Pasta bean something and look! Hibiscus!

Today was a bit under the weather day, very hot, didn't get in a walk, since the sun exposure thing, UV index, was high. 

But I did get into stitching, and it's getting there.

The gradual increase in heft as the stitching mounts up is pleasing.  I'm thinking about the next page now, and making little weavings while I think about it.

And early in the week, before food arrives Thursday morning, is sometimes a bit what to eat, bread's done, want to avoid heating up the kitchen.

Anyway, this happened and I'm quite pleased. One can diced tomatoes, can cannellini beans, chunk of Parmesan, chunk of butter, cumin, chili powder, mixed with radiator pasta. 

The garnish is homegrown scallions.  Not sure what this might be called. It's more beans and tomatoes than pasta. It's good though, by any name.

Additional note for people unfamiliar with radiator pasta 

Strawberries and yogurt for dessert. So I guess there was something to eat in the place.

And here's a hugely exciting sight 

Suddenly, finally, the hibiscus I thought would never start, threw out this sturdy growth. This is the replacement for the snowdrops that never grew, well, two out of about 100. 

Up until yesterday, the hibiscus looked like a dead twig, with just a hint of green wood. Now I guess its time has come. So I'm glad I left it alone. 

Happy day, everyone, sometimes doing nothing is a good policy. Then there's this approach 

Guilty as charged.

 

Christmas Eve Eve

 Interesting easy lunch yesterday

Pasta, roast chicken, big handful of cilantro (no, I don't want to know if you don't like it, thank you!)  with a lot of pepper and hot spicy flavor, raspberries and blueberries for dessert. 

And the friend who brought all the dipped chocolate treats and went away with an artwork sent me this picture of it in its new

home.

Here the general area, a kind of gallery, and here showing it in contrast to a goldwork stitching of wheat. She bought the wheat out of a show I had years ago, and liked the contrast.

The work is Three Sisters, mixed media with black gesso, made from a Styrofoam printer container, sardine cans and handmade beads, among other things. Many references in it to family, differences, likenesses, inevitability. This piece dates far back, to the seventies probably.

Happy day, everyone, shrimp for Chrissy Eve dinner. That's about the sum of today's ambition.

Textiles and Tea, fancy darning and plain food

Textiles and Tea today featured Jane Milburn, who is a total sister from another mother. From her series of interesting jobs, because one thing led to another, she not fitting into the structural workplace, to her up cycling and cheerful adventuring with ideas, I love her! 

She explains she's always done the work that reflected her values, not $$, that she can't fathom keeping on doing something because it's what you do, in so many places I was so much in agreement. She's a happy woman, living on an island off Brisbane, Australia, which you see in the background picture,  just fun to listen to!

She's very serious about using and reusing natural fibers, thrifting, altering, using used fabric to make new clothes, but not too many! And she's the recipient of some prestigious awards including the Australia Medal, and a Churchill Trust Fellowship. She believes in ecology and beauty, and fun with function.

Anyway, here she is

interestingly, this is what I'd been doing earlier

These are handspun and knitted socks I've often repaired invisibly with matching yarn, but I thought I'd like to have more fun with darning.

And, fancy darning left little time for lunch, so that was plain. 

I did get out and prune a big lopsided branch off the butterfly bush and drag it out to the trees out back. And pick new flowers.  

I did fit in a walk. And my library hold came in, rattling good mystery set in the Perigord region of France.

Happy day everyone, eke out the season if you're in the Northern hemisphere, stand by for burgeoning if you're with Jane, in the Southern hemisphere.

Lovely breathing! and other nice things

 Yesterday was a lovely day, breathable air, warm and, later, a shower to settle the pollen and clean the air. I sat on the deck and watched fledglings. 

Two little downy woodpeckers wambling about more or less catching insects on the trees, house sparrows dancing and chasing. Watching them learn to catch their own food. I've been hearing woodpecker calls a lot recent, so now I see the family out.

I finished the current weaving

Fred Bear and Ursula guarding the three panels and one pocket.

