stop...
Don't dash away so fast. Take off your coat and stay awhile...
I'm off to work today and Callum starts school next week. Too soon, too soon. It may take me a bit to get back in the school/work/blogging groove, so bear with me a bit. I'll figure it out sharpish.
(And isn't that a nice photo? It's (duh) a stopsign near the Knossos Palace on Crete.)
The Man:
The Sauce:
The Recipe:
Alfie’s Famous Cooked All Day
Or as Long as You Want To
Spaghetti Sauce Recipe
First, we have to establish something: Mies van der Rohe is a wuss. More is More. This goes for seasoning, garlic, brown sugar, etc., etc.
Ingredients
Wine—a nice merlot or a dago red
Big old garlic—I’m never sure, is a “clove of garlic” one of those pieces that break of the big round thing? Doesn’t matter. Use the big old round thing.
Onion—red or white.
Mushrooms—I prefer baby bellas, but doesn’t really matter.
Marsala wine—real wine, never, not ever, cooking wine. If you can’t drink it, it shouldn’t go into your food.
Tomato Paste and Sauce. Large cans (see “Mies van der Rohe” above)
Depending on how rigid you are you can use a commercially prepared marsala or marinara sauce—all of us Top Chefs use one you can purchase at The Fresh Market
Dark brown sugar
Basil
Oregano
Kosher or Gourmet Salt
Freshly ground black pepper.
First go to Bed, Bath and Beyond or any kitchen supply store and purchase a garlic peeler (one of those flexible plastic things). You’ll thank me for it later.
Once back home peel the garlic and cut the segments (cloves?) into about quarters. Chop the onion—I like fairly large pieces in my sauce.
Sauté garlic and onion in Extra Virgin Olive Oil. While that is making your kitchen smell pleasant, thoroughly wash and dry the mushrooms and pour yourself a glass of merlot or dago red to make the cooking go easier.
Add about ¾ of the box of mushrooms and continue sautéing.
When they look done add a generous amount of Marsala wine. Let this delicious-smelling mess cook until veggies absorb some of the wine.
Add the big bottle of prepared sauce if you decide to go that route—I used “Rao’s Homemade” last time and it was quite nice.
Add tomato paste and sauce.
Add brown sugar—as much as you want; it is good for you. I know in The Godfather, Clemenza said brown sugar was his secret ingredient, but I started using it when he was still in Sicily.
Add generous amounts of Oregano and Basil. Dash of salt and pepper.
Bring to simmer, cover and cook as long as you want, the longer the better, stirring occasionally, correcting seasoning and drinking your wine. If it is too thick (I like mine thick) add some more tomato sauce and/or Marsala.
The sauce can be served with chicken or you can brown 1—1 ½ lb. of ground chuck. Drain the beef and add it to the sauce to cook the whole time.
This works well on any pasta—I prefer whole wheat linguini or spaghetti.
Tomorrow is the third anniversary of the death of my maternal grandmother, Grandma Mercedes. She'd been very ill, and my poor mom had been from Virginia to Illinois to Tennessee to see Grandma through what felt to be the worst of some serious times. Mom had left her to come home to Tennessee for a bit and when she called me late in the afternoon she said, "Well, she did die." It seemed at the time that she should add, "...after all."
After all. After all that.
My grandmother's death came at a very dark and turbulent time in my family. It was the kick-off to some even worse times, and I have to say that even now we're a little up and a little down. Not healed by a longshot. My mom once commented that as an only child I had my grandparents as immediate family instead of brothers and sisters. This death, the middle of three that would take place in the too-short span of a year, was the halfway point of losing a chunk of my immediate family. (My maternal grandfather died when I was two, and I'm sad to say I have no memories of him. Only stories about his life and death. It's funny how I cherish the memories even of the deaths of my grandparents.) With the rest of my family falling apart around me, I clung to Neel and Callum like nobody's business and still couldn't avoid sinking into a despair so deep that even now I'm not sure I've completely clawed my way out.
The rituals of viewing and funeral for my grandmother were appalling and farcical. Great literary fodder, I know that for sure, but at the risk of those relatives I found so offensive stumbling across my little corner of the internet, I'll not report them here. Her funeral was not the chance to say good-bye that those of my other grandparent's had been and would be. I said good-bye to Grandma Mercedes during the regular Sunday service the day after the funeral, later that afternoon when my mom and I escaped her small apartment to sit for hours under the shade of the huge trees that lend such majesty to the place where she is buried, and when I slept in her bed, surrounded by her familiar scent a scant month later as my mom and I worked together to clear out her apartment.
