Last night our dear friends and neighbors, Scott and Amy Kilpatrick, invited us to go to dinner with them at the soft-opening “friends and family” event at SOL Mexican Cocina. SOL is located in the Scottsdale Quarter and makes its public debut tomorrow, Tuesday, March 20 at 4:30 PM.  (Hey Amy, Don’t be mad at me for posting this snapshot, I know you weren’t expecting it, I was just trying to get a photo of the interior before we left 🙂 Even though I think that you and Scott look cute, as usual! xoxo)

Scott and Amy have a strong connection to SOL’s Operating Partner, Rich Howland.  Scott and Rich are the original founders of RA Sushi and have been friends since attending kindergarten, right here in Scottsdale.

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Image from ime.tumblr.com

It’s a dreamy dark rainy day here in not-so-sunny Arizona.

After attending two separate friends’ birthday parties two nights in a row.  This is the best I could do today!

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Before we get to today’s recipe… Yes, I’m actually posting a recipe today… I want to wish each and every one of you (lucky enough to be born Irish, or not) a safe, healthy, and very Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

The recipe comes courtesy of Barbara Fenzl and Les Gourmettes Cooking School. Barb made these easy and delicious morsels in her classes this session. They are THE perfect easy-breezy appetizers for carefree entertaining!

The crabmeat mixture can be made a day ahead, covered, and refrigerated. As can the panko coating – if you wait to drizzle on the melted butter until just before assembling the crab cakes.  Additionally, you can bake the crab cakes an hour ahead, then remove them from muffin cups and place them on a baking sheet and leave them at room temperature, and rewarm them in a 350-degree oven for 6 to 8 minutes. Voilà – the easiest crab cakes you’ve ever made!

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As promised, and then re-promised, today I shall share with you what we bought at the Rose Bowl Flea Market on Sunday. See that Uncle Sam’s Register Bank above? My brothers, sister, and I all had banks just like that when we were kids, each a different color. I think mine was pink and I have no idea what happened to them. I’ve been searching for one for about a year. I’ve been on eBay and bid on them until they get up into the $40+ range, then I bail out. Come to think about it, I’m not sure why I keep bailing out of bids because eBay is there for you to buy items, so why would you get this close and then just forget it? Well, I should ask myself because this is what I keep doing.

I’d never seen the cute little leather-covered book banks before but fell in love as soon as I spotted them. One has the White House on it and the other has an Islam hat and is marked San Francisco, June 1922. I did a little research on these banks and found THIS uber-cool website that shows advertisements for these and a large variety of vintage and antique banks.

At the same booth where I found Uncle Sam’s bank, I found this vintage Stag Horn Handle Meat Carving Set with Sharpener. I especially like the little lever used to hold the fork up off the table and the intricate decorative metal embellishments.

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Finally, the day has come to show you our purchases from the Rose Bowl Flea Market! At the top is my pièce de résistance – a gorgeous wood and cane chair painted white, distressed, and then reupholstered in burlap and vintage grain sacks. Oh, I can not begin to tell you how gorgeous it is – the pictures do not do it justice! I adore the “125 LBS” on the back of the chair. It makes me wish I could just place it right in the center of a room and put it on a spinning platform.

If you’ve ever been to my house, you may be thinking, “What room is that chair sitting in? I don’t remember any room in Linda’s house looking like that.”  You are right, this is Sheila’s living room at her cottage on Coronado Island in San Diego, California. Before I can share with you any of the other wonderful finds we bought, I just have to share with you the “story” of our trip. The trials, tribulations, and the seriously sheer stupidity on our part while planning our big shopping spree!  Honestly, what good is a trip without a story attached?

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The Rose Bowl Flea Market was on Sunday, but Sheila and I arrived in Los Angeles early Saturday morning. Our first order of business was to go directly to Big Daddy’s Antiques Warehouse. If you recall, I found out about Big Daddy’s from Vignette Design and it was the first booth Marissa, Dave, and I visited last month at the Alameda Point Antiques Faire.

Big Daddy’s not only participated in the Rose Bowl and Alameda markets, but they also have warehouses in both San Francisco and Los Angeles.  You may also remember that I was coveting the Turkish olive baskets in Alameda and then found one back home in Arizona. Well, the same baskets line the steps up to the front door of the LA warehouse. I took that as an excellent sign that there were more good things to come!

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There is a VERY good reason I did not post over the weekend… I was in Pasadena, California at the Rose Bowl Flea Market with my girlfriend, Sheila. Boy, did we have a fun and fruitful adventure!

It was a gorgeous Southern California day and we took full advantage of it. We arrived at about 7 AM and didn’t leave the market until well after 2 PM.

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Although this cauliflower soup is not flashy… plain old white and boring looking… it is full of flavor. The flavors come from the roasted cauliflower, the caramelized onion, and toasted coriander, and then end with a dollop of horseradish or a splash of hot pepper sauce. If you’ve roasted garlic recently, throw some of the mellow roasted garlic in too.

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Today we are making cupcakes, but first, we need to start with a cocktail… Did you know that the Irish Car Bomb is one of the most popular drinks in the world? Do you know what is in an Irish Car Bomb?

Irish Car Bomb

1/2 shot Bailey’s Irish cream
1/2 shot premium Irish whiskey
3/4 pint Guinness stout

Layer the Bailey’s and then the Irish whiskey in a shot glass.  Pour the Guinness into a pint glass or beer mug 3/4 of the way full and let settle. Drop the shot glass into the Guinness and chug.     

Serves 1

Supposedly it is delicious- unless you don’t drink it quickly – then it will curdle and increasingly taste worse and worse.  I wouldn’t know, I do not care for stout beer. One thing I do know is that if you take those three liquors and turn them into cupcakes… WOW! The very best cupcakes I’ve had in a long long time. And positively PERFECT for St. Patrick’s Day!

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Me, my mom, and my brother, Dennis, on Easter 1961 in our front yard near Pima and Chaparral Rds. in Scottsdale. My mom is 26 years old in this photo.

Today is my mother’s 77th birthday. It’s funny how we see our parents – kind of through rose-tinted glasses. My parents divorced after 28 years of marriage in 1981 when I was 20. Because of the way things went down, I took my dad’s side, and my sister sided with my mom. When it comes to our parents; my sister, Sloane, and I now take the “divide and conquer” approach. She deals with our mom and I deal with our dad.

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