Syrups and Soda and Spaaaash!

Channeling Lars here. There were some flowers from my cousin's wedding on our kitchen table. They were too pretty to let them die a normal death so I took some of the drier (or more dead) flowers and put them together on this sign with acrylic paint, straws, butchers paper and sharpee. 

Custom sodas and syrups. They should be a thing. So why oh why are 98% of the syrups we see nothing more than extract from a bottle mixed with corn syrup? Some things will never make sense to me.

As you're making plans for summer entertaining, let me throw an idea out there. The last few years, Yoni and I have thrown a Soda Spash. It was supposed to be a splash, until I forgot the L in the sign and just decided to go with it. Here's how it works: make a vat of simple syrup and a vat of caramel. Then mix that with malt powder, peanut butter, and pretty much every ingredient listed above. Get ice cream, sparkling water and TADAH! Baller party with a fresh take on ice cream sodas. You don't have to go as crazy as I do on the syrups. Maybe start with one or two, then you can improvise from there. The options are as varied as your imagination, but this should give you a good start!

FIRST ...

Simple Syrup

1 Part Sugar (I like to make one brown sugar batch and one white sugar batch)

+

1 Part Water

Boil sugar and water together until sugar dissolves and consistency is slightly syrupy. Usually 5-10 minutes. This keeps for a long time. No need to put it in the fridge either.

THEN ...

Salted Chocolate Syrup

1 Cup simple syrup  +  1 Cup dark chocolate chips   +   1 tsp salt (optional)

Warm simple syrup. Add dark chocolate slowly, stirring until melted into the syrup. Add salt. Cool, but allow to come to room temperature before serving. Store in the fridge.

Strawberry Malt Syrup

Simple syrup  +  Frozen strawberries  +  Malt powder

I'd try about 1/2 the amount of simple syrup as strawberries. Pulverize strawberries in blender with a few hefty tablespoons of malt powder. Add simple syrup and stir. Allow strawberries to melt and macerate in the simple syrup. Refrigerate in airtight container.

blueberry maple cream, sour cherry and strawberry malt.

A FEW TIPS:

Try sodas with about 1/2 inch of syrup in a 6 oz cup. You can always make it sweeter.  

Buy a large carton of whole milk, half and half or whipping cream and add a shot to make cream sodas. You can do this with any non-fruit syrup. 

Sometimes we make the sodas on their own and sometimes we do ice cream sodas. I make my life easier by only getting one flavor of Ice Cream -- a good Vanilla. People can still go wild with the flavors but you have fewer variables involved. 

Arranging the Flowers

"The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul."

-Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Flowers are some of my favorite things.

They make me really happy -- maybe because I like nature and the feeling of being near green things, maybe because I don't think of myself as being particularly creative unless I'm  arranging flowers, or maybe 'cause I just think they're pretty. Anyway, I like 'em (doesn't really matter why). And for our fondue party, I was charged with putting together floral stuffs . But when I went to procure stems from our local grocery store, I was unimpressed. I love super market blossoms, but on this particular day the pickings at Safeway were pretty slim. I called Liberty (who was at Trader Joe's) to see if she could fill in the gaps, but the options there weren't much better. SO we decided to expand our search from the floral department to the produce section.

Some of my favorite unconventional additions in these arrangements include:

Asparagus

Dried figs (golden and purple)

Kumquats

Radishes

Rainbow Chard

Dinosaur Kale

and 

Garlic

The first time I mixed garlic into a bouquet was at Charity's wedding. She had ordered a few hundred sunflowers to decorate, but not much else. And because it was late October and we were in the middle of nowhere New York, and it was raining, we got creative. While looking through shopping bags, I found some lovely heads of garlic, purchased by my mom at a local farmer's market. They were about all we had, so I shoved them into the arrangement. The resulting product was actually quite lovely (ignore the scowling child) and got me hooked on adding unorthodox foodstuffs to bouquets. 

A few years ago I put together a simple guide for arranging flowers (you can see it here). It's basic, but it works for me. For anyone looking to get a little more adventurous, I'll add these suggestions:

-When adding things without stems to bouquets (think kumquats, figs, radishes or garlic), try sticking them on wooden skewers 

-If you're making more than one arrangement, buy or pick more "fillers" (green things, berries, branches) than you think you'll need. It's almost always a good idea

-Floral tape is your friend! Use lots.

-Take your time! Be creative! It sounds corny, but make sure you have enough time to put together an arrangement you love. I usually find time makes a big difference. 

OK. I think that's it. But if you arrange something, make sure to take a picture, instagram it and tag us (@5isterstd)! WE WANT TO SEE YOUR CREATIONS! 

Dip.