The Buddhists have a great way with ceremonies and rituals, and I find a lot of comfort in the Ceremony for the Deceased (Found in The Plum Village Chanting and Recitation Book compiled by Thich Nhat Hanh...or as Lucy likes to say, "Tick Not On."). A particularly lovley part is the Mindfulness of the Deceased near the end.
Brothers and Sisters, it is time to bring to mind Mercedes and to send the energy of loving kindness and compassion to her. Let us sit and enjoy our breathing for a moment, allowing Mercedes to be present with us now.
Brothers and Sisters, please listen. The peace and joy of the entire world, including the worlds of the living and the dead, depend on our own peace and joy in this moment. With all our heart and one-pointed mind, let us begin anew for the benefit of ourselves and our beloved ones.
I love the idea of ritual in theory, it's the practice that I'm not so good at. I never pay close enough attention to the calendar to get the timing right, and just like with the energy-clearing and bell-ringing, I tend to feel a little self-conscious. I thought of my grandmother a lot as I peeled peaches for this peach pie. Our last visit with her was in 2003, a year before she died. We always seemed to visit in summer, peach time. And every time we visited, we'd drive down the lolling hills of the Illinois countryside to some remote orchard and bring home bushels of peaches. Drunk, by the time we made it home, on their scent alone. And then it was my mom and grandma peeling, peeling, peeling, adding sugar and nutmeg and rolling out pie crust.
This pie, a "Peaches and Cream" version came from a recipe given to Neel by a colleague. It couldn't be simpler.
1 piecrust
3 C sliced peaches
2/3 C sugar
1/4 C flour
1/4 t ground nutmeg
1 C whipping cream
1/4 C sliced almonds
Place crust in pan and preheat oven to 400. Toss peach slices with sugar, flour and nutmeg and pour into crust. Pour cream over peaches and bake 40 minutes. When cream is almost set and very lightly golden, sprinkle almonds over the pie and bake 10 minutes more. Pie should be fully set and almonds lightly toasted.
My grandmother was an amazing cook and baker, the kind who could tell you the ingredients of a dish by taste alone. She was never one to scoff at a frozen pie crust, and I think she would have liked this little pie. It felt really lovely to think about her as I peeled those peaches, the very taste of them bringing me right back into her kitchen. As mindful of her as the Ceremony for the Deceased. The smell, the slick slide of my peeler against the skin and the peach in my hand. The glistening orange orbs dotting my conutertop. It's close to her. Almost close enough.
Putting these peaches in her cobbler would make it even closer.
3 C flour
1.5 C Shortening
1 t salt
Beat together, then beat in 1 egg, 6 T cold water and 1 t vinegar. Add a little flour to handle. Refrigeration helps handling consistency. Should make a top and a bottom crust.
We'll try this over the weekend, along with some piecrust cookies, because the best thing about cobbler is the crust. And the best pie crust is my grandmas.
All my dad wanted for his birthday was an apron, and being the duitiful daughter that I am, I hurried up and complied. A month and a half late (don't worry, he still got hooked up on the actual day), here it is! And here also is Neel, bravely man-modeling it for me. I first said, cherrily, "Let's go in the front yard!" Yeah, that didn't go over too well, but wouldn't you know, as soon as we walked out into the backyard, our neighbor Tyler came over. Sorry Neel!
Okay, unfortunately it's early and I'm sketchy on the details, but this fabric is an Egyptian motif that I got...somewhere, I need to dig up my receipt. My dad digs the pyramids, so I thought this was a good choice, plus the colors and subtle lotusy-patchwork print seemed right up his alley.
Like Callum's, only man-sized, this apron reverses to a basic chambray blue.
I ordered two different Egyptian prints, but they didn't really feel comfortable together, so I cut out some of the pattern from the second print (again, from the source to be named later) to do an inset on our blue side.
Here, looking a bit rumpled (much like me at the moment, I suppose), it is.
So obviously, it's a basic bib apron. The pattern is mine, and I seem...seem to be getting the hang of this thing. Happy birthday, Dad! Here's to many batches of Alfie's Famous Cooked All Day Spaghetti Sauce.
We have a great little throwback diner in town called Doumar's. It's a place we get to every few months or so, and we met Neel for lunch here yesterday.
Doumar's is a local landmark. It's been around for over a hundred years and is home to the machine that made the first-ever ice cream cone. It's pure vintage in here, from the orange leatherette booths and barstools to the hairnets on the waitresses.
