Laurie’s favorite things

Tags

Lush, postaday2014, shopping

Just like Oprah has her favorite things, so do I and one of my favorite things is the Lush company. I found my first Lush store back in 2012 on the rue Sainte-Catherine in Bordeaux France and I fell in love with their Mission Statement and their products.

I am not a makeup person, but I do enjoy taking care of my skin nowadays. I have only started moisturizing and cleansing my face since I turned 40. I joined the party late, but better late than never, though as my former history teacher used to tell us, better never late. I have to say that when I started moisturizing my skin, it was confusing because there are so many different brands out there and they all promise you the stars, the sky and the moon. When I found Lush and their products, I finally felt that I found something real made with respect to the ingredients, respect to the farming communities and respect to the environment. When I purchase Lush moisturizers and cleansers, I feel that I am contributing to a healthy business model and a healthier economy when I use creams made with lavender, orange flowers and Tiger Lilies, Fair Trade Organic Cocoa butter, Shea butter and the other ingredients are other floral blossom infusions. It is also made in Canada so it is regulated and inspected.

I have made an effort to use my dollars as a consumer in ways that help the world and help workers. I try to buy union made products as often as I can and I look for Fair Trade options as well. It makes me feel good and if I am going to shop, it is not something that I like to do, at least when my shopping is done, I can feel proud of giving back while getting something that makes me happy.

Nice clean, soft and moisturized skin makes me very happy.

And the travels continue

Tags

outlet malls, pancakes, postaday2014, shopping

Today there weren’t any pictures taken by me, instead my mother and I accompanied my cousin and just one of her photographers to an amazing retail outlet mall in the neighboring state of New Jersey. Actually beyond the the additional views of the gorgeous New York CIty skyline, this little excursion to an American mall was a great opportunity for them to see another part of what America is; our shopping preferences, our food courts, what an outlet mall is all about, getting great deals on Brand names that otherwise be beyond our means, things of that nature that often get missed during a tourist’s visit.

I had to bring them to IHOP, International House of Pancakes, because as I said to them; you haven’t lived until you have had pancakes at a IHOP. They were very excited for lunch; so after a few hours of hardcore shopping, we drove to the IHOP and all four of us each ordered the 2x2x2: two eggs, two links of sausage or bacon and two buttermilk pancakes. I can honestly say that each plate was sparkly clean; we were famished form shopping and it was really delicious.

Tomorrow there will be pictures, just not sure of what and how many, but there will be visuals.

Christmas to do list getting shorter

Tags

Christmas, lists, postaday2012, shopping

The list is getting shorter, hooray! The only thing about Christmas that brings the Scrooge out of me is shopping. I have never enjoyed shopping at all and the thought of hitting the stores with the hordes trying to figure out what to get for who, normally makes me shrivel internally. Yet today I had a very relaxing time of it. I went out early with a set number of stores and a specific set of gifts to buy in mind so I had purpose and that alone helped tremendously.

I am not divulging what I got because certain concerned parties read my blog and what is coming on Christmas day needs to be a secret until then, because what is more fun than being surprised on Christmas day? The shops everywhere were beautifully decorated and being at the stores so early made me feel as if they had opened the stores just for me. I was in and out so very quickly and the salespeople were so bright and cheery, still fresh from their morning coffee. I came away from my shopping experience with a smile on my face. Pleasant people, gifts acquired and I still had the whole day ahead of me, mission accomplished.

Monday’s can be fun

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fun, marriage, movies, postaday2012, school, shopping, work

Yesterday my hubby decided to work from home since Monday was a floating holiday. However, our baby girl had school and needed to be driven back to her campus so we decided to make an adventure out of the journey once we dropped her off in time for her first class.

My hubby had a meeting with a colleague located not too far from the baby girl’s school and he turned the meeting into a breakfast meeting at a lovely cafe, so while my hubby and his colleague were discussing work, I was busy eating two eggs over easy, sausage and rye toast with plenty of coffee.

Afterwards, after saying our goodbyes to the colleague, my hubby took me to a spectacular food speciality store located solely in the Boston area, Wegman’s. It was so well organized, well stocked, well laid and so pristine. Everything looked excitingly delicious. The produce section with its varieties of fresh mushrooms, the choices between broccoli, cauliflower and romanesco, a hybrid of broccoli and cauliflower, it is such a pretty vegetable and tastes exactly like a hybrid of the two. The meat section was outstanding, offering locally sourced cuts of meat and organic choices as well.

Cheese had its own showcase stocked with local cheeses from Vermont, Massachusetts and even Maine. We bought a tub of Fromage blanc made in Vermont for the kids to try, to see if we found something to tide them over until they could get back to France for the original petit suisses.

The adventure wasn’t over, a movie was in the works as we got closer to home. Since we had been out and about so early, the day was still young. That is how the idea of a movie came about and we had the same movie in mind, The Man with the Iron Fists.

It was great, I have always loved martial arts movies and this one was fantastic. It was presented by Quentin Tarantino and the director is a new one, the rapper RMZ, who did a bang up job. It was an homage to the old genre of martial arts movies and the choreography was exceptional. I grew up watching the old style movies featuring Bruce Lee and his contemporaries on Saturday afternoons on channel nine. The acting was great, the movie had Russell Crowe, Lucy Lui and other Asian actors that I knew by sight not by name.

If you enjoy martial arts movies, you will definitely enjoy this one. When we got back home, Jack got extra attention to make up for our absence and we settled down for a quiet night of t.v, Bones was on and then Castle, so it was a night of not to miss t.v.

