The first!

olive oil and garlic with a tomato basil sauce,
eggplant, mushrooms, onions, spinach, mozzarella,
and fresh Parmesan. So delicious, it was devoured
while enjoying the final episode of the first season
of Saving Grace, the intriguing detective show with
Holly Hunter- I totally reccomend it if you haven't
seen it...fascinatting and thought provoking.

This is the official post for the first pizza made in the new apartment. I decided pizza sounded great around 6pm and we didn't have any yeast in the house. After a trip to the co-op, eggplant mushrooms and onions getting sauteed, and a few hours to let the dough rise we ate a delicious pizza. I am a bit sad that I gave away a bunch of my cooking items before I moved to vermont; most noticeably my pizza stone. Also on my list to locate from the depth of boxes in St.Louis are my garlic press and microplane. Those are the two tools I use most frequently in the kitchen and notice when I don't have them. Especially with the microplane it made it so easy to throw a little bit of lemon zest in this sauce or chocolate on top of that dessert, or cheese on top of anything.

through mountains of snow

A recap of meals over the holidays. My favorite is the Christmas eve dinner I made for 8: salad with greens from my parent's garden- in Missouri in December they were still growing under just a light sheet of plastic. main feast. risotto with sauteed veggies, roasted eggplant slices, finished with fresh parm cheese, with a roasted tomato (also from their garden) reduced whit balsamic vinegar sauce. Served with roasted Brussels sprouts, roasted root veggies and steamed broccoli. Finally, my parents and I spent the night before making pierogies, a traditional polish dumpling, filled with sweet or savory goodies. We made sauerkraut and cabbage ones, cheese and potato, apricot and prune. for dessert
I made a flour less chocolate tart in an almond date crust. delicious! (sorry no photos)

Here in Montpelier I woke up to snow, went to work to snow, and as I write this still snow. They have little plows that plow the sidewalks, many folks were in the cafe this afternoon who took off work and wanted to be cozy with a hot beverage. I am settling in well to my new life here. I absolutely love working in a job where I feel competent, respect, and have lots of fun. I love cooking for myself at night, making breakfast in my pajamas, using my cell phone- simple things I haven't been able to do for a year.
The holidays in St. Louis were really lovely, but far too short. An update, in photos, of food from the holidays. The night I got back to st. Louis was the annual Christmas caroling on the street where I grew up and my parent's still live. I spent some time talking to a neighbor who's daughter I grew up playing with. When I was little they opened an amazing bakery in town that had focaccia to die for. We use to bring it as a gift when we would visit out of town friends, and I have vivid memories of driving to Nebraska, and Minnesota sitting in the back seat of the van with these amazing smelling breads next to me and not being aloud to eat any. The way this bakey made them they were like little pizzas, made with tons of olive oil, coarse salt and piles of onions, sun dried tomatoes, cheese and other delicious toppings. Anyway, the night of caroling, Julie who owned the bakery, gave me the super top secret family recipe for their focaccias. It was the best gift ever. I made them for the party we have after Christmas eve mass, and again for New Years Eve. Amazing!!!

The sadness that has been with me this week comes in the form of the loss of a dear family friend, John Wiedmann. Our families have been friends since long before I was born, and I can't imagine how hard it is for his family, friends, and all the students he has taught over the years. He was an English teacher, musician, outdoors man and just a really good human. I remember being in highschool and trying to understand Thoreau. He came over for dinner and talked me through he finer points of appreciating Walden Pond... Sending much love to the Wiedmanns and the whole St. Louis family today.

love, Lylee

the dough once it relaxed; the secret is dimpling it. finished focaccia!!

Hello 2011 (and hello friends!)

It's been a busy few weeks!
Between the scramble of holidays and the chaos of moving my life and starting it over in a new location I am pretty tired, but really excited to have a fresh start in the new year. My 'resolution' for the new year is to have more fun and worry less. In that spirit I have decided to keep writing the blog, and make it wittier, have more photos, and more stories.

After two days of moving, cleaning, and unpacking and with the help of two amazing friends, and my partner in crime, Lindley, we are more or less in the house. I sit in a pile of boxes and scattered clothing, as the only furniture we have includes: a bed, a bench I made, a half finished end table, and a nightstand. Appropriate to who I am, the house is in shambles, but the bedroom and kitchen are both put together.

