Got Corks?

If you like wines, then you have plenty of these lying around.

I made a square bulletin board with our first collection of corks.

When a hoop came loose on one of our wine barrel cocktail tables in the garden I had another idea.

See our Mannenkin Pis? You can buy your own here

This project takes quite a few corks if you lay them on end like I did.  I could not have done this without the help of my friends!  I received help in drinking the wine and also by donation.  Once you tell your friends that you are collecting you will be amazed on the corks that will come your way.

My first thought was to just hold the corks in with tension.  Wrong...since the hoop is made out of metal it flexed as the corks created pressure against the edges.  I ended up adding a layer of glue to the back and that has kept them in place over the last year in earthquake country.

If you cannot find a hoop suitable to use there are a few different kits on the market that have a round wooden frame.

I do not see using this as a bulletin board anytime soon.  We enjoy the cork display as wall art.  Now what to do with my new growing collection of corks?

Cheers,

Amy

In Bruges

The view from our hotel window

Cedric here reporting from Belgium.

Must sees and dos:
The Ghent Altarpiece: 1432 oil on wood, one of the most famous work by Jan van Eyck

from Web Gallery of Art

Madonna of Bruges: 1504, The only sculpture of Michelangelo to leave Italy during his lifetime.

Magritte Museum, Brussels 1964 Son of Man

 http://artblogbybob.blogspot.com

Manneken Pis, 1619 Bronze sculpture by Jerome Duquensoy.  The pub has a full scale replica that dispenses drinks at parties. Now I need to make him costumes like the original.

Landmark of Brussels

Drink a Trappist Beer, Westmalle is one of seven brews made by Trappist monks.  Chimay is a popular Trappist export.

Eat a real Belgian waffle

Belgium is famous for beer, chocolate, waffles, and being the first country to join the European Union. 

We arrived in Belgium by way of an overnight train from Berlin to Bruxelles Midi station.  Our hotel for three nights was in Bruges so we decided to stop in Ghent for the morning to see the altarpiece.  Since we already stamped our Eurail pass in the morning we wanted to make the most of it and relax in Bruges the next day.

Bruges
Designated as a World Heritage City for it's amazingly well preserved Medieval architecture, Bruges is also known as the Venice of the North because of it's picturesque canals.  Bruges is an idyllic town with cobble stone streets, air filled with the sweet scents of freshly made chocolate covered waffles, graceful swans swimming, and the most revered beers in the world!

Bruges main square at dinner time.  Mussels or Steak with fries are the most popular.

Wall of Beer at 2be, all 800 beers of Belgium with their unique glasses are displayed.

I had to snap a picture of this Wire Fox Terrier.

Half Moon Brewery, the last operating brewery in Bruges.

Enjoying a beer at the Half Moon Brewery

View from our room at dusk.

Our hotel is the building in the middle - it used to be a brewery.

Don't forget to stop by The Choco Story.  A museum all about chocolate!

Brussels

 

Brussels Cathedral

The Grand Place of Brusels is also a World Heritage Site.

Tin Tin and Snowy mural. A stop at the  Tin Tin Boutique is a must if you are a fan of the cartoon.

See the Smurfs, Tintin, and more at the Belgian Comic Strip Center, which is also a building by Victor Horta

 Art Noveau, Magritte, chocolate covered waffles and some of the best beers in the world; what else can one say about this amazing city born of culture, creativity and cuisine.

Cedric signing out.

New developments

I've been working on the format of the site while drafting a few posts.  Check out Dogs for information on the Wire Fox Terrier breed and Merchandise to browse Tipsy Terrier gear.

Hump day dinner

It's Wednesday night, what's for dinner?  I have dreamed about this meal while I was at work and it turned out perfectly.  Just what we needed to get over hump day.  Have you ever planned a meal around a drink?  This meal was planned around beer!

Frosty mugs and all

An easy one skillet meal.  Dutch yellow potatoes sliced and pan fried with Turkey Kielbasa Sausage and a green salad on the side. This is also the first time we tried Trader Joe's Turkey Kielbasa and I recommend it highly.


Chimay is an authentic Trappist beer that is brewed within a Trappist monastery since 1862, under the control and responsibility of the monastic community. Only 6 beers in Belgium can carry the appellation "Trappist": Chimay, Orval, Rochefort, Westmalle, Westvleteren and Achel.

The ingredients have been the subject of interest: all the beers are made from water, malted barley, wheat starch, sugar, hop extract and yeast; malt extract is used in Rouge and Bleu for coloring.