Callum likes to sit at the bar, I like the tiny booths, and sometimes we get served in the car by the carhops...no roller skates.
If I don't order a milkshake ("drugstore thin" for 10 cents extra), I usually have one of their famous limeades. These are so popular that the cups filled with crushed limes are lined up along the counter waiting for the lunch rush. Callum hasn't liked the limeades in the past, but after he ordered water yesterday, he suddenly decided that they were good and offered to share mine.
Your meal comes like this: piles of saran-wrapped burgers and fries, plastic forks and lots of napkins. If you go to Doumar's, you should consider the "famous, cheese on both sides" cheeseburger, the also-famous pork barbeque, minced with slaw, or the BLT where they deep fry the bacon. Or all three.
You'll still spend less that $20, and have money left over for a lime sherbet.
So I mentioned a few days ago that we have a summer staple salad that was deserving of a post of its own. This is the salad. We've made a lot of salads this summer; fresh tuna, curried chicken, spinach and bacon, but this one we keep coming back to. It's a shameless knock-off of the Chicken Florentine Salad from the Macaroni Grill, but, dare I say it, mine's better. I won't put amounts because those are fluid kinds of things, but here's the recipe.
Salad:
Orzo, cooked al dente and chilled
Chopped spinach (I julienned mine)
Sundried tomatoes, sliced
Kalamata olives, sliced
Pine nuts, if you have them. I don't always.
Shaved parmesean
pick your protein...sometimes we use chicken, sometimes nothing. Last night I used grilled shrimp that I marinated in lemon and honey.
Dressing (this is where amounts would really help, but I just splash, squeeze and taste):
Vinegar, this time it was pear-infused balsalmic
Garlic (I usually use a small spoonful roasted garlic paste from Williams Sonoma)
honey
lemon juice
olive oil
Assemble salad ingredients. Combine dressing ingredients in a blender and pour over salad. Mix thoroughly and gobble, gobble.
Enjoy! Let me know what you think. Maybe I'll start Recipe Tuesday or something. Next up, for Marianne, if you're still reading these days, I'll post that Gazpacho recipe you have to keep asking me for!
Yeah, I made a skirt. Can't even believe it. It required lots of skills that I've never tested before, but look how pretty!
This is the Barcelona skirt from Amy Butler, and my first chance to do lots of things, like install a zipper, finish my seams with a zig-zag stitch (which meant changing the foot on my machine for the first time ever...I'm such a baby), even work with her fabric, which was delightful. The whole process was delightful, actually. The instructions were clear, even for a beginner like me (I've found some of her handbag instructions a bit muddy, but then skirts are easier, for sure), and I'm thrilled with the end-result. My only complaint is that I did the size for my measurments and it's a bit big. (I know, I shouldn't complain about that.) It sits really low on my hips, and fairly loose. I may just make one size down, next time.
Callum got a bit pissy when I kept coming downstairs with things for myself or other people. And deservedly so. I've had fabric for an apron for him for weeks. So here it is, a beagle apron for a boy who loves beagles. It reverses to the fabric on the neck and ties, red with black paw prints. I fully expect him to take over dinner at least one night a week now.
As far as the necklace love goes, check this out, from Lisa Leonard Designs.
One for my family.
And one for this little spot that has become so important to me. (And I swear to God I'm gonna put up a "donate to Lauren's new camera fund" button somewhere on this blog.)
I love the way the family necklace clinks together as I move around. I've been wearing it all weekend. I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to wear the bluerainroom necklace. (Although I was brave enough to make a skirt!) That whole wearing your heart outside your body thing. Oh, but love. It's hanging in the bluerainroom right now, and I love having it there. My own little shingle. Thank you Lisa, they're perfect. I love them. Can you tell?
Oh this bloody, wretched heat. It's all any of us can do to simply raise our heads. We're coming up on our third day in a row of over 100 degree heat and super-soupy air. We try very hard here in the little gray house not to run the air conditioning over much. I hate feeling disconnected from the outside, locked within an icy palace. I like to think it's a little gift to the environment, but mostly we're just cheap. Still, I hate being hot more, and today the a.c. is crankin'.
It's no wonder we're all feeling lethargic and cranky and uninspired.
