Outstanding In The Field

Mar 182012
 

 

Look­ing for some­thing dif­fer­ent that you haven’t expe­ri­enced in your culi­nary life as of yet?

Out­stand­ing in the Field is a rov­ing adven­ture – lit­er­ally a restau­rant with­out walls. They set the long tables at farms or gar­dens, on moun­tain tops or in sea caves, on islands or at ranches. Occa­sion­ally the table is set indoors: a beau­ti­ful refur­bished barn, a cool green­house or a stately museum. Ingre­di­ents for the meal are almost all local and gen­er­ally pre­pared by a cel­e­brated chef of the region. This really is a great way to expe­ri­ence the farm to table trend.

I per­son­ally have not had the plea­sure of shar­ing a meal at one of their tables. They’re not always in your area and dip deep into your pock­ets. How­ever, it is on my list of things to do…eventually. I’d also like to men­tion I have no finan­cial gain by shar­ing this infor­ma­tion with you. It’s just some­thing I found to be inter­est­ing that I wanted to share with my read­ers. MARK YOUR CALENDAR, MARCH 20th TICKETS GO ON SALE! Look at their sched­ule now and plan ahead. Tick­ets sell out in minutes.

 

DIYD: (do it your­self dinner)
  • If you know the day you can burn a few hun­dred bucks is not in your near future, but you’re inspired by the idea, why not try to recre­ate your own “farm to table” dinner.

 

What to do:
  • Loca­tion! Loca­tion! Loca­tion! Find a spe­cial space whether indoors or out that is a lit­tle more adven­tur­ous then the din­ing room. Think-the beach, along the river, in a cac­tus for­est, on a ranch, at a local park, in a pri­vately owned library, under a big tree, in the mid­dle of the street at the end of a cul de sac, on a basketball/tennis court. Think out­side the box and have fun!
  • After your loca­tion is estab­lished, decide on how many guests you will be serv­ing. A roman­tic din­ner for 2? A fam­ily reunion for 20? You decide! Once the num­ber of peo­ple is estab­lished be sure you have enough long ban­quet tables and fold­ing chairs to recre­ate an out­door din­ing room.
  • Cus­tomize the din­ing décor to your own indi­vid­ual lik­ing. For me, I would use as many can­dles as would fit! Oth­ers may use hay stacks for the benches with crisp white linens drap­ing the tables. Have fun and remem­ber there are no rules! (Martha won’t be attending)
  • Next, decide on your menu. Choose sea­sonal items that you can get at your local farm­ers mar­kets. If you really pre­pare in advance, you can even grow some of your own ingre­di­ents your­self.  Try to select items that can be pre­pared fully in your kitchen and brought to the sight in cool­ers or warm­ing bags.
  • Remem­ber the details such as weather con­di­tions, bugs, restroom avail­abil­ity, park­ing, dietary restrictions/allergies , wine pair­ings, music, throw blan­kets, etc…
  • If you like the idea but don’t want all of the work, cater the event and have it deliv­ered to your site.  Try to find a store or restau­rant that makes farm to table meals. The con­cept and ambiance will still be enjoyed by all.

 

Buon Appetito!

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Our Backyard Makeover Completed! (for now)

Oct 032011
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From rags…

…to riches!

It’s been a few months since my first post about giv­ing our back­yard a lit­tle mini makeover. We finally fin­ished most of it. It was help­ful that our yard had good bones to begin with. Although there was a lot of work to do, it wasn’t a huge diy under­tak­ing. Our new per­gola and paver floors were the only real big projects. We have a few more cos­metic things to do, (hang lights, find our bbq a bet­ter loca­tion, plant veg­gies in our new bed, etc…) but does any­one really ever com­pletely fin­ish a remodel? We are really enjoy­ing the fruits of our labor. Speak­ing of that, a spe­cial thanks to our amaz­ing crew, a.k.a. fam­ily & friends!