I really need to take a few days to let my neck heal before I warp up again.   But it's fine, plenty of other things to enjoy.

Yesterday I did a bit of Freecycle

Handsome Partner's London Fog coat, which he wore for years, then I did. But now I'm shorter and smaller all over and it swamps me. So it's moving on. He used to look so handsome in it, back when he was walking.

It's still in great condition, too. A bit better than mine, come to think of it. Nah, I'm good.

And recently food has been interesting. Here's a great spicy tuna/cilantro with jasmine rice and dessert

And yesterday I made a really great spaghetti sauce, the one with plenty of onions and butter and turmeric, good quality canned tomatoes, simmered for ages. 

no

Best parmesan grated, peppers to shake over, best spaghetti, as my Mom would say, all good ingredients. Simple food made with the best ingredients I can afford. 

It's a lot of pasta, but after a couple of days' main events, it will be a side for the chicken I'm roasting today, marinated with garlic and yogurt overnight. 

This sauce is great, the original recipe being to simmer a whole onion, then, the original famous  cook said to THROW AWAY the onion. That's why I'm not naming her, the vandal. Throw away beautiful food ? Never. 

But the butter idea is great, I'll give her that.

Happy day everyone, are you coming up with cool puzzle clues?

Stand by Ukraine in the dam explosion disaster the invaders have unleashed on them. They need all the support we can send, financial, military and moral  

Puzzles and pasta, also wartime

Handsome Son visited yesterday, approved the crumble and demolished a large helping. He also helped me with the issue of my sister's Celebration of Life, next Sunday at her house in Ontario. 

I had been wondering about writing a little something for my nephew, who seems to be organizing everything, to read as part of the event and couldn't think what, the relationship not having been unmixed. Also I didn't know her as well as you might think, she having emigrated when I was very young. I'd seen her a few times at long intervals after that.

But he made a couple of helpful suggestions, he's really a good person to think things out with. Nonjudgmental, tactful. So now I'm set to write a little something.

I just read this

A fast read, sometimes funny, sometimes tearjerking, but good distraction when you aren't up to thinking deeply. 

It's set in wartime London, in the Blitz, the main character doing fire watch by night, office work in a women's magazine on the Mrs Bird column by day, sleeping when possible. The style is breathless beach read, though the subject matter isn't.

I'm about to embark on the next of the series, newly out, because I need distraction from today's dental work.

Yesterday I made a spaghetti sauce with the works -- Roma plum tomatoes, tomato paste, butter, onions, garlic, a lot of fresh basil and sage, Italian seasoning, chunk of Parmesan rind,all simmered for ages, for lunch today, cheerful food.

And I find a few minutes now and then with the current jigsaw is very calming, just a few minutes thinking only about shapes and colors.  

Speaking of puzzles, I follow Haggard Hawks the etymologist and love the esoteric musings on word origins, always a word geek 

Now and then they post a little puzzle and though I don't do puzzles much, once in a while, it's fun. 

There's a kind of unwritten secondary fun that goes on, where other posters who have solved it, instead of posting the answer, post funny clues to it, extending the game. 

Then there's always the heavy foot who doesn't grasp this and says what's the matter with you all, this is the answer, and posts it. Arghghgh. But in a way, funny too.

 Here's an HH if you're in the mood

- - - lpr - - -

The six missing letters are just two letters of the alphabet.

I'll post the answer later in the comments. It pays to read blogista comments, by the way, since some of the best material on the blog is to be found there.

Happy day everyone, life's a conundrum anyway, one step in front of the other.

Photo AC 

Art equipment in the kitchen

Long ago, while I was doing printmaking, I saw some wonderful blind embossed work -- pressed without ink-- and fancied trying it. 

I didn't have access to a printing press, so I tried a number of techniques, standing on the assembled paper and materials, rolling them, various things, none of which worked.

I ended up getting a little simple pasta rolling machine, thinking maybe I could get that to exert enough pressure to emboss. The small width was okay because my prints were small, so I tried it, on the closest setting.

