Megnt

Why the bangs?

Mon, 20 May 2013 14:41:00 -0400

I noticed this:

Then this:

Why the bangs Khan? Why. The. Bangs. ?

Also where was the hair stylist on Ceti Alpha 5?

(photos from @finn)

14 years?!

Thu, 02 May 2013 14:51:37 -0400

So today is Megnut.com’s 14th birthday. I can’t even wrap my head around keeping (and not keeping up) a site for that long. The good news about this announcement is that I’m back to blogging over at Megnut.com. So you don’t have to follow on Tumblr, and maybe you’ll even get this update via RSS, or carrier pigeon, or whatever works these days.

No promises about tons more updates, but that dream still lives. I’ve been cooking great food, sewing cute clothes, and have many triumphs to share. Really.

Fourteen years ago I never imagined I’d still be running this site, even if it’s only a few updates every blue moon. So happy birthday teenage Megnut.com. Let’s pretend you’ve gotten your braces off and are feeling awesome today!

"Making a [road] trip about something other than getting somewhere is what makes it memorable."

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 08:36:00 -0400

“Making a [road] trip about something other than getting somewhere is what makes it memorable.”

- Mario Batali

The family in France

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 03:30:00 -0500

We are on our first family vacation outside the US in two and a half years. It’s amazing what a difference that amount of time makes for kids. Look at these pros getting off the TGV from Geneva at the Gare de Lyon in Paris! They rolled their own suitcases and wore their backpacks. So capable!

I’d imagined blogging more on this trip but evenings have been spent reviewing websites and planning for the next day’s adventures. And clutching my aching stomach that is full of over ten kinds of cheeses. Warning: never travel to France with Ollie, who may love cheese more than all the Frenchmen combined.

So far we’ve had three different kinds of St Marcellin, Bleu de Gex, St Félicien, Pélardon, two different Rocamadour, pavé du Tarn, an Ossau-Iraty, and a mysterious slice from the fromagerie at the Maubert-Mutualité open air market. And that’s only the cheese we’ve bought in three days, and doesn’t include the cheeses served to us by friends we visited in the Jura before coming to Paris!

We’ve also had sheep’s milk yogurt (yum!) and an awesome beef bouguignon. I have the recipe from the restaurant and will be attempting to improve my NYC version. We have walked the streets, played in several playgrounds, enjoyed the sights. The kids have been practicing their mercis and bon jours and will not speak French when put on the spot, but casually will when I least expect it. I suppose that make sense.

Today will be our first true touristing day. We’re off to the Eiffel Tower and then hoping for a long leisurely stroll back to our rented apartment in the Marais. And maybe a cheese stop along the way!

Summer cooking fantasy

Sat, 09 Jun 2012 16:57:00 -0400

The Greenmarket is starting to get really great now. And I’m remembering why I love living close to Bleecker St (the awesome food portion, not the un-awesome high-end boutiques potion). My summer eating plan is developing as follows: lots of vegetables, assiette de crudités placed on the table in little bowls and plates. Things like grated beets with mustard dressing, braised chard or a gratin of chard stems. A little salad of tiny potatoes and cucumbers. Basically whatever I can get at the market each time I go.

Then some meats. Prosciutto from Faicco’s or the like. Maybe a piece of grilled something if we’re in the mood for heavier meal, purchased at one of the two old-school butchers nearby. Always green salad while the lettuce is still sweet, before the heat of the summer. And cheeses galore from Murray’s, with a baguette. As a family we’re going to attempt to eat every cheese Murray’s sells.

And little olives, and cornichons. Maybe some night, rabbit sausage, and another evening a pâté. For dessert, fresh fruit. To drink, a rosé. Maybe some Lillet to start. All outside in our small garden, surrounded by herbs and flowers. (In this fantasy our compost bin loses its stink).

If I can achieve this, it should be a very nice summer.

