Jen Bowles Design

{Artful} Road Trip: Saratoga Springs, NY, Part 3

The drive from Schuyler Pond to downtown Saratoga Springs was a pretty one.  We drove past several lovely Victorian homes and an impressive looking brick building with a turret that turned out to be a military museum. 

Our first stop was a  at a florist/garden statuary shop called Hidden Gardens.  A giant pig, a metal tulip, 3 sheet metal sheep??  How could I resist??

Things here were a bit overwhelming and  pricey but worth the quick peek that I gave them.  I really did like those metal sheep...

After a drive down the Saratoga Springs main drag, we circled back to a restaurant Bubbe had eaten at the last time she was in town:  Scallions.

All I have to say is it's a good thing this restaurant isn't located close to my house--because I would go broke going there all the time!

As the tagline says, "Where good friends, food and art meet".  Yes, indeed. 

We managed to beat the post-Skidmore College graduation crowd and were seated right away.  We spotted a number of fellow Spring Fling patrons--maybe there was an inside tip? 

The food was delicious.  I had a mango-beet-quinoa salad over baby spinach and we split a piece of carrot cake for dessert.

As good as the food was, and as friendly as the staff was, the number one attraction for me at Scallions was all the artwork.  The entire space is full of custom pieces from Sticks.  Sticks handcrafts furniture, accessories and object art and each wooden piece is full of colorful imagery and handcarved words.  Amazing.  And Scallions is full of Sticks pieces.

Every dining table, the bar stools, the custom hostess stand, an incredible black and white carved countertop...

Over the top eye candy!

Just when you think you've noticed all the Sticks pieces, there are the accessories.
So fun!

But wait, it's not just Sticks items here.  There were a number of mixed media assemblage pieces sprinkled in as well, namely Fobots  by Amy Flynn and assemblage dolls by Bill Fink of Primitive Twig.

Even the lighting was beautiful. More Sticks, this time an amazing lamp:

No wonder it took me 15 minutes to use the ladies room (I was touring around the restaurant ooohing and aaahhing).

If you ever find yourself in Saratoga Springs, Scallions is another must-see for the artful wanderer!

Thanks for stopping by,

Pin-spiration: Lemon Loaf (Starbucks copycat)

I am not a coffee drinker, much to my husband's dismay.  He feels about Starbucks like I feel about art shops and the beach:  the more time he can spend there, the better.

I have been known to accompany him, laptop in tow, on one of his daily pilgrimages from time to time.  I don't ever drink coffee, usually it's tea or maybe a Banana Chocolate Vivanno smoothie (do they even still sell those?).  When I'm feeling especially indulgent, or especially hungry, I'll treat myself to a slice of Starbucks Lemon Loaf.

To borrow from my Pinterest board: Oh Yum.

Moist.  Dense. Lemony.  And that icing.  A little over the top but so, so tasty.

I haven't been to Starbucks in a while but recently I had a hankering for a slice of Lemon Loaf.  It wasn't convenient to get in my car and drive to Starbucks so I did the next best thing:  I googled and I pinned.

Source: buttercreambarbie.com via Jen on

Oh Pinterest, how I love you.

Yesterday, armed with a bag of lemons, I set to recreate the Starbucks Lemon Loaf using this recipe from Buttercream Barbie.  I must admit, I was a little skeptical when blending the wet ingredients didn't call for creaming the butter and sugar first.  My eggs weren't fully at room temperature and I ending up with sizeable chunks of butter in the wet batter.  I carried on and incorporated the dry ingredients, then the oil.  Then I put the filled loaf pan in the oven and hoped for the best.

Moist?  Yes, though I probably could've taken it out of the oven 2-3 minutes sooner.

Dense?  Yes.

Lemony?  Oh yes.

Over the top icing?  A little thinner than the Starbucks version, but I'll just add less milk next time ;-).

Overall, another tasty Pin-spiration success!