On our way home from the beach yesterday (which was surprisingly lovelier and cooler than expected...may have been the fact that we got there before the sun was quite over the horizon!), Callum and I listened to a food show on our local NPR station. Seventy-five year old June called in with a recipe for an onion pie. The funny part is that the hot-shot local chef who was listening was clearly appalled with her first ingredient: frozen pie crust. June reminded me of either of my own grandmothers when she said, "Well, if you want to make a pie crust from scratch in this heat, knock yourself out." By the end of the recipe, we were all enraptured (at least I was, and the folks on the radio seemed to be too), lost in dreams of eggy-oniony-crusty goodness. Callum piped up from the backseat, "That sounds good." And that was all it took. A quick e-mail to Neel to add frozen pie crust to his grocery list, and here we have an as-lovely-as-anticipated onion pie.
photo credit to Callum
I don't have June's last name to give her full credit, but since she just recited the thing over the radio, I'm sure she won't mind if I share. I'm blowing a kiss to you, internetless-June, for a lovely addition to our dinner.
Saute' two to three Vadalia Onions in butter and olive oil until translucent.
Lightly mix three eggs, adding some milk and nutmeg.
Add some flour to the onions and mix over low, low heat until just blended.
Pour the onions into the frozen pie crust, and pour the egg mixture over top.
Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted along the edge comes out clean.
Delicious warm or at room temperature. We had ours with our favorite summer salad. I'm sure there'll be a post about that salad one of these days!
Callum's all suited up in his astronaut costume (not sure how he can stand it in the heat, but that's how easy life is when you're seven.). While he's chilling and reading today, I'm off to the Blue Rain Room to be brave.
Have good weekends everyone!
Man, getting those shelves up in the Blue Rain Room made a bigger difference than I anticipated. I spent most of Tuesday tooling around in there and managed to crank out my two favorite projects so far. One I can't show you, so for today, I present only The Charming Handbag from Bend the Rules Sewing. Since kids across the land are getting their backpacks and lunch boxes ready to head back to school, I figured I needed a back-to-school bag too.
The outside is a super-soft fine whale courdoury and the lining is an Asian print by Alexander Henry. I didn't add the ribbon Amy Karol calls for on the outside of the tote. I really like the ribbon and probably will put one on future totes, but for this I just loved the simplicity of the fabric alone. This reminds me of when I was in Home Ec. in 7th grade and our sewing project was to make a pillow. Do they still teach Home Ec? They should. Anyway, I tend to be a pretty minimal person. I like clean lines and not a lot of fiddly bits, so when I made my sailboat pillow, I didn't include the button. I didn't like the button embellishment and I didn't want it on my pillow. But boy, was I proud of that pillow. I loved the fabric I'd picked out and how I'd put patterns and soids together. When we got our grades, I got a "B". It was a crushing blow. I felt so proud of that sailboat...I knew I had taken my time and done a really good job on it. The light dawned when I realized that my "B" was all about that damn button. I'd even asked our teaacher if I could leave it off, but still she gave me a "B". My first thought was, "She should have just said something, I would have sewn her a stupid button." It wasn't that I couldn't do it. I didn't want to. That was the bigger lesson, really. Tastes differ and I didn't like hers. So no ribbon on this particular edition of the charming Hadbag. And oh how I love it. Definitely takes the sting of the school year looming.
Have you checked out the Bend the Rules pool over on Flickr? Some amazing stuff going on over there. I'm in awe of all the things these women (I think they're all women) have cranked out so quickly. I was thrilled to find this book waiting for me when we got back from Greece, and I had to wander around with it for weeks before I could finally settle on what I wanted to do. This project was so satisfying. Fun, quick (about 2 hours including a dinner break) and easy, even for a sewing novice like me.
It's bloody hot here in Chickentown. What do you do when the Heat Index is 94 at six a.m.? What do you do when the high for the day was 102 and it felt like 115? What do you do when it's so humid that the traffic helicopter can barely see through the haze?
Have ice cream for dinner and rope Papa into reading some Tin Tin while you eat it. That's what we did yesterday. Today we're off to the beach...early...before it gets too too hot. And then it's back to the sewing machine. I want to make a million of those bags.
Today is my Grandma Charlotte's birthday. She would have turned 95.
I had two remarkable and very different women for grandmothers. My Grandma Charlotte was proud, loving, loyal, glamorous and stubborn. Both of my grandmothers could dress it up and turn heads, but where my Grandma Mercedes had a down-to-earth beauty, Grandma Charlotte seemed to personify that willow-waisted chic of the forties and fifties. This was a woman who wore pearls and pumps to the most casual of occasions. Even her house slippers had a heel! She was from the "keeping up appearances" generation and it showed. Her life skills reflected her generation as well. She played Pinochle every Friday with friends and could shuffle cards so quickly and sharply that you barely saw her hands move. Fitted sheets were as crisply folded as flat ones, a skill I have never been able to duplicate.
