tinyfood

Apples!

2009-11-23T11:06:00.000-08:00

This weekend we were lucky to be next to apple vendors at the farmer's market. They had so many fun, colorful varieties. And the best thing about local market apples is that they're often interestingly imperfect shapes. I particularly like how the one in the front here looks like it grew in a stiff headwind.

Apples are also a great exercise in color mixing. I love how these three apples go from a deep, cold red (back left) to a medium red (back right), to a really warm streaky red (front.) A bunch of different mini apples clustered on a bracelet or a pair of chunky, multi-apple earrings would be incredibly cute. And a great gift for a teacher to boot!

Here are some more apple photos to get you inspired!

Cupcake recipe correction!

2009-11-16T07:27:00.000-08:00

One of the things we tried hard to do with our book is make it easy to get started making tiny foods. Scale is one of the hardest things to get right when you're just starting out. How much frosting should you mix for a single cupcake? It gets easier and easier to eyeball relative amounts the more you work with clay, but it can be a bit frustrating to get the scale right when you're just beginning.

So, we wrote up our ingredients lists as a series of spheres of clay with two size references: a written one (3/8") and a visual one so that you could hold up your clay to the page and quickly see whether you had the right amount. In theory, this system works beautifully. It does rely on one crucial thing: that there are no mistakes! Unfortunately, we're not perfect, and the cupcake recipe has a mistake in the ingredients list. The written amount is correct (3/8" sphere), but the visual amount actually depicts a 5/8" sphere. Thank you to crafty goat for pointing out the mistake!

As you can see from the photo at left, there's a significant difference in size between a sphere with a 5/8" diameter and one with a 3/8" diameter. In real food terms, 5/8" is about the size of a kalamata olive or a small kumquat, while 3/8" is about the size of a fat pea. Volume-wise, the 5/8" sphere is about 4 times larger than the 3/8" sphere.

You can certainly make a much larger cupcake. However, you'll also need to scale up the frosting amounts. And you'll need to increase the baking time to about 25 minutes for a cupcake with a base made from a 5/8" sphere of clay.

If you'd like to try your hand at the cupcake recipe, it's available in full from two great online craft resources: craftster, and Women's Day.

Highly untraditional avoglemono soup

2009-11-11T18:03:00.000-08:00

When I am sick, there's nothing better than something hot and lemony to soothe my sore throat and ease general achiness. I've never been a big fan of chicken soup, but I've always loved greek egg and lemon soup. It has a little bit of everything: savory broth, soft rice, the tartness of lemon, and the creaminess (and protein) of whipped egg. It's easy to make even when you're really under the weather. Hence: the perfect soup when you're not well.

This week I've been losing the battle against some sort of unfriendly virus, and I shuffled into the kitchen yesterday to make up a big batch of traditional avoglemono. Unfortunately, I was out of two crucial ingredients: lemons, and regular long-grain rice. No problem, I thought, I'll ask a friend to bring over some lemons, and I'll sub in some lovely arborio rice instead.

Two things happened. First, the message about the lemons got a bit lost in translation, and the very kind friend brought a bag of limes instead. And the arborio rice did what it does best: absorb unbelievable amounts of liquid. So, instead of a brothy lemon-scented soup, I got a very fluffy creamy lime-scented one. And even though it was highly untraditional, it was fabulous.

Lime Egg Feel Better Soup

6 cups veggie stock
1 cup rice
4 eggs
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
couple handfuls freshly chopped spinach

1. Bring rice and veggie stock to a boil. Let simmer about 15 minutes, until rice is tender.

2. Whisk eggs with lime juice until a totally uniform color.

3. Temper the egg mixture by adding a little bit of the hot broth to the egg and whisking throughly.

4. While slowly pouring the egg mixture into the rice, whisk quickly. This will create a lovely creamy texture.

5. Put a handful of the fresh spinach in a bowl, then ladle the hot soup over top.

6. Enjoy! And feel better!

Library Love

2009-11-03T10:05:00.000-08:00

I adore libraries. When I was a kid, our mom used to take us to the local library once a week, and set us free to pick out books. I remember spending hours reading spines and dust jackets, trying to pick out the very best books. I'd always have a heavy armful of novels and craft books, and would set them in front of the librarian at the checkout desk with a most satisfying thump.

