Culinary Cabaret!

Hey guys! Check out the brand-new news from the sister-blog, Two's Company that I share with Sarah! :)

Okay guys! I am thrilled and excited to introduce to you to the new blog series starting here on Two's Company! This series will be called "Culinary Cabaret" after the line in Disney's "Be Our Guest" which runs: "Beef ragout, cheese souffle, pies and puddings en flambe! We'll prepare and serve with flair a culinary cabaret!"Essentially, this series is a challenge you all will be able to link up with any week you'd like! It will run for 52 weeks (hopefully 52 adjacent weeks...we'll see how that works out) which is a year. The idea is that each week I'll post a theme, and you will have a chance to make one new recipe (or a variation of an old one) that fits the theme. Themes could be as simple as "Indian", "Greek", "Italian" or as complex as "Pixar Movies", "Downton Abbey", "Autumn", or, hey, something as crazy as "Oxford don". Sarah and I will chose one new recipe a week and blog about it--and you'll do the same!

And for those of you who are sitting there looking at this post thinking, "Aw, gee, I don't think I can be that creative," all I'm saying is that it is one recipe a week. Not a whole meal. It won't be expensive because, hey, people in India don't always have a ton of money and if you've got some watermelon and some milk and ice you can make a melon lassi that would fit that theme and not cost a dime. And besides--a challenge isn't supposed to be terribly easy. It's meant to be doable though, and I thoroughly believe that one new recipe a week is doable. I will be posting the theme for the week on Mondays and you will have until the following Monday to link up with your post and recipe. Not only will Culinary Cabaret improve your own creativity, but we can serve as inspirations for each other! And remember, linking up once does not mean that you have to do all 52 weeks! I would love to see you anytime throughout the course of the challenge. So please spread the word, and if any of you are wizards with blog buttons, feel free to make and share a button about the challenge. I want to get as many people involved as possible. :)

Looking forward to breaking out my skillz,
                                                          Rachel

Your Daddy's gone but your Mama's good lookin'

"Summertime and the livin' is easy...fish are jumpin', and the cotton is high.

Your daddy's gone, but your mama's good lookin' so hush little baby, don't you cry."

"Summertime" from Porgy and Bess

Know what i like about summer? 

I like...

Catching fireflies.

 (even though I'm grown up)

Silly Sisters

The fudge popsicles the Silly Sister makes

Kissing my Baby.

(uhh....literally a baby)

Picnics at Fort Boykins

(under a thunderstorm sky)

Sunsets, after the thunderstorm:

Double rainbows over the house and field

(two already!)

A little more time to read the books I've neglected all year

Discovering for the first time The Wind and the Willows

Chicken salad

Garden dirt

Making videos with the Silly Sister

(um. Link to come. you will laugh your head off.)

Windswept beaches

Flip-flop day at Tropical Smoothie

Travel plans

Watching romances grow among friends

Blueberries

Listening to rain

Catching up on letter-writing

Lemonade

Peach Cobbler

and soooooo many other things that make summers precious!

  What says summer to you?

Operation Graduates Part One! :)

I guess it slipped my mind, but I haven't told you yet that Sarah and our cousin Matthew are having a double graduation on Saturday! Though the actual ceremony is being held at a church down the road, we are having a party at our house afterward, and that means rather a lot of food and preparation this week! I thought I'd take the opportunity of showing you a little more of our day-to-day family life and document the days leading up to this event with the pictures! I haven't really given you a concept of just how closely our two families work together, have I? Nope. Didn't think so. 

Let's try now.

11:00 a.m.

I clean off the kitchen counters all except for the ham which I randomly christen "Millicent." Why? Because that is a good name for a ham. Millicent is going to feature largely in our ham biscuits come Saturday, so I thought I might as well introduce her to you.

11:30

I take pictures of the counters in their cleanliness, all prepared to act as the calm before the storm.

The granite-topped pastry counter..

Ah, Millicent! You are beautiful in your sheer gown made by Saran!

On the way around the kitchen I found a leftover Avenger's napkin from Daniel's 22nd birthday. Yes. That's right. 22. What are you lookin' at?

Coffee makers at the ready in case we need caffeine...

See? Clean.

11:45

Aunt Christy brings over load of groceries, I gather my things together and realize we're missing milk for my biscuits, and Anna's missing vanilla for her's. Someone's gonna have to go over to the Walkers' to get it because two of the cousins, Jeremiah and Michael, are already headed this way with other ingredients we missed.

12:00

I volunteer and though I can drive, I choose to walk the 1/5 of a mile distance across the field. It's like 70 degrees out there, and rather a pleasant (though unseasonal) day for a walk.

