I realized I haven’t published a recipe in months and there’s really no excuse for that.  I prepared a lot of favorite dishes over the summer but never got around to photographing any of them.  I’ll just blame the general laziness of summer.  I made homemade garlic hummus and grilled artichokes with lemon aioli and other ‘sounds kinda fancy but really so simple’ dishes and I really do have to be better about sharing. 

So yesterday, I was craving one of my favorite comfort foods and I made it and I photographed it and oh my it was completely divine and satisfied my comfort food craving.  My taste buds were in heaven but my waistline is a little annoyed – there is an ongoing battle between them you know.

Now that fall has arrived I’m sure you’ve got a few great comfort food recipes to share so let’s have a party, mkay?   Next Tuesday, right here. 

Bring your favorite comfort food recipe to the Link Party on Tuesday and then we’ll all take a nap afterward because that’s the whole point of making these recipes, right? 

Can’t wait to see what you cook up!

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When it comes to fall decorating, I have a predictable annual ritual.  I clip colorful stems of viburnum leaves from the backyard, pull out the amber glass collection from storage, and pose mini pumpkins all around the house.  As a result, the mantel tends to reflect my fall favorites. 

That was the mantel yesterday morning when I photographed it.  Then I had two cups of coffee.  And as I sat there in the cozy space, amped up on caffeine, I got a hankering to mix it up again.   

As I’ve mentioned, I am fixated on marbled paper this year, so I decided after lunch to  take down the mirror and replace it with some framed golden marbled papers I ordered earlier this year. (Those are IKEA Ribba frames if you’re curious.)

Aaaaaand here’s the afternoon version of the mantel. 

Here are the seasonal changes: I temporarily swapped my living room rug for the Surya rug that used to sit in the kid’s playroom and was hiding in a closet.  I brought down the slipcovered settee from our master bedroom for a few months to create a cozy seating area around the fireplace.  And I added a deep orange throw blanket and some embroidered DL Rhein pillows, both purchased from Joss & Main as autumn accents.

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We had a great weekend, did you?  We invited some friends over, fired up the barbeque, made a lot of good eats, shared some wine and talked until it was late – the very best kind of summer evening.

One of my favorite appetizers to make in the summer are these cheesy, tasty wonderful grilled portobello (or ‘portabella’) mushrooms.  They’ve got everything inside: protein, vegetables, and a little bit of carbs.  Mini meals all wrapped up in one delicious package!

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Hello everyone and welcome to the link party all about travel souvenirs! I’ll share a few of my favorites and then it’s your turn to link up.  I have a lot of little things I’ve brought home from our travels, my number one favorite I mentioned here and it is a pair of vintage glasses we brought home from The End of History in New York City ten years ago.  We toast to our anniversary with champagne every year in these amber Empoli mid-century glasses we found tucked away in a corner of the shop.

second image from here

Next up is a special treasure – a black and white sketch and watercolor Matt found at a Paris street faire in 1999 – you can catch a glimpse of Notre Dame in the background where he is talking to the artist Pierre-Yves.  It was so simple and lovely we just had to bring it home!  It’s been framed in classic black and gold and now hangs in our living room.

I’m a dork when it comes to collecting travel tchotchkes and the one I always bring home if I can is a mini monument.  Yes, it’s true I have a “monument collection”!  Don’t mock me, I totally love it, and I can’t stop myself from picking them up from a street vendor or local tourist shop.  We’ve seen a few monuments in our travels from the Coliseum to the Alamo and it’s my crazy way of tying together the memories from the pictures with the actual trip itself.    

But I have to say of all the things I treasure most, it’s my travel journals.  Someone once told me in my early twenties to keep a travel journal on big trips and I’ve always followed that advice.  Before the kids came along we did a lot more traveling abroad and I always kept a journal on the trips – do you do this?

My travel journals are my favorite treasures and that “thing” I name when asked “What would you grab if your house was on fire?”  (Other than the kids and pets of course.)  Inside I’ve jotted down all the memories from the day and with a simple glue stick secured the receipts, maps, napkins from restaurants, and ticket stubs too. The pictures and written notes of the funny moments are the best ‘souvenir’ in my world, better than any thing I could bring home.  I bring them out every few years and we crack up recalling all the sights, sounds, and phrases overheard from those weeks spent in foreign lands and not captured in pictures.  

So friends, what about you?  What treasures have you discovered in your travels? 

Link up your favorite souvenirs, can’t wait to see!  You can link up through May 31st!

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