Oh her first date with my Grandad, she mistakenly thought he was from Royalton, PA...the wrong side of the tracks. They were on a blind date, out with another couple and she said, "Good evening," when he picked her up at the door, and "Thank you very much," when he dropped her off. Not a word in between.
She worked for the State Police of Pennsylvania for 26 years. When she finally retired, several years after my grandfather, she quit cooking too. From then on, crackers and cereal were stored in her oven. She was the oddest character about food. She liked her steaks well done and has had chefs in upscale restaurants ridicule her choice. For most of her life she didn't eat "fowl." No chicken, turkey, duck or bird of any kind. As a child she'd heard a sizzle from a chicken roasting in an oven and swore off them ever since. Christmas dinner for my grandmother consisted of a side plate with a (well-done) piece of ham, and a bowl of mashed potatoes over which she poured white shoepeg corn cooked in milk and sugar. She wouldn't even eat the chestnut stuffing we cooked independently of our Christmas turkey. I make her recipe for sandtart cookies at Christmas. Hers were so thin you could see through them, but she always said they were, "not as thin as my mother's."
She loved shrimp cocktail, Brandy Alexanders, Lambrusco with ice cubes, and would order fried oysters just to eat the breading.
Her thoughts on a good marriage, when she learned that Neel and I were engaged, were, "He always had his money, I always had my money, and I bought all his clothes." She was a marathon shopper and a clothes horse in her own right. When she and my Grandad would come to visit, my Grandmother always seemed ultra lady-like, mysterious almost. She had a special pink suitcase just for her cosmetics, a special silk pillow and billowy nightgowns, the likes of which I'd never seen on women my own mother's age.
While she always seemed so ladylike to me, it was clear that she and my Grandad had some rollicking good times together. They loved to travel and photo albums were filled with shots of trip after trip, all with great captions like, "The Gang, Recovering." or "The Compleat Angler." Under several photos of my Grandma is the name "Butch" in quotes. Neel will love that one. He feels that no one in Central Pennsylvania is called by their true name. "His name is John, but they call him Pete." My dad was Skip and my grandma was Chots.
After ten years of marriage, when she hadn't been feeling well, she walked up the street to the family doctor. Her doctor laughed and said, "Charlotte, you don't have the flu. You're pregnant!" She looked at him, said, "You're a goddamned liar," and walked out the door. He called out to her, "See you next month!" She wouldn't turn around and speak to him and she refused to believe him. When my dad was born, it was deep, deep summer. The hottest part of the year. Grandma raved about the then-tiny Hershey Medical Center. They brought her steak and ice cream and gave her back rubs every day for a week.
Grandma holding my dad at four months old.
Of course she was something of a liar too. Neel likes to say, about Grandma Charlotte, that while she was a cup half empty person, she'd tell you that it was half full. If she were still alive, she would tell you that my Grandma Mercedes had joined us on a family trip to New England (she hadn't). She would tell you where my Grandfather was when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor (whereever she said, he wasn't), and she would tell you that there were 250 cows in the field we'd just passed when there were only maybe a dozen. This was to win one of those pass-the-time road trip games (whichever side of the car counted the most cows won), and she always won.
My grandfather had a massive stroke on my birthday in 1992. It nearly killed him. He was mostly instutionalized for the remaining 12 years of his life. Before he went into the hospital, she'd never paid a bill herself or even written a check. For the last dozen years of their nearly 69-year marriage, she went to see him at the nursing home every day. Going up just after lunch and coming home right before dinner. Of course she also liked to say that she hadn't been "shawpin'" since Grandpa's stroke, even though my father and I stood by, okay, we encouraged her to get some new things many times.
She loved my dad so much, and was so proud of him, even when she didn't always understand him. I often think that generation gap is one of the biggest. The parents who were coming of age between the two big wars, and the children who came of age during Vietanam. From the fifties on at least, we have rock and roll to unite us. During Hurricane Agnes in 1972 she dreamed of running water and got out of bed only to step into ankle deep water. My grandparent's house was the highest on the street and every night the neighbors would gather therr while they waited for the flood waters to receed. She lived exactly three miles away from this place, and when the accident occurred she and my Grandad came to Tennessee and stayed with us for a week.
She was a great teaser and could handle being teased as well. How many times did we jump in and say, "Mind the step." as we left her house, knowing that if we didn't say it, she surely would?
