Fun

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Lots Of Bling – Christie’s Important Jewels

This is some major bling.  We were invited to a private viewing event for Christie’s Important Jewels auction before the auction takes place on Tuesday, June 14 at 10:00 AM.  We have always like jewelry.  Both of our mothers love to wear jewelry and they both own a lot.  We like the beauty, but also like how fine jewelry is made.  You need to have quite an intricate construction if you hope to hold onto your massive stones.  We also like the history of jewelry.  Pieces like we saw at Christie’s auction house have a story.  Whether it is suppressed emotions that come out in Victorian jewelry or Hollywood-style sex and glamour that come out from more recent pieces, finding out who wore it, how it was made and why it is being sold is always a great story.  The auction contained 125 pieces….some more understated than others.  The pictures were all taken from our i-Phone.  They aren’t too bad considering they were taken with a phone through glass viewing cases and bright lights.  Here are a few photos of our favorite pieces we wanted to share with you.  Enjoy!!

This is an emerald and diamond ribbon bow, designed as a cluster of marquise and pear-shaped diamonds and emeralds.  The bow is enhanced by calibre-cut emerald detail and is mounted in gold and platinum.  The bow is signed by Sabbadini.

$7,000 – $10,000 (or as high as the bidding goes)

This ring is set with a pear-shaped diamond, weighing approximately 10.01 carats, flanked on either side by a pear-shaped diamond, each weighing approximately 1.02 carats mounted in platinum.

$1,100,000  – $1,500,000

This is a diamond, ruby, onyx and gold cuff by Verdura.  The wide onyx cuff centering on a sculpted gold plaque, set with cabochon rubies and circular-cut diamonds, mounted in gold.  Christie’s research has found that this cuff is the widest onyx Verdura cuff to be offered at auction.

$20,000 – $30,000

This diamond bracelet is designed as an openwork circular and single-cut diamond wide band, set at the center with a graduated series of baguette-cut diamonds, mounted in white gold.

$10,000 – $15,000

Stunner alert!  The necklace is set with a graduated series of five cabochon emeralds, each within a circular-cut diamond surround, spaced by circular-cut diamond swags, to the circular-cut diamond scalloped backchain and cabochon emerald clasp (which you can’t see from this photo), mounted in platinum and 18k gold.  The ear pendants (not earrings I guess if you are loaded) each suspend a pear-shaped cabochon emerald, within a graduated circular-cut diamond surround, from a circular-cut diamond link, the surmount set with a cabochon emerald, with a circular-cut diamond surround, mounted in platinum and gold.

Necklace $60,000 – $80,000

Ear Pendants $10,000 – $15,000

The star of the show!  A diamond ring set with an oval-cut diamond, weighing approximately 46.51 carats, flanked on either side by a pear-shaped diamond, weighing approximately 1.01 carats, mounted in platinum.  The catalog from Christie’s says it is the property of a distinguished lady.  We’re thinking Elizabeth Taylor’s estate, but who knows??

$2,500,000 – $3,500,000 (wrap it up….we’ll take two)

We hope you liked our little virtual jewelry show.  If you can afford a majority of these pieces, please let us know so we can adopt you as soon as possible.  It’s fun to do something different and we wanted to share this night with you.  Let us know if you would like us to place a bid for you.  You can trust us with your cash.  Have you ever seen bling like this before in your life?

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Fried Baby Artichokes

This is a pan full of baby artichokes.  Did you know that they sell regular artichokes and baby artichokes?  When the Brooklyn Italian Grandmother is in the house, she likes a dish that can start as an appetizer and then be carried to the table and continue as a side dish.  That’s why she likes fried baby artichokes.  The trick with this recipe is to get the smallest baby artichokes you can find.  The smallest usually are about the size of a golf ball or a little bigger.  If the baby artichokes are any larger than that, they will require a par boil to make them tender before frying.  Our baby artichokes looked big so we actually par boiled them in water for about 20 minutes before starting the recipe.  Once they had cooled, we took a very sharp knife and cut off the top and cut the stem off the bottom so that it could sit on its bottom without tipping over.  After that, we cut them right down the middle into two pieces.  For the breading, we used a mixture similar to what we made for the stuffing in our cubanelle stuffed pepper recipe.  So sit back and let’s start frying some baby artichokes with the Brooklyn Italian Grandmother.

Ingredients:

  • 15 baby artichokes, cut in half (remember, smaller is better for this recipe)
  • 5 cloves of garlic, chopped into small pieces
  • 1 1/4 cup of seasoned bread crumbs
  • 3/4 cup of grated parmesan cheese
  • 4 thin slices of Italian sopressata, chopped
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon pepper
  • 3 eggs
  • 1/2 cup olive oil

Directions:

Mix garlic, bread crumbs, cheese, sopressata, salt and pepper in a bowl and combine well.  Break eggs into a separate bowl and mix with a fork.

