Avoiding my landlord AKA Why I can't be left alone at Crate and Barrel

The last thing I wanted to deal with yesterday after my first day as a shift lead (yay! me) was my landlord. I mean, he's a nice guy and everything but trying to explain to him how we can't mow the lawn with 2 weeks of straight rain wasn't really on my list of things I was jazzed to do. So instead I went shopping. Want to see the random but adorable things I bought? Of course you do!

This is my eensy little teapot. Sure it's summer time and I'll probably be drinking ice tea for the next few months, but did you see the little flowers?

This is one of two soup bowls I bought. I fell in love with the one at Sel de la Terre with the lion heads on the side. These have the same basic shape. Plus they'll be cute for serving side dishes.

I got four of these little guys. They are supposed to be condiment bowls, and they might get used for that too. Mostly I bought them for taking cute pictures of my mise en place. How cute will they be with spices in them?

This is the only thing I got that I actually needed. Shannon keeps telling me what great baklava she makes but we didn't have a pastry brush for the butter. I expect to see some immediately :D

I also stopped at BJs Wholesale because I was tired of getting the urge to cook something and realizng I was out of flour or sugar or whatever. I am now the proud owner of 20lbs of flour, 25lbs of white sugar, 4 lbs of brown sugar, 4lbs of confectioners sugar, and 1lb of dried yeast.

On to the food:

For dinner last night we made grilled pork chops with grilled sweet potato wedges and maple dipping sauce. (from this month's Real Simple)

The pork was fantastic. It was just salted and peppered. But it was cooked just perfectly. The sweet potatoes also would have been perfect if I had cut them remotely evenly. But oh my world was the dipping sauce yummy and so simple. It was just a table spoon of maple syrup, one of olive oil, some salt and pepper and we changed out the scallions for chives since we have a chive plant. So good!

We also made coconut sorbet and Ina's outrageous brownies. But it's time for lunch so I'll post about those later :D