Big House Red Wine

I found Big House Red wine one desperate night at my local "European-Style Supermarket," lingering on the bottom shelf amongst the other "cheapie" wine options ($10.99 IS reasonable, but not exactly cheap on this girl's grad school budget). 

I'm not gonna lie- I bought it because of the pretty picture. And the price. But mostly the pretty picture. It's a table red, a line I rarely cross even with my cheap wines-- Trader Joe's Sangiovese? Sure, I'll give it a go. Whole Foods' 365 Pinot Grigio? Wouldn't go there again, but I was a willing victim. But... the picture.

When I got my expensive cheap wine home and twisted off the cap (I stopped being a cork snob quite a while ago, after too many good twist-off experiences), I was very pleased. The wine had some fruitiness, some complexity, and a smoky yet smooth finish. 

When I ventured online to investigate my good fortune, I found this description on the website: "It starts with a nose full of blackberries and raspberries, with hints of leather and spices. The palate is clean, exhibiting flavors of cranberries, roses and a touch of rhubarb. This finish lingers, with flavors of vanilla and a touch of dark cherries in the finish."

Leather? Spices? Vanilla? Berries and cherries? Roses? Rhubarb? No wonder I lusted after another bottle! Considering my love of Malbecs, I swoon at the mention of "leather" or "tobacco." (It's internal Beatles pandemonium at the mention of both, but I'll take one or the other.)

Go get a bottle of this red. It's so worth it. And if you don't have a "European-Style Supermarket," you can get it here.

Why Write?

"The desire to write grows with writing."
Desiderius Erasmus

All my life, I have loved the idea of journaling... of opening a fresh journal, perched in a clearing of blossoming trees, ruminating on the wonders of butterflies and life... You get the picture.

Really, it's more like I buy 12 new journals a year because none of them is "perfect," I write one uninspiring entry about how I want to start journaling, and then I forget about it until I need a piece of paper to write down someone's phone number or figure out my budget for the month.

Deep Breath. So I'm starting over. Because I do want to write. And I thought I'd take you all along for the ride, hehe...

I bought (yet) another journal and some colored pencils. I've come up with some pretty good ideas. And I've armed myself with some good websites and blogs to help me get started and stay on track.

I love the site "Journal for You." They have great, practical ideas for journaling that fit anyone's interests and lifestyle.

A particular favorite post is called "5 Reasons to Start a Daily Journal."

So, there's my motivation.

Now how do I begin? For now, I'm going to try to raid my Pinterest quotes board, print out my favorites, and use those for inspiration. It makes my journal more inviting, and since I choose the quotes, I get to kind of reflect on why I was drawn to them.

Here's an example:

If you'd like to see more, you can go to my Pinterest "quotes" board here:
http://pinterest.com/kate_emilee/quotable/

Thanks for coming along for the journey! Please post your journal entries and/or thoughts if you like!

Homemade Lip Scrub

So this may seem like a blog more appropriate for Beauty Tuesday, but seeing how this project was totally DIY, I decided it would qualify.

In the winter, my lips are ugly. They chap, they crack, they peel, they bleed-- no bueno. I try to use chapstick every night (and I've tried every kind: medicated, natural, hypoallergenic, vegan, you name it), but nothing helps much. Recently, I saw a lip scrub in a beauty magazine. It seemed like it might do the trick. But when I researched it, the price was too high and the ingredients didn't really look like anything I'd want to be near (or accidentally IN) my mouth.

So, I decided to make one. I know that scrubs are essentially salt or sugar, some kind of base oil, and usually a blend of essential oils or fragrances for scent. Using this basic model, I constructed a yummy, effective, and wholly natural lip scrub made from ingredients I had in my kitchen.

Here's the recipe:

1) 1/2 cup of sugar (salt sounded pretty gross!)
I used 1/4 cup of raw turbinado sugar and 1/4 cup of regular white sugar because I like the two different sizes of crystals.

2) 2 Tbsp of Coconut Oil, melted
I decided to use coconut oil because it's a great moisturizer, and it tastes good! I tried my beloved olive oil on my first run, and it was too thin and did not pass the taste test very well.

Because coconut oil has a high freezing temperature (just around 76 degrees F, or room temperature), it's usually solid. To mix the ingredients, I needed to melt it, so I just stuck the 2 Tbsp in the microwave for 30 seconds.

3) 1/4 tsp of natural vanilla extract

I knew I didn't want to use essential oils because they usually taste bad, so I raided my spice cabinet to see what was up, and found... ta-da!... the perfect fix: vanilla! It gives the scrub a rich smell and yummy flavor. You could use other flavor extracts too, but some of the citrus and mint ones might be a little drying.

I mixed everything up and put it in an old herb/tea tin I had lying around -- you want a nice consistency: not too oily, but moist and spreadable. 

And voila! A simple, cheap, quick recipe to luxuriate your lips!

I slapped a cute label on the tin (I got the template for free here from Etsy) and I use my scrub every night-- and try not to eat it! Just get a little finger-full, rub on your lips for a moment, rinse, pat dry, and follow with your favorite lip moisturizer.