Heat olive oil over medium heat until hot.  Coat artichoke halves in egg mixture and then in bread crumb mixture.

Place into heated olive oil and fry until breading is brown and artichoke is tender.  Continue to add more olive oil as needed.

When all of the artichokes are fried, sprinkle with more salt, pepper and cheese and serve warm.

The good thing about these artichokes is that, because they are small, there are less leaves to eat through until you get to the heart of the artichoke.  There is very little waste because the leaves are so small you can eat the entire thing.  Start with these as your appetizer and then move them in to munch along with your main course.  Just like the famous brand of chip…..you can’t eat just one of these fried baby artichokes.  Give them a try.  What are you cooking today in your kitchen?

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Friday Dance Party – Tonight Tonight With Hot Chelle Rae

This is another edition of Friday Dance Party on Acorns On Glen.  It’s the time where we give thanks for making it through another week and for being alive and present here on Earth.  How do we celebrate another week of living?  We dance.  So, are you alive this Friday?  Are you and your family safe and sound?  Take a few seconds now to be in the moment and realize what a great life you truly have.  Did you give thanks for that?

Good, now let’s dance.

My company has summer hours.  This means that people who work at my company are able to leave every Friday from now until Labor Day at 1:45 in order to enjoy a little more time at home with family and friends.  I’ll be honest, most Fridays I don’t get out of the office until much later, but even leaving early by an hour or two seems like such a big deal.  It gives me the extra time to run a few errands, get home and take a little disco nap with the Yorkie and then wake up and get ready for some Friday night fun.  Summer hours are such a great way to start a Summer weekend.  So given that I’m able to catch up on a little sleep each Friday before I go out, I seem to be in much more of a party mood these last couple of Fridays…..meaning I don’t want to go home and be in bed before 10:00 PM!  So this week, I’ve decided to celebrate the start of Summer and summer hours by partying on top of the world.  So be happy for living and shake your money maker to this new song by Hot Chelle Rae (again, sorry for the pop up ad – just hit the ‘x’ to suppress it.  Anyone know how to get rid of these annoying things?).  This is a tune where dancing hard and wild is just the ticket.  Go ahead and let loose….you deserve it.  Do you get summer hours where you work?

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Another Post About Legal Pot

This is another legal pot here on Glen Road that needs to have plants placed inside of it.  It is one of a set of planters that are new to our collection.  I had to have this set because I am in love with faux bois finishes, which is French for “false wood”.  A fitting name for items that appear plucked from the forest, but are actually made of cast stone, cast iron or cement.  Faux bois items can also be painted to have the same woodsy look and feel.  We were struggling to come up with the perfect mix of plants to put inside the pots, but once again, our friends at White Flower Farm, www.whiteflowerfarm.com, were there to help us with our decision.    On their website, White Flower Farm has a large assortment of annual collections for sale.  All you need to do is find the assortment of annual plants that you like and they will send them to you along with relevant planting instructions.  Their instructions even tell you where to position each plant in the pot that you will be using.  There is little room for a mistake when you purchase one of White Flower Farm’s annual collections.  Since our faux bois pots are going along the swimming pool, we decided to select a collection that is a little more on the exotic side.  Something that contained some large, tropical looking plants mixed along with more traditional plants like begonias or coleus.

Our first selection is named the ‘Sunny Summer Annual Collection’.  In this collection, the plants include an Ornamental Grass (Pennisetum purpureum ‘Princess’), a fancy-leaf Geranium (Pelargonium ‘Indian Dunes’), some unusually colored Coleus, Henna and Lancelot Velvet Mocha, a dark-leaved Ipomoea ‘Blackie ‘, a long-blooming Calibrachoa superbells saffron and a trailing Sweet Potato (Ipomoea sweet heart light green).  Here is a copy of the detailed planting instructions, what the collection should look like at maturity and what the collection looked like after we finished our planting.

Our second selection was the ‘King Tut Annual Collection’.  Ancient Egyptians used the leaves of Cyperus Papyrus to make paper, but here that sedge’s foliage creates a sensational display, rising 4-6 feet tall above the trailing blooms of Begonia Dragon Wing Pink and Calibrachoa Cabaret Deep Blue.  Again, here is a copy of the detailed planting instructions, what the collection should look like at maturity and what the collection looked like after we finished our planting.

So, as you can see, there is a lot of growing that needs to get done in a rather short amount of time.  With some regular watering and fertilizing, we should be able to grow these pots into some eye-catching arrangements just like the pictures above that show the collections at maturity.  Nothing is guaranteed, but gardening in planters and pots is pretty risk free….and legal.  What are you planting in pots, planters and containers on your patio, yard or garden?