Like I said, Monday’s can be fun.

What am I thinking of, this first week of November?

Tags

Christmas, commercials, holidays, postaday2012, shopping

• Musing on November
• Holiday cookies from Franklin Street Bakery in Minneapolis

  So far so good, I haven’t seen a single Christmas commercial which is shocking. I mean I am in the country of commercial marketing of all things holiday and to not have been assaulted yet by shopping frenzy commercials is a welcome relief. How many shopping days until Christmas? I don’t know because I haven’t seen a commercial yet! Hooray for me!

The weekly shopping adventure

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duck, food lists, groceries, postaday2012, shopping

The weekly food shopping adventure at the Westfield Stop-n-Shop where you had better double check your grocery list and make sure that you actually have it on your person when you get to Stop-n-Shop twenty minutes later down the mountain. The family food list was fairly straight forward; the usual need for vegetables, bananas, garlic, cereal, navel oranges, cheese & spinach ravioli and tortellini. The baby girl gave me her own list, primarily all ingredients for homemade whoopie pies. There are quite a bit of ingredients in a whoopie pie. I forget where the whoopie pie originate from, it could be somewhere in the Pennsylvania/Ohio area, I’m not sure. I had never had one until the day that my daughter decided to make them herself. She made them with a red velvet recipe and it was delicious, essentially it’s a cake sandwich with a cream cheese filling. The red velvet component is chocolate cake with red food coloring and the cakes are two round discs with the diameter of 3 inches. Tomorrow, we are going to be in for a treat, each time my daughter bakes she gets better and better and I’m sure that her whoopie pies are going to be a big hit.

On the serious food part of the equation, my hubby picked up a few breasts of duck. You can never go wrong with duck; if you can cook a steak then you can cook a breast of duck and that goes for the doneness as well. If you like your steak rare, you will love your duck rare, same goes for medium. Whether you like your steak with a sauce such as bordelaise, the red wine sauce or béarnaise sauce, you’ll like your duck prepared the same way. At the produce section, I had a desire for broccoli rabe which I love with garlic, red pepper flake and Parmesan cheese.

There is something comforting about refilling the pantry and freezer, no matter how your week progresses you feel more secure knowing that your family and yourself are well provided for in terms of food.

Dinner party tomorrow, Yikes!

Tags

cooking, dinner party, postaday2012, shopping

My husband informed me earlier in the week that he had invited a couple for Saturday night. Okay, that’s fine I know them, not very well but enough to know that they are both kind and warm people. We brainstorm on a menu which is fairly low maintenance, a nice change of pace considering the last few dinners that I have cooked with my mother, she got into a complicated cooking phase for the past six months. Tomorrow’s menu will be the following: the appetizer will be escargots Duglaire, a cream based sauce flavored with a reduction of sautéed garlic, shallots, white wine vinegar and white wine, once it has been reduced to a syrupy consistency then you add the cream and a spoonful of tomato sauce and then you add the escargots. When we serve the escargots with the sauce and a sprinkling of fresh chopped tomatoes on top.

We will then proceed to the main course, pan seared breast of duck served with a porcini/chanterelle mushroom cream sauce. The breast of duck is easy, all that needs to be done to the breasts, is scoring of the layer of skin covering the fat on the breast, so that when you put the duck in the pan to sear it skin side down, you render all the fat out that you can reuse later for sautéing the baby potatoes to a golden crispy delight. The mushroom cream sauce is similar to the other cream sauce above, you saute onions until translucent, while you soak the dried mushrooms in hot water until they reconstitute, after which you add white wine and then a tiny bit of white wine vinegar and the strained mushroom liquor, same as before, you reduce the wine, the vinegar and the mushroom liquor after which you add the cream and the mushrooms. When the plates are up for serving, you take a breast which has been resting for 5 minutes and you slice it on the angle like a steak, I’m going to cook the breasts to medium-rare and serve the mushroom sauce alongside it and I’ll spoon the sautéed baby potatoes(in duck fat!) next to the duck slices. Which brings me to the vegetables, I’m going to make my new favorite vegetable side dish. A simple sautéing of onions, kale, spinach and toasted hazelnuts. The way I described it on the screen is exactly how you prepare it, you toast the hazelnuts, don’t scorch them! and put them aside for now. You then saute the onions, kale and spinach, salt and pepper it and then add the toasted hazelnuts and you are done. It is so extremely good, that I secretly hope the guests don’t go crazy for it as I do so that I have more leftovers, bad hostess, bad hostess.

I was originally going to make the dessert but the nice lady called to confirm and she said that they were going to bring dessert. Which makes this dinner party infinitely easier for me, even though part of me was disappointed to not have to make dessert. I was intending to make either a Paris Brest or a Galette aux Rois, in honor of the day of Epiphany. The Galette aux Rois is the traditional cake that is made to celebrate the feast of kings where, within the almond pastry cream you put a fava bean and whoever gets i,t is the king of the feast. The Paris Best was an idea just because since it is circular, it looks like a crown. Either way both desserts would have involved tricky dough and tricky pastry cream with the traditional flavorings of nuts, that I do not need to concern myself with. If I feel that bereft from lack of baking I can always make a pastry sometime during the week and maybe surprise my friends with a slice or two.

And by the way, my vacuum broke just today, earlier this evening towards the tail end of the vacuum loop of the house. So early tomorrow morning I must drive down to pick up fresh bread and a new vacuum so that I can finish cleaning the house. It should be a very nice evening and I am looking forward to the time in the kitchen making special treats.