Churchill goes ahead of me to convey my intentions to the Walkers.

I meet them half-way across the field where Michael shows off their ingredients, and Jeremiah looks at me skeptically. "What are *you* doing with the camera, Rachel? Isn't that Sarah and Matthew's ground?" Yeah, yeah. Well it's my blogging project! :D

They leave me to my own demise and I take a picture of Floofy-Grass just for fun.

I am met on the driveway by three of the girls, and my two newest cousins. 

"Buttons" is on the left, "Todd" on the right. Ain't they sweet? 

D'awwwwwww

While pausing to kiss Buttons, I smelled peanut butter. "That's funny," I thought. "A cat that smells like peanut butter. I shall have to remember this for the blog." And then I come inside and find myself being fed peanut-butter "buck-eye" dough by Bethany who also extended her generosity to the cat. Hence the smell. I knew my nose wasn't wrong. :P

12:15

Having got my milk and vanilla, I traipse homeward.

You can see our wood-pile covered with the plastic sheeting. *cozy*

And our clothesline. Just because everyone has one and everyone should hang up bright pink towels when they can. Bright pink Other Things too, but we won't talk about that here.

12:30

I finally begin the biscuit-making process which continues all through the afternoon. We are slotted to make 200 biscuits, but I up it to 250 because I know from experience that where there are Daniels, math calculations vary widely. 

2:00

Abby joins me in the biscuit-making venture, and I take a picture of the counter-tops now. Actually, not as bad as they could be! I think I'm a tidy cook.

I love the intense concentration when the biscuit-cutter gets sticky. 

Abby has seriously grown to be a huge help in the house! She's like a mini-Mama! <3

Mama, Leah, and Anna started on making front-porch decor....aren't these so cute? Mason Jar candle holders? These are going to run all the way up the front steps and have candles burning inside them. :)

*Smile* I liked this shot. It felt very secret.

So! That was Operation Graduates part 1! Stay tuned for the other episodes! :)

Sunday Photo-Shoot

I keep a running list of Things I Need To Do in the blogging world that often includes filling out tags, scheduling guest-posts, formulating interview questions, and many another task that falls to those of us who contribute to multiple blogs. One of those tasks was taking a couple specific photos for a friend, but when Sarah and I went out, we turned it into a real photo-shoot Just For Fun. Sarah was a gem, forsaking her church-friends to trot across the field and play with the sunshine, and so here are the fruits of her labor. :D

Since we were lacking nice back-drops, we thought we'd attempt the sky. I suggested standing on a five-gallon bucket so I'd be taller than Sarah...

But that didn't work, as it was much windier and shinier up there. So I thought if Sarah stood on a bucket that might work....

Not so much. There was still a glare.

This is me, demonstrating how to fix that glare with a sheet of paper.... hee-hee.

So we turned me around into the shadows...

And then we retreated into the woods where we got the best shots and were able to film the video.

"Sarah...there's a tick. Sarah! A TICK!"

 I then attempted to look cool and author-ish with my writing journal all splayed out.

I succeeded in looking cluttered.

So we stopped taking pictures/videos of me and Sarah did a few "selfies"

^ Very cool Black Friday earrings that jingle like dog tags.

Heyyyy. At least it's not the Duck Face.

How was *your* Sunday afternoon?

No fits, no fights, no feuds, and no egos.

Well some of you know that my sister Sarah and I are very close. We are generally full of awesome-sauce and personality conflicts and chumminess and those random, precious sister-moments like when Minny (The Help) mentions that Crisco gets rid of dark circles under your eyes and we look at each other at the same exact time.

Some sisters who like to sing and dance are like this:

But Sarah and I? We're of a Broadway-er turn of mind...

(please watch this 2 minute video. It's our favorite.)

My romanticism and her practicalities balance one another out. We're opposites and the same all together. We share jokes and fun and laughter and pretend-we-aren't-crying-in-movies. Sarah's logical and I am not. She's a total ham, but shy in new situations. I'm less of a ham {Well I am!} and more out-going in a new social clime. She blogs awesomely at Two's Company where I join her from time to time, though not as often as I should, leaving her the burden of entertaining our group of followers. I have loved having a sister this close in age to me! She is 18 and  I am 20, but we feel pretty compatible...for instance, I never feel that I can really boss her around. ;)

She has weird ideas for things like cinnamon-face-masks. 

She and Pinterest are like this.

She likes guys to have "good hair" for some reason...

She sings and plays the piano and can put on a man-voice when requested...

In short, she's my sister and I wuvs her.