The Easter Bunny Strikes Again

Sorry I've been away from my computer.  I was off in Los Angeles last week being fabulous with my old friend Mary.  If you're interested in what all I did in LA, check out my other blog, futurearchitectwicky.

             But anyway, back to Chicago and normal pianoteacherwicky things.  After flying home late late Friday night (you might even call it Saturday morning) I was greeted with a package from Mama Wicky, my original Easter Bunny.  She sent the best of Connecticut in a box: Munson's chocolates.  And she included a cute little Nantucket basket which I think I'll have to use for non-Easter purposes because it's too sweet to be put away.
             On Sunday I hosted my 5th annual Easter Pot Luck Brunch.  We were 16 strong again.  This year, instead of baking a ham as I have for the past few years, I stopped in to the Bleeding Heart Bakery, just a mile west of me on Belmont Avenue and picked up a few cupcakes and some french toast cake balls.  And boy, did they go like hot-cake[ball]s.  They are basically like an amazingly yummy donut hole.  While picking out food at the bakery I also tried a jelly bean cake ball, which was scrumptious.  I still have one carrot cupcake and one "pretty pink princess" cupcake left, which I will eat over the next few days.

            Some other welcome, new additions to the brunch menu were a mimosa bar, supplied by my friend Abby:

A beautiful fruit salad from my friend Katie (okay this isn't anything new, but putting the fruit on skewers made it way more exciting to eat!)

And some homemade macaroons (chocolate with salted caramel filling) by my friend Brittany.
            It was a beautiful day, so we enjoyed a post-brunch chat on my back deck, and some of us went for a little walk around the neighborhood.  As I gear up for architecture school in the fall, I wonder if I'll be able to host some more parties like this in the future.  I think that as long as they're pot lucks, I should be able to squeeze in a few here and there.
Otherwise, I will sure miss these lovely gents.

4th Annual Easter Brunch

Easter started a few days early for me, on Thursday.  What would normally have been a totally terrible afternoon (my car practically broke down on my way to work; I had to turn around, and leave it at the shop, so I cancelled work and came home) was magically turned around when I was home to receive a special delivery from my mom: a beautiful pot of hydrangeas, which helped get my house in the Easter spirit.

            Today was our 4th Annual Pot Luck Easter brunch.  I played Easter Bunny yesterday, filling little baskets for everybody (16 people!) and snacking on lots of candy while doing so.  The brunch was a huge success, and the weather cooperated this year.  It was the perfect temperature for a little post-brunch walk, which I went on with a few of my guests.  The spread of food was epic as usual.  Lots of full plates, and, soon after, full bellies.  The guests have all dissipated to sleep off the meal, but it will be Easter for a few more days at our house, where leftovers have taken over the fridge.

Crafty Day with Jenny

Since Jenny's been going to UIC Architecture school, we haven't gotten a chance to have a crafty day in a looong time.  Luckily, this week was her spring break, which coincided with some of my students' spring break, meaning we both had time off at the same time.  To celebrate, we planned a little day of crafts.  Nothing as intense as some of our other crafty days, but just some Eastery fun.

            During a quick trip to Target (where we bought a frozen pizza for our lunch) we found a box of cookies ready to be decorated, and decorate we did.  It came with 4 different colors of frosting to decorate with, and sprinkles, but we thought it didn't look like enough frosting so we supplemented with some quick, homemade buttercream.  We each had a cookie and a half.  And we feel sick.

            No Easter craft day is complete without some egg-dyeing, so we got out all of my old egg-dyeing cups and dyes and set to work making rubber band eggs, "magic crayon" eggs, and some new plaid and other-themed eggs, inspired by Martha Stewart's current issue on egg decorating.  Luckily, I just happened to have some electrical tape lying around from when Jenny and I made duct tape wallets.

            These are our favorite eggs.  Both were made using electrical tape to help make the designs.  The star one is mine - I cut out stars with a star punch and taped them on (easy enough).  The city skyline is Jenny's (a true architect, eh?), which reminded us both of a really cool poster she bought at the Renegade Handcraft Fair back in August.
            Jenny isn't sure what she's up to this summer.  I for one am hoping she'll stay in Chicago and be crafty with me!

Easter Feaster

In preparation for our 3rd annual Easter Pot Luck Brunch, Jenny came over on Saturday to help me fill easter baskets and set the tables.

