Fox 5 at Lucketts

Wow! What a morning!There's always something going on at Lucketts...but this morning took that to a whole new level!  I got to the shop early to work on my "space", and a truck driver with a trailer arrived.  He was delivering a load that Suzanne bought at auction and he said he was told to be here by 9:15 for the tv shoot.  "What tv shoot?!!" It was 8:45 and no one was around but me!  Fox 5 was coming to Lucketts to film a live spot on the Lucketts Fair, and they were going to interview Suzanne about antiques.  I started to panic because I had just thrown my hair into a ponytail, no makeup - and if Sooz didn't show I did NOT want to do this interview!!  Luckily, she arrived shortly after, and Henry and the guys started unloading the trailer.  Anne, one of our awesome worker girls started artfully arranging the furniture to look "un-arranged".

Now for most,  that would be enough chaos for one morning but in addition to that we had the firemen collecting for muscular dystrophy, a road crew trimming trees and chipping them, police and community center board members.  We had to ask the road crew to stop work for the broadcast because the noise was unbearable!  In true Lucketts style, the whole staff pitched in and got the job done.  Suzanne is sponsoring an exchange student, Kabir, from India and he pitched in, too.  Welcome to our crazy corner of the world, Kabir!

Suzanne did a fantastic job in the interview...cool as a cucumber!  My favorite moment was when Holly Morris, the Fox 5 reporter asked Sooz where she buys her antiques, and Suzanne replied, "If I told you, I'd have to kill you".  Hilarious! Five minutes after the piece aired, the pink chairs sold by phone to someone who had seen the report.  Just another day at Lucketts....

Healthy Ground Turkey Stuffed Peppers

We're trying to eat better at the Shop and here at our house, too.  It's not always easy, but I've found that just making good choices most of the time makes a big difference. Tonight I made Stuffed Green Peppers with ground turkey.  I've found that ground turkey can be tricky to use because it can be much blander than ground beef.  You really have to jazz it up with spices and lots of flavor, and this recipe fills the bill.  If you have picky folks in your house you can top this with a slice of fresh mozzarella and stick it under the broiler for a couple of minutes 'til it gets melty and golden!  Everybody in my house loved this one.  My husband said, "Wow, that was ground turkey?!".

Ingredients:

4 bell peppers (green,red,yellow or orange)

1 pound ground turkey

2 tbsp. olive oil

one medium onion, chopped

one large or 2 small garlic cloves, minced

one 8 oz can tomato sauce

one cup leftover cooked rice, any kind (I used leftover Spanish rice tonight - and I do like the color that it gives the dish)

one teaspoon of salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon oregano

slices fresh mozzarella (optional)

Get out a large pot, a large skillet, and a 13 x 9 casserole dish.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Fill the large pot with water and get it boiling.

Cut the peppers in half and remove the seeds and the tops.  Blanch the peppers for a minute or two, remove from the water with tongs and drain them.

In the large skillet, heat the oil over high heat.  Add the onion and garlic and cook for 4 minutes.  Add the ground turkey and cook for another 4-5 minutes until no longer pink.  Remove from heat and drain.  Add the rice, salt, pepper and oregano and half the tomato sauce.

Stuff the peppers with the meat mixture and place them in the casserole. Spoon the rest of the tomato sauce over each pepper. Cover with foil and place in the oven for about 30 minutes.  If adding the optional cheese, place it on each pepper, turn the oven to broil and cook another 5 minutes until golden and bubbly.

Serves 4

- Lisa

Chalkboard Wall

I'm always trying to get organized.  It's against my nature, really, but that doesn't stop me from trying (and trying, and trying!).  I have this weird little partition wall in my kitchen, and one day I got the crazy idea to paint it with chalkboard paint.  I got out the ladder, taped up the wall and got started.  If you haven't tried chalkboard paint yet, it's super easy to use.  I sanded the wall lightly first, then followed the directions right on the can.  It took two coats and the hardest part of the project was resisting the temptation to write on the wall in the three days it takes for it to cure!  But once the three days were up and the wall got writing on it, I loved the result!

I have a grocery list, a schedule for the week, sometimes a menu (when I'm having a good week!), and other little reminders.  My teenage kids and their friends love to sign the wall and their notes are fun to read, too.  If you try this project, don't panic when you get to the stage when it's finished and you have to wait for it to cure. The wall looks like a giant, black hole until you get some writing on it.  Also, make sure you follow all the directions on the can. You have to cover the whole surface with chalk dust before writing on it the first time.  I almost never follow directions, but I did this time and I'm glad that I did...and the best part is that it really has helped me to be a little more organized!

 -Lisa

August 2010 Design House Sneak Peek

Here's a sneak peak at this month's Design House...

There's lots more to see, so come check it out Friday, Saturday and Sunday August 6, 7, & 8.  We'll be open all three days from 10am til 5pm...and don't forget the Dance Party at the Design House pool!  It's Saturday night from seven-ish til whenever-ish.  Wear your suit and get your dance on!

