Collaged Carry-On

Remember this calendar page?   What happens when a calendar page and a carry-on have a baby?  This is what happens:

How cool is this?   I've been looking for a new carry-on, something not-black, maybe a print.  I couldn't find any print I liked and that wouldn't send The Captain running out of the airport.  I almost bought a pretty cool text-printed carry-on, but just as I got to the register I realized the flowing script said "Brittany Spears" over and over and over.   Not my style, no offense to Ms Spears. 

 I stumbled on My Fly Bag customizable luggage.  Pretty simple - upload a photo and voila, a personalized bag that won't ever be mistaken for any one else's bag.  That and it has a whole lot more pizazz than all those black bags.

Add a tag with the same image:

Yippee - I'll be testing this out later this month when we head to Las Vegas.   Wonder if my carry-on will be the classiest thing we see.

Downton Abby and Cookies Fit for the Queen

Add me to the throngs of people happy to see the return of our virtual friends from across the Pond.   A full two hours of upstairs/downstairs goings-on called for some sort of celebration.

I pinned these tea bag cookies ages ago and they fit the bill for celebrating English TV drama.

The idea came from Le Petrin, a wonderfully creative French blog,   I can muddle my way through much of it, but decided to do a Google translation in case I missed any details.  Translating a language word-by-word means some stuff really does get lost in translation.  Like this funny bit :  "And here is the result: slightly lemony shortbread fluxes enriched with a thin layer of dark chocolate, delicious and aesthetically bluffing.  And this :  "Of course, achieving these cookies reports to the waiting game as if existing cutter must cut the shortbread with a template one by one and then make small holes, thread fasteners cotton stick labels, dip in chocolate … ".  Don't get me wrong, I love Google translate (while I can get the gist of French blogs, I am totally lost on Swedish ones), but the literal translations make for some fun reading.

I stamped crowns for the tea bag tags and, viola, cookies fit for upstairs, made by a clearly downstairs cook who could have used some additional kitchen girl help.  I used a sugar cookie recipe from here that worked well (don't think I've ever added cream cheese to rolled sugar cookies before), but the original on Le Petrin used a shortbread base - either works.

We also made Lady Sybil cocktails from The Kichn (same blog as the sugar cookie recipe, and yes, that how it's spelled!)).  Turns out that while Lady Sybil was championing women's rights and social justice, she also knew her way around champagne drinks.  These are so easy.

Lady Sybil Cocktail

makes 1 cocktail

1 oz gin

3/4 oz St. Germain elderflower liqueur

brut champagne, chilled

Combine the gin and St. Germain over ice. Shake and strain into a flute. Top with champagne.

Polished up the silver tray, added a few dainty goodies, and we were ready to watch the drama with cookies that, while not "aesthetically bluffing", were bluffant - slang French-talk for amazing.