Pin-spiration {Leftovers}: A *Sweet* Turkey Cheese Ball

Sure, I ditched our remaining Thanksgiving leftovers last week, but I still wanted to post this adorable turkey cheese ball I made for our Turkey Day feast.

Inspired by this pin:

{original source: Tatertots and Jello}

I created this:

How I made it mine:  It's hard for me not to add book text to a paper project so I put Tom's  name right on his hat.  As for the cheese ball itself, I've never made one.  Most of the recipes on Pinterest were for savory cheeseballs.  Makes sense I suppose. I had something different in mind.  Adapted from a dip recipe I ripped out of a grocery store flyer, I created this {sort of} sweet cheese ball:

Cranberry-Orange Cheese Ball

2 bricks of cream cheese, softened (I used one regular, one reduced fat)

3-4T dried cranberries (Craisins), lightly chopped

2-3t grated orange peel

1/8t dried ginger

1T agave nectar or honey

1/4c. chopped pecans

1/4c. chopped walnuts

Combine all ingredients except nuts and blend until smooth.  If you have a food processor you could probably do this pretty quickly. I used a blender and it was rather cumbersome.  Once everything is combined and smooth, shape cream cheese mixture into a ball.  Mix together chopped nuts and roll cheeseball in nut mixture.  Wrap cheeseball and store in refrigerator at least one hour.  When ready to serve, soften slightly and decorate with an assortment of crackers and pretzels.  Finally, adorn with a (slightly crazed) paper or felt turkey head you've sandwiched over a skewer. 

Enjoy!

Dear Magnolia Bakery...

Dear Magnolia Bakery,

I was wrong about you.  So. Very. Wrong.

When I made my first visit to your shop at Rockefeller Center in 2009 it was late on a Friday night.  It was my first trip to the city since the cupcake craze really took off--and I wanted to be a part of it.  Though I was tired from a long day of exploring Manhattan on foot, I ventured out from my hotel room at 11pm.  Your shop at Rockefeller was charming, albeit small and crowded.  I purchased two vanilla cupcakes with pink buttercream and hurried back to the room to share my goodies with my mom.

I settled into my hotel club chair and took a bite. The cake was dry and rather tasteless, the frosting like sugar weighed down with its own sweetness.

I was not impressed.  I did manage to eat the entire cupcake--you know, just in case it got better.  It didn't.

Fast forward to last Friday.  I once again found myself in New York City, this time accompanied by Ebby.  For her first trip to the Big Apple, our itinerary was full-on tourist.  We hit several hot spots:  Times Square, Central Park, Tinsel Trading...Like her mother, Ebby is a cupcake connoisseur.  Even given my less than stellar experience at Magnolia last time, I was willing to give it another shot.  For Ebby's sake.  Our first pass by the Rockefeller Center bakery presented us with a line out the door.  We decided to find some lunch and then return.  Our second try met with the same results: a line out the door. We had to move on, we had many more stops on our agenda.

However a few hours later, fate intervened.  Maybe it was the Cupcake Godesses, who's to say.  We were on our way to Dylan's Candy Bar, walking by Bloomingdale's on 3rd Avenue when I saw it, out of the corner of my eye.

A Magnolia Bakery.  Inside Bloomingdale's.  With hardly any line.

We immediately walked in.

Oh. My.

So delightful.

Turns out the Magnolia in Bloomie's just opened in June and it is lovely.   Beadboard, vintage cakestands, jars of colored sprinkles and paper straws.  Mmm, swoon.

Oh, and yes, the cupcakes.

I ordered a coconut cupcake:  vanilla cake with vanilla meringue buttercream topped with shredded coconut.  And as I found out around my 3rd bite, a lovely touch of lemon filling.

One bite and I was a Magnolia convert.

Delicious.  Light, airy frosting paired with subtle, moist cake and tangy lemon filling.  Yep, still thinking about it...