She was one of the most stubborn women I've ever met. I think the whole chicken thing is pretty good evidence of that. She managed to be too sick to attend my Grandfather's funeral, and she died exactly one year minus one day after he did. I think she felt that she couldn't face the anniversary of his death, so she made sure she didn't have to.
This is the house she lived in when she died. She and my Grandad lived there for most of my childhood and adulthood. I love it that my own house has that same sharply pitched roof. When we'd come and visit, every morning we'd congregate on the front porch, read the paper and have TastyKakes and Uban Coffee for breakfast. I can still call up the smell, the feel of the green shag carpet, and the way the light looked with all of the curtains drawn all day. She always had Moyer's potato chips for us, licorice all sorts and Mexican Hats. A few weeks ago, I was walking out of Jean and Paul's kitchen, down the steps to the backyard, and I was instantly back in the basement of that house. The steps looked the same and the creak of my tread was the same, instantly recognizable.
Oh how I miss her. She drove me, well she drove us all crazy at times, but I sure miss her. That's how death works on you I guess. You go along living and accepting both the grief and absence until suddenly you'd give anything to rush back to that place where you can smell her Coty face powder and take a shower in the bathroom with the flamingos on the shower stall and the shower head so low it hits your shoulders instead of your head. We all had so much fun together. Happy Birthday, Grandma. Love you...
I've been hanging out with this book a lot lately (see the sidebar for info). I bought it right after we moved into the little gray house, which is actually a bigger-than-we-need gray house, because after over ten years of apartment and condo living, Neel and I were moving into our first honest-to-god house together. On our drive across the country to a land both foreign and familiar to us, I spent a lot of time thinking about framing our new life in this new space.
I still think about these things, oh, almost daily, and I love books like this. I tried for a long time with this book and books like Denise Linn's Sacred Space, or Karen Kingston's to work hard at really creating the kinds of spaces that they talk about. A lot of it doesn't quite feel like the right fit for me. Too much bell-ringing and energy-clearing. Oh, I tried it all, but boy did I feel self-conscious doing it. Still, books like this are so inspiring and... well, comforting. They tell me it's okay to spend time (way too much time, actually) thinking about stuff like, so, if I do get some brown curtains for the bedroom, what will that do to the gray and red quilt I want to make us? I still haven't decided about that one, but what I find works best for me is to simply be mindful of the space I'm living in. Really, being mindful is the way I want to try to live every aspect of my life, but it comes out more clearly in my home.
Jane Alexander talks about bringing Hestia, the goddess of the hearth back into our homes. Our lives, Alexander argues, are Hermes-driven, hectic and over-full. Over-full to the point that we have lost the essential order and sense of haven that our homes should give us. And I love this: Alexander points out that the word "focus" is a Latin word for hearth, and the hearth is Hestia's domain. You honor Hestia when you lay your table with attention and care, or when you light a fire to sit by on a cool autumn evening.
When I think about the rooms in my home, the idea of intention is what comes most to my mind. I like rooms with intention. Rooms that have a clear use and are clearly used. That's where Hestia seems to sing most for me. I offends my sense of order and focus when rooms are a hodge-podge of items and intents. "Let's put the CD case in here because there's room on that one wall, and it doesn't really go anywhere else," kinds of rooms. I'm never successful, but boy I'm trying. Our kitchen is our family room and home office, but really it's meant to be all of those things. Do I think a comfy sectional with a wall-mounted flat screen for tv watching and XBOX playing would give it more intention, well sure. But the sofa that's here now is serving it's purpose just fine. The tv too, I suppose. And what else is funny is that my same sense of order isn't offended in other homes. Just my own. In other people's houses, I tend to find myself thinking things like, "what a great idea to put the CD cabinet there. I wonder if ours would work in a different spot." Go figure.
All this thought about intention brings me right around to the Blue Rain Room. Of all our rooms, this room has had the least intention of any. For awhile, at least. When we moved in, the previous owners were finishing up a master bedroom/kitchen (don't get me started on that one...) addition, and what was once just a smallish bedroom became a walk-through room to the master. It's hard to know what to do with a walk-through bedroom with no lighting, only one outlet and a really small closet. If we'd had another baby, it would have made a great nursery, for awhile at least, but since we didn't, it just became a room we walked through to get to our bedroom. We plunked some bookshelves in there because that was a good place for them. We talked about ordering a closet system from IKEA and turing it into a closet space while using our current closet to expand our master bath. Somewhere along the way, as we were just walking through, I painted it this lovely shade of gray blue (Rain Washed, by Behr), and the color alone made me happier to be in there.
