Seattle's International District

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Experienced a wonderful cooking class that started at Viet Wah supermarket in Seattle's international district and ended up in a kitchen near U. Village. It was wonderful to have a tour of the store from our instructor Pranee. She guided us through the maze of exotic fruits, vegetables, fish, sugars, spices, sauces and more.


Pranee runs a Cooking school and teaches at many of Seattle's markets and fine kitchen stores.  Her website is a wealth of information and recipes.  It was hard to keep up with which dark soy sauce, fish sause, oyster sauce to purchase so she put it on her website:  I love Thai Cooking



My sweet and beautiful friend Dagny holding chinese celery.



Ahhhh.....

3 crabs- fish sauce was a favorite


Dagny and Terry are both accomplished cooks. They take classes and cook a ton. Both are fearless in the kitchen. You will find me listening in on their food conversations and sitting back in awe of their talent. Oh to have a seat at their table...
I learned that if you want to buy the fish you grab a basket and tongs, put it in and hand it to the guys behind the counter. Also, they can scale the fish for you. Liking that part very much!


We all got to join in on the cooking. It went quick so you just copied Pranee's motions when she needed your help.



Had to photograph some of the sauces we used...

The soup above is Tomyam Goong
sweet and sour prawn with lemongrass and Kaffir lime leaf
It was amazing!!! 5 star hot!

Our menu:
Stir-fry fresh rice noodles with spicy sauce adn Thai basil
Green Curry with Thai eggplant and basil leaf
Stir-fried swamp morning glory
Beef mint salad with toasted rice powder
Brown sugar squash dumplings in warm coconut milk

I am still overwhelmed with all of the information but anxious to participate, especially her upcoming Vietnamese class.The classes and tours are on going. Call her to join the fun.

Staging

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This home was actually a huge project. The walls below were covered in wallpaper and the hardwoods were once old shag carpeting. Sister Ex never took before before photos. Grrr... She guided the remodel and chose the paint colors.



We have decided this is our favorite mantle this year.















The desk area was originally concrete floor with a nasty dirty work bench. Here it has been transformed into a cute home office. It is another example of rethinking your spaces.



Staging

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Here are a couple of before and after shots of a job we did last week. This room is right off the kitchen. We all love the family room concept off of the kitchen. Through the magic of staging (and a professional photographer)... ta da!



Here is your gather space off of the kitchen.


This space was at the bottom of the stairs. A kind of nook with no real purpose.



Now it is a small TV room. It will be used way more than it ever was. We easily get stuck thinking awkward spaces are just that. Get out of the box and reinvent funky spaces. Look at your home differently or have a friend help.

Listing by Dawn Bourdo & Corey Hays - Mr. Magnolia.

Not answering the phone

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What a brutal 2 weeks. We staged 4 homes and unloaded 2. Sister Extraordinaire batted it out of the ballpark with her shopping finds. You just need to phone her from the job and tell her what you need to make the job a 10 and she comes back with the very item. An amazing shopper.

Last week we were down to the wire. Sister Ex sped to the job...
This is so typical of her. She is a blur on the road. She literally dumped all of the purchases and warehouse items right on the lawn, saluted goodbye and sped away. (We turn into mothers at 3pm and the hour was upon us.) I wanted to take a photo of her frantic-ness but knew she would have been furious.


New aquisitions: Large art from the Seattle Design Center and the triple circle lamps.