Ebby sampled a chocolate cupcake with purple (vanilla) buttercream.  It met with her approval ;-).

The decor might be my all time favorite for a bakery.    Right up there with Back in the Day in Savannah.  Perfect vintage colors, details and accessories.   

Sweet sigh.

So, congratulations Magnolia Bakery, you are now on my good side.  My very good side :-)

P.S.  Sprinkles NYC, I was underwhelmed.  Quite.

Miette-down

Week before last Bobby Law had a trip to San Francisco for business.  He was only there for 36 hours or so but I begged asked him nicely to make a visit to Miette for me.  Everything on this bakery's website looks so, well, pretty.  Reminds me of a Wayne Thiebaud painting...

I requested macarons, figuring that they are compact and would travel well.  I had visions of a rainbow of chewy almond and sugary confection bliss, like these I sampled at Amelie's in Charlotte back in April...

Unfortunately, not so much. To be sure, the adorable brown box with the Miette sticker looked promising.  However when I opened it expecting a rainbow and instead got...

Ok, so they don't use artificial colors, can't blame them for that.  Bobby Law told me he got several flavors including Vanilla, Pistachio and Rosewater Geranium.  Ebby and I sampled a bunch of them.  The chewiness was good, the texture more mealy than the macarons at Amelie's.  The taste?  Not my cup of tea.  A couple of them were fine (Raspberry, Hazelnut) but the Rosewater Geranium one literally tasted like soap to me. I don't think my palate is quite sophisticated enough.

Moving on, Bobby Law brought home another little treat from Miette:  Lavender Shortbread.   Again, wonderful packaging.  Love the polka dots and the lilac colored Miette sticker.  But again, the taste reminiscent of soap.  The shortbread itself was rich, buttery and melt in your mouth.  It was the lavender that I wasn't really digging. 

Over the course of a few days did we manage to finish all the shortbread and all the macarons?  Well, yes of course we did.  Far be it from me to let baked goods that've traveled over 3,000 miles go to waste.

While I was disappointed with these Miette treats I would most certainly visit the bakery myself the next time I make it to San Francisco.  I mean really, it would only be fair.   To both of us☺.😉

Pin-spiration: Birthday cake

By now we've all had our lives taken over enriched by Pinterest, right?  Not only is the site a huge vortex of  eye candy, sucking you in and only releasing you after you've been there for at least an hour great way to organize all the great ideas and images you see all over the web, it's an endless source of inspiration. 

And I'm happy to say, inspiration that often translates into action.  As in, I actually do projects inspired by ideas I've pinned (or repinned, as the case may be).  Double bonus!

Today's pin-spired project is from this summer:  Cuyler's birthday cake.

As soon as I saw this cake on Pinterest {original source: here}, I showed it to Cuyler.  That boy loves Kit Kats.  Loves.  He has a healthy, er unhealthy, respect for plain M&Ms as well.  When I asked him what kind of birthday cake he wanted, there wasn't much hesitation.

Cuyler's cake, while not quite as polished as the inspiration photo, was pretty easy to put together.  I made a chocolate layer cake and frosted it with homemade vanilla buttercream.  The only tricky part about sticking the Kit Kats on was the fact that it was July...and humid--which means the Kit Kats were melting in my hands as I was trying to put them on the cake.  Luckily the humidity did not affect the taste ;-). The frosting acts as glue, holding the Kit Kats and M&Ms in place.

And that's it.

Just add a candle, make a wish and enjoy.

I'm happy to report that Cuyler gave his cake two thumbs up!

Flashback Friday: Dinner on the Harbor Terrace

It's cold, there's about 3 feet of snow that won't melt on the ground and our driveway is covered in ice.

Sound familiar?

Winter, I'm sorry, but I'm done with you.  However, since I won't be jetting off on a tropical vacation any time soon, I figured I'd do the next best thing:  post pictures from last summer.  Maybe it will help warm me up.

