Shoes

At our old apartment, we had this big shoe rack for our (her) massive collection of shoes:

Cue appropriate Youtube video below.  (Suggest playing in background while reading the rest of this)

The entryway to our new place is a hallway with a closet on one side.  The hallway would be too cramped with the shoe rack in it, and the closet was too narrow for it to fit inside.  This was good news, as I was looking for my first carpentry project: a 3-drawer shoe cabinet.

After careful measuring of the space, I scribbled up some plans, bought a sheet of plywood, and made a stack of smaller pieces of plywood:

Also used some 2x6's to make the base:

Used this big fat blade, called a dado blade, to cut the grooves so the pieces would fit together:

Mocked everything up before painting:

Time for paint:

Apparently Cookie did some snooping:

Final assembly of drawers:

Putting everything together (by lantern light):

Astute readers may notice the gap between the side pieces and the walls.  That was done on purpose because most walls, these included, are not square, so simply fixing the panels straight to the wall would have made a crooked cabinet.  I cut shim pieces to go between the wall and the panels and put screws through.  

Drawer tracks were installed and the finished drawers slid right in.  Added some trim pieces around the sides and finished my first woodworking project:

Cookie does some quality control:

Bought a shelf and clothes rod and now we've got a fully functioning hall storage closet:

**EDIT**

And as requested by Lechers... SHOES!!!

And although the cabinet can fit three-rows-deep of shoes per drawer, we still ended up with an overflow area.

LET'S GET SOME SHOES!

Raspberry and Blackberry-Ginger Sorbet

After trying a few ice cream flavors, we decided to try our hand at sorbets (Note: this is another one of those month-long late blog posts because this happened in the middle of summer when people still ate cold things).

Since it was berry season, we strolled down to Eastern Market and bought ourselves a couple of pints of raspberries and blackberries. See below for the deliciousness that ensued:

Raspberry (or Blackberry-Ginger) Sorbet Recipe 

(makes 1.5 pints)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup water
• 3/4 cups granulated sugar
• Pinch table salt
• 2 cups raspberries (or 2 cups blackberries + a thumb sized piece of ginger finely grated)
• Optional: lime or lemon wedge

Directions:

1. Prepare a simple syrup with the water and sugar by combining both in a medium saucepan set over medium-low heat. Cook until sugar is fully dissolved.

2. Allow simple sugar to cool to room temperature. Add salt and raspberries (or blackberries and half of the grated ginger) to the mixture and blend until smooth.

• If adding ginger to the sorbet mix, add in small increments at a time. You don't want the ginger to overpower the blackberries.
• If desired, you can add a touch of lemon (for raspberry) or lime juice (for blackberry)

3. Strain the mixture through a fine mesh strainer to remove the seeds. You might have to use a spatula to coax the mixture through the strainer. 

4. Cover and refrigerate for 2-3 hours (preferably overnight)

5. After chilling, strain mixture again and churn the mixture in your ice cream maker for 15-20 minutes. Transfer sorbet into an airtight container and chill for about 2 hours. 

6. Eat all the sorbet in one day.

I think this has been one of my favorite recipes so far. The sorbet tasted so light and refreshing - and the color looked so deliciously artificial. Nom!

Blackberry-ginger Sorbet

Raspberry Sorbet