5 posts tagged “qotd”

What is your home decorating style, and how has it changed over time? Do you have plans to redecorate? 
Submitted by enSue.

I like to call it garage sale chic because most of what we own is used and that's the way we like it. Because we live in a house that was built in (I think) 1959, we have retro-looking furniture but not totally mid-century because the house is too prosaic for that. Plus we have kids so the furniture needs to be durable (nothing too spindly) and comfortable.

If we lived in a different house, we'd have different furniture but it would still mostly be used. (We paid thirty bucks for our couch and that included two matching chairs -- it's aqua and low and fabulous.)

Who taught you how to cook?
Submitted by Donna.

I taught myself to cook. My mom was a good cook when I was a kid but by the time she headed back to school (in preparation of divorcing my dad), she was relying pretty heavily on processed food. Most of my memories of my mom's cooking is either not liking it (because I was enormously picky), wishing she'd make more cookies (because her chocolate chip masterpieces were a rare thing indeed), or that it didn't happen.

In any case -- I had no interest in her cooking or in anyone else's.

But then I grew up and began working at a deli/specialty food store and started to realize that other people found cooking not only important but also enjoyable. So my first menus tended toward the less traditional with fancy cheese and pesto and capers.

By the time my son came along, I was interested in cooking as a way to save on our sad budget.

Now I'm a fairly serious ordinary cook and menu-planner but again, it's all self-taught and I'm always learning more.

You must have been a fashion victim at least once in your life. What hideous blunder did you commit? 
Submitted by Tina. 

Well it depends on who you ask. The one my mom talks about all the time is the crinoline I used to wear over capris leggings (it was 1987, after all). It was a short crinoline, all fluffy white net with pastel edging hitting just above my knee. I wore it with the aforementioned black capris leggings and a vintage (40s) fitted black jacket on top. My mom hated that outfit.

To me the biggest blunder was when I asked my hairdresser to shave a pencil-thin line between my short-short hair around the bottom half of my head and the longer (two inches spiked up) hair on my crown. I'd had this done before and it gave a very clean line between the two different lengths but this hairdresser misunderstood me and shaved a line about an inch -- an inch! -- wide all the way around. It was hideous. And she did it two days before prom. Happily I was able to pull some hair down over the bald parts and in my prom pictures, I look pretty normal. Except for the hideous pouf skirt in my dress (1986), which perhaps is the biggest blunder of that event now that I think about it.

What's your method for calculating a tip?

Typically? For a restaurant? Divide by ten, multiply by two.

What character in a book can you connect with or relate to the most? 
Submitted by Eating A Book.

As a kid: Sniff from the Moomin books even though I wanted to be Snufkin.
As a teenager: The semi-hysterical frizzy-haired teen girl in The Pigman then Clara in Antonia White's quartet
As an adult: Hmmm, I can't come up with any.