One evening last August, my mom and I were invited to share a meal on our friend Pam's beautiful terrace.

Pam is an interior designer and has exquisite taste.  Everything she does, she does with flair, glamour and with an eye toward presentation.

The table was beautifully set with MacKenzie-Childs dishes and a Lark Rodriques pottery heart at each placesetting.    

The flowers were lovely and in keeping with the color palette for the evening.

Pam's hydrangea garden was also looking lovely.    

I adore this whimsical teapot garden adornment.

Pam had recently been featured in Southern New England Home magazine.  In fact, that's her work on the cover.   

{You can read more here}

Looking out over the boats on Hingham Harbor, we enjoyed a bountiful selection of appetizers including this mouthwatering shrimp cocktail.   I must say, that looks really good right about now...

When it was time for the main course, we sat down on these beautiful iron chairs.

Dinner was colorful and delicious.

We chatted, we noshed, we laughed.

All too soon the summer night bloomed and it was time to bid farewell.

It was a lovely, relaxing evening full of friendship, pampering and delicious food.

What more could we ask for?

Dreaming of summer... 

 

Have Cupcakes, Will Travel: Georgetown Cupcake

It started innocently enough on my part.

I was emailing back and forth with my Uncle who lives in the Washington DC area.  He was making plans to come and attend my mom's OMG 70! party.  We hadn't seen one another in a number of years, so there was some catching up to do.  In the course of one of the emails we exchanged my uncle mentioned he enjoys taking long walks around DC on the weekends.  Fresh off of watching DC Cupcakes on TLC this summer, I asked him if he had ever visited the Georgetown Cupcake bakery in his travels.  He replied that he generally tried to avoid foods were less than friendly to his aging waistline. 

Fast forward to the evening of the birthday bash.  My Uncle, having taken a plane, train, bus and an extra long walk to the house thanks to being misdirected in the darkness, arrived at the party with two large shopping bags.  One bag contained gifts for my mom.  The other contained...cupcakes!

I was so surprised, and amazed, and touched that my Uncle had taken it upon himself to not only visit Georgetown Cupcake on a busy Friday morning, but  purchase a dozen cupcakes which he then transported all the way to Massachusetts!  Incredible.  And so generous and thoughtful. 

We {reluctantly} put the cupcakes aside and {very much} enjoyed the party.  In the wee hours after midnight, we took a peek into the pink box.  Sure, they were travel weary, but the cupcakes looked wonderful to me.  Come to find out, my Uncle brought another surprise--specifically for Ebby.

Look at that, a great Georgetown Cupcake t-shirt!  She was psyched, she watched the show with me this summer and knew all about the bakery.

The next day, Ebby & I set about discovering exactly what flavors we had in our box of cupcakes.  My Uncle, having gotten a sense of my cupcake fascination, included two Georgetown Cupcake menus, which are drool-worthy in and of themselves.   It was a tough job, but over the next couple of days we managed to identify (and consume) almost all of our cupcakes.  As they say, it was a tough job, but someone had to do it ;-).

Among the flavors we were treated to:  Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip, Vanilla² , and Coconut.  All quite delicious.  Ebby was particularly enamored with the fondant shapes that topped several of the cupcakes. My hands down favorite  was the Red Velvet.  I remember watching an episode where the sisters showed how they made their Red Velvet.  Oh. My. Goodness.  So good.  The cake was moist and flavorful and the icing had just the right amount of tang and creaminess.  In fact, I think it's safe to say it was the best Red Velvet cupcake I've ever had.  So far, anyway...

As a result of my Uncle's generosity, I took away from our traveling cupcake experience several tidbits.

First, cupcakes make a wonderful souvenir.  Second, people have the power to surprise and delight one another.  And finally, next time I'm in Washington DC, I'm going to Georgetown Cupcake and getting a Red Velvet cupcake.  And I'm not sharing it with Ebby☺.