To this day, I love the quiet and calm and vague mustiness of a library. I particularly love that libraries are free and open to everyone. Sure, there might be hundreds of online resources for learning about everything from artichokes to zucchini, but in my mind, there's nothing quite like picking up an actual cookbook and looking at the photos, or learning about color theory from a beautifully illustrated painting book.

I also love that libraries these days are much more focused on creating fun programs for their communities. When I was a kid, programs generally were limited to story time for really little kids. Nowadays, lots of libraries have these fantastic rooms set aside for all kinds of awesome programs, like mitten-making, puppet shows, and even tiny food crafting! It's fun to be in a library and chattering away exuberantly while crafting.

Librarians really made the writing of our book possible. A local librarian in Charlottesville initially asked me to teach a class on making tiny fruits as an after-school activity for teenagers. From that first class, many more followed, especially teen summer programs through the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library. Another librarian, Barbara Kreuter, from Staunton, VA strongly encouraged us to write a book based on my classes. She was also a sneaky supporter of the actual writing process (we kept it a secret until early this year), and helped set up several classes for her library so that I could test out recipes on real people. Thank you again to all you participants in my classes for helping us refine many of the recipes in the book, and for asking so many great questions.

So it's especially gratifying that a lovely youth services librarian from New York wrote a sweet review of our book on her blog, 4YA: Inspiration for Youth Advocates!

If you haven't been into a library in a while (or a long, long time), I definitely encourage you to go. This time of year (fall, sliding into winter) is particularly good for spending some quality time getting inspired in the cookbook section. Or maybe even revisiting a classic, and deciding that you too need to make a little madeline charm in honor of Rememberance of Things Past.

~Jessica

Cookie Variation: Witches

2009-11-01T12:59:00.000-08:00

If there wasn't already enough food out there to inspire us, holidays always give us further inspiration to find a way to make any holiday icon into a dessert. This is easiest to do with cookies, in particular, as anyone who has gone to a kitchen store recently knows - evidenced through the cookie cutter displays which now take up whole walls to accommodate every season, animal, and holiday icon in existence. My personal cookie cutter inventory includes the traditional (christmas tree) and more unique (salmon). With all of this choice, unfortunately, comes tough decisions then about what features embody certain icons.

In the case of Halloween, I have always found it tough to make the perfect witch, as there are so many variations on witches and not one standard for how a witch has to look. Many cookies are a profile of a witch on a broom, or just the witch's hat without the person underneath. Since the broom could be too fragile in miniature polymer clay, and the hat not inclusive of the witch herself, I've always gone back to making just the witch's head for the perfect cookie. But what features to focus on? The pointed nose and chin, the prominent hat, or just getting all the colors correct?

The three above variations showcase each of these, which you can add to the collection of variations already in the Gingerbread Cookie recipe in the book. Each of the above is roughly 1/2" tall and work well with the sugar cookie base, with granny smith green, orange and black each mixed with translucent for the icing.

I kept all of the witches friendly, and gave each a small red smile (or leers, should you prefer to make them more sinister). The eyes are small black glass marbles, which can typically be found in the scrapbooking aisle of a craft store.

I'd be interested to know which witch is preferred - or if there are any other favorite variations people make in the edible version (purple hats, whole witches which wouldn't be too fragile, etc).

I think my favorite is the profile witch - although not as cute, she looks like she could emit the shrill cackle needed when flying through the night air.

~Susan

Burnt Umber vs. Burnt Sienna

2009-10-29T13:00:00.000-07:00

One of the best parts about publishing a book in the 21st century is having a blog associated with said book. And the best part about a blog is the interaction with the readers. Particularly when they ask excellent questions and point out mistakes. We love having the opportunity to quickly clarify points and correct mistakes (even with two excellent editors, two authors, and a proofreader, things get through!)

A lovely reader asked for clarification on when to use two colors of brown in several of the recipes. The two browns we use most frequently in the book are Premo Burnt Umber and Premo Raw Sienna. We successfully managed to correctly name these two colors in the introduction, and in several of the recipes. Unfortunately, they're incorrectly named in several others. Which one you use does matter, so let's take a quick look at the two colors.