I started sewing only shortly before starting blogging, so have only recently needed a space. Knitting, which I've been doing for awhile, can be done anywhere... in the car, in front of the tv, on the front porch. Stuff your yarn and needles somewhere and you're good to go.
Sewing's different. With sewing, you need to be somewhere. Knitting you can pick up and take along. Knitting you can realize halfway through Top Chef that you have an unfinished sock or Josephine next to you and work your way through a few rows. Sewing you have to intend to do. It requires intention. Perhaps that's why I'm falling in love with it.
So I carved out a little space. Moved a table, squeezed in my machine, bought an ironing board. Tried to hang a shelf (it fell). Cleared a bookcase for some fabric. Bought some lights. Dragged in about a mile of extension cords. I did some research too. Spent a lot of time looking enviously at other crafter's studios. Some of my favorites can be found here and here or here or here. And did you know there's a whole craftroom pool over at Flickr? I could spend days digging around all those photos. Those spaces, and many others too numerous to name, all sing the same song to me. They are ordered and deliberate and intentional. They are as much about inspiration as they are about utilzation. Intention, as I well know, can be beautiful, and I want the Blue Rain Room to be filled with order and intention and inspiration too.
We've been working hard in here over the past few weeks. Really hung some shelves. Paid attention to what went on them. Oh the luxury of more than enough space. It's a dream really. I already felt lucky to have a room here that I could carve out just for me and my endeavours. Now, walking through here, I feel extra-blessed.
Many of the things that inspire me are here, from the baby blanket my great-grandmother made me to some pottery of Callum's to a photo of Neel as a young child...even the range of colors on the spools of thread hanging on the wall. There's still work to do, I need a better table to cut fabric on and definitely some better lighting. And one day I'll get my act together and get over to flickr to put some notes on these photos, but right now I can't wait to get to work!
Sometimes being mindful is about nothing more than putting my daily (or three) sparkling water in my grandmother's glass with a slice of lemon instead of just drinking it from the can. Sometimes it involves measuring and painting and many trips to the hardware store and pilot holes like a dotted line across the wall. Sometimes it's as much about how you got the room this way as it is about what you do in it once that space is ordered to your liking. All I know is that I smile when I walk through here now. That it's hard to walk through without stopping and grabbing a piece of fabric or digging out a matching bobbin. That I seem to settle into myself when I'm in there. And that my brain is about to explode with all the stuff I want to do, starting with every single project first and doing them all right now.
View from on high, the Theatre at Epidarus.
I imagine you're wondering if I still think about Greece, and if I have any more to reveal about our trip earlier this summer. Well yes, for good or for ill, I have one, maybe even two more installments on the Greek travelouge in the pipes. And I do think about it a lot. About what being there meant for me and did to me. Just about being there. It still feels present, if a lifetime ago. For today, though. Just a photo or two, from the early part of our trip.
Quintessential Greek. Blue-checked baklava.
A view you'd never tire of...this was what we saw from our room in Porto Heli, home to Neel's conference.
This is not your daddy's scientific meeting...it was a lot more fun! During the day, our Greek hosts would scout out local restaurants (and do some taste-testing...tough job, huh?) for the group to attend each evening. The dinner surprise was one of my favorite parts of the meeting. I can get paralyzed with indecision, always wondering if something better is just around the bend. But here! Here, we got on a bus, and got off the bus at this lovely spot.
On these nights, my hardest decision was the wine: red or white (and wouldn't you know, I still changed my mind!).
This was a night hued in terracotta. The wine jugs, the candles, the very light. In a country known for it's deep blues, from the onion-domed houses to the wine-dark sea, these oranges were a warm complement. (Get it, Neel? Complement? Har, Har, Har. A little science humor there, the geek rubs off on me too!)
Callum's up and my quiet time is done! After a hectic weekend, Monday is catch-up day around here. Grocery store, some errands, and Underdog while Neel's at a late meeting. I hear it's a real tear-jerker, right Shoshana?
So I went to see this movie with Jean and Rebecca last night. Have you heard of it? Oh, it was really lovely. A musical, actually. It took me a few minutes to settle into the accents and the language (seriously, English with Irish and Czech accents are so easy to understand), but the dialogue was at times poignanty and witty, the music moving and the scenery lovely. Pretty sharpish, I started wondering how Neel would look with a beard. And curly red hair. I can't really imagine why I bawled my dang fool head off through most of it. Could be that it's a little sad too...