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Crisp Toffee Chocolate Bars? Cookies? – The Jury Is Out On What To Call Them

This is the fastest dessert recipe we know.  It’s perfect when you find out at the last minute that you need to bring a dessert to dinner.  How about when your kid needs something for school the next morning and it’s 9 o’clock at night?  This will do the trick.  The recipe calls it a bar, but we think of it more as a shortbread cookie.  Because it is like shortbread, the dough is not the same consistency as a regular drop cookie.  The success of this dough is all in your hands.  This dough needs to be pressed into the pan with your hands.  It is also best to start mixing it with your hands when you start to add the flour.  Another tip–start with super softened butter.  If you do, you can mix all the ingredients together in one bowl and a wooden spoon.  What you get at the end is a toffee-like cookie/bar thanks to the butter and brown sugar with the gooey goodness of the chocolate chips.  There is no one in the room that can resist this dessert.  It’s salty and sweet goodness is a hit with everyone.

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened, plus more for the pan
  • 1 cup light brown sugar
  •  1 teaspoon coarse salt
  •  1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  •  2 1/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
  •  1/3 cup pecans, chopped
  •  1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Butter a 9 x 13-inch glass baking dish.

In a large bowl, beat together the butter, sugar, salt, and vanilla.  Add the flour and mix well to combine.  Stir in the walnuts and chocolate chips.

Press the dough into the prepared pan.

Bake until golden and set, about 20 minutes.  Cut into even squares while still warm.

Fast and fabulous.  We made this over Memorial Day weekend for a party that we went to and they were an absolute hit.  Give these a try the next time you want something delicious and don’t have a lot of time.  Let us know too if you think they are a cookie or a bar.  We can’t ever seem to decide.  What are your favorite quick desserts? 

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Tulips In A Tree

This is one of our favorite trees on Glen Road.  No picture can really do it justice in showing its height and how majestic it stands.  The tree is a Tulip tree, Liriodendron tulipifera.  It is also called a yellow poplar, tulip poplar, tulip magnolia or a white wood.  The Tulip tree is native to the eastern U.S. and is the state tree of Indiana and Tennessee.  Here on Glen Road, our Tulip tree stands very straight and very, very tall, until you get to the top.  At the top of the tree, there is a spot where the main trunk has a bend in it before it starts to grow straight again.  We have been told this is most likely where the tree was struck by lightning.

The Tulip tree is one of the tallest trees in the forest.  It may live 200 years.  The tree is deciduous, meaning it loses its leaves on a seasonal basis.  The Tulip tree is usually 70-90 feet tall.  However, it has been known to reach more than 180 feet tall.  The large, cup-shaped flowers don’t appear until the tree is between 15 and 25 years old.  The flowers are hard to see when in the tree because they grow high above the ground.  It is only when the wind blows them down that we are able to get a close-up view.

The Tulip tree leaf is simple and is shaped something like the outline of a Dutch tulip.  It is bright green on the top and paler green underneath.  In the Fall, it turns pale yellow.  The flower is perfect.  This means that it has both male and female parts.  It has green petals with orange splotches at the bottom.  The flowers appear in late May or early June.  In the Fall, the tree will drop its fruit.  The cone-shaped fruit is made up of clusters of samaras.  Each samara holds two seeds.  When the fruit dries and opens, the samaras scatter, carrying the seeds on the wind.

Tulip trees are very weak-wooded.  This means the limbs often break during ice and wind storms.  It is a good thing that our Tulip tree is near the end of the driveway and not near the house.  The wood is light yellow and very easy to carve.  That is why the wood is used today for crates, musical instruments, toys and roof shingles.

As we’ve said before, we love to grow unique plants here on Glen Road.  While we didn’t plant our Tulip tree, we are so glad that it is here.  Do you have any interesting trees or plants growing on your property that you can share with us here on Acorns On Glen?

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Funky Italian Stuffed Peppers

This is a cubanelle pepper.  I’ve seen them in the supermarket many times and always wondered what you used them for in cooking.  Well, I know now!  The Brooklyn Italian Grandmother is back, fully jeweled, and is making her version of Italian stuffed peppers using cubanelle peppers.  She tells us that this is her own creation that she has come up with over the years through trial and error.  What is unique about this dish is that you actually start by mixing and frying the stuffing.  Once cooled, the fried stuffing is then placed in the peppers and baked until the peppers are tender.  These are one of those dishes that seem to taste better the next day after all the flavors have settled and melded together.  So let’s join our Brooklyn Italian Grandmother and make some funky Italian stuffed peppers…the cubanelle way.

