tangy!   The warm goat cheese on toast is a great counterbalance to the acidic dressing in the greens.

 

Now for the entree!  I usually am not a huge white fish lover, but since it was on request for the evening, I complied and found a quite delicious looking Malaysian swordfish dish.  It had an amazing sauce with lime, coconut milk, shallots, cilantro, chili paste and lemongrass, although when making the sauce, we found that lemongrass does not easily break down in a food processor.  Broiling the fish was a bit more tricky, seeing as we rarely broil our fish, but in the end it was a completely succulent success!

And lastly for the dessert! I found this great recipe online for pistachio cupcakes and thought they came out just perfectly!  They had this light pistachio flavor and slightly rich frosting that combined for a perfect cupcake!  Check out the link below for the recipe!

Pistachio Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting

 

Keep cooking :)

XOX

Indigo F.

Just a Year Ago…

Just a year ago was when I started photography. I was on spring break and my family and I were in Virginia and Washington DC for a little less then a week. After biking around The Mall, seeing a gorgeous Peacock in a b&b in Virginia and visiting tons of museums, our last stop as we were heading home, was visiting the National Zoo. And let me tell you, if you happen to be in DC, going to National Zoo should definitely be on your list! Seeing the panda’s were, as predicted, fantastic (and really cute!) as well as the elephants, lions and exotic birds. But what we really weren’t expecting to see was an orangoutang 30 ft above our heads, swinging nonchalantly on cables without anything attached to him. It was then where I quickly asked my mom for her camera, saying that I would be careful and run under the cable course to take some pictures, getting some of my first shots on her Nikon camera that has been now my loyal companion for almost an exact year. If those orangoutangs hadn’t been there at that moment, I don’t know if I would be blogging or doing photography. Ever since that encounter, I have been studying black and white photography books and have developed a keen interest on how shadow, angle, light, texture and shape affect what sense and atmosphere a photo evokes. So here I am, a year later and an obsessed photographer, sharing the first shots that sparked my interest in the world through the lens.

XOX

Indigo F.

 

(I just love that little impish look on his face!)

Vermont Awakening

Hello everyone!

I’ve recently come back from a weekend trip to Vermont to collect some data for a school science project I’m working on. Our car trip was quite stunning actually! It was all blue sky’s with large clouds draping over a panorama of azure mountains. Even though Vermont is called “The Green Mountain State”, it only portrays its name in summer. The mountains are drenched in reds and oranges during the fall, and painted blue and white during the winter and early spring. Whatever the season though, Vermont always manages to take your breath away. I have been going up to VT for many years, and it’s like home when I’m up there.  Even the car rides have become comforting with our annual stops to the Grafton Village Cheese store, where we stock up on jams, chocolate, simply heavenly bread and some pretty gosh darn amazing cheese! Besides the amazing food up there, what I also love is how you can just stand in the middle of a field and only hear the snow falling…it’s quite magical! Well besides tramping out into the woods for 3 hours to collect data, I couldn’t resist taking about 700 photos in the 24 hours I was there, so I have selected some of my favorites to post! ( The snow shots at the end remind me of pointillism paintings!)

XOX

Indigo F.

1.8 acres with a fully renovated dog house for $54,900…Any takers?

What is Paradise?

I was recently listening to this amazing cover of Paradise by Coldplay on YouTube and was thinking what does it mean…Paradise? So I started thinking of all the experienced that make me feel like I am truly in Paradise! What can I say? The song was well done, totally unique and beautifully recorded to a point where I felt inspired enough to go through some of my photo albums and pick out my favorite “Paradise” photos! I’m putting the link to this amazing cover,( done by a group called “The Piano Guys”) as well as some of my photos too! Hope you enjoy them both!

XOX

Indigo F.

 

Remembering Davey

Where do I even begin? Obviously I am stunned and quite sad that my favorite of the Monkees has passed on. Simply, I grew up a Monkees lover. In third grade I would come into class singing “Take the last train to Clarksville” and people would look at me asking, “What on earth are you doing?” Since only the teachers knew who I was singing most of the time, losing Davey is even harder knowing most people my age can’t relate much. I can clearly remember my dad ordering the seasons off of Netflix when I was 8 and watching episode after episode and loving every moment, as I wildly laughed! It’s been awhile since I’ve seen the episodes, but it doesn’t surprise me that I developed a close knit relationship with that show. In fact I was never really into what other kids where watching when I was younger. Kids would talk about Hannah Montana and I would rambling on about The Walton’s, Gilligans Island and The Beverly Hillbillies. I was a fanatic of the wholesome shows, that have practically ceased to exist now :(.   It is such a shame TV has evolved into shows that just don’t have those silly wholesome components that they used to. So I suppose this leaves me to dedicate this post to Davey Jones and the good’ole shows of way back when.

Thanks for inspiring Davey!  You will always will have an affectionate place in my heart and be my favorite of the Monkees!

XOX

Indigo F.