New Year's Eve...ntually I'll Get to It All

Happy New Year to all! For me, 2012 began with no hint of how it was to end. I was living in San Diego but celebrating the New Year in Boston, toying with the idea of moving back. By the end of the year, I was living in San Francisco and had recently closed one big-ol' door in my life, eager to open new ones. Who knows what 2013 will have in store!

I've begun 2013 by putting (too?) many projects on my own plate. I have a blog post in the works about my recent trip to Geneva, which is proving to be more time consuming than I had anticipated. I'm extremely invested in getting it right, since travel writing is my job fantasy. Stay tuned.

Today, I'll begin with dessert:

FROZEN CHOCOLATE WIND AND STRAWBERRY RAVIOLE:

FROZEN CHOCOLATE WIND

85 g dark chocolate

1/2 cup H20

1 sachet soy lecithin

Combine the dark chocolate, water, and soy lecithin in a pot, stirring until boiling. Let cool 15 minutes in the fridge. Use an immersion blender in a wide-brimmed bowl to create foam from the cooled liquid chocolate. Carefully scoop the chocolate foam into a separate bowl. Place in the freezer 45 minutes, and you have frozen chocolate wind. 

STRAWBERRY RAVIOLE

2 cups strawberries

2 tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp calcium lactate

1 sachet sodium alginate

3/4 cup water

Medium-sized mixing bowl filled with cold tap water

(This was complex, to say the least.) Use a blender to liquefy strawberries, sugar, and calcium lactate. Separately, combine water and sodium alginate in a bowl to create a "bath." Refrigerate bath for 15 minutes. Then, slowly scoop half-teaspoon size portions of the strawberry mixture into the sodium alginate bath. (They fall apart easily.) Let sit 3 minutes. Gently scoop strawberry "ravioles" out of sodium alginate bath into the bowl of tap water. Stir to rinse. Carefully scoop ravioles out of water bath onto serving spoon or nested in the chocolate wind. 

THOUGHTS: The chocolate wind was divine. Light, airy, delicate. Don't scoop too much foam into the same container when it rests in the freezer, as the weight of the top foam will crush the foam at the bottom and cause it to liquefy. The strawberry ravioles were a different story. The texture was gelatinous, almost like slurping a poached egg yolk without breaking into it. The flavor was under-whelming (although that may have been due to the quality of strawberries) and the process was tedious. The ravioles were difficult to scoop out of the two baths and broke apart easily, ruining the consistency (and, undoubtedly, the appeal) of the final product. In the Cuisine R-Evolution recipes DVD, they show a beautiful red sphere sitting prettily in a sterile white spoon. That's what happened to me, never.

OTHER PROJECTS GOING ON:

LAMPS

I've decided to make more lamps. Yes, it's a peculiar hobby of mine (with help from my husband!!), as can be seen on my Etsy shop. The following teaser photos are part of that project: 

And a dramatic before/after shot from a silver pitcher made in India, found at a local Goodwill. I, for one, was not aware of the magical alternate uses of toothpaste.

AFTER

BEFORE

And, finally:

That's all I'm going to share about that project for now, but stay tuned! More to come!

STRING ART

This wood panel used to be part of a shipping crate found discarded behind a warehouse in Berkeley. The wood originated in Brazil, according to the convenient lumber grade stamp located on one of the slats. Again, to be continued... 

EMBROIDERY HOOP ART

Do I know the first thing about how to use an embroidery hoop? Nope. Am I going to teach myself? Abso-flippin-lutely. I want to try my hand at the CUTEST DIY project I found recently, which I'll post soon. 

By the way, I'm not sure how I ever accomplished ANY kind of DIY/craft project without the Martha Stewart Crafts 18 x 24 Inch Cutting Mat. No, I'm not hired to advertise this product (although it certainly wouldn't hurt...) I recently got it from Michael's, using their ubiquitous 40% off coupon. (Thanks, mom!) I briefly hunted around online to find the best bang-for-my-nerdy-craft-monster-buck, and decided that this one would do the trick. No more eyeballing or using recycled cardboard as a protective layer between my project and the kitchen table for this gal! I have to say that it's pretty large, so you need to use it on a large work space. Also, it comes folded in half, so there is a little bit of warping on the center seam, preventing it from lying perfectly flat. After a couple of days flattening it (with my laptop), it's like a crêpe. Perfect! Now, I impulsively find myself straightening or lining up anything that finds its way onto its infallible grid. 

In the spirit of the New Year et cetera:

"The beginning is the most important part of the work." - Plato