First up: Raw Sienna. This is the lighter brown. It should bring to mind caramels or toffee. It's the brown that will yeild a perfect caramel color when you mix it with translucent. We use it for bacon and the caramel swirl in the ice cream cone recipe. It's always correctly named in the book (yay!)

Burnt Umber is next. It's the color that looks like a rich chocolate. Think of chocolate truffles, or a juicy char-broiled burger, or a moist chocolate cupcake. We use burnt umber in a bunch of recipes: apple, coffee, cinnamon roll, burger, taco, pizza, cupcake, and the gingerbread. Unfortunately, we refer to this color in nearly all of these recipes as "burnt sienna." Burnt sienna is not, in fact, a color that Premo comes in, and we definitely mean Burnt Umber in all of these instances.

When in doubt, all of the circles in the ingredients sections are the correct color- the darker brown means Burnt Umber, while the lighter means Raw Sienna.

Hopefully that clarifies which brown to use in each recipe!

Leftover clay: What to do with ambiguous mush

2009-10-28T07:46:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, tiny food just doesn't turn out the way you'd hoped. Or you forget to thoroughly wash your hands between the dark red and white clays and end up with pink sesame seeds. Or that color mixing experiment you tried just didn't come out the way you'd hoped. Or you finish a project and end up with some weird leftovers. The longer you work with clay, the more little random bits of "off" colors you'll generate.

When individual colors are not salvageable, we tend to squish everything together into a pile of ambiguous mush. It generally turns into a brownish, oliveish, pinkish mass that looks thoroughly unappetizing. The clay isn't bad- just not useful for making tiny food (unless perhaps you're making an MRE or those sad green beans from school cafeterias). There's no reason to throw it out. You just need to get creative in how to use it!

Our favorite way to use up ambiguous mush is to hide it inside of larger pieces. Basically, if your piece won't be sliced open (such as a pie), then there's no reason you can't cover an ugly color with a beautiful one. You'll want to use a thinnish layer to cover the mush. Make sure the covering layer is not too thin or too much lighter, otherwise the mush color will show through.

Cover the mush completely, making sure that none of the mush color is showing through the top layer. You don't need to worry too much about making the top layer a perfectly uniform thickness. The main thing is to make sure the top layer is completely covering that underneath.

Roll the whole ball completely smooth. At this point, it's best to immediately sculpt the finished piece you have in mind. Why? Because a covered ball is indistinguishable from a pure color. It's very easy to forget that you've created a covered ball, and next thing you know, you'll grab it, pinch off a bit and realize that that lovely ball of black is not indeed just black! (We speak from much experience here.)

Et voila! A finished sushi platter with a bunch of very olive-colored clay in the middle, and no one (unless they read this post!) will ever be the wiser.

Cupcake variation: Halloween

2009-10-27T11:31:00.001-07:00

The best part about making your own food (tiny and real) is that you can completely customize it! Craftzine and cut out + keep featured our candy corn stud earrings recipe today, and we were inspired to play around with it a bit to show you another way to use the recipe.

Since Halloween is right around the corner, we thought we'd show you how to combine two of the recipes from the book to create a fun seasonal cupcake. For the Halloween cupcake, make the base exactly the same way as the original recipe. Substitute orange for the red in the frosting ingredients to create a pale orange frosting for the top of the cupcake.

To make the tiny candy corn, scale down the candy corn recipe so that the ball of yellow is about 1/16", the orange is about half of that, and the white is a teeeeeeny ball about half the size of the orange. It's a very small piece of candy corn!

To make sure that the candy sticks nice and securely to the frosting, add a dab of translucent liquid clay to the back of your candy corn, and press it into the frosting. The liquid clay will act like a glue, and create a very secure bond between the candy corn and the frosting once the cupcake is baked.

You can make two for a fun pair of earrings, add one to a orange and black beaded necklace, loop it into a cell phone fob, or even make a bunch for a set of stitch markers!