And it didn't work either. Just didn't have the required heft. So I moved on in  printmaking to other techniques. Including hand embossing done with a burnisher. I taught this to a few classes who were thrilled at how simple the technique is. I'll blog about this if there's interest.

Meanwhile I had a pasta maker clean as a whistle, only touched by clean paper, other materials sandwiched in, not touching the roller. It was not returning to the studio. One of the few times the kitchen has received from,  instead of giving to, the studio.

So I thought self, learn to make your own pasta. You've had marvellous pasta in Trenton restaurants, where there's an old Nonna in the kitchen making it old style. 

It totally beats even the best commercial pasta, which is made from a harder grain, and dried to be shelf stable. Your own pasta is cooked in a couple of minutes, very tender. So I did and loved it and then life intervened for a few years.

But yesterday I thought, I'll be giving handsome Son the monthly dinner soon, why not a from-scratch lasagna, noodles made to fit the dish.

And here's why I completely overlooked yesterday's knitting group, despite having decided after all to Zoom it. I got engrossed.

After mixing the pasta, added in a drop of water as I mixed, it needed resting for half an hour.

Then fun with rolling, starting at setting 9 then working down to setting 3.

Several layers. They're on parchment paper, and now they're bagged flat and in the freezer. 

I'm wondering if I need even to cook them before assembling the doings. They're much more tender than the boxed kind. I'll see.

Last night I only wanted a small meal, so here's a nice idea that really worked. 

Sweet potato, microwaved for a couple of minutes so I could make it into fries, then salted, chunks of fresh ginger I had in the freezer, harvested from my own pot, 400°f about 20 minutes. 

Enough for two helpings. I never roasted ginger before that I remember, but I'm going to do it again.

The weather's been bright but cold recently, in the teens Fledermaus, and suddenly there are birds at the suet feeder. I can't get good pix, take my word for it. 

Yesterday, first time in two years, woodpeckers showed up. Several visits from a red bellied, or maybe it was more than one, one from a downy. And the usual crowd of house finches, Carolina wrens, bluejays,  juncoes, and a new visitor, a white-crowned sparrow. It was great.

I finally gave up on the other feeder out front after several months of no traffic, and all this action was on the patio at the back. It's more protected, easy hiding places and shelter. 

Also I can bird from the sofa on freezing days, always a good thing.

Let me know if you wanted to see the embossing technique, and I'll set up pictures as s step by step. Maybe Valentine cards. 

The return of the lovely Sarah Swett

 She's back, as of this morning. Painter, tapestry maker and teacher, loom builder, writer, knitter, comic artist, spinner -- remember my spinning the paper and making miniature book covers with the results? All due to Sarah. Her talents are endless as is her grit and cheerful handling of a lot of adversity in the last couple of years, over and above the pandemic.

On top of all that, she developed some serious hand related stress injuries and was forced to stop just about everything a few months ago. 

She's finally,  after a lot of work and rehab, able to do some drawing, yay.  Google on her, follow her, don't miss this national treasure, currently to be found in Idaho.   And online.

This is Sarah in comic mode, on her blog, A Field Guide to Needlework. And there's much more.

Nearer home I was straining today's sun tea when my neighbor, just leaving his house, stopped his car and came over to ask what I was doing.

I explained, showed him. He's amazed. He's going to do it! Asked if teabags would work. I assured him yes. I could tell he was thinking you never know what you'll see around Liz's house.

Meanwhile I had taken a run to the library, this morning before it's too hot,  to get Sonya's sewing book and Lily Tomlin, and was amazed to see dry streets. The pondside walking path is still submerged, but all is normal again in traffic. The mosquito population is thrilled with the weather. 

Too hungry to cook lunch,  I assembled it.

Pasta from yesterday, canned diced tomatoes, parmesan from the freezer, frozen solid, so I microplaned it over the doings. Spritz of olive oil. Couple of minutes in the microwave. 

Lunch. 

Later this afternoon Textiles and Tea, which I'll blog later.

Meanwhile, reading Sonya, another talented and cheerful woman in the textile world. 

All's well.