Current obsessions

Thu, 24 May 2012 12:12:17 -0400

Blue Bottle’s New Orleans Style Iced Coffee. I tried this on my recent trip to San Francisco and was hooked after drinking only one. Maybe it was because I was hot and sweaty after a run along the Embarcadero. Maybe it was because of the view of the bridges and Mt. Tam across the Bay. Maybe it’s because it’s so delicious and mellow and a tad sweet and simply summer perfection in a glass. I am now making by the glass quart at home, weekly.

Japanese Sewing Books. Japanese girls’ clothes manage to be feminine and sweet without being garishly pink and purple. The fabrics and photos in the sewing books are lovely, and the styling is perfect. I’ve already got one and I want more. Luckily there seem to be plenty of resources online for patterns. I’ve been sewing a lot and these books make me want to sew clothes for Minna all day long.

These two obsessions work well together: I can get jacked up on iced coffee and sew for like ten hours straight!

Not joking capris

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 09:39:21 -0400

After my triumph with the Ooh La Shorts, I pushed my sewing boundaries and made these jester-like capris for Minna. It was the first time I sewed elastic straight to fabric and it worked out pretty well. I wanted to do something different to the hem to make them a little more feminine. Also I’m using the same fabric for shorts for Ollie and didn’t want them exactly alike.

Minna loves them and wanted to sleep in them last night. She’s wearing them today with tights underneath because it’s not warm enough to wear them alone. The fabric is lightweight cotton for summer. They may be my favorite sewing success yet!

Ooh la shorts!

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 15:19:19 -0400

One thing my mother and I have in common is an interest in French things. Another is sewing. A third is a bargain. A fourth is a challenge. So naturally when she sent me a link to some cute kids’ pantalons on a French site and suggested I make them, I couldn’t resist!

Originals:

I had some chartreuse linen I got for free years ago. By a miracle I also had matching thread in my stash. I drew a pattern based on the photo of the shorts. And then I just whipped up some crazy pantalons for Minna. Looks like I didn’t make them tall enough, but I think they’ll still work. After her nap I’ll try and get her to model them. For now, I present:

The Ooh La Shorts:

Stop that noise

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 11:39:00 -0400

Jackhammers interrupted our nice morning at the playground.

The anti-princess

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:25:00 -0400

I don’t know what it is about pink and princesses that pisses me off so much (ok, maybe I do, pink seemed frilly and lame when I was little, only prissy girls wore pink, strong capable girls wore all the colors of the rainbow, and princesses didn’t *do* anything, except wait for some prince to marry them, or eat an apple or grow long hair while locked in a tower…) but just when I was giving a little on the whole issue, I’ve discovered how difficult this battle actually is.

Minna and I go swimming every week together. The last few weeks her class has progressed to “separation”, and so I and the other parents sit alongside the pool and the kids swim without us. I thought it was all going so well, Minna was happy and swimming great. Today two other children joined our class so separation wasn’t possible. And with me, Minna decided she didn’t want to do the very activities she’d done so happily without me just last week. Our instructor came over to help.

“Minna, do you want to be a cat or a princess?”

“A princess!” said Minna

Horror on my face.

“Ok, let’s put on your pink princess gown, and your pink gloves and pull them up. And your sparkly crown and…” and on it went in an attempt to get Minna excited about the exercise.

It didn’t work, and princess or not, Minna wouldn’t budge from my arms. But I was so irritated to learn that this was happening RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY FACE for the past two weeks. If we have to pretend to be something else while swimming, why not be a whale? Or a shark? Or a fish? Something that actually SWIMS! Not a cat or a stupid princess in a crown and evening gloves. Who swims in that anyway?

And why can’t kids just swim? Why the need to pretend to be anything but a happy kid swimming?

It’s dedoubt time: no more pink in the house! And I swear pretty soon when people say, “Oh she’s so pretty!” I’m going to snappily reply, “And very CAPABLE too!”

How to make mozzarella

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:09:13 -0400

How to make mozzarella:

A neat little project I’m looking forward to doing with my kids.

"If you’re successful all the time, you sell yourself short. How do you stretch yourself to the..."

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:07:34 -0400

“If you’re successful all the time, you sell yourself short. How do you stretch yourself to the point where you fail, to learn how to deal with adversity?”

- Gary Caldwell, my former crew coach