Cranberry-ginger scones

2009-10-26T07:58:00.000-07:00

There's absolutely nothing as wonderful on a rainy fall afternoon as a big cup of tea and some fresh scones. Curled up on the couch under a colorful wool blanket, a novel in hand, and a proper tea within reach on the coffee table is pretty much my idea of late Saturday afternoon bliss. My wonderful British friend Sam taught me how to make proper tea (I still pour milk into mine- she'd be proud!), as well as real scones. These scones are not too sweet or too large, and are definitely not triangular. They take all of half an hour, idea to eating, and they're delicious.

Be forewarned: they're dangerously easy to make, and highly addictive.

If you have a food processor, it speeds up the process of chopping the butter into the flour, but two knives work nearly as well if you don't.

Some excellent variations (sub in for the cranberries and ginger): dried blueberries and fresh lemon zest, dried currants, dried cherries, or diced dried figs and ginger.

Cranberry-Ginger Scones

2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp baking powder
3 tbsp sugar
6 tbsp butter (softened)
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger
1/2 cup milk

* Preheat the oven to 425F.

* Mix together flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar in a bowl. Add the butter. If you're using a food processor, chop the butter in until the mixture resembles cornmeal. If you're doing it by hand, rub the butter into the flour until it resembles cornmeal.

* Mix in the cranberries and ginger. Then, add the milk.

* Knead the mixture until it comes together. Roll out the dough until it is about 3/4" thick. Cut out 2" diameter circles. (You can use a floured glass or cookie cutter for this.)

* Bake on a cookie sheet for about 10 minutes, or until the top is golden.

* These are absolutely delicious with a dollop of clotted cream and some fresh jam, or a thick smear of lemon curd. And a nice cup of Earl Gray makes the whole meal.

Stitch Markers!

2009-10-22T09:14:00.000-07:00

A bunch of our friends are avid knitters (my cat loves Crafternoon- yarn is so much more interesting than little bits of clay). One friend got all excited when she saw that our book was mentioned on one of her favorite knitting blogs, Wendy Knits.

Although both Susan and I knit (Susan much more capably than myself), my abilities are basically limited to really, really simple all-purl scarves and the like. (The background for the photos on this post? That's the all-stockinette baby blanket I've been trying to make for a while. The baby is now in first grade.) I'm pretty sure I'll never make it beyond one-stitch patterns, even though I drool over handknit socks and can spend hours stroking lovely yarns in the fancy local yarn shop.

I might never get fancy, but there are plenty of you amazing yarn artists out there who do use stitch markers. And what could be more fun than food-shaped stitch markers? It's very easy to transform any of the little food charms in our book into a stitch marker, and we show you how below. Thanks again to Wendy and all you happy commentators for the idea!

And it's absolutely real whipped cream on that pumpkin pie slice.

You'll need:
* baked, finished charms, with the loops already wrapped closed
* open jump rings (not soldered closed)

For stitch markers that will fit easily onto a US size 10 needle, we used 10mm jump rings. Alternatively, you can use a large lobster claw or spring ring clasp, if you'd like to be able to clip the markers on and off of the stitches themselves. The metal you use is not too important for stitch markers, although steel will be very stiff to open and close, and sterling silver will be much softer (although it does have the potential to tarnish.)

Use your pliers to twist open the jump rings. Twist them to the side, and open them just enough to slide the charms on- this will make them much easier to close. Slide one charm onto each jump ring. It should slide freely.

Alternatively, you can use split rings (they look like miniature key rings), and wrap the loops for your charms directly onto the split rings. This arrangement is extremely secure.

Twist the jump ring closed again. Ideally, you should feel a small click when the two ends of the jump ring meet. This click indicates that the jump ring is properly closed, and means that you're unlikely to lose your tiny foods from your stitch markers!

Your stitch markers are ready to use!

Happy knitting or crocheting!

Candy corn!

2009-10-21T10:57:00.000-07:00

Just 10 days left til Halloween, which means two important things:

1. We need to figure out and properly construct our costumes.
Is there a food costume I can make that will be both cool and still allow me sufficient mobility to salsa dance? I'm stumped. Susan has fabulous plans to be something foodie and a hilarious pop culture reference from the 80s.

