This is an unnumbered list of things I really like right now. Snapshot of the happy-making tastes and sights and sounds of mid-August, 2013.
Homemade scones with maple butter.
I love scones but had never made one I really loved until recently. I finally found a perfect scone recipe, this one from smitten kitchen. I pretty much follow the recipe except I use gluten-free Cup4Cup flour & both times I’ve made them so far I haven’t had cream so I used a sneaky kitchen trick and substituted melted butter mixed with milk. So even without proper cream they are indeed dreamy cream scones.
Also, I don’t know how I managed to grow up in New England and not discover maple butter (also known as maple cream) sooner, or perhaps it’s just that my tastebuds have evolved and I like maple as a flavor more now, and also I’m not sure I knew what to put it on before, but oh, it is creamy autumnal heaven.
(I’ve also been putting maple butter in my coffee. I think I’m craving fall.)
I owe my parents an apology for not watching this show sooner because they’ve been talking about it for ages. We’re only mid season two (and I’m glad I was forewarned that s2 gets a little slow) so I didn’t even properly look at that AMC link to the show page because as far as I know s3 just ended. I love a good crime show anyway and this one has the best detective pairing I’ve seen in ages. It does make Seattle look super dreary, though.
The Backlit Keyboard on My New Laptop.
I have never had a laptop with glowy keys before and it feels all sci-fi and fancy.
(MacBook Air, for the curious. Same as my old one only glowier and with far superior battery life.)
(Typing on it now. The rest of this novel is in here, I can tell. Well, some of it is in fountain pens, but eventually all of it will be in here.)
We stumbled upon this store in SoHo mostly by accident and I was surprised I hadn’t heard of it before. It is full of skeletons and taxidermy and wonderful-creepy things.
I spent a very long time contemplating whether or not I wanted a taxidermy duckling and then decided it was too “cute but sad.” (Also we have a moratorium on creatures in the apartment right now. From where I’m sitting I can see an elephant, a bunny, two ravens, a small plush white lion and something with tentacles. We have no rule about skeletons, though.)
Going to go back soon to get a pile of antlers to keep in the fireplace. Will possibly tie festive ribbons around them for holidays.
M83’s “Midnight City”
Tweeted this last night:
In that writing phase where I listen to the same song over & over & over again because something in it sounds the way the words should feel.
— erin morgenstern (@erinmorgenstern) August 15, 2013
This is the current song that the novel-in-progress wants to listen to over and over and over and over and over: