Our Easter

Easter day was so sunny and pretty! We had two days prior that were overcast and glum, but Easter was sparkly and gorgeous. We had a lazy one this year, including me being lazy and not really decorating the house until the last minute. I think I pulled it off though haha.
Since Caitlin couldn't eat rare lamb, I made a shoulder of lamb and cooked it kind of like you would cook carnitas. The recipe was from a cookbook called "A Kitchen in France." By Mimi Thorisson. There was some tinkering I had to do with the cut of the meat, because here in the US they butcher meat differently than they do in France. I ordered a shoulder, thinking that it would look like a pork shoulder roast, but it didn't. When I arrived to my favorite butcher shop and asked for my order, the guy came over and said I'm really curious what you are making, and why you requested 3 pounds of lamb shoulder. After discussing the recipe and having a fun conversation on how butchering varies, even from the East Coast, we decided to add a couple more blade shoulder chops to the three pound piece and tie butcher string around it to make it a bigger roast. So having done that, it brought up the weight more from the recipe. I upped the temp a bit and adjusted the cooking time. I think I could have taken it out sooner, but it was pretty tasty. The sauce was a garlic cream, made with pan drippings, cream, and ten cloves of garlic. As you can see from the first picture, there are already several heads of garlic with the lamb up there! That garlic caramelized quite nicely and perfumed the meat. We started dinner with a carrot ginger soup, with a spoon of creme fraiche and chives. I found some morel mushrooms at Berkeley bowl and added them to the asparagus, along with lemon zest. I lately have been loving Yukon gold potatoes more than red, so we had some with thyme.  No time this year to plan out a dessert, and having just finished consuming Caitlin's cheesecake the week before, I was a bit maxed out of baking. We bought this cute little coconut cake at Whole Foods, and I decorated the top with some cup cake picks that I already, and that was our Easter!

On good Friday I shot Caitlin's maternity pictures. I'm doing a separate post on that possibly on Wednesday. I'm still editing the pictures and hope to have them completed by then. They turned out so pretty!  You will have to come back and check it out.
Speaking of Caitlin, we have less than five more weeks to go before little miss Ruby is born! We are all so excited :)   Last Saturday we went over to their house to check out Ruby's little nursery area, and it was super cute. Caitlin painted the cutest little water color to hang above her little bassinet and everything is so nicely  color coordinated. All the little clothes are washed and now we wait.

Ok, I'm off to edit the pictures!

Caitlin's Birthday and Easter

Hello!  It was a busy weekend with Caitlin's birthday on Friday and Easter following so close this year. I think this is as close to Easter that her birthday has fallen in a long time. Because of this I felt very thrown off and really wasn't into the groove of decorating for Easter this year, just the table.  I got carried away and bought a bunch of flowers for the table. to make some really simple  flower arrangements in interesting bud vases and keep it sweet and light. I bought that really cool bulb vase at Tale of the Yak in Berkeley,(They don't have a web page, so I linked a write up of it.) I was annoyed that I bought my flowers too soon, and when I started to arrange them, they looked a bit fatigued. They looked and felt like I did yesterday. I made the mistake of taking an allergy pill and drinking extra strength Sleepy Time tea with valerian root in it. I was a tired mess, and I'm still surprised I was even able to cook dinner and set the table! I made a leg of lamb with yukon gold potatoes that were roaming with the lamb drippings, asparagus, and Chuck Williams favorite carrot soup.  The lamb recipe is my favorite from Fine Cooking magazine. Lots of chopped up mint, garlic, lemon zest. For dessert this year, I was going to make a strawberry rhubarb pie, but because the laziness seeped in, we bought a chocolate ice cream cake from here.  Every time we go to this ice cream shop, I get their chocolate, and have made the comment that it tastes like the best melted chocolate Easter bunny. So that's what we decided to have for dessert this year. Yum, and there is some left over for tonight :)

 On Caitlin's birthday we checked out the John Muir mansion near by our house. We have been several times, but not in the spring. It was such a gorgeous day! All the trees and flowers were at their most beautiful. Cyrous had never taken the infamous field trip that most of the kids living in this area do, so it was his first visit. We poked around the house and then walked up to the very top to the bell tower. It's a huge piece of property with orchards of fruit trees, and an adobe styled house. David recently found out that you can pick some of the fruit if you ask! I saw huge quince trees and got excited because the ranger said that no one knows what to do with them, and I could probably pick as many as I would like. I plan on doing just that! Later in the evening we had a beautiful dinner at Chez Panisse, always such a  nice place to end up for your birthday. The dessert course was my very favorite this time around. They made a pixie tangerine soufflé served with the best creme anglaise I have had in forever! The wine pairing with this was a match made in heaven. Great evening to celebrate my little chickadee.

Leading up to Easter I had a big special order that kept me busy. I had a customer buy a pair of Liberty of London bloomers from me, and then contacted me to make more times for her. She also bought one of my all time favorite pieces that I have made. I was very sad to let it go, but when she sent me an email to say how excited she was to get everything and wrote that her mom had handmade clothes for her when she was little, and that she wanted to do the same for her daughter, this made it a bit more easy to let that piece go.  I know she will treasure it the way it should be. These are the kinds of customers that I love. I have been lucky I will have to say with people who approach me for orders, which makes what I do all the more fun for me. 
Speaking of the shop, that sweet little dress I wanted to complete for Easter, is almost done, and now possibly could be cute for a flower girl. This too is one of those garments, that will be tough to let go because I LOVE how it is coming together. Stay tuned for pics on it. 

We just bought a new area rug for our living room, so I'm off to go do that. 

Have a good week!

Easter

Easter was quiet and peaceful. We went to Easter vigil on Saturday, so we could sleep in and have a nice breakfast, and just lounge around and cook and eat chocolate all day! Caitlin and Cyrous joined us for both church and Easter day. It's always so fun to make beautiful memories with these two!
This year I skipped the lamb and decided to make it easy with a ham from Whole Foods served with spring veggies tossed in a warm vinaigrette and red skinned mashed potatoes with grainy mustard. I found some beautiful English peas that were such a nice treat to have. I was a bit disappointed that the vinegar turned them an odd green after I had carefully blanched them to keep them bright green, but they did taste good none the less! David and the kids had a cheese course, but since I'm not a fan I sipped wine until they finished :)  For dessert I made my trusty strawberry rhubarb pie from a recipe I have had forever. I love this recipe because it has more rhubarb than strawberries, which gives it more of a nice tart taste. It also has a lot of vanilla in it which perfumes it so beautifully and makes the house smell so lovely while it is baking.
Then comes all the chocolate......did everyone over dose on it yesterday? I sure tried not to! Today I'm trying to catch up with all the party dishes and it's a bit slow moving I must say. Thought I'd write this blog post instead of doing said pile of dishes hahah.

I've got THE cutest dress cut out and started on, that I'm excited to show all of you. Lots of fun things to do and look forward to in the coming months, and as they unfold I will try and share as much as possible.

On our weather front, we got a bit of rain on Easter and more is on the way! I'm sure it will not really help our drought situation, but it sure is a welcoming site. Another front is coming for tomorrow and I hope to get cozy at home and work in the studio.

Hope everyone had a beautiful Easter!