The Little Chicken

Sometimes referred to as the "little chicken", the cornish game hen still packs a punch. This little package feed two and is still as delicious as its bigger counterpart. How many times have you heard someone say, "I want everyone to have their own little chicken on the plate", countless. And come on, it's got that cute factor.

So today is the perfect time to pick one up for you and your Valentine, and make a romantic meal. And your lucky because they usually come in pairs, like little love birds! Happy Valentines day.

Letterpress Printing with Earl

We recently attended AltSummit and had to have business cards printed for our blog. Never, in a million years, did I ever think we would have blog business cards. Well, times are a changin' and we had blog business cards printed. I knew they had to be letterpress since I would pretty much letterpress everything if I could. 

I've known Earl Kallemeyn for about 12 years and have worked on projects with him since graduating college and first moving to New York City. We go way back. Earl's family has been in the letterpress business for 75 years, it is really wonderful to see a craft passed on through the generations. 

Not only is Earl a great printer, he's a bad ass. That's right, you won't hear me say it about many people I know, but Earl is a true bad ass. He has tattoos, a bike, and you guessed it a blog. I also love to know someone who is excited and passionate about what they do. Earl fits the bill. I have a great deal of respect for what he does because I own a small letterpress and it is hard. And kind of addictive at the same time. You have to put another sheet in to see if you got it right. This post is a bit bittersweet for me since I decided to sell my press (between blogging, working and other projects it sits there, sadly unused). And honestly I normally send all my jobs to Earl, he does a beautiful job.

The New York Times produced a video about Earl that you can watch here. Next time you are at the stationery shop, you will have an insight as to the process of letterpress printing. 

Our Book!

To say the least, we are very excited to share our first House of Brinson printed piece! We recently self-published a 'look book' of selected images from our first year of blogging. When we looked back on the year we knew we had to do something to document it and share it, for everyone to see. There is no better way than print. To hold something in your hands and see what has been acomplished is pretty amazing. This book will also be a supplement William's professional photography portfolio. It was really interesting for me to look back at what we had accomplished, because I am not a professional stylist, yet now I have a styling portfolio because of our blog. 

With the help of Blurb and the excitement of our readers, we were able to produce this amazing printed piece. Take a look at more sneak peeks at Blurb. We hope you love this as much as we do.

Frozen Citrus

We found these beautiful pink lemons at the store recently. I loved how the leaves were still attached — they looked almost frozen to me. The color is perfect for winter and of course with the outrageous cold weather we had to share the 'frozen' leaf.

Altitude Summit

We will be at AltSummit for the remainder of the week. If you are attending please find us and say hi! We are excited to be participating in this years conference, and honored to be included with a group of such talented speakers.

We will be teaching two design camps, one on How to Build a Killer Portfolio Site sponsored by Squarespace. We use Squarespace as our blog platform and I really like it since I can make visual changes and see them in real time (with NO coding). I was pretty excited to learn that their new V6 will have even more features, plus the ability to build amazing portfolio sites. 

We are also teaching a Food and Table Top Photography design camp. We'll show you our tips for shooting daylight and styling your photographs. We have props packed in our suitcase and are ready to get started! 

Image above from my new Squarespace portfolio site. 

Also, we now have a Facebook fan page if you want to 'like' us, we would love it. 

Black and White Truffles

If luck falls upon you and you happen to be approached with truffles, just say yes. That is exactly what happened to us recently. We had the fortunate opportunity of being graced with not one but two truffles, black and white. We will keep the name of the person who brought these undercover, but you know who you are and thank you!

How does one come across a ziplock bag full of truffles? At a cocktail party, of course. That the way everything happens in NYC. These people obviously have the same motto as us and that is "if it's expensive and rare, share it with your friends and it will be that much better". So sipping cocktails and being advised to shave the black one over scrabbled eggs in the morning. How much more exciting could it get? Well, let me tell you…  after we had our scrambled eggs I diligently stored the truffles in a container of arborio rice. You see where I'm going with this? That's right, black truffle risotto with mushrooms and just a little parmesan. We didn't share that one with friends but there was so much perfumed rice left over that I brought some to my brother-in-law.