Ahh... fondue. Like cake, the dish and I have a harried past that has somehow led to expertise. At 10, I was alone in our family kitchen, cleaning up after a true fondue party. Somehow I got it in my head that the remaining melted cheese was unfit for future consumption, and trashed close to $100 in leftovers before Momo discovered my failed attempt to assist. 

Then, in college, a family member hooked me up with a writing gig for a new food magazine. The topic? Fondue. I had not yet recovered from my decade-old folly, but at a dollar a word, this poor student was eager to be paid for my skills. I went and 'invested' in a substantial library of cheese for the project, and got my hot, new, OLDER boyfriend (queue Premal Trivedi) to hook me up in the alcohol department. I researched the history of fondue in pop-culture (a scheme dreamed up by the Swiss cheese lobby*), and toiled over a series of pots of molten dairy, perfecting my technique. In the end, I was late on my deadline, the magazine tanked, and I was never paid. This left me regretting a number of decisions, listed as thus:

1. Working with relatives 
2. Spending too much money on cheese  
3. Reacquainting myself with fondue

Nearly another decade on, it seems I'll never learn. I continue to practice the activities above on a daily, weekly, and yearly basis. 

Here's the thing about rustic, old dishes. They're really easy. With fondue, there's a basic equation, and thus far, it's served me well. For every pound of cheese, you'll need a cup of booze, a tablespoon of flour, and a large clove of garlic. Grate the cheese and toss it with the flour. Then, rub down the interior of your pot with a halved garlic clove, and warm your alcohol. Add the cheese a handfull at a time, and stir until melted. 

BUT HERE COMES THE MAGIC:

Anyone can follow a recipe, but it takes a sound mind to keep your cool when $h*t hits the fan. This is where I truly shine. If your fondue it grainy, thick, or stringy here are the ugly tools that will enable a beautiful fete: an emersion blender and a slurry of cornstarch and lemon juice. If something's not right, mix up a two-to-one concoction of lemon juice and cornstarch. The acid in the lemon will dissolve the stringy proteins in the cheese and the cornstarch will thicken and smooth for good measure. Still not right? Bring out that magic wand and go to work. It does the trick every time. 

Now that I've shared my methods, here are the combinations we used to get you started. 

Traditional--Gruyère+White wine+Nutmeg+Black pepper

American--Aged cheddar+IPA+Maple syrup (1T)

U So Fancy--Havarti+Champagne+Honey (1T) +Thyme

For dipping we had roasted veggies, cornichons (my fav), and more glorious bread than you can shake a stick at courtesy of the folks at Il Forno.

*Don't believe me? Well, NPR's Planet Money team recently did a whole (fantastic) episode on the topic.

And We're Back!

Hello All! We missed you terribly! (This is where you say "OMG! We missed you too! Like, sooooo much! Oh my gosh we were, like, sooooo lost without you! Totes serious! No you stop it! Besties forever. Love you, betch.")

You done?

No. Sorry. I'm so sorry. Ok. If you couldn't tell, my blog-writing skillz have gotten a bit rusty over the past 6-7-8ish months. But not even inevitable self-inflicted internet chagrin can tamp my enthusiasm to be back sharing so many sweet little somethings and nothings with all y'all lovely folk. It has been far too long. But we were busy while we were away! Kimber's been jet-setting from coast to coast, all while managing and expanding her urban homestead with aplomb  (did I hear someone say 'backyard chickens'? No? That was me? That was me.) and homeschooling the heck out of her three angel creatures; Charity released her debut album and is now hard at work on a memoir to be published by Simon & Schuster sometime next year (nbd); Liberty seems to be gallivanting around a drastically new zipcode every other weekend, yet somehow bakes things like this in whatever free time she has left; and Mercina is back from Canada, generally dominating at school, work, and just *being* in general. As for me, I've graduated and pay my own rent -- life accomplishments I was never quite convinced I'd accomplish. 

We ask that you please forgive us our myriad peccadilloes (both those present in our persons and our website). We're trying to work them out, but it's taking more time than we'd like. Dead links, dumb formatting, and undelivered thank-you notes notwithstanding, we're feeling pretty optimistic -- we got ourselves a fancy new site, a fancy new watermark, some fancy new partners, and a fancy new resolve to actually blog. Most importantly, we've got all of our beloved old friends who inspired this little venture in the first place, and who daily lend us any worth we can claim to possess. 

Soooo, things are looking pretty rosy from where I'm standing.

To start things off, we're going to spend the next few posts deconstructing a fondue soiree we hosted when we all back at home in Denver over Thanksgiving (in collaboration with Bronx's own Il Forno Bakery and with support from our terribly talented, terribly handsome, and terribly well-named friend Bobby De La Rosa). In the coming days, my ever-capable sisters will guide you through the cheese-melting, stem-chopping, sugar-dipping how-tos of the evening, while I content myself with delicious memories of the fruits of their hard labor. Being the youngest girl is a tough row to hoe* guys, but somehow, somehow, I make do.