2. It's totally acceptable to eat large amounts of candy corn!
Yes, people either love it or hate it. We happen to love really good candy corn. What about vegetable-shaped candy that tastes like marshmallow and honey is there not to love?

If you're someone who loves real candy corn, or even just loves the festive playfulness of Halloween, then why not whip up a pair of candy corn stud earrings? Women's Day has excerpted our recipe for candy corn stud earrings from our cookbook, and you can find the complete recipe on their website!

Happy crafting!

* Photo copyright Zachary Williams.

Book Release!

2009-10-20T14:33:00.000-07:00

It's official: our tiny food cookbook is available! Let the inedible crafting begin!

If you're local to Virginia and the DC area, we'll be having a few book signing events, and we'd love to see you at one:

November 4, 7pm: Staunton VA (Staunton Public Library)
- We recommend a post-signing trip to the Split Banana (best ice cream in the Shenandoah Valley- especially the birthday cake and ancho chili chocolate!)

November 7, 3-5pm: Charlottesville VA (Albemarle Baking Company)
-Come early and buy a scone! The scent of this bakery alone is worth the trip; the baked goodies are out of this world.

If you're a little further afield, hopefully we'll be able to meet eventually. You should be able to find our book in your local bookshop, or check your favorite online booksellers (amazon, barnes and noble, and borders all carry it.)

We're especially excited to hear what you all think of the book, and to see how your inedible goodies turn out. Happy crafting!

Cold hands and slowing down

2009-10-19T07:04:00.000-07:00

Susan and I both have incredibly cold hands. This trait is useful for exactly two things in life:

1. dating (especially in high school):
"Ooh, your hands are so cold, let me warm them up for you!"
"Why yes, please hold my hands for the next three hours, that would be lovely."

and 2. working with polymer clay on a fine scale.

The ideal working temperature of polymer clay is generally when the clay reaches the consistency of stiff chewing gum. Colder clay tends to crack or split when you try to form it into small shapes. Cold clay, however, is easily warmed up by rolling it between your palms.

Clay that is too warm is a much more common problem, and one that can be especially frustrating for beginners. Particularly those that have warm hands, since the heat from your hands will transfer quickly to the clay and make it overly sticky. Clay that is too warm will take on your fingerprints, and stubbornly refuse to hold fine details or sharp lines. For example, if you try to slice a pie when it is still too warm, the blade will mush the pie instead of create a clean cut.

If you're finding that your clay is very warm, and not holding the shapes you want, the absolute best advice we can give is to slow down, set aside your project and let it cool off between steps. We realize this is tough advice, especially when you're excited, but it will yield the best results! For example, if you're making an apple, and the shape keeps mushing into something oblong instead of spherical, try rolling the apple into a ball, then setting it on your tile for 10 minutes or so to cool down. The sphere will be firmer, and you can then move on to shaping it.

Set it aside again, then insert the headpin when the clay is cooler. Headpin insertion in particular is much easier when the clay is cool. When it's too warm, the headpin tends to drag a lot of clay along with it when it exits the charm, and this really distorts your piece.

One way to allow enough time for the clay to cool is to make a couple of projects simultaneously (or more than one of the same project). If you're making three apples or cupcakes at once, for example, the two that you're not actively shaping at any given time will be gradually cooling off on your tile between steps.

Another trick is to cool down your hands by washing them with cold water. This technique has the added benefit of keeping all kinds of dust and color residue from getting onto your clay.

We'd love to hear your tricks for working around your warm hands!

Shopping List

2009-10-14T09:21:00.000-07:00

Grocery lists were a big deal in our family. We grew up making one each week before the big shopping trip. Our mother even divided the lists into the various sections of the store (produce, dairy, deli, bakery, etc.) so that we'd be sure to remember everything we needed. So naturally, we're inclined to make a shopping list so that you'll have an easy reference for all the tools and materials you'll need to have handy to make all the projects in the book! This is just a list- for more detailed explanations of the particular tools and their uses, check out the first two chapters of the book.

