French Woman Don't

Years ago I read the book French Women Don't get Fat by Mireille Guiliano, former President and CEO of Clicquot Inc. (Yes THE Clicquot as in Veuve, the champagne). While the book had a great way of looking at food and toward the end does not restrict anything, I found a bit of it to be a bit tiresome. Particularly the part where she mentions she only pretend to drink her second glass of champagne at dinner. Who does that? I couldn't pretend to sip Veuve any more than I could stop breathing. That my friend is the true definition of self-control in my book. Which I guess is why I am not the president or CEO of any Champagne or wine label.

Back to the book, moderation really is what the key take away for me is from this book, well that and the glorious homemade yogurt. There is a recipe that is included in the book for  homemade yogurt (with or without a yogurt maker, but for $25 bucks you can pick up the machine, which is basically a temperature controlled box) and I immediately became addicted and made yogurt all the time. Then I packed up my maker, moved to SoCal and forgot about my yogurt maker. Then while cleaning out the garage I came across my maker and was immediately inspired to make some yogurt and oh it is truly wonderful and the best part is that you know exactly what goes into it. In the past I have normally just made the plain type from the book and then add fruit, honey or granola just prior to eating, but this time I wanted to give it a little flavor of vanilla and honey. I looked all around on the internet for a recipe, but didn't find one I liked so I simply made the plain yogurt recipe from the book, with one additional step adding in a little vanilla and honey, perfect!

Give it a try, you may be surprised at how much you like it! Here is the recipe with a yogurt maker and here it is without. As soon as you have the milk cooled and have added in the starter, add 2 tablespoons of honey (can add more or less depending on your taste) and 1 tablespoon of vanilla (I used mexican vanilla in case you were wondering) or the seeds of one vanilla bean if you are feeling fancy. Oh it is soooo good.

You first heat and then bring down the temp
of your milk. The alien salt and pepper
are supervising in the background.

As you add in your starter you can
add in the vanilla and honey as well.

I like my yogurt a little firmer so I leave it in the
incubator longer.

This is my favorite way to start the day with food!

Taken to the Cleaners

As of late I have been going out a lot, meeting people for fun, work and pretty much using all the nice dry clean only clothes in my closet in the process. While I love wearing them, I hate having to go to the cleaners. Not only is outrageously expensive, but who knows what they are using to "clean" your clothes. Before you say it, yes I know there are green dry cleaners and I have used them in the past, but go to the first part of the last sentence.

To try and keep my wallet in check I have taken to the Internet to find safe, at home alternatives to the dry cleaners. There are a lot of sites out there offering information on how to do this all of them varying slightly from one to the next, but nothing really detailed enough for me to feel comfortable putting my precious pieces to water, until I found this site. Hand washing 101 comes complete with suggested proper tools, individual steps and best of all instructions for each type of fabric. For beginners or those of us that love our clothes so much that the thought of ruining makes them slightly ill, the more information the better.  Plus the fact that this site has different directions for each fabric, which makes complete sense when you think about it, makes it stand out from the rest since most other sites have an overview they suggest using for all fabrics. Plus I like her disclaimer and tool kit suggestions.

To be on the safe side I started with two items that I like, but wouldn't be completely crushed if they were ruined. I used a silk blouse and wool cardigan and followed the directions exactly. I must say that it really did not take that long to do and it was so easy. Between the cost savings and the fact that the clothes smell way better than they do after being at the dry cleaners I will be doing this from now on. Except for suits, I will follow the sites advice and let the cleaners take care of those.

I used ivory soap that I grated and placed into a jar for future use.
I suggest buying vinegar by the gallon. Vinegar has a gazillion uses.
for around the house. Really it does. Look it up.

First goes the silk!

Then you roll it up.

Next up wool, while the silk is chilling out.

I ended up going through three towels on the wool
before it was dry enough to iron.

I skipped documenting the ironing part because it so boring, but as you can see
they turned out fantastic. You would never know they were done at home, well
except they smell 10 times better than the dry cleaners.