6160 A Diary of the Urban Gardener and Cook

Thanks so much for the relentless emails over the last few weeks.  Yes, I've been offline for abit; while work has required a good amount of time closing out 2011 and preparing associates for 2012 objectives, I've also gone back to school for French language training as well as Italian cooking.  With a trip to Belgium just weeks away, the idea of becoming fully fluent in French became increasingly intriguing to me.  Further, with many of my recipes moving in my repertoire from "new" to "go to", I needed to continue expanding my capabilities on the cooking front.

If time permits this weekend, I'll begin filling the site with some of my newest "successful" recipes, from Baked Ziti - Penne to Lemon Turkey Cutlets to Butternut Squash Soup with Ricotta Quenelles. 

January is always an interesting time at 6160.   While most of my gardening friends have moved to "armchair gardening" (a phrase coined for those individuals who in the absence of the ability to garden at all because of the Winter season turn to reading about gardening to fill the time) we suddenly discovered that our kitchen project of replacing the old birch countertop with solid quartz was going to need to shift forward rather quickly.  Right after a wonderful New Years Eve party we found the telltale split in the wood by the sink (the sink and its constant exposure to water is the downfall of wood countertops everywhere...).  As I outlined the kitchen project for our contractor, the customary "while he's doing this I think I'm gonna changeout that" scenario began to take place in my mind; and of course, I began to introduce my changes before he even got started.  As such, the kitchen is already beginning to morph to make it both more functional and (in my estimation) attractive.

January is also the month where as Christmas decorations come down and the house returns to a sense of normalcy, the functional evaluation of the space takes place.  Coming right out of the holidays it was clear we needed yet more storage at 6160.   A key change many of you noted in the "Early Winter Interiors" photo log I started a couple weeks ago was the storage chest I built in the Living Room.  Its artistic "mentor" if you will was the milk crate sitting in the second floor sitting room.  What made it fun was taking a chain and beating the living daylights out of it to distress it, then decoupaging an old French winery label to it. 

While for most of St Louis' residents January is a month where cabin fever has just begun to set in, French classes, Cooking classes, and changeouts to the 19th Century Kitchen at 6160 have me completely occupied; to be honest, I'm glad not to have the opportunity to go into the gardens right now - at least I can stay focused!

So stay tuned - recipes are on the way...