Plums. Tiny, tiny, plums.

So a rarity happened to me recently.  I was away on a trip to Aspen in the "This Is What America Looks Like" state of Colorado and woke up without a predetermined schedule.  Option One:  Find my coworkers and socialize.  Option Two: Wander out by myself to see what the day would hold.  Love my people, but opted for number two.  After a big, strong Iced Americano at Ink! Coffee, I walked down the street to find a combo farmer's market/craft fair deal.  And looky who else was there. These tiny plums of all colors, each about the size of a golf ball.

I wanted the green ones to be tart, but they were red and sweet.  Not a problem.  Perfectly ripe.

So my farmer's market friend in Chicago could share, I packed them up and brought them home. When he saw them the next morning at 7am, two were promptly eaten.

Dough...again.

This was a long weekend, as G and I were both sick with this nippy cough. What better way to wrap it up...but by making cookies. A few weeks back I hurt myself with these cookie cutters from Williams-Sonoma. Yes, I did spend $19 on cookie cutters. So very wrong. I have a love for words. And a love of cookies, for that matter. There are three shapes, star, heart and scalloped rectangle, that allow for a custom phrase to be stamped into the surface of the dough. Justified them by committing to use them for G's school birthday party treats. Cheaper than ordering the mini cupcakes from Sweet Mandy B's. I will still miss them.

Tricks that I had heard about but never utilized until tonight:

• Roll cookie dough out onto parchment paper - really minimized flour use
• Use silicone rolling pin - once again, less flour, more "feel" for the dough

G used his mini silicone rolling pin and one of my rolling mats to make "tacos" after he had stamped out a reasonable amount of the cut out cookies. Visible to the left of the baked heart cookies. I have to go finish the uncolored dough batch. The paste food coloring is a bit much. It looks identical to the Play Doh from earlier in the week.

It works both ways.

After a serious dough session, about 70% of the dough is a dark purple brown. I don't mind. I have given the warning as to the end result, and whether it is red or purple brown, it does belong to him. The smell always takes you back to the days of old. Or young. I had a great score at a garage sale years ago, so the dough tools..and molds..and cutters..and the press take over two small bins. Who am I to comment about the quantity of tools for making things?

Later that night I had to get some of my own. Dough that is. Although it is wrong to be looking for recipes and concocting pizza dough at 8pm at night, it does happen. It usually takes me longer to go through the process, as I like to ruminate about the options. Not this time.

I have been losing valuable time over at Smitten Kitchen. This is what made me very tired the next morning, but damn, it was good. Pizza Bianca. Essentially pizza dough with olive oil, fresh rosemary and coarse salt. The rosemary becomes this perfectly crisp little bit which is a bit tempered by the high heat baking. I gave a piece to G (The next day, not at 11pm. I do not throw that much caution to the wind.) and waited for him to balk at the rosemary. He proceeded to pick off all the pieces of rosemary and pop them in his mouth one by one until there was a naked piece of dough on the plate. That, people, is a moment that makes a mother proud. Right alongside his ability to identify basil at the farmer's market.

Guess the color.

We are really missing our Saturday visits to the Farmer's Market. Now that it is January, the winter market only happens once this month. Thank God that Trader Joe's is able to provide some produce amusement for us. One mesh bag filled with a tri color mix of potatoes for two dollars. Before the soup is made, it is time for the guessing game. Time to guess the color inside of the potato! G had the yellow and the red. I think he was a little freaked out by the purple.

Cranberry scones.

So what does this say about me as a parent? Last night, when it was about 7 degrees out, I needed to make a late evening run to the grocery to buy rosemary. G had no interest in going out, as he was busily working on his latest Lego set up. I actually bribed my child to go to the store by telling him I would make him cranberry lemon scones in the morning. Showed him a picture as evidence. He went to get his coat. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Will he grow up to appreciate good food, or will he start to believe that anything is worth doing for a buttery treat?

Start here.

So what is a map? An object that can help you get to where you are going. You can closely follow the lines to get from A to B, or you can view the roads and junctures as a guide. While you are looking around, your life is moving forward.

As an artist and designer, my life has been about creating objects that are meaningful and useful to others. As a mother, a large part of my life has been about pointing out objects along the way and opening up the discussion as to their meaning and value. It starts with the little things - a red door, a bendy straw, the shape of a tree. How do these observations move forward? I try to use these moments to inspire the next question, the next idea, the next step on the journey.

Look around. Draw the dots. Build your life.


Okay. So we start with a bundle of magnificence. Or more accurately, a cone of magnificence. Our first outing to the winter season farmer's market, and who knew what was under that tent. A cone of newspaper around a cone of waxed paper filled with cinnamon sugar dusted WARM doughnuts. Delectable. My small friend generously offered me the last one. Granted he knew that I would say no thanks.
As the treats diminished in number he told me "I can't even stop to take a break." Sometimes it is best to absorb the moment without stopping.