100 Days

Just discovered the coolest job in the world. Pete Souza is the official White House photographer, and recently, a huge chunk of photos that he's taken over the president's first 100 days were uploaded to Flickr.

Do yourself a favor and go browse through them. Seriously. They are the coolest.



You might have seen this one already, taken on inauguration night. You'll notice Michelle figures prominently in most of my favorites shown here. Um, because I love her. But who doesn't?



Watching the Super Bowl at the Obamas' house, in 3-D of course.



This reminds me of a still shot of a scene from some beautiful, sweeping, romantic movie. The lighting makes me swoon.



Pete catches all these great moments and humanizing details. And sometimes it's just a hand gesturing or a view through a window or the president adjusting a colleague's tie or a tray of glasses waiting to be placed out for a cabinet meeting. It's all those little snippets that give you a sense of intimacy here. Oh to be set free in that house with a camera.



I can has President Obama bring me a birthday cake? That would definitely be the best day EVAR.



This one was taken in the U.S. Embassy in Prague. This photo makes me all sorts of happy. Make sure you click on these photos and then pull up the 'All Sizes' view. The large version is included for most of them, which is fun for picking out those awesome little details, like the "Babies for Obama" button she is wearing on her dress.

It looks like the White House photo stream on Flickr will be updated regularly from here going forward. Oh I hope so. Might I say, on behalf of America: Thanks for sharing Pete!

And now, in honor of the President's first 100 days in office, "100 Days, 100 Nights" by Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings.

Micro machines

My poor cherry tomato plant has had a hard season. It was doing great in mid-May when the big storm came through and snapped it in half. Just the day before I'd used some of that velcro stuff to attach it to the railing because the bundle of tomatoes ripening on it was weighing it down. Bad timing.



This was one of the tomatoes that survived the storm and was allowed to ripen. Doesn't it look fine? So then the poor thing started its season anew. And grew to be full size again. But then I kept going out of town for a few days and when I'd get home, it'd always be all shriveled up. I did my best though. Watered it really good when I was here, and fertilized it too. Then it got mealybugs real bad so I went over every inch of it, applying alcohol with a swab to try and keep them at bay. Tried tried. These days, though, the fruit turns out like this:



I had just taken a picture of it the other day and then I saw that Amy Elizabeth was having the same problem. Aren't they freakish, these tiny tomatoes? Oh well, there's always next summer.

As for the big tomatoes (those came from the grocery store), I finally got around to making this tart. It has a very small window. I wouldn't dare make it outside of the tomato-and-basil season. (The basil did come from my balcony.) I found this recipe last year but didn't yet have a springform pan. So I made sure to get one earlier this year. This was its first test run.



This one is on the Martha website this time: Tomato-Ricotta Tart. Their photograph is so much prettier than mine. The tart turned out really well. My only foul-up this time was that my bread crumbs were not "fresh" as they requested. Specifically I used a baguette that had sat around a bit too long and was all dried up. So, as would be expected, the crust was all crumbly and didn't hold together well. No matter, the slices still made it to the plate fine. And really, all I wanted was the ricotta and tomatoes.

When I have leftover ricotta around, I love to slather it on a slice of bread, then layer fresh basil, slices of tomato, olive oil, salt and pepper on top and just eat it open-faced. It's amazing. So this was basically a tart version of that. What's not to like?

Okay one last thing. I'm going to take a page from Mary Beth's book and from the Postcards From Yo Momma book and share a recent chat exchange with mom. This was in response to me sending her the link to this pattern for a crochet Obama logo. I was beyond excited about making one. Mom is a McCain supporter.

Me: Look what I found. I'm gonna make one!!!
Mom: Okay, I am stupid. What is it (a basket?) and what does it have to do with Obama.
Me: It's the Obama logo!
Mom: oh Had not seen it. I guess I need to go to his web page and see it cos I still do not know what it is.
Me: http://www.barackobama.com/index.php
Me: It's on everything they put out. Scroll down to the store items at the bottom and you'll see the button.
Mom: Yep I see it. I guess it is not really supposed to be anything. It is just a logo.
Me: Yeah. It looks like a sun rising over a flag. Like "hope" or something.
Mom: Okay. I was thinking the round thing at the top was for Obama.
Me: All I'm saying is that I am excited I can make one out of crochet! That is BAD ASS.
Mom: Yes you can.

Awesome.