• Chimay Rouge (Red), 7% abv. In the 75 cl bottle, it is known as Première. It is a dark brown color and has a sweet, fruity aroma.
• Chimay Bleue (Blue), 9% abv darker ale. In the 75 cl bottle, it is known as Grande Réserve. This copper-brown beer has a creamy head and a slightly bitter taste. Considered to be the "classic" Chimay ale, it exhibits a considerable depth of fruity, peppery character. Our choice for tonight
• Chimay Blanche (White), or Chimay Triple, 8% abv golden tripel. In the 75 cl bottle, it is known as Cinq Cents. This crisp beer bears a light orange colour, and is the most hopped and driest of the three.
• Chimay Dorée (Golden), 4.8% abv ale, brewed from very similar ingredients as the Red, but paler and spiced differently. It is a patersbier, intended only to be drunk at the abbey or at the nearby inn Auberge de Poteaupré, which is associated with the abbey. The monks themselves drink this variety rather than the stronger three. The Dorée is not sold commercially and the rare bottles which make their way out are through unofficial sources. Even the brewery's own web site makes no mention of this variety.  (courtesy of Wikipedia) 

Cooper wishing this was his dinner.

 Our love of Chimay spurred us to visit Belgium while on our beer tour of Europe.  Cedric will share a travel journal about Ghent, Bruges, and Bruxelles in a future post.

Mosaic Dining Table

What to do when you find that a gust a wind causes your market umbrella to shatter your glass patio table?  Well you could have a piece of glass or acrylic cut to fit.  But that's not very fun or interesting.  While we were picking up the tiny pieces of tempered glass I had an idea.  Why not make my own mosaic table?  I had thought about it before but I never had the right frame to use.

 Our table is sort of an odd shape.  The best way to describe it is an oval with semi squared off ends.  We don't have a jigsaw so we created a template out of wrapping paper and brought it to the local lumber yard.  We found a piece of marine grade plywood that would fit the depth of the existing frame and allow room for the mosaic tile. I painted the underside of the table with exterior patio paint that was left over from painting our porch and primed the top with a mosaic primer for wood.  We attached the wood to the frame with Liquid Nails and applied pressure so the wood did to bow in the center.

Now it was up to me to make this happen.  I had done a few mosaic projects before, i.e. coasters.  It was quite daunting to sit at this six person dining table with a blank canvas.  I sketched out a design that was based on floor mosaics that my husband and I saw on our recent trip to Greece and Turkey.

Floor from the Castle of the Knights, Island of Rhodes, GR

Detail of a pomegranate, Istanbul, Turkey

A quick sketch of the table.

Once I had the table sketched on paper I transferred it to the plywood.  The grape vine design has a balance of organic and geometric motifs.  The R monogram is for our last name and the grapes were part of our Mediterranean wedding theme.

I used 3/4" glass mosaic tiles, tesserae, that were cut into rectangles, squares, circles and triangles depending on which object I was making.  I glued the black inset border first, then grape vines, grape clusters, and leaves.  The field was left for last.  I chose the Opus Musivum flow or "Andamento" for the field that creates a dynamic flow because the field tesserae are cut to follow the contour of the objects.

Nipper, dry wheel glass cutters,  pick, spatula, caulking gun

I picked a pink neutral champagne color tile for the field.  Each tile has a mix of pink, white and gold that also added to the movement.  To finish it off my husband grouted the table with a linen colored grout that blended perfectly.

Completed table

Cooper and Belle, The Tipsy Terriers approve

In a future post I will write more about our trip to Greece and Turkey as well as other trips that have inspired many projects in the pub, garden and home.

Welcome to The Tipsy Terrier Pub

Well I've finally did it!  I've been talking about starting all year and I finally did it.  I am still learning how to use the site and I am playing around with the layout.

The Tipsy Terrier was established in 2006 when my husband and I decided to remodel our detached 2 car garage into a pub.   Our home is on the small side and so is our driveway so it was not difficult to give up parking in the garage - actually in six years we have never parked in it.  We live in the San Francisco Bay Area so it is not a big deal not having covered parking.

Many traditional pubs are named after animals so it was only natural that we would name it after our Wire Fox Terrier, Cooper, that is always tipping his head. Since then we have added a second dog to our pack, Belle.  Where there is a pub there will be parties!  And boy do we love to party, especially themed parties.  We are already working up our arsenal for the summer.  We also learned to brew our own beer last year that we have on tap.  I brewed 10 different 5 gallon batches and I can't wait to get started again.

This blog will high light trips that we have taken, the projects inspired by them, parties we throw, learning to cook with our brick wood fired oven, and other shenanigans we get up to.

Cheers from the publicans!
Amy and Kirk and the Terriers Cooper and Belle