Wishing you a wonderful, sweet weekend!

 

 

Ebby's Party: The Sweets Table

{A few weeks ago we hosted a party for Ebby's 13th birthday.  With my mom as my able bodied co-hostess, we threw one pretty rockin' bash.  This week I thought I'd post about a few of the party details, starting today with the Dessert Table.}

Sweets tables seem to be all over the internet these days (thank you Amy Atlas).  I see them on blogs, on flickr, everywhere. 

How could I not be inspired?

How could I not do a sweets table for Ebby's 13th birthday party?

Obviously, I had no choice in the matter ;-).

I started collecting inspiration, decorations  and yard sale serving pieces this past spring.  Although the party colors started off as Black & Pink in the very early going, we soon decided on Turquoise and Lime, or as Ebby prefers, Blue & Green. When Bobby Law (aka Mr. Bowles) was at Pearl River Mart in April I may or may not have been in constant phone communication as I sent him all over the store to buy paper lanterns and rice paper daisy decorations... I jotted down menu ideas, presentation ideas and even bought a robin's egg blue flat sheet at a thrift store during vacation on Hilton Head because I knew it would make a great tablecloth.

For the actual sweets, I wanted to do the baking myself.  I figured I'd better not overwhelm myself with too many goodies, so I mixed in several store bought sweets as well.  Pretty much if it was blue or green, I bought it and put it in the Party Box.  In my quest for blue & green goodies I even went a little crazy on a few items, paying $5.99 a pound for 'chocolate gems' (m&m's) in the bulk section of Fresh Market because they were the perfect shades of blue and green.  I lucked out with a couple of items as well.  For example, I found Cookies & Cream Hershey kisses that had a great blue & silver wrapper.  The items I did bake were fairly simple and many could be made a day or two ahead.

On party day there were plenty of clouds around.  I was hoping the weather would hold out for us.  Unfortunately it started raining about a half hour before the guests arrived, forcing us indoors.  Luckily our dining room is painted green so things looked just fine in there.  My mom brought two beautiful bouquets of hydrangeas from her yard, which helped give that 'bringing the outdoors in' feel to the buffet. 

My mom and I set up the sweets table while the girls enjoyed pizza and pink lemonade in another room.  When we finally called them in, they were beyond excited.  We had Ebby blow out the candles on her cake and then we let the feasting begin.  There definitely seemed to be something for everyone.  The best part:  they were able to eat the leftovers the next morning at breakfast.  Really, is there  that much difference between the sugar content of a muffin and a cupcake???

The Menu

• Blue Velvet Whoopie Pies: really red velvet, but we changed the name to fit in with the party theme
• Dipped Oreos: I melted blue and green candy wafers and then coated half of each Oreo, garnished with colored sugar or white candy balls
• Chocolate chip cookie bars: very popular, even though they were neither blue nor green
• Cupcakes: I used yellow cake mix but added pudding mix, vanilla and extra egg & oil per the Cake Mix Doctor.  Topped with homemade buttercream, these were delicious.  Best cupcakes I've had all summer, if I do say so
• Cookies & Cream kisses: 1 word: addictive
• mini York Peppermint Patties
• Tootsie Pops:  I bought a box of 100 for $7.99 at Costco and picked out all the blue & green ones to serve at the party.  Yes, I did.
• Green apple licorice:  another Fresh Market splurge, didn't go over so well but at least they looked good
• Blue & Green M&M's: I bought the dispenser at a yard sale for $2, so fun and built in portion control (hahahaha)

Decorations

• All of the rice paper hanging decorations came from Pearl River Mart in NYC
• I made the Happy Birthday banner last year and plan to put it up every year for Ebby's birthday.  Luckily it looked good with our spread.
• Letter E's were all from Ebby's room.  I repainted two of them to match our blue & green theme--which was fine because we're also re-doing Ebby's room.  Guess the color scheme...
• Polka dot table runner is just a folded piece of fabric from Jo-Ann that I really need to sew.  Love its punchiness though.
• 13 cake topper is two  99 cent wooden letters from the craft store.  Actually the 1 is a sawed off K.  I waited until a few days before the party and couldn't find a 1 anywhere.  I covered them with Martha Stewart turquoise glitter--and didn't serve the girls from that part of the cake, just in case
• Birthday candles are from Target.  I'm pretty sure.

