My Office

This is were I've been 5 days a week for the past 3 or 4 years. Cozy isn't it? I make signs, large and small for Trader Joe's ( a national brand of neighborhood stores!! We cut out the middleman and pass the savings onto you!! We add ginger to everything!! yack yack yack). Well all that's true but looking at this I think you can see how someone can go a little stir crazy after a while, no?

Well as of this week, I'll get a little more fresh air. I've been getting a steady stream of freelance work making signs and chalkboards for people in San Gabriel, Pasadena, etc, enough to cut my work week down to 4 days. WEE!

So I can gripe for days about nitpicky junk but sometimes when I take a step back I remember how low stress and fun and silly my job can be so I thought I'd share what I'm up to every once in a while.

Today, on top of figuring out price changes and some run-of-the-mill maintenance I kept working on some end cap crowns for our fearless flyer. I'm sad I didn't think about taking pictures from the very beginning because it's fun to see how something can go from looking like total trash to actually presentable. The midpoint is always interesting to me, where one bad decision can make it look like total hell. That point for these came well before these shots when I was outlining the banner. Just an inch-around smaller is all it would take, and a coat less of white paint in the center.

Once the banner came out looking ok I figured we'd be in the clear. We used to have to decorate differently for each flyer but our regional or whoever wants us to streamline the process which means anythign I made this time around had to be more generic and more permanent. That just means blowing up text as far as I'm concerned and I like trying my hand at different fonts so I don't mind. That's a copy of the Flyer there under the sign near the ruler. I use my hands and fingers to make measurements and can spot centers and straight lines pretty ok.

I freehand the letters in pencil, just because I like the practice, but before I throw paint down I checked with a ruler to make sure my letters weren't tapering too much and wouldn't you know it? All my small caps were in an eighth of a inch of each other on all three boards :)

Here's two of the three in progress, side by side. Never underestimate the power of a drop shadow. See the difference?

Loving Windsor Blue.

So after they all get a little drop shadow action I need to strengthen the backs and attach a mounting bracket. Here comes the 1/2" x 1"s and a few L-Brackets and then . . .

New project!

 

The boss needs this  Rosenblum wine sign done el quicko.  For the small wine chalk signs I like to keep it quick so most of the time I'll write the name out in my own loose Trader Joe's font but the Rosenblum spoke to me so I went with their text style. Textstyle. That's a good name. Taken. Just checked.

Anyway.

Here's some chalk lettering, done freehand again.

 

This is how I check to see if I'm straight and keeping the same letter height consistently. Just look at it from the side! Foreshortening. Fore sure.

 I save the bigger letters for last.

It turned out fine. And so did the headers! Trader Joe's doesn't like to have blank anything in the store so on the back I whipped out a little leaf print. For now.

Careless Cauliflower Au Gratin and Mexican Coke Glaze

So I had about an hour to crank out an Easter Brunch side dish. Mom had given me the run-down of who was bringing what and it became very apparent we were desperately cheese-less. This cannot stand. Dad wouldn't budge on having mashed potatoes (which are so un-springy it's not even funny. It's a passive aggressive reaction to summer coming I'm sure) so scalloped potatoes were off the menu. But really the vegetable in scalloped au gratin anything is just something for the cheese to cling to so instead I decided to make Cauliflower au gratin. So I went out and bought what I thought I needed: 2 cauliflower heads, a pound of butter, 2 pounds of cheese, a pint of half and half, garlic and shallots. Once I got it home I looked up a recipe. One of the first women I turn to when I need a standard recipe done right and (hopefully) simply and quickly is Ina Garten. Legend.

Started scanning the ingredient list looks good skip the nutmeg I'll add my unsecret weapon Tony Chachere's if anything goes awry WAIT A SECOND. PARBOIL?!

Don't think so.

Even if I had the time I wouldn't want to bother with parboiling and time's a wastin' so instead I started chopping with abandon, filled 2 glass pans and put them in the oven at 425.

I never even wait for the thing to preheat all the way because I never bake and that way the food warms up with the oven I don't know it makes total sense to me. While the cauliflower's going I sliced 3 shallots and 2 much garlic and added half of each to the roasting pans.

My kitchen is not smitten, but so far so good.
 

Here's where the heresy kicks in.

We've got no flour and hence no roux. Or nothing that most people would call roux. I've got the butter no problem there (and isn't the packaging cute!)

but what I DO have is a gang of almond meal. This totally shouldn't have worked.

But it totally did.

After the butter hit the pan I added the rest of the garlic and shallots and did a preliminary seasoning. In went some almond meal. I stirred. It thickened. It was awesome.

How 'bout some cheese? OK! I used a swiss gruyere blend, an aged Unexpected Cheddar (tastes a teensy bit like a fruity Parmesan) and a Cheddar Gruyere Hybrid. I added them to the roux with a little milk and got a little scared but stuff started melting and oozing but kept from breaking!

More stirring, more cheese and more milk and then the pan was full and ready for some baking action.

This is where I should have dumped the entire pan on the oven door or burned my hand beyond recognition but thankfull all was well and before I knew it everything was bubbling away!

 Let's take a peek!

I added some more almond meal to the leftover cheese and sprinkled deluged the cauliflower with it.

Once again we needed to hurry things along. The cheese was gurgling gangbusters in there but I needed a brown top stat.

Off went the oven, on goes the broiler and I was out the door 5 minutes later.

The perfect compliment to an amazing Mexican Coke and Cinnamon-Orange Flame-Glazed Ham.

O yes...the glaze.

So I get to my mom's house and the ham looks fine don't get me wrong but we could take it to spectacular in 15 minutes so why not?

I reduced a mexican coke, the juice and pulp of one orange, a dash of cinnamon, some garlic powder and some salt until it's the consistency of maple syrup. I spoon a third of  it onto the ham open side down and put it onto a preheated grill. This is important because I want the outside hot and the inside meat room temp so it doesn't get tough. After a few minutes I open the lid and give it a second coating fast. Lid down and up again 2 minutes later for a final coat. One last heat treatment and that baby was golden. Alas I forgot to get a picture of it when it was ready and remember when it was almost done, But this gives you a little idea.

New family tradition for sure.