For my Illustrator class, we had a calendar project and I thought it would be the perfect time to start updating my Owl Calendar. I created another yearly version with the tree with pretty much the same layout but completely revamped images and colors. I’m still considering some changes, so I’m not posting an image [...]
Friday night I decided to try something new. I didn’t really know what at first, but as I was flipping through my Vegetarian cookbook, I came across a recipe for a mushroom and cauliflower gougère. I didn’t have any mushrooms, but I did have some asparagus, so I decided to try my own version of [...]
On Monday, my friend Laura sent me a recipe for Rye Pretzels she saw on NYTimes.com, and I knew immediately that I wanted to try it out — I even had all the ingredients on hand! It took me a whole two days to get around to it, and I’m glad I decided to try [...]
I was in Florida visiting my grandparents over the weekend, and I started playing with my newest iPhone app, Brushes, creating a picture of my sister singing karaoke. I showed my grandmother my little finger painting and she liked it so much she wanted me to do one of her and my grandfather.
I have been looking at the Brushes iPhone app on and off since I got my iPhone more than a year ago. I’d seen some incredible images created with it, and I wanted to try it out, but it was pretty pricey for an app at $4.99, and I wasn’t sure if I’d really use [...]
For my first Illustrator II class assignment, we had to create a how-to illustration. I decided to go timely with How to Cause a Late Night Disaster based on all the hoopla going on at NBC with Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien and the Tonight Show.
A few weeks ago, we invited friends over for dinner on very short notice. I had enough food in my fridge and pantry — I just needed to figure out what to make. I put together a salad with grapefruit, avocado and a shallot-citrus vinaigrette, and I pulled some little puff pastries out of the [...]
A few weeks ago I decided to try making gnocchi. I’d been thinking about doing it for a while, ever since I read about a traditional potato gnocchi recipe, but I was worried it would be a huge failure. Gnocchi are easy to mess up — too much flour makes them heavy, not enough flour [...]
FrancineKizner.comSince Evan and I left London, I’ve wanted to go back. Luckily, we had tickets waiting for us (the last leg of the around-the-world trip plus our original return tickets). We thought we’d be using them over Thanksgiving, but since we’re still unemployed, we decided to move up the date and head out the first [...]
When we decided to go on our around-the-world trip, we knew we wanted to pack light. We didn’t know how much we would need to carry our bags and we didn’t know where we’d be staying each night, but we knew we didn’t want to be weighed down by unnecessary items. We went completely basic [...]
Our last stop was Hawaii. We arrived in Kona, on the big Island, and we had a flight booked on Pacific Wings to Kahului in Maui. We started looking for the Pacific Wings sign, and we made it all the way to the end of the airport without seeing it, so we asked a baggage handler where it was. He pointed down the road and said, about a quarter mile that way.
On August 14, we took the Shinkansen to Tokyo. We had reserved seats, but they turned out to be in a smoking car — and at the very front of the train. We decided to look for new seats, but all the unreserved calls are at the back of the train. I walked from car [...]
Getting to Kyoto from Bangkok involved a very long day of traveling, which seems to be a recurring theme on this trip. First we took a 5-hour flight to Tokyo, then had to hop on an hour-long train to get to the 3-hour-long Shinkansen — where we had to stand in the unreserved smoking car [...]
On the night of August 4, we took the sleeper train from Chiang Mai to Bangkok because we’d heard it would be a fun way to travel. In retrospect, we probably should have just spent the money on booking a flight. We rode in a second-class car, and I had an upper bunk while Evan had a lower one. The food was inedible, and there were no veggie options, though we had the good sense to bring some snacks. The car seemed to be infested with what looked like baby cockroaches — I squished quite a few, and saw many more scurrying about under our seats and on the walls. And sleeping on a train is no real substitute for sleeping in a bed, especially when there’s some anxiety about vermin, so we arrived in Bangkok exhausted.