That was quite a food spasm, but we are talking about truffles here, one of the most expensive foods on earth. I mean come on, if you were given the opportunity to eat a $100 scrambled egg breakfast with truffles for free, wouldn't you dig in?

I hope luck finds you in this new year as well!

Pickling Beets

A few weeks ago I had a great opportunity to shoot a story on the different varieties of beets grown in Pennsylvania. One of the perks of a food shoot is that sometimes you get left with some amazing ingredients.

Most of the time I let my assistants get first picks, but in this case I already knew once Susan saw the beets her canning brain was a flutter. Pickled beets for her and then pickled eggs in beet juice for me. What a treat we were in for! To bad the pickling process takes so long, otherwise I think they would already be gone.

Pure Green Magazine

Good Monday Morning! We are excited to share our feature article from Pure Green magazine. Our friend Michelle from Holley & Gill told us about the magazine a few issues ago, so when we were asked to contribute, we were honored. 

The winter 2011/2012 issue is centered on entertaining, which we love of course! An Open House is our feature's name, and discusses relaxed entertaining during the holiday season. We share some of our favorite vintage pieces, including my collection of blue and white dishes. 

The design and quality of the magazine is amazing. And to boot, this is their first print edition. You can see a sneak peek of the print edition here and subscribe here. If you live near any of these stockists, you can also pick up a copy there. 

Carnac, France

Before we shift into full holiday mode, I wanted to share the last story from our France trip. One of my favorite things we did in France was visit Carnac. I am a National Geographic and Discovery channel geek and pretty much memorize all of the historic shows. I could watch them over and over, I never get sick of them. Give me a few drinks and I can tell you all about the pyramids of Egypt. 

Carnac was one of those places on my 'list' to see in person, holding the same importance of Stongehenge in England. The stones at Carnac date between 4,500 and 3,300 BC. They are old, older than Stongehenge. The interesting thing to remember about them, is there are thousands of stones, that go on for miles. Why did the people of this area feel the need to arrange the stones in perfect lines and how did they have the man power and tools to make this possible? In some respect the stones remind me of tombstones, however there is no proof that was the purpose of the stones. Other scholars think they are related to the stars, however no pattern can be found. 

Nevertheless, the area is serene and peaceful. It must have been lovely thousands of years ago. The colors and textures of the stones are very inspirational, especially since I am in love with grey and muted colors. 

Any theories on why the stones were placed at Carnac? 

Color Inspiration: Jeweled Corn

Well I'm not sure if we are in fall or winter, with this crazy weather, but I do love the colors that are around us. The leaves are falling in the park and there is sea of colors from rust to fire in every one of them. And when it rains the saturation just pops. This is definitely my favorite time of the year. The warm rich colors are all around us, even at the market. 

I honestly didn't really know what to do with the decorative corn you see around this time of year, but I was enamored by the colors. It is another jewel in nature.

Down in the Valley

In the beautiful countryside of France is a place called the Loire Valley, home to my brother in law's family and some amazing wine. Whoever said the French were not friendly has definitely never been to this place. We were welcomed with open arms and lots of cheek kissing.

On our first night there we had a dinner party that lasted until two in the morning, I knew I loved this place immediately. Upon waking up the next morning Mickael's (my brother in law) father had setup a local wine tasting. We all piled into the mini cars and went to the vineyard of Domaine Grosset. It honestly felt like your next door neighbors, but with lots of wine. We heard all about what years were good, what the difference of aging in oak barrels and so on. The sampling was amazing, comparing each other through the stages of each grape.

I also learned how to tell a wine from the Loire Valley from sight by the crest that adorns each bottle or label. As you can imagine each region is very proud of their wine as if it were their own children. It makes you appreciate good wine even more, when you hear them talk about it from their heart.