Clay (all 2oz packages; 1 of each)
(You can find the clay at most craft stores, or online at polymer clay express.)

alizarin crimson Premo
cadmium red Premo
orange Premo
cadmium yellow Premo
Granny Smith SculpeyIII
green Premo
white Premo
translucent Premo
ivory SculpeyIII
ecru Premo
burnt sienna Premo
raw sienna Premo
black Premo

2oz bottle Translucent Liquid Sculpey

Clay tools & Materials

2 white ceramic floor tiles 8"x8" (look at your local hardware store)
parchment paper (grocery store, in the baking section)
small plastic resealable bags (for storing your clay; grocery store)
rubbing alcohol

small paintbrush (#4 round size; craft store or dick blick)
raw sienna soft pastel (craft store or dick blick)
Pearl-Ex micropearl powdered mica (craft store or polymer clay express)

safety pin or metal needle tool (craft store in the scrapbooking section or polymer clay express)
small-blade utility knife
razor blade or stainless steel tissue blade (polymer clay express)
straight pin (with a ball end)
small double-ball stylus (craft store, scrapbooking; or polymer clay express)
toothpicks

Jewelry-Making Tools and Materials

jewelry-making round nose pliers (craft store or firemountain gems)
small nail clippers
2" silver-plated headpins, 24-gauge (firemountain gems)
26-gauge silver wire, half-hard (firemountain gems, or elsewhere online)
ear wires (firemountain gems, etsy.com, or artbeads are all good sources)

clasps & catches (craft store, firemountain gems, or artbeads)
seed beads- size 11 (local bead stores)

stringing on braided wire
Beadalon
crimp beads
crimping pliers

stringing on nylon thread
nylon beading thread
beading needle
bead tips
bead-stringing glue

earring posts & nuts (firemountain gems, etsy.com, or artbeads are all good sources)
ring backing
cyanoacrylate (super) glue (craft store)
sandpaper, 220 grit (hardware store)

Pumpkins!

2009-09-28T09:22:00.001-07:00

This past weekend at the Charlottesville City Market, the first pumpkins of the season appeared! It was a thoroughly fall Saturday, chilly enough that we dug out our sweaters. Rain drizzled throughout the morning, which made for some beautiful photos of the new pumpkins and made us inspired to create new miniature pumpkins as well.

The booth next to ours had a lovely selection of pie pumpkins, sweet potatoes, turnips, and even honey in a gorgeous array of colors.
Around the corner (and right near the much-needed coffee!), the farmers had big pumpkins, and these unusual ones with the coloring of butternut squashes, and the squat shape of turbin squash. It's neat how the stems on the regular pumpkins are thick and a deep dark green, while the paler pumpkins have much more delicate and leafy green stems. It would be fun to play with color mixing to create these!

In the same family, we spied these spooky gray-green squashes. They look almost like ghosts of regular pumpkins and might make a fun charm for foodies for Halloween (Ghosts of food past? When produce returns to haunt you?)

We love how varied and textured pumpkins can be- even the really classic ones. The stems on these pumpkins are all twisted and gnarled and curved in every direction- the perfect illustration of how natural foods are inherently imperfect! We hope these pumpkins inspire you to create your own tiny pumpkin and squash charms- complete with knobbly stems, uneven ridges, and all shades of green and orange.

Tiny food burgers!

2009-09-10T11:31:00.001-07:00

Curious to know how to make your own tiny burgers? We made a video showing you all the steps!

Before you watch, it's helpful to have the following ingredients already assembled on your work surface (all clays are Premo unless otherwise noted, and a ball is a smooth sphere of clay):

Bun:
1/16" ball white
1/4" ball ecru
3/8" ball ecru

Burger, Cheese, & Tomato:
1/4" ball burnt sienna
3/16" ball cadmium yellow
3/16" ball cadmium red

Lettuce:
3/16" ball translucent
1/16" ball light green (* we usually use Sculpey III Granny Smith)
1/8" green

Tools & Other materials:
raw sienna artists' (soft) pastel
double-ball stylus (small tip)
paintbrush
headpin (2", fine gauge)

Have fun customizing your own burger! Maybe you prefer your lettuce on top of your patty, or your patty to be square. Or get really creative and add mushrooms or onions on top!

Tiny Burger Recipe Video

Our cookbook!