I spent today doing adult like things (switching over the propane, changing my mailing address, calling the plumber to fix our toilet, fun.) I took a break to duck in to the cafe I will soon be working at and ran in to two friends, and saw a third in his car as I was walking across the street. It feels so nice to be in such a friendly city, and have connections here already.
I'm still working on all the photos of crafts I made for the holidays and will post them as soon as my life is back in order.

best wishes for health, happiness, and fun to you in 2011.

the next step

some of the highlights of the past few weeks:

I had the pleasure of turning 28 and felt incredibly loved and lucky to have so many amazing friends, co-workers, family, and mentors in my life. Lisa and Heidi in the kitchen made me a heart shaped frozen yogurt, brownie cake and a lunch of eggplant Parmesan with tomato-beet sauce; it was delicious. I was taken out to a lovely dinner in Montpelier and even did grown up things and looked at an apartment on my birthday.

After a good 5 years of putting it off, I finally gave up my Missouri drivers license in exchange for a Vermont one- I'm still a little sad about that one, but it's good I'm forcing myself to grow up. This 'next step' also stemmed from the fact that I found an apartment to live in! Starting in January I will officially be a Montpelier-ite and be staying Vermont for at least the next year or so.


We had an intern skill share night a few weeks ago, where Megan taught us pluming basics.
Megan grew up in Buffalo, bought a house in the foreclosure auction, and proceeded to learn how to fix a house through friends, teaching her self, then teaching workshops for the community with those skills. She is amazing, and if you are ever in Buffalo, you should check out Buffalo Basics -there is even a collective wood fired bakery that is run out of the house! yum.

This week was the super fun staff Christmas party in Montpelier. photo posted below, the best goodbye party/ fun party I've had in a while. We (the interns) all hung out Wednesday night and made Yestermorrow structures out of gingerbread. We focused on the ones that would be most amusing to create, this included the boneyard (where all the wood is stored) the arches (just next to the school where all the random/ building stuff lives) the bomb shelter (a fabric form concrete structure that is half finished) and the shade cannon (an awesome portable shade structure made from a deconstructed barn by a class here this summer.)


Finished my last week of work, I can't believe it has been a year. I'm excited to still be close by and involved in YM, and so many amazing folk connected to the school. Finally I have been a one person (and part of a two person) elf workshop. I have been cranking out cutting boards, beautiful little boxes, baby bibs, wooden earrings, and other sewing fun.



thanks for reading the blog this year! If I keep doing exciting things I may keep it going, we shall see.


Hoping everyone stays cozy this winter, and gets to spend time with people they love.
all the best, Lylee

get your art on!

Yesterday was the first day of Boxmaking, my last class at Yestermorrow. The instructors, Skip and Lizbeth, are brilliant wood workers, carpenters, and house builders. They are talented folk who are great at teaching and pretty much just piles of amazing.
I forgot how good it feels to be in class- to have someone teach me concrete skills, to learn and to feel knowledgeable, capable and competent.

Yesterday we all made a box with the same sides, front and back pieces then got to create our top and bottom pieces how ever we wanted. My box is made of Butternut (a beautiful softer hardwood) that has beautiful little worm holes all over the majority of the wood. It is put together with butt joints and pegs, has a curly maple bottom set in with a dado ( a ridge that it is inset in to- see photo below) and a hand carved Butternut lid- I'm still deciding how to attach the lid. I'll post photos of the completed boxes.

Today I'm planning on making a few bandsaw boxes, a simple way to make a larger chunk of wood in to a fun sculptural box- I like them because it feels more organic and flowing in shape than one can do with a box that has to be measured, and square and precise...

And the frosting on Yesterday wa last night, the 6th annual Art Auction at the school.
A combination silent and live auction, then event is one of the school's largest each year and turned out to be quite a success! It was wonderful to see old friends, former interns, favorite instructors and other folk in the 'Yesterfamily' come together for the evening, and see all of the hard work and hours and hours of organizing come to fruition. Above is a photo of the walnut earrings I donated to the silent auction. (Photo credit to Tonia)
Earrings are the art I am creating most consistently these days. I love making earrings, I like the small scale of jewelry making, and this year has been the first time I have tried jewelry making out of wood. Ihave some plans up my sleeve to start selling them in the near future...stay tuned.

