What do you do on your counters?

 

Let me tell you my story before anyone jumps to conclusions. Last weekend I played host to my niece (a dear friends daughter). We have no kids of our own so occasionally I borrow other peoples kids. Well frankly I love my friends children....especially when we get to give them back. [sly smile]

So I had a house full of teenage girls. I proceeded to walk them down to the mall, who wouldn't like the mall, I did, even if my feet didn't.  Upon returning home we chose a movie to watch. I so thought this would be the easy part, teenager girls like chick flicks right....answer here would be NOooooooo!  Though we did settle on a chick flick, iRobot was a serious contender, sorry Spongy, next time.

Ok, so why the pictures? Well I have added additional counter space for my kitchen, thanks to Ikea, It's a better place them my counter tops covered in 1960's old ceramic tiles (not the cool type, see below), that are broken and uneven. I sacrificed a kitchen table for more flat workspace. So I thought I would share it's multi-purpose use.

During pauses in the movies I had the girls roll out pizza dough, two girls to each pile of dough.  Then we put them on pizza stones, they chose their toppings, I bake.

 

After pizza's were in the oven we cleared the path for our art project that would start after the movie.  I got this idea from Pinterest and was posted from the 700 Experience blog here.  Those who follow me on Instagram (itsweetsavory) know I experimented with this by myself during the week before. By myself was the key problem, you need to have a buddy.  So each girl picked her color palate with the box of crayons I scored from the 99 cents store. Then we took some cardboard and a glue gun and glued the crayons onto the board, leave one inch of the crayon hanging off the cardboard.  Now it was ready for some melting.

 

Speaking of melting, here's our last melted cheese and veggie pizza....Nice right. This was delicious.  I made crust part easy and bought my dough from Trader Joes. Usually I make it myself, but I had too much to do. Toppings included cheese, obviously, tomato's, artichoke hearts, kalamata olives, mushrooms and pepperoni. I don't really like sauce on my pizza and though others do, I didn't remember this part, so no sauce.

Back to the melting crayons.  The girls perfected this part, they got tired of holding each other's crayons and figured out how to tape the cardboard with glued crayons on the wall behind.  And yes I have splattered wax on my wall before I realized it and then we pulled up the craft paper and fixed that. Thankfully this is my patio.

One request I had made to a few mom's, was "have the girls bring a blow dryer", weird right, well that didn't happen so we had one blow dryer, mine.  Yes I had to scrap off hard wax the next day.  So, not complaining, because this was easy and the girls got creative.  Some chose to cover the whole canvas and others just did one side and left white space below.

Here's one up close, great texture and color.  

Have fun and enjoy your counter as much as I do.  Enjoy!

This post is my entry into the Alt Summit Blog Carnival Contest sponsored by Wilsonart International, Inc.

Milo & Olive

Milo and Olive, a neighborhood bakery and pizzeria, opened almost a year ago in November 2011. I've been hearing great local buzz about this place and have passed it many times on Wilshire Blvd in Santa Monica. It's run by the team of Josh Loeb and Zoe Nathan who are also behind Rustic Canyon, Huckleberry and Sweet Rose Creamery. The menu includes fresh baked morning pastries and bread, wood fired pizzas, farmers market inspired salads and small plates in a hip and warm environment.  

Seats are readily available in the morning at the counter. This is always a fun place to sit and watch the tattooed cooks. I like to guess what they are making. At lunch, counter and communal tables are available. The pastries in front look mouth watering.  First trip there I had a latte, eggs and bacon (a no carb day), so I'll have to go back to try what looked like the best sticky pecan roll ever.

Simple exterior

Cool simple interior.  I like the no fuss.

Next time round I shared a lovely fresh salad and a few pizzas. The crust was divine, and I'm a huge mushroom fan, so this, with the melted fontina cheese, was delish.

Prosciutto, Burrata, Arugula Pizza...so mouth watering.

These desserts were entering the room while we ate our lunch, I was dying.

Zoe Nathan has stated that she's using different grains to enrich the flavor of her breads.  Well if this is any indication, it's working.  It's a cornmeal cake with a blueberry jam, topped with a vanilla bean cream cheese frosting and fresh farmer market blueberries, your going to die happy.

Please stop by and visit this place, you'll not be disappointed.  Enjoy!

Milo & Olive
2723 Wilshire Blvd. 
Santa Monica, CA 90403

Gjelina Take Away (GTA)

I haven't been addicted to a new place like this in forever....maybe ever.

It's a local place in Venice called Gjelina Take Away otherwise known as GTA.

It's an offshoot of Gjelina, which is right next door.  Gjelina is the brain child of Travis Lett, to read more about him go here: LA Times article.  Gjelina has gotten very popular, lots of press, Bon Appetit recently wrote it up too.  On any given day, and night, there are a dozen people standing outside waiting up to an hour to get a table, inside or outside, patio is very nice, they do have communal tables as well.  Once you get a seat you'll be super happy, great waiters, helpful staff all around, well except the hostesses.  No fun having the hostess job and let's just say they aren't the friendliest gals.

But skip all that, go to GTA, right next door, 

it opens up at 7am and this past weekend I went back three times.  

 Seriously I'm working my way through the menu, even making SB sample a few vittles.

So far my favorite has been the jamon on toast, aka ham on toast.  They smear a bit of tomato on the toast and delicately lay a few nice layers of the best jamon on a crunchy piece of bread.  Today I ate two of them in between sampling the mixed berry turnover.

Also delish is the salmon on crunchy toast with capers, peppers and a nice hard-boiled egg on top.  Over the weekend we tried the egg breakfast sandwich,  this was good, with Gruyere, bacon, kale, and tomatoes, very messy, the kale was nutritious but hard to bite in and the whole leaf came out at once, but worth a try.

The biscuits and jam make my friend C think of her grandmother's biscuit.  Their smeared with butter and strawberry jam.  No latte's here, but you can get a Cordona or Cortona, what is it with L.A. and our coffee names.  It's basically a very small cup of double espresso with a bit of milk.  I personally LOVE it, strong and just the right amount of cream.  C thinks it needs more milk, so it's really your preference.

Next up, an evening trying out the pizza's.  I love the ones next door and they have a wood-burning oven here too.  A co-worker was a bit disappointed by the pizza's initially as they were undercooked in the middle, but that was a few weeks into their opening, so hopefully they've figured this out.

Drop by and hang out with all the hipster parents and their pets for a quick, Italian style breakfast.  Makes me think of running into a cafe in the other Venice, Italy that is, to get a cappuccino in the early morning.

Gjelina Take Away (GTA)
1429 Abbot Kinney
Venice Beach, CA 90291