Serving Pieces

• White ruffled cake stands, set of 2 from Costco, $9.99.  Love them & wish I'd bought more!
• Glass bead cake stand:  a gift several years ago from my mom
  
• Everything else is a yard sale find.  I spray painted the tray for the Oreos (used a paper doily for serving).  It's just a melamine tray that originally had watermelon slices on it.  I also spray painted a ceramic candlestick to use as the base for the white lace plate stand.  I was going to glue it, but I never got around to it...
• Paper goods came from Target 
  

So there you have it.  Ebby's Blue & Green 13th Birthday Dessert Buffet.  I really enjoyed putting all of the elements together and am pleased with how it turned out.  Next year though:  outdoors!

Up next:  The Photo Booth

Boston's North End: Pastry Shops

It has turned into a very busy summer for us, especially the month of July.  We've had parties, visitors, lots of trips to the beach and I've even managed to do a few things around the house and even fewer crafty projects.  So much to share, I'm not sure where to start!

So I'm going to go with pastry ;-).

This past weekend I took Ebby and her visiting bff Amanda from North Carolina into Boston.  One of our stops was the North End.  For those of you who don't know, the North End is basically Boston's Little Italy.  There were several things I wanted to see but the thing that was the easiest sell with the girls was visiting a couple of bakeries.

Go figure.

On our initial walk through the North End, we stopped into Modern Pastry.  It's a surprisingly small shop, but packed with lots of goodies.  The party line, so to speak, is that the locals go to Modern and the tourists go to Mike's (located just across the street).  I've heard this first hand from our friends who actually live in the North End.  Once inside however, we decided that it was too early for pastry and promised ourselves we'd come back after lunch and shopping at Quincy Market.

On our walk up Hanover Street, we passed by another bakery, Lyndell's.  While we didn't go inside, I was impressed with the cakes they had displayed in the windows.  Had I know they're world famous for their Half Moon cookies, I might have insisted we stop.  Next time.

While waiting for the girls, who were shopping at Abercrombie & Fitch at Faneuil Hall, I was dreaming of the cannoli I was going to get once we walked back to the North End.  I was thinking we'd go to Modern because surely, I didn't want to seem like a tourist in the city I was born in, but then again...So I googled on my iPhone.  I typed in 'Mike's vs. Modern cannoli' and got plenty of results.  Basically my 5 minutes of exacting research showed that even though Mike's is crowded and filled with tourists, they have the best cannolis.  At least according to 3 out of the 4 food bloggers I read.  These people are serious after all, doing side by side taste tests.  I decided on Mike's.

Mike's was crowded, as expected on a hot summer afternoon during festival season.    At least the a/c was cranking.  After much hemming and hawing, Ebby decided to forgo a treat altogether (it may have been that there was almost  too much to choose from: gelato, cupcakes, cannolis, cookies, pastries...). Amanda and I showed no such restraint and each got a $3 cannoli.  I chose pistachio and she settled on chocolate chip.

We weren't ready to actually eat at that point so I carried our iconic Mike's Pastry box along the waterfront, into the Aquarium and finally to South Station.  Though Ebby managed to drop the box on the ground at one point, our desserts were in tact enough to be eaten, albeit with a spoon.  While they may have been slightly better in their original chilled state, I must say, my cannoli was delicious.  And large.  And stuffed full of ricotta filling.  With the ends covered in artificially green but nonetheless tasty pistachio pieces. 

Heavenly.  And good to the very last bite.