Check out great pho­tographs of our back­yard here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tips:

  • Make chaise lounge bol­ster cush­ions using hip dish tow­els. (I bought mine at Tar­get, they’re by Dwell)
  • Dress your faded out­door cush­ions with cov­ers made from sim­ple white tow­els. Easy (if you can sew, or like me knows some­one who sews…thanks Con!) to make and easy to clean. I don’t rec­om­mend pat­terned or color tow­els due to sun fading.
  • Mix vintage/garage sale fur­ni­ture pieces with new ones. You not only save money this way, but it adds char­ac­ter reflec­tive of you.
  • Shop at your local dis­count stores and on-line. We pur­chased our din­ing table on-line at Pier One and bought our din­ing chairs at Homegoods.
  • Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Try to be rea­son­able and flex­i­ble when plan­ning your mini remodel. (espe­cially if this is a diy project)  Pick two things that are really impor­tant to you. In our case it was the per­gola and hav­ing a din­ing room table out­side to eat on. After that every­thing is a bonus!


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To Shade or Not to Shade?

Aug 072011
 

back­yard remodel continued.…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are com­ing to the end of our mini back­yard remodel just in time to enjoy it a lit­tle before fall arrives. We still have some details to fin­ish such as our per­gola shade. We’ve installed half of the per­gola with shad­ing mate­r­ial. The other half is still uncov­ered. This actu­ally wasn’t done on pur­pose (just ran out of time one day) but now we see how the beau­ti­ful sky is being hid­den by the shad­ing mate­r­ial. We’re try­ing to decide do we fin­ish it and pro­vide more shade which is more prac­ti­cal? (that totally goes against my nature, haha)  Would it be bet­ter to keep it be exposed and enjoy natures beauty and poten­tially sac­ri­fice some com­fort? Keep in mind we do get par­tial shade just from the per­gola alone.  (you can get the shade fab­ric at Home Depot in the gar­den sec­tion in a vari­ety of colors)

We’re tak­ing a poll and let­ting you decide the fate of the per­gola shade!

PLEASE VOTE!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Repurpose Your Old Bbq (with style of course)

Jul 292011
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been promis­ing for a while now to reveal my not so typ­i­cal herb gar­den. Here it is! Repur­pose your old bbq or fire pit into an herb gar­den. Not only is it prac­ti­cal, it’s got a kitchy vibe going on that makes a great con­ver­sa­tional piece. Every­one who sees them loves them!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The how to:
  • be sure there are hole open­ings on the bot­tom for water drainage (they prob­a­bly already exist where you dumped the ashes out)
  • then add a shal­low layer of small rocks at the bottom
  • next fill the bbq or fire pit with good pot­ting soil (it’s such a small area and makes a huge dif­fer­ence so splurge on some good stuff)
  • before plant­ing your herbs just set them on top of the soil so you can see what they will look like
  • remem­ber to place taller herb plants in the back and shorter, drapey ones in the front
  • you’re ready to dig and plant away
  • optional: add some organic fertilizer
  • water well
Extras:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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Our $13 Outdoor Rug (more backyard progress)

Jul 252011
 

…back­yard remodel continued.

 

 

The best time to get deals on out­door fur­ni­ture and acces­sories is now! (most stores are hav­ing their end of sea­son sales) We wanted an out­door rug to make the din­ing room under the per­gola a lit­tle more cozy feel­ing. I found some fab­u­lous rugs with bold col­ors and pat­terns. How­ever when I was at Tar­get recently shop­ping for sun­dries, I stum­bled across their sum­mer clear­ance sale. Of course I had to browse and see what they had. I saw this neural gray tone rug made for out­side. Although it was noth­ing like I had orig­i­nally envi­sioned, it called out to me. Then I looked at the price tag and it was only $12.99! I knew instantly we were meant to be…

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Pretty Pavers! (more backyard progress)

Jul 202011
 

We’ve been post­ing a slow pro­gres­sion of our mini back­yard remodel the last few months. First phase Sec­ond phase Third Phase Fourth phase

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the back cor­ner of our yard we had a funky spot under the new per­gola. It’s hid­den and doesn’t get foot traf­fic. Of course we’re try­ing to do this project on a tight bud­get so we decided to just put some inex­pen­sive pavers down. Ry (a.k.a. my hubby) and Spence (a.k.a. my son) went to town cut­ting and fit­ting the pavers. This was a learn­ing expe­ri­ence for Spencer, but he did great. Some­times it’s just eas­ier to do projects or tasks our­selves but I have to remind myself now and then… “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

 

 

 

 

 

After lay­ing the pavers down it was time to apply the Poly­meric sand. Basi­cally as you see in the photo above you sweep the sand into the crevices between the pavers. Direc­tions may vary prod­uct to prod­uct but our next step was to hose it down then wait 20 min­utes. This step was repeated sev­eral times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We cut some cor­ners since this area has no foot traf­fic (we didn’t do the 2 inch lay­ers of decom­posed gran­ite under­neath) so our pavers are not 100% level but we like that. It really gives it an old world Tus­can feel. This project was about 50 sq. feet and took about a half a day. We’re really happy with the end results con­sid­er­ing this isn’t a major over­haul remodel.