We decided it would also be best if we made Jenny's pot luck contribution, a carrot cake, at my house so we could frost it and then she wouldn't have to worry about bringing it with her the next day.  

Little did Jenny know, it was going to turn into another epic "crafternoon"  ( I just made that up - catchy, don't you think?)  While going through my magazines on Friday, I found instructions in Martha Stewart Living on making marzipan carrots to top your Easter carrot cake, and being the crafty lady that I am, I had some marzipan on hand, so we set to work making them.  

I put a little too much red dye in the mix, but once we put the little nicks in them, they looked pretty realistic, I think.  After taking the cake layers out of the oven, we realized that not all of the layers were 100% flat.  But instead of cutting off the rounded/slanted tops, we just filled it in with frosting.  Nothing wrong with that!  

Bright and not-so-early, at 11:30 on Sunday, our Easter guests started arriving.  We had a large group this year -17!- but we still managed to have a place and Easter basket for everyone.  Anna made her usual sausage, egg and cheese casserole and as usual, I ate as much as I could.  Dan makes mini turkey club sandwiches on little toasted rye bread slices and Pete makes his family's traditional pineapple souffle.  A new addition this year was Katie M's green bean "casserole" which involved bacon, butter and brown sugar (the 3 B's!)  We also enjoyed blueberry muffins, citrus salad, scalloped potatoes, a green salad with pears and candied pecans, and scotch eggs, which are terrible for you, but oh, so good.  Oh and I made a honey ham.  For dessert, we feasted on Jenny's carrot cake, german chocolate cupcakes, and a cheesecake with homemade strawberry jam.  

Early spring snow in Chicago

This morning, Nate and I woke to find our neighborhood covered in this familiar fluffy white stuff.  As tempting as it was to just sit at home and watch episodes of 'The Wire' on demand, we ventured downtown to the Art Institute to see the exhibit of Yousuf Karsh photography.  It was a very pleasant use of a Sunday morning.  While we were at the Art Institute, we said hello to the lions, who seemed less than amused by our freak snowstorm . . .
and while I was in the bathroom at the museum, I found this little piece of art, which proclaimed "Happy Spring" on the back, along with a little note saying it was, indeed, "found art" so I didn't have to feel bad about taking it home with me.

 

Also downtown, the tulips on State Street are getting ready to pop - hopefully this snow won't make them think twice!   We had a few other errands to run;  we found a great suit for Nate to wear to a few upcoming weddings, then went to a bookstore so that I could get a book about origami.

 

My plan for our upcoming Easter Brunch, which Nate and I are hosting for the 3rd year in a row, is to make some origami easter "baskets" for a few party favors.  It has been a while since I've done origami, so I found it best to start with a few beginner's projects.  The first was a little hat for my stuffed hippo, Sammy.  He wore it all afternoon.  

After a few prototypes, I have more or less figured out how to make this - the book calls it a Dresden Bowl, and it reminds me of a cootie catcher, thought it is a lot more complicated to make!  I've put together 6, and so far they're proving to be cheaper than what I've bought in years past (though mentally taxing), as well as a great use of the scrapbook paper that I am constantly buying with no specific plans to make a scrapbook!  

Easter Eggs

I hosted a little easter egg dying party this past weekend, mostly because I wanted an excuse to try out many different egg-decorating ideas.  Many of them inspired by Martha, of course.  

I tried blowing out my eggs this year; last year I only hard-boiled, then made some beautiful decoupaged eggs that I was super bummed I had to throw out.  The whole blowing-out process is not something I was prepared for and I must assure you it is not for the faint-hearted.  I started out with 11 eggs, and "successfully" ble

w out 5.  (The other 6 either cracked when I was making holes in them, or I blew so hard that they exploded - not pretty.)  The next morning I found that I had not managed to fully blow out one egg, which had leaked into the egg carton overnight, and was then stuck and I broke it.  So I was down to 4 eggs, but I was going to make them the best decoupaged eggs I could manage.

Of course, I supplemented with hard boiled eggs, and a fine time was had by all.  My favorite eggs, though, are actually the styrofoam ones that I covered with origami paper, so little note-to-self there.  Next year I'll be trying for 5 successfully blown out eggs.