2009-09-10T11:16:00.000-07:00

Learn to make your own tiny food! We wrote a cookbook with 20 miniature food jewelry recipes (and a few real food recipes too!), and it is officially being released October 20, 2009! It's fun, it's colorful, and it answers the perennial question: "How on earth do you make these?"

Not only that, but the photos inside are absolutely delectable (the photographer shot the cinnamon rolls on real cinnamon sticks, with a real cinnamon roll in the background- mmmmm), and the book is totally colorful and fun.

If you'd like to pre-order the book, you can find it at your favorite booksellers!

amazon.com

barnes and noble.com

borders.com

Peach crisp (aka Upside Down Pie)

2009-09-10T08:16:00.000-07:00

A friend of ours from Colombia had never tried crisp or cobbler before, and when Jessica tried to explain what it was, she described it as "upside down pie." He loved the end result, but could not remember the proper name for the dish, and so has forever referred to it as "upside down pie."

With only a couple of weeks left in peach season, we thought we'd share our recipe for peach crisp! We started with the excellent recipe for apple crisp written on One Frugal Foodie, and modified it for peaches. We are also big fans of real butter, but imagine that you can easily make this recipe vegan again if you prefer a margarine butter substitute.

This recipe is easy to tweak to suit your individual taste- add a bunch of blueberries, or some shredded coconut on top for great texture and flavor. If you have some, scrape the seeds from about half of a vanilla bean onto the peaches before you add the topping. Or, top each warm serving with some good vanilla bean ice cream when you serve it.

Finally, be sure to use real maple syrup on top. It gives an incredible crunchy texture that is impossible to create otherwise and is well worth it!

Enjoy!

Peach Crisp

4 medium-large freestone peaches

1/2 cup flour
1 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 tsp ground cardamom

2 tbsp maple syrup

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.

2. Slice the peaches into thin wedges, leaving the skin on. (The skins will confer a lot of extra flavor to the dish, and they will soften while baking.) Add them to an 8" x 8" baking dish. Toss with vanilla seeds, if using, or add a dash of vanilla extract.

3. Combine the flour, oats, brown sugar, and cardamom in a large bowl. Cut in the butter until the mixture looks crumbly, and the pieces of butter are about the size of peppercorns. Add the topping in an even layer on top of the peaches.

4. Drizzle the topping with the maple syrup.

5. Bake the crisp for about 30 minutes, until the fruit is soft and sizzling, and the topping is a golden brown.

6. Enjoy!

Introductory jewelry techniques

2009-04-13T16:25:00.002-07:00

Making tiny food into jewelry requires a few basic techniques. We'll gradually be posting information on the kinds of tools you'll need, as well as basics in how to do wire wrapping, bead stringing, and earring-making.

In the meantime, you can google any of those terms and find some good tutorials on the subjects online.

Glass Attic: the online encyclopedia of polymer clay info

2009-04-13T16:24:00.002-07:00

One of the most incredible online resources for polymer clay information is the Glass Attic, an encyclopedia of random tips, hints, and other tidbits from all kinds of sources. It is an overwhelming site that can be a bit chaotic at times, but if you have an idea of what you're looking for (for example: how to condition clay), it's an amazing resource. The author, Diane Black, is constantly adding to the site, so it's never the same place twice. It might be a bit overwhelming for complete beginners, since it does help to know a bit of polymer clay jargon going in.

Hopefully, though, this tiny food blog will get you up to speed with the beginner techniques and jargon you'll need to know!

Edible

2009-04-13T16:24:00.001-07:00

Where on earth do we get our ideas for which tiny foods to make? Everywhere! The grocery store, farmer's markets, restaurants, cookbooks, food blogs, and magazines are all great places to get inspired.

One of our favorite recent sources of inspiration for fruits, veggies, and other edible plants is a gorgeous book put together by the folks at National Geographic. Appropriately enough, it's entitled Edible, and is stuffed with beautiful photos of all kinds of edible plants from all over the world. Not only does it have great photos, it also has all sorts of information about edible plants. It's a neat coffee table book to browse through (and salivate over!) Why limit your eggplants to the traditional purple kind when there are white or striped heirloom varieties?