So take a trip out to the country  and meet the neighbors, they are bound to pull out a wonderful bottle and share.

Color: France

The colors of coastal France were really breath taking in person. Here are a few images we hope convey the amazing color. First the seaside of Brittany, where the weather went from sunshine to rain in a matter of minutes. We watched the shades of blue turn moody and the clouds brighten then turn dark again. The ocean turns a unique teal color that I can't get out of my head. 

The last image is from Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy. Not only do I love the blue, brown and orange tones, but also the pattern in the sand. 

Oysters of Brittany

The Brinsons invaded France in search of oysters, wine and cheese and we found them all! We had a plan, a man and an ancestral quest, to guide us through Brittany, the Loire Valley and Paris.

Our first plan: to eat as many oysters and seafood plateaus as possible in the week we had in Brittany. The man: my French brother-in-law Mickael from the Loire Valley, who said I quote " we should get the bigger van for cases of wine and buckets of oysters!" That is the sign of a good travel partner. And the ancestral quest: I am a great decendant of William the Conquer (probably a bastard child, but I'll take it) of Normandy, just on the northern tip of Brittany.

We stayed in the town of Quimpar just a little south of Breast, a great middle ground between north and south Brittany. Everyday guided by episodes of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, various welcomed suggestions from friends and a few guide books, we set out to explore the coast.

Finding oysters was no problem, but two spots you must stop at are Belon and Cancale. It was a oyster lovers right of passage to go and seek out the famous Belon oyster. This is truly the only place to have this oyster, and if you see it anywhere else, it does not taste the same! Although we arrived after the restaurant high season, that didn't stop us! We found that the locals could still buy oysters, so we sought them out. Luckily the place we went also sold oyster knives, otherwise I would have gotten creative with a car bumper or something. I have to say this was the first picnic I have ever had with fresh oysters, and it was so good!

The next stop is Cancale. It was amazing to see all the oyster farms out one minute and later that day they were all underwater. From Cancale you just see Mont St Michael in the diastase, sitting out in the water. Also there are more restaurants here or if you choose you can buy fresh oyster and they will shuck them for you and you can sit by the water. What could be more fun than that!! 

This is truly a sight to see and explore for yourself.

Altitude Summit 2012

I wanted to take a moment to let everyone know we will be speaking at Alt Summit this year. Last year was my first year blogging and my first year attending a blogging event. It was pretty amazing and I am looking forward to returning this year and taking my better half, William. 

We will be teaching two Design Camps. One is for table top and food photography (which I believe is filled up) and the second is about Building a Killer Portfolio Site. 

There is a small catch about how I will build the portfolio site: I don't know a line of code. Yupp, I never learned how to code. Our blog is on the Squarespace platform which I love, so I will also be using the Squarespace platform to demonstrate how to build the site without knowing how to code. I really like that I have complete control with Squarespace. If I wake up in the middle of the night and want to change something, I can. 

Personal Branding

I am really excited about building a portfolio site since my personal site has always been put on the back burner. (Anyone else do that?) If you want to follow my journey over the next few months, leave a comment with your G+ user name and follow me on G+. I will add you to a circle where I will be making updates about my progress and encouraging conversations around decisions we all make about our personal brands and websites. The end result will be my new website and we will show how to build a site in the Alt Summit Design Camp.

Country Wedding: Part Two

This is a continuation of the beautiful country wedding we went to earlier this month. There were so many things that captures your eye and your imagination, so the story continues….

The bride and groom before sunset. 

The maid of honour and the bride's sister, Hilary and her husband. Hilary's dress is an ode to the Washington Redskins, the grooms favorite team. Emily managed to gracefully work in personal details. 

Little squirrels for the cake topper. 

Redskins show up again in the bestman's tie. The three piece suit was a wonderful classic look for this event.

Dapper wedding guest Alex.

Alan in his skinny black tie is a keeper. 

The table with the guest book and family photos clipped on tree branches. 

The evening sets in and candle light sets the mood.