PS- the coconut oil will naturally harden a bit (returning to its usual solid state), so you'll notice a little change in consistency, but as soon as you spread it on your lips it's all the same! Happy DIY-ing!

Evanhealy is Awesome!

I am a starving grad student. Well, perhaps not starving exactly (see some of my yummy recipes!), but certainly not rich. I DIY my heart out and will pledge allegiance to Forever 21. However, there are some products that I find are worth the extra money (even though it pinches a bit to part with it-- I could have bought FIVE Trader Joe's bottles of wine with that!).

Evanhealy is one of these brands. Unfortunately, I cannot afford to douse my face in every perfectly well-made, pure and natural, and heavenly-smelling product they make. But I have three that I keep at all times in my medicine cabinet.

Their Blue Lavender Cleansing Milk, Lavender Facial Tonic, and Chamomile Eye Care Cream I will not be left without. No other products can handle my super-oily/ dry-in-certain-patches/ turning-30 skin like these delicate products can. And did I mention the heavenly smell??? My nighttime beauty routine feels like a nice, relaxing ritual that I actually look forward to every evening. Plus, the eye cream doesn't contain caffeine, a chemical present in many "anti-wrinkle" formulas that tends to de-hydrate the skin under the eye-- NOT something those of us in our 20s and 30s, or really any woman using a night cream, should be looking for in our eye products.

I buy my Evanhealy at Whole Foods, but they're online too. The prices are WAY lower than the expensive department store brands (though a commitment for those of us used to shopping at Target), but take a look at the ingredients. Plus, the products last forever, and they're generally just worth it.

Check them out here: http://www.evanhealy.com/

Wildflowers

Yesterday, I was walking back from our family-owned produce market, Hyde Park Produce, when I heard someone playing music. I followed the sounds to Nichols Park, which I'd never walked through before, and found a band playing the blues while people casually stopped by to listen. I sat by a fountain surrounded by wild roses, and listened for a few moments, then went on my way.

Further into the park, I spotted a wildflower path, where a few people were weeding out the flowers and taking care of the space. I turned and decided to walk through the path. While I was wandering through, one of the women working told me that if I wanted them, I should take a bunch of the beautiful yellow wildflowers they were cutting, that they had too many.

I thanked her with surprise and sincere gratitude, and walked the rest of the way home with a huge bunch of flowers, stems, and leaves bundled in my arms, and a smile on my face. So many people stopped me and commented on my pretty flowers, and they smiled too. It was something I'd never experienced before quite like that.

When I got home, we cut the flowers out of all the brush, and put them in vases. Then we took the rest of the cuttings over to the compost pile in the community garden across the street from us. What a beautiful gift from nature, and from a kind stranger who must have intuited my love for wildflowers!

Ingredients: The Movie

We watched the movie "Ingredients," and it really inspired us to get into the sustainable food movement even more than we already had- beyond Whole Foods, beyond eating healthy, beyond even organic.

This movie does a good job of looking at the relationship between production and consumption, in this case, in the form of the restaurant industry. However, I really internalized the consumption aspect, seeing how supporting farmers is vital to supporting so many things I care about: family business, the earth, the health of the soil, the availability of quality, nutritious food, empowering ourselves against corporate and hierarchical structures, etc., etc.

In this, we see Alice Waters' oft-quoted perspective: that paying higher prices for these things is not a painful reality we accept, but a thing we choose and want to do in order to make every step of this process a worthwhile living choice for everyone involved. If we continue to demand cheaper and cheaper food, we price farmers out of making a living. More than that, we discourage those who might otherwise choose this career as a passion, an art (which then increases quality and intention of good) from pursuing this life.

However, if we offer good, fair prices, we increase the odds that passionate, talented people will pursue a way of life in farming in a way that supports a healthier economy (one that challenges corporate, detached ways of life), a healthier planet, and a healthier population.

After watching this movie, we decided to dedicate ourselves even more to what we believe in: we will be composting (WITH WORMS) in the apartment, we will be seeking out local foods in the form of farmers markets and CSA's, we will be structuring our menus around what is seasonally and locally available (which is a fun and welcome challange to my creativity), and we will be in general more sustainably-minded.

Don't get me wrong; we still bought some lemons and limes, and even an avocado (things that CLEARLY do not grow in Illinois!) for our menu. But, as a wise mentor has always impressed upon me, every little thing you do makes a difference. We hope that every step we take to dedicate ourselves to what we believe in will make us feel more purposeful and excited about, well, life! I'm certainly excited about the new challenges in cooking!

I realize that not everyone has the resources we have in Chicago, and that our resources will become vastlty more scant in the coming winter months. But, again, every little effort to eat what's in season, or grow your own herb garden on the windowsill, is something towards taking the power from forces outside of ourselves (namely, the food industry), and empowering ourselves.

More to come, especially on the worms!

Cooking Channel Seasonal Recipe Finder!

This is so cool! Cookingchanneltv.com has a recipe finder for produce that's in season! I'm not necessarily endorsing the recipes (but anything Jamie Oliver does is always good!), but at the very least, it's a good tool to find out what actually IS in season right now.

Just go to: http://www.cookingchanneltv.com/recipes/index.html and look on the right side toward the bottom in the box "In Season Now."

So cool!