{"id":586,"date":"2015-04-08T20:37:25","date_gmt":"2015-04-09T03:37:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/childerhouseblog.com\/?p=586"},"modified":"2016-01-09T15:11:09","modified_gmt":"2016-01-09T22:11:09","slug":"this-and-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/childerhouseblog.com\/?p=586","title":{"rendered":"this and that"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"mirror\/cat\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/childerhouseblog\/16838320087\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7612\/16838320087_7080b2c1d9_z.jpg\" alt=\"mirror\/cat\" width=\"640\" height=\"435\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"vintage juice glasses\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/childerhouseblog\/16858221910\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7692\/16858221910_57a4a13070_z.jpg\" alt=\"vintage juice glasses\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"lemon-poppy seed soap\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/childerhouseblog\/17045729155\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7595\/17045729155_bd1a4d564e_z.jpg\" alt=\"lemon-poppy seed soap\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"color-swirled marshmallows\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/childerhouseblog\/16859504179\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7667\/16859504179_b51ce357b3_z.jpg\" alt=\"color-swirled marshmallows\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Here are a few recent things not worthy of their own post:<\/p>\n<p>Up top is an incredible mirror I got my mom as an early mother&#8217;s day present (and also, Pip, pretending to be majestic). It&#8217;s so precisely carved and in such intricate detail that you hardly notice what it&#8217;s reflecting. I wanted to keep it for myself, which is probably a sign it&#8217;s a wonderful gift, right?<\/p>\n<p>We got an unexpected package in the mail containing eight superlative juice glasses, a belated christmas gift from some dear friends. I&#8217;ve kept two out for daily use, but the rest are tucked away safely. They&#8217;re nearly too pretty to drink from.<\/p>\n<p>I made a batch of lemon-poppy seed soap a while back, and in many ways, it turned out better than I could have hoped. Completely by accident, the batch <a href=\"http:\/\/www.soapqueen.com\/bath-and-body-tutorials\/tips-and-tricks\/gel-phase\/\" target=\"_blank\">gelled<\/a>, which means it&#8217;s more shiny and translucent than a normal batch of soap&#8211; a nice feature for a bar embedded with poppy seeds. Nick made me a few <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/childerhouseblog\/17058455761\/in\/photostream\/\" target=\"_blank\">molds<\/a>, so the soap set with perfect squared corners and straight edges, which made it much easier to cut into uniform bars. The recipe is one I concocted to use the oils leftover from the <a href=\"https:\/\/childerhouseblog.com\/?p=571\" target=\"_blank\">christmas soap experiment<\/a>, and although it was untested and entirely made up, it resulted in a better batch than the recipe I used then. This is my new go-to soap base:<\/p>\n<p>12 oz canola oil<br \/>\n8 oz castor oil<br \/>\n16 oz coconut oil (76 deg)<br \/>\n10 oz olive oil<br \/>\n4 oz shea butter<br \/>\n19 oz water<br \/>\n7.04 oz lye<\/p>\n<p>To make it lemon-poppy seed, I added 1.5 oz lemon essential oil and a quarter cup of poppy seeds at trace. It&#8217;s got an excellent lather and it smells like dessert.<\/p>\n<p>Nick had the genius idea to partially swirl food coloring into a batch of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marthastewart.com\/333974\/homemade-marshmallows\" target=\"_blank\">marshmallows<\/a>, and my only regret is that nobody thought of it sooner. The ribbons of dye formed technicolor striations and made for some trippy looking s&#8217;mores.<\/p>\n<p>Other things:<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; I&#8217;ve made <a href=\"http:\/\/orangette.blogspot.com\/2015\/03\/doing-it-right.html\" target=\"_blank\">this cake<\/a> twice in as many weeks, and I already have plans to make it again. It&#8217;s that good.<br \/>\n&#8211; My antique mall luck has been off the charts lately&#8211; I&#8217;ve had my eye out for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/childerhouseblog\/16896246079\/in\/photostream\/\" target=\"_blank\">one of these<\/a> for AGES, and I finally found one.<br \/>\n&#8211; I&#8217;m spending every second there&#8217;s cool, breezy weather listening to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=02hHRnfh6SY\" target=\"_blank\">mountain man<\/a> with the windows open, trying to enjoy this season before the onslaught of summer heat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Here are a few recent things not worthy of their own post: Up top is an incredible mirror I got my mom as an early mother&#8217;s day present (and also, Pip, pretending to be majestic). It&#8217;s so &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/childerhouseblog.com\/?p=586\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,10,12,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-experiments","category-food","category-life","category-soap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/childerhouseblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/childerhouseblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/childerhouseblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/childerhouseblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/childerhouseblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/childerhouseblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/childerhouseblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/childerhouseblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/childerhouseblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}