*Row to hoe? Hoe to row? Foe to mow? Trololo? Am I messing this saying up, or did it just never make sense in the first place?

Intercultured

^^^only your siblings know what parading around in matching star-spangled shirts feels like^^^

Last Diwali I mentioned that Premal and I were trying to figure out how we would navigate the blending of our customs--especially when it comes to festivals and celebrations. Well, we're back for round two of our little experiment, and it's a good one. Rakhi is the Hindu celebration of protective siblings. Traditionally, sisters give their brothers little bracelets to thank them for their guardianship, and receive sweets and gifts in return--because sisters are treasures, and should be treated as such. I'm all for being a treasure, but you can, of course, count on me to make things a bit more gender neutral. Because you have never seen a more protective mama bear than sweet Charity Sunshine up against a prospective beau (I'm pretty sure she once told Premal she would cut his hmm-hmm off if he ever hurt me). And there have definitely been times when I watched over Shiloh like he was a peony in full bloom.

So instead, we've chosen to celebrate by taking a few moments to reflect on how awesome our siblings are, and to thank them (by sending a little friendship bracelet in the mail) for all they do to ensure that we grow to meet our greatest potentials.

^^^ it gave me a great excuse to whip out my long dormant bracelet-making skillz^^^

So, here goes nothing.

Thanks for reading to me, and reading with me, and giving me great books to read to myself. Thanks for the sweet hand-me down t-shirts (and the not so sweet hand-me-down leggings). Thanks for teaching me how to cook and fight and whistle and fish. Thanks for driving me places, and driving me crazy. Thank you for the punches you've thrown (and taken) on my behalf. Thanks for teaching me about music and not freaking out (too much) when I dated your friends. Thanks for giving me a shoulder to cry on when I needed it, and a bop in the nose when I'd sobbed you soggy. Thanks for believing in me, and inspiring me to be more like each of you. I'm so lucky to have each of you in my life. I love you. Happy Rakhi.

xoxox,

Libby

^^^look at my dreamy model. look at him!^^^

Now I have to actually stick these buggers in the mail....

Harry Potter + Marie Antoinette = Quebec

Mercina has a special knack for making everything around her lovely. If you doubt me--or would simply like to look at a lot of pretty things--just browse through her posts. They offer a disgustingly accurate window into the world of magic she creates. We, the players in her land of dreams, tend to vacillate between modes of deep feeling, either of gratitude for sharing her gift with us, or inadequacy over our inability to pass muster.  

So it was with some apprehension that Glorianna, Charity and I endeavored to arrange a sweet little send off worthy of miz. Mia Grace. Our inspiration was simple. Two beloved films, Harry Potter and (Sofia Coppola's)Marie Antoinette. Combined they make Harie Antoinette, a hedonistic celebration of opulence and magic (but mostly mass consumption of pastel-colored candy and movies). My sparsely furnished apartment provided a perfect pallet for a grown up slumber party, with homemade butter-beer for sipping, and delectable lil' cakelettes for snacking. We rallied our creative forces to whip of some snazzy garlands, and laid a lush carpet of faux fur. Then we dolled ourselves up and danced around for no one's gratification other than our own.  Most of us had snoozed off by the time Harry discovered what lay hidden beneath the trapdoor on the third-floor of Hogwarts, but that seemed somehow appropriate for the evening. It was a night like so many others we've shared, which was exactly what we had hoped it would be. It's terrible saying goodbye to someone you love so dearly. It will be nearly six-months before we get to hear her voice again, and then a year more before she returns from her mission and we learn how she, and we, have changed in the interim. But in the meantime I'm grateful that we were able to pull off a fette worthy of the Queen of Aesthetics herself, and bolster us all with one more memory to treasure during the cold Canadian winter ahead.

We love you Mercina Grace! Be safe, and kind, and know how adored you are!

xoxox

Outtakes

 Last month we expended herculean efforts while wrangling the troupes to take a family picture. With 23 bodies to organize - and at least as many schedules - finding a time and place to gather was darn near impossible (please see the gory 75-long gmail message thread for evidence). In the end, everyone was able to make it except for Dave (who was whisked away on a last minute assignment in NYC), and little Thomas (who was needed at the opening of his preschool art installation). 

And in my humble opinion, the heartaches and headaches were totally worthwhile. We'll wait until Christmas to subject everyone to the finished product, but - until then - here are some of my favorite outtakes from the afternoon. 

Huge props, hugs, and kisses to Tom who was coerced into taking the pictures after we were unable to secure a professional photographer for the golden 45 minute window of opportunity. (Apparently this studly rocket scientist is also capable of corralling 21 of the most opinionated people I've ever had the pleasure of knowing). Huzzah!