Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of orchids, socks and books

Update on the houseguest orchid. I did get the plant, rammed tight in the pot, out, over the sink, just as well, and found that there was an inner plastic pot which took a hook and cursing to remove.

Just as well I did all this because I found the poor thing was sitting in water, the last thing an orchid needs.  So I drained it, then replaced it in the inner pot which I boosted up with a bit of fiber underneath so it can be removed again next time it's watered. I think she's looking more cheerful now.

And while I was there, I noticed my small collection of cookbooks had got into frame, so I thought you might like to see what I think is important enough to own.

Considering I'm always going on about food and my attempts to make it. It's a small collection, and I use all of it.

One time back in petcare days, I did a series of drawings of client desks,  since that's a good bio of most people. Book collections are, too.

Here's my textile section

And the group of books that have helped me keep going st times

Mental health, physical health, artistic health, it's all there!

I do like squinting at other people's book shelves, particularly when I'm encountering them on zoom, and want to ask them to move over so I can see more titles. Never mind what they're talking about..  So I thought you might like this too.

Then, to prove that I remember the dinosaurs, here's my collection of DVDs

Mysteries, comedy, and for a change, comedy mysteries.

I'll leave you with three views of a sock

It needs to be finished, that is,  ends woven in, and pressed, then it will look presentable.  After I make the other one.

Candle by AC.

Keeping Ukraine front and center in thoughts while I knit for the Sock Ministry.

Twenty five squares and counting

 With the addition of this cheerful mob

recently, the selection has a lot more energy

and here's steaming in progress

In fact all the current squares are steamed and squared up. From this point I'll lay them out on the dining table, which is the computer table, the cutting out table, and the tax filling out table,  to see how to arrange them, as I go. Since there are no beloved cats to rearrange and bite them, the squares can stay out as I go.

I need to decide how many solid colors I need to knit to balance the stripes. And laying it out will tell me what manner of thing it will be in the end. 

The four squares I started with and knitted together will probably work like a center or anchor piece. 

Meanwhile I have to keep my reading and watching going. 

I've been waiting forever for the Joan Didion essays. Her work is so measured and modest and mind-blowingly accurate that it's great to find something of hers I haven't read yet. She's a California person with a viewpoint I like to know more about.  And a world class analytic ability. Crystalline prose style. 

Flambards I know nothing about except it's a costume drama, and I'm in it for the hats. And horses. And carriages. And interiors. I expect there's also a storyline, too, come to think of it.

And the craft book was recommended by a person who loves crafts. She keeps renewing her library loan, so I need to see what it's about.

And that's us today, steaming, knitting, reading, watching. I was hoping for tea on the terrace, well, patio, when Handsome Son comes over later, but the weather changed and it's tea in the drawing room, milady, instead.  

Technical wins and a accidental cooking

 So, last evening I got the DVD player hooked up to the ancient little TV upstairs. Ages since I'd used it, found I'd started up a videocassette which was lurking in there. Then did all kinds of plugging and tracing cables back to their source, the printer and scanner cables complicating the process.

Finally got the DVD player and the TV on at the same time. Then ensued a lot of juggling with two remotes, one does one kind of channel, one the other, one does volume, finally got the channel changed to the one designed to transmit DVD signal. 

Then spent a nice evening learning how to sit and watch TV. And to figure out what the people are saying, not knowing a lot of the references.

Today, technical triumph numero duo, got the outside faucet drained and shut off. Usual trips up and down stairs. The last person to adjust the valve was the plumber who said he'd tightened it so the leaking would stop. It did.

 But it was not easy to switch the valve back off now that it was tightly fastened by a burly guy. Water on the patio everywhere. Two trips up to try switching it off further. Rubber glove for traction. Finally it stopped. The line is now empty, the faucet open for the winter, the valve upstairs shut. 

Today I had no intention of doing anything about food, in fact I was looking for something different on YouTube. Famous last words.

I found this cook, he's vegan, I'm not, but some of this is really good to try. This dish comes in later, read on..

I first got an alert about vegan cheese, hm.

But first..

I've been thinking about some soft cheese, paneer or labneh, but don't have the doings in the house.

Then when I saw this great vegan cheese idea, food started to happen. I do have cashews, so I did this paneer kind of thing, added lemon juice to curdle it.

 I didn't see curds, but I went ahead and gently squeezed the bag of cream, as per instructions, like paneer,  and now it's draining, like labneh, overnight.

That's a yogurt container full of water to weight it for steady draining.

 I'll show you tomorrow if it worked.

I didn't have the cashew milk he used, so it was one of those but first times again.

I made cashew cream from just nuts and water, blended and left standing couple of hours, while I made another dish from his channel.

 I used four parts water to one part nuts by volume. He did eight to one but that looked a bit thin to me. He made cashew milk, I went for the cream, figuring the more fat from the cashews, the more cheese would result. We'll see. If it does I'll make crackers to celebrate.

Then suddenly Chickpea Masala happened

Look at that list of ingredients

And all the stages

Except I didn't have chickpeas, used cannellini beans and chucked in that little can of mushrooms I had tried, and decided better in a complicated dish, thinking it would add nicely to texture without being obvious. I did have most of the spices, though, including the pink salt and cardamom pods.

Since I'm not vegan, added in a little can of chicken breast. And subbed curry leaves for bay leaves. And cayenne for paprika. Otherwise it was exactly the same..yeah.

It made three meals. I might serve it over rice. And noodles. But today I ate it as it came.

And wondered again about the nonlinear shape of my days.

In the middle of this, I stopped to watch an online event from Princeton art museum, which is closed, but anyway closed long before the pandemic, being totally rebuilt much bigger. For years it's been a favorite Sunday afternoon destination.

 Sir David Adjaye is the principal architect and today's lecturer with all sorts of slides explaining his intent with all the design features. You can't help but learn from him, and he's careful to talk in terms that people can follow without being architects.

 They record these events, and I expect you can find this and a lot more on their website. Princeton is making a serious effort at inclusion in how they're designing this place, not favoring european and us art over the rest of the world, opening to women and minorities much more effectively. Bit by bit.

Kitchen Toys and other diversion

 I've been thinking about graduating from my  forty year old coffee grinder with two broken blades to something posher for hard spices such as nutmeg and peppercorns. The other stuff can still go in the old grinder.

But when you break out and get really good pepper like this, why not go for it.

So here's the result.

I love this. It has a kind of matte finish which means less chance of having it fly across the room in use.

You yank it apart, drop the spices in, close it, then grind by hand the usual way you do with a mill. It says dans le sens horaire, and you find that's just clockwise. There's also a little graphic with a harrer an everything. Nothing left to chance in the instructions.

So I brought out the little company of grinders, white pepper, black pepper, for ordinary peppercorns, allspice. 

All fit in your hand. This is for cooking not showmanship like those peppergrinders like bazookas they flourish in restaurants.

And when all else fails, tiny mortar and pestle. You really feel like an alchemist when you wield these ancient things.

And a libe pickup scored this week's evening viewing.

 If I can get either of my options working. One's my laptop which might track better now that I replaced the giant battery which is about a quarter of the device. 

The other is the ancient little TV to which I've attached a DVD player. It works but the sound quality is a bit blurry. We'll see. Or maybe not.

I've started the book. That works fine.