summerkitten's Profile

thanks for sharing your apartment! Very homey looking from what I could see, but I have to ask: is that a cover on the stove in pictures numbers 5 and 7? How novel and awesome that is if guests pop over! Just drop the cover down and instant clean!

there's actually the "dirty girl scout" shot, which is vodka, baileys (or any rum cream) and creme de menthe. Tastes exactly like a thin mint! It's my favorite; thanks for providing a full cocktail version!

@lynell, check out CB2, as well, if you aren't close to a home goods or Ikea. They're the modern spinoff of Crate & Barrel and have some nifty designs for less than you'd expect. They drown everything they ship in protective packaging, too; I've never had anything broken in transit. cb2.com

Hi tbsp,

I have the same reaction to truffle oil, sadly. Often, it's much worse because the amount of truffle oil I'll ingest (say, if I'm eating truffled fries) is much more than the amount of mushrooms I'd accidentally eat, simply because it's not as easy to identify the allergen. Whereas with one or two mushrooms consumed, I develop comparatively milder symptoms, after eating as little as a teaspoon of truffle oil, I develop breathing problems. Be careful!

I'm allergic to mushrooms, too! And restaurants almost never believe me, until I whip out the Epi-Pen. My dad's vegetarian, so I have to cook a lot of vegetarian recipes without mushrooms; I can't even touch them. I second a lot of the cauliflower recommendations, although thwy're a better replacement if you season them the way you would mushrooms BEFORE incorporating them into your dish. We also use a lot of seasoned tofu, white and regular eggplant. Good luck!

the welcome mat that says "Come In" actually says "Go Away" if you look at it upside down! I saw it when it was a concept; glad they've started making it! And your place is absolutely lovely!

When packing boxes, I usually use a sharpie to write the contents of the box on it directly as I pack. It helps for when you unpack and need to know where to pack like items (bathroom boxes in the bathroom, for example), but also for the end of packing when you're putting miscellaneous items into any box that can hold them. So a box from the living room might read "DVDs, remotes, photos, and gnome figurine." Means I'm not combing through boxes for my remotes! And since I reuse the boxes, I try and put everything into the same box for the next move (I move about once a year for work), and I can scratch out and re-write if need be.

What also helps me, like what @Xarcady mentioned above, is packing absolute essentials that I'll need immediately after unloading the moving truck. First thing I do when packing is to put all the essentials into a suitcase over the course of a week as I go through routines. It's the best way to realize you need to set aside toilet paper or contact solution or an extra phone charger and other essentials. Putting it in a suitcase makes it easily identifiable when you've got dozens of lookalike boxes.

My two year old niece LOVES penne ala vodka (as do I). Unfortunately for her parents, when they go out to restaurants, she insists on ordering "pasta with vodka." They've gotten plenty of side eye, I can tell you!

loved the apartment, but that one picture with the two Lego figurines standing in front of the card...that was my favorite :)

I prefer a toaster oven over a microwave any day!

I have a microwave, but only because it was given to me as a gift by a friend who couldn't take hers with her when she moved. The only reason my family got one when we remodeled our kitchen was because our contractor insisted it would raise the re-sale value. So we got a range hood/microwave combo...and we use it to store leftovers that don't need to go in the fridge. in fact, that's pretty much what I use mine for. True, it makes melting butter or other ingredients for baking easier, but I'm still dirtying whatever bowl I use to put it in the microwave instead of the pot to heat it on the stove. And that's the extent of my microwave usage.