Beauty and the Beast

The Beauty.  Our favorite new drink is called a Caesar, or Bloody Caesar. My neighbors from Canada made us this drink, and we fell in love with it.   We decided to call it a "Bloggy Caesar" because we were drinking it while our amazing graphic designer, Alicia, was teaching us how to use our new, **exciting** blog!   The drink is basically a Bloody Mary, only substitute "Clamato" (which is a delicious concoction but you don't want to hear the ingredients) for the tomato juice.










We staged this photo above, called "The Beauty" , but if you want to see the reality - here is "The Beast" :

This is how the Design House really looks!  (between shows, that is) What's that old saying "Creative minds are rarely tidy"?!  That definitely applies to us.  Here  is the recipe for The Bloggy Caesar below.

The Bloggy Caesar

• 1 1/2 oz vodka
• 4 oz Clamato (in the juice aisle next to the tomato juice and V-8)
• 2 dashes Worcestershire
• dash Tabasco
• celery salt
• lime wedge
• pepper
• celery stalk
• Rub lime wedge over rim of glass.  Press  the glass into a dish of celery salt.  Mix remaining ingredients and pour over ice.  Add a celery stalk & DRINK UP!

Here is Suzanne - working hard on the BLOG!! (and after one or two Bloggy Caesars)

...and here is Alicia sportin' her fancy new tattoo that Suzanne & Amy picked up for her at the LA Gift Show:

We LOVE her, and she's not really this bad-ass.  This picture above is "The Beast", but  here's "The Beauty" :

Thanks, Alicia! We love our new blog!

The Hunt

Always always being on the hunt for new stuff for our customers….sometimes gets tricky.. Where haven't we been? What is new? What haven’t we tried?… so this spring Amy and I headed out to Round  Top Texas…that was an interesting experience, but to sell as we like to, the prices are a bit high and the shipping a bit tricky.. So what else can we do..? This summer we headed to Los Angeles to the gift show.. Thinking this would be the place where fresh ideas start, we couldn’t go wrong. Day one we flew to LA and basically by noon Pacific time we had flown from the east coast, and already covered a third of the show… this was definitely not looking good … we had covered an entire floor of the convention center … each placed one or two orders and not seen anything that even remotely inspired us…we were slightly worried, but we were staying in a super cool hotel,(Hotel Figueroa) and figured we would at least have a blast in LA. 

Day two,  we start the day with the greatest breakfast ever from the Pantry, a small diner that has never stopped serving food 24 hours a day since 1924.. They say the door has no key and they have never been without a least one customer…I just love stuff like this its so awesome…

Anyhoo we decide to head back to the show and hope for better luck on this day.  The section we arrive in today is what they call cash and carry which means you get to carry all of  your purchases around with you all day… well, I don’t know how many of you have ever met me and Amy, but when we go shopping we’re not playing around. When we love it, we buy everything…. So it was like a cartoon of two insane people shopping because there was tons of cool stuff for us to bring back home to Virginia and spice up the next Design House.

We also met extremely cool people from all over the world involved in the Fair Trade industry. Fair Trade is basically when people are trying to help people from all different regions of the world who are impoverished, and can be helped by being able to sell their products to people like us. We met a rug maker from Afghanistan, who demonstrated the process of making a wool rug.. It took 6 hours to make one  3x5 rug and the process was insanely tedious.. Fluffing wool with sticks… piling it into a giant pile ..

Sprinkling it with boiling water… then rolling the pile with his feet for hours in a bamboo mat… all for an insanely small amount of money.. They then told us that most of the money goes to trying to get the rugs out of the country as the Taliban won’t let  the Afghan people trade with anybody , so they kill the delivery guys.. This really drove home for me how difficult it really must be for them to function.

Anyway it was super educational, we met amazing people from Nepal, Columbia, and places all around the world, and were able to buy cool stuff, and help people out...so it was a great experience.

As we were relaxing by the pool that evening, going over our amazing day, some guys were setting up speakers… we asked what was going on, and they told us there was a party for the people attending the gift show…sweeeeeet!!!!!

The next thing we knew, there was the best DJ, the coolest bongo players.. And everybody was dancing… including the Afghany rug roller!!! How great is that…So now we are inspired to be more conscientious buyers, to try to be helpful to some people less fortunate than ourselves… and to have an awesome pool/dance party!!!!

So next Saturday night we shall have a super fun… after hours dance party at the pool of the Design House! What a great way to spend a nice summer night.. Cool people good music and fun dancing.. This will be an after hours (meaning the stores will be closed, so we can all have fun..party.. Join us if you like Sat 8-7, around 7:00.

Watch this space

Your favorite store…now also your favorite blog for design inspiration!  With the re-launch of our website comes an opportunity to create a new Lucketts Store blog.  We’ll feature new items at Lucketts, design tips, before-and-after redecorating and hilarious stories from the shop and our lives. This is gonna’ be fun!