We don't go to movies much in our family. I tend to think that people are either movie people or not-movie people. We're definitely not-movie people. Given a choice, I will almost always pick food and conversation over sitting in a theater. By the time Callum turned three, I could tell people that the last movie I'd been in the theater was Shakespeare in Love when I was pregnant. Neel and I tried to go and see A Beautiful Mind for his birthday one year, I'd even bought tickets for it. We went to dinner first and it was so nice just to sit and drink sangria and eat tapas that we let time slip alongside us and we never made it to the movie. I still haven't seen it.
Now that Callum's older we make it to more movies. Every installment of Pirates of the Caribbean when it first comes out. We saw Ratatouille a few weeks ago and Underdog comes out this weekend. Kids' movies I can make it to, no problem, it seems. Last night, nothing but the grown-ups, was a treat indeed. I'm starting to see the movie-people side of things. We had an antioxidant, free-radical infused cocktail beforehand (what the hell is an "acia berry", anyway?) to make up for the copious amounts of popcorn that we intended to consume. Great seats, front row of the balcony, in a great independent theater here in town. Rebecca was definitely driving the bus to get us to this show, and let me tell you dearheart, despite all of the bawling I did, I'm glad we went.
When my dad was up a few weeks ago, he brought a CD he'd purchased because of one song he'd heard on the Sopranos. The song is Evidently Chickentown by John Cooper Clarke. (There's an expletive or two in the song, not counting "bloody", so be careful when you click on the link.) As often happens in our family, song lyrics or phrases enter our personal lexicon, and for the rest of the week he was here and even after we've been saying, "Keep that bloody racket down, this is bloody chicken town." Dad asked why I thought he liked the song so much and I asked what he thought "chickentown" really was. My image was of darkened Dublin streets, washed in streetlights and recent rains. Angry young men clinging to the edge and dying to get out, out, out, anywhere else by here. The kind of images that ran through my head whenever I would read James Joyce or WB Yeats. 'Cause you know, I've always got my James Joyce nearby.
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;/ mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. -The Second Coming, WB Yeats
Well, Once is Evidently Chickentown. Just what I pictured. Bloody Chickentown. It was nice to see my mental images blown up big on the screen.
Here's another story about last night that has a potential spoiler so don't read on if you don't want to. After the screen went black, we all sat there, three in a row at the front of the balcony, me scrambling madly for napkins to wipe my seeping eyes. Shell-shocked. We couldn't belive it was over (and believe me, we berated Rebecca quite considerably on the way home), ended just like that. And I remembered this story about going to a movie with my mom, a long, long time ago. You know where this is going, don't you MJ?
There's a great old theater in Knoxville called The Tennessee Theatre. Our own independent theatre here is a scruffier version of The Tennessee, but hey, where else can you get baklava at the concession stand? Or yeast flakes on your popcorn? The Tennessee shows everything from old movies to concerts. They even have a Wurlitzer, can you believe it? Before every show the Wurlitzer rises up, the curtains open and a bouncy ball hops over the words to The Tennessee Waltz as everyone sings along. You know the movie is about to start when you sing The Tennessee Waltz. This is a place you go for the experience as much as the movie itself.
So one year when I was maybe nine or ten, my mom took me and my friend Stacy to The Tennessee for a matinee of The Kind and I. Just like last night, we sat upstairs in the balcony, and just like last night, the ending was an abrupt surprise. When the lights went up, and as we were walking out, my mom said what we were all thinking, "Nobody told me the god-damned king was gonna die." After reading this, if you go to see Once (and despite it all, I really hope you do), you'll now know that, metaphorically speaking, the god-damned king dies. I think I'll go download the soundtrack.
Jean and Rebecca will know that another phrase from the movie has entered our own neighborhood lexicon, but I'm too polite to say it here. Just as I was congratulating myself on my diminished use of that word too.
And the Yeats quote up there in the middle somewhere? That's another one that's entered into the fam. lexicon. Import it into your own, I bet you'll find it applies...a lot.
And another funny thing. Because of that song, I finally learned how to spell "evidently". Seriously. It took a long time. I was always adding an extra syllable or two.
Callum and I are going to have an Emergency! filmfest on my bed today (with the ac a crankin'). Now that's some watching I can relax about.
Going to bed and waking up to horrible news and images from Minneapolis. Megs, my first thought was of your brother, is he okay? Sending lovingkindness out to the deep midwest.
Update: Megan's brother is okay, but Marianne, I forgot about your brother-in-law...any word?
Updated Update. Everyone I know of is safe, but oh how my heart goes out to those who are still waiting for news.
I went to bed heavy-headed last night and woke up the same way this morning. That's how my headaches