Happy sunday!

back to real life

My little retreat from normal life has come to an end, back in town with Internet and a laundry list of things to do. Yesterday morning we woke up to an inch of snow, a buck in the yard, and a blue sky (after the snow stopped.) I was allowed to play with kitchen toys, so tons of juice was made. tons! my favorite was apple, beet, celery (just 1 stalk) garlic, kale, pineapple.
I also tried out a recipe from this month's VegNews- a no-knead overnight cardamom sweet bread (pictured) I was pretty happy with how it turned out.
finally a picture of the wood stove that lovingly gave us heat all weekend .
hearts!

giving thanks

a nontraditional thanksgiving for me; filled with chosen family rather than traditional family, and sushi, miso soup and tempura, not turkey. house sitting out at a friend's place in the country. Quiet, beautiful, She built it piece by piece many years ago. After a morning of lounging and slowly making dinner we looked up and saw two horses in the yard, a brown pretty one and a Clydesdale just eating apples and grass. Lindley ended up making some rope harnesses and we walked them back up to the Neighbor's farm that they escaped from. It was great, I haven't been around horses in at least 10 years, and after a bit got over my initial nervousness.
Tonight, back in town for a sushi dinner with friends. Hope everyone is having a lovely time with good friends, family, food and fun!

some photos of recent projects for you!

1) napkins I made for a friend, for a wedding present.
2) a knitting needle holder I made for a friend, Mary Kate in exchange for some beautiful hand knit mittens that I should be getting in the mail soon! so exciting.

clean clean clean

hola! today was the official deep clean of the house we live in. We clean, but interns cycle through every 3 months, and people aren't really accountable to clean before they leave/ leave stuff so it's kind a relic to past interns. Today though, we did all the grimy deep cleaning. You know the kind: vacuuming cobwebs from tall rafters, moving the furniture and getting in to deep corners, cleaning out all the junk that has piled up, etc. In the afternoon we tackled some projects that were fixing things, improving, and weather proofing. In the kitchen there is a beautiful 30" tall cabinet that has just the bottom shelf, and nothing else- so it holds about 10 mugs and a ton of wasted space.
It's amazing to me how quickly you can build things when you happen to have the proper hardware, a beautiful shop, and wood at your finger tips. Lindley and I made 2 shelves to go in the cabinet, and even had the time to sand them, plane the edges and chisel in some hearts. They look beautiful, and are quite functional- the best of everything!!!
counting down the days to thanksgiving holiday and a little retreat to the woods. I know, i live in the woods, but these are even further, more lovely, and super remote woods.

finished bench!!!

sorry about the bad lighting in the photos, but the bench is finished! The finishing took longer than building the bench, but I'm happy with it. I ended up using a slate blue finishing paint, which is water based and looks more like a stain, as it soaks in to the wood and shows the grain. I finished it with Linseed oil, as I write this I realize I just put water based paint under oil, but we'll see how that goes... uh oh.
breakfast and lunch shift tomorrow then down to Northampton, MA for some fun! yea for fun!!!

a day full of cooking

hola! today was full of cooking, as I was on the lunch and dinner shifts. We only have 3 students right now, so it's cooking for a small group too. Today was rough but started looking up towards evening time. on the menu:
brown rice risotto, vegan and gluten free with short grain brown rice.
all kinds of toppings to go on: ham, roasted beets, feta, sharp cheddar, green onions, sauteed kale
roasted Brussels sprouts
and dessert- i made my new favorite easy dessert:
flourless chocolate tart from Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's book the Vegan Table
happily off work and in a sugar coma I will now sand my bench and add the third coat of stain, and work on my resume which I have been putting off...


flourless chocolate tart

1 cup raw pecans (or cashews)
1 cup raw walnuts
3/4 cup sugar
4 T earth balance, melted (or coconut oil)
16 ounces semisweet chocolate chips or dark chocolate bar
2 cups nondairy milk (I use rice or soy from vermont soy company)
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 cup water
cinnamon, cayenne pepper to taste

preheat oven to 375 degrees. pulverize the nuts, and sugar in a food processor. Add butter/oil and process until a thick batter forms. Press in to a 9 or 10 inch tart pan. (I use a spring form pan and it works too.) Bake the crust for 10 min. till golden brown.
meanwhile melt chocolate in a double boiler or microwave. In a saucepan heat milk over med. heat till scalding hot but not boiling. Add melted chocolate to the milk- whisk in corn starch and stir well. Lower heat and simmer for 10 min, stirring occasionally.
the chocolate mixture will slowly thicken. Pour mixture into the baked tart shell and chill for at least 2 hours or overnight.
It's also fun to cut a stencil out of wax paper and sprinkle powder sugar over the tart.
serves 6 to 8 people and is so tasty.