Ingredients:

  • 5 cloves of garlic, chopped into small pieces
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 1/4 cup of seasoned bread crumbs
  • 3/4 cup of grated parmesan cheese
  • 4 thin slices of Italian sopressata, chopped
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon pepper
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 2 tablespoons paprika
  • 1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar
  • 6 cubanelle peppers, cut in half and cleaned

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix garlic, eggs, bread crumbs, cheese, sopressata, salt and pepper in a bowl and combine well.

  Bling and stuffing!

Heat the olive oil in a skillet until hot.  Put the mixture into the oil and fry it until it becomes golden brown.

  Hot stuff and I’m not talking about what’s in the skillet.

Take fried stuffing out of the skillet and place it into a bowl.  Let it cool until it can be handled.

Stuff each pepper half with the fried stuffing and place stuffed pepper halves into a 9″ x 13″ baking dish.

  Always wear a ring that matches your baking dish.

Sprinkle each stuffed pepper with paprika.

Cover with aluminum foil and bake for about 25 minutes.  When pepper begins to get tender, remove foil and continue cooking until pepper feels tender when pierced with a fork (about 10 more minutes).  Remove from oven and drizzle balsamic vinegar over each pepper.

You can be the judge here on how you want to serve these wonderful peppers.  They are great as a side dish and they can stand alone on their own and be a wonderful lunch.  In fact, make enough so that they can serve both–side dish and lunch.  I love the savory aspects of the stuffing along with the little flavor punch that the pepper and balsamic vinegar give this dish.  If you are a stuffed pepper lover, this is the dish for you.  What great Italian side dish recipes do you make and serve at your house?

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Friday Dance Party – Streisand With Duck Sauce

This is another edition of Friday Dance Party on Acorns On Glen.  It’s the time where we give thanks for another week of living.  We give thanks for making it through and for being able to celebrate this fact.  How do we celebrate another week of living?  We dance.  So take a moment and be proud of the fact that you’re here and you’ve made it to another Friday.  Not only you, but your family and friends as well.    So, to that end, are you alive this Friday?  Have you given thanks for this?

Good, now let’s dance.

I’ve decided that life has no real rhyme or reason anymore.  You can work so hard to create and plan something for yourself and then it can be over in just a few freak seconds.  Think of the people who have been victim to the tornadoes of this Spring.  They can devise intricate plans to accomplish things like having a large family, saving lots of money or working their way up the corporate ladder into their dream job and then go home one night and have disaster strike out of the blue that ends it all.  There seems to not really be a sure-fire way to plan your entire life.  There just seems to be too many variables.  Is living a long and prosperous life just luck?  I don’t think so.  I’ve decided the one thing that you should decide to build is happiness.  Happiness is the one true thing that can create a life that is fulfilling and rich.  A life without regrets.  I believe that if you are true to yourself and work to be happy, then you are destined to attract the same type of energy from the universe.  This melding of happy energy flow manifests itself by giving you things like a great family and friends, a job that you wake up excited to go to every day and a just a sense of gratitude for being in this world.  Happiness is the key to unlock all doors to success.  I need to work to be more happy….then the rest will come.    No rhyme or reason…just happiness.  So that’s why this week’s song is ‘Barbra Streisand’ by Duck Sauce.  Duck Sauce is an American-Canadian DJ duo consisting of Armand Van Helden and A-Trak.  The pair aim to produce disco house tracks that will appeal to club DJs.  In a recent interview, a member of the duo said there was no rhyme or reason behind their new hit.  “There really is no relation or rational reason behind the lyric in the title, Barbra Streisand,” said A-Trak.  “It’s just something that we thought would make people laugh….We just came up with this idea that it would be funny to say someone’s name.”  Be careful.  This song is habit forming.  After you listen and dance to it a few times you’ll be walking around humming the melody or walking up to people and saying ‘Barbra Streisand’.  People will think you are a little bit weird, but you’ll be happy and that’s what is important these days.  So reward yourself for another week of living and shake it to a little Duck Sauce.  You deserve it…and get happy.  Are you a little disgusted with what’s going on in the world these days and what do you do to get over it?

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Flower Power

This is an update on what’s blooming here in the garden on Glen Road.  It seems the early Spring bloomers are already spent and so now it is time to move on to our early Summer/late Spring group.  This group is led by the beautiful peonies that are just starting to pop open after some warm weather and plenty of rain early in their growth.  There are also some plants that are blooming that we can’t name.  They have been here at Glen Road longer than we have, so if you know what they are, let us know.  So sit back and enjoy our gallery of late Spring bloomers.

We hope you liked our little garden tour.  Seeing these beautiful blooms makes all the effort seem worth it.  Again, we wish someone could invent something that makes these flowers last year round.  Seems like such a waste for them to be around for such a short amount of time.  What’s blooming in your neck of the woods?