As promised before and com­ing soon:

- Ryan’s gar­den beds

–My “not so typ­i­cal” herb garden

–Ryan’s lat­est recy­cling idea. What do you do with an old mattress?

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The Rat Diaries (the conclusion)

Jul 122011
 

read part I here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t worry, that rat is not real… It’s the only rat that seems to be left these days though. I have to admit I thought our “rat trap off” would be a much longer process. It looks like our unwanted fury friends are not hang­ing out in our yard any­more. Hur­ray! Time to call our “wanted friends” to come over and sip San­gria with us under the pergola…

Final results: $2 spring back mouse­trap verses the $40 elec­tronic Vic­tor rat trap

$2 spring back mouse­trap caught a total of 8 rats

$40 elec­tronic Vic­tor Rat trap caught a total of 5 rats

If you con­clude the win­ner is the one who caught the most then the spring back mouse­trap won catch­ing a total of 8 rats in 8 nights. The elec­tronic Vic­tor trap caught a total of 5 rats in 8 nights.

How­ever there is a big dif­fer­ence in how each device works. My con­clu­sion is the elec­tronic Vic­tor trap won because of it’s ease of use while being effec­tive.  Let’s be real here, most woman (maybe some men too) don’t want to see or touch the dead rat. The $2 spring back trap is pretty archaic. You have to hope not to snap your­self while set­ting. Worse than that though is dis­pos­ing of the dead rat. Where the $40 elec­tronic Vic­tor trap is very easy to set. (just add bat­ter­ies and peanut but­ter) Once you have a dead rat, your con­tact visu­ally or phys­i­cally when dis­pos­ing of it is extremely minimal.

Funny Story:
“Laugh­ter is an instant vaca­tion.” Mil­ton Berle

So you see the rat/mouse in the above photo? Well, I bought it to play a joke on my hus­band. I care­fully placed it par­tially stick­ing out from under his dresser next to the bed. It looked so real! I know, that sounds so mean huh? It turns out when he dis­cov­ered it when I wasnt’ home. (Rats!!) I made him con­fess if he fell for it or not. He said he thought it was real enough look­ing that he got a wire hanger and poked at it. (I’m laugh­ing so hard just typ­ing this!) I guess no girl­ish screams came from him, but pok­ing it with a hanger is sat­is­fy­ing enough for me. I’ll take it!! “gig­gle, giggle!”

 

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The Table Has Arrived!

Jul 082011
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For those of you who have been fol­low­ing our back­yard remodel, you know we were eagerly wait­ing our table deliv­ery. It finally arrived! The down­side is it came in box that said, “assem­bly required”. Sigh…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although I am an accom­plished Ikea fur­ni­ture assem­bler, I didn’t feel up to the task this time. But then I sud­denly had a light bulb moment. Last time I checked I had a 16 year old capa­ble son! Hur­ray! I put him to work at assem­bling the table. (no I didn’t pay him to do it, he’s just super! ya, I’m one of those moms…) He was able to whip it out in 10 min­utes with­out bub­bly! (see above Ikea link to under­stand that com­ment) We are very happy with our pur­chase even though the color was totally off. If you’ve seen my inspi­ra­tion page you prob­a­bly agree it’s a pretty good find. It’s also prac­ti­cal since it’s actu­ally made to be outdoors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More to come…

We’re hop­ing to work on Ryan’s gar­den beds this week­end. My “not so typ­i­cal” herb gar­den is done, so stay tuned for my post­ing on that real soon! Oh and I’m so excited to share Ryan’s lat­est recy­cling idea. What do you do with an old mat­tress? He’s work­ing on that now too. It’s bril­liant! Well, it would have to be con­sid­er­ing he is one smart guy! (after all, he did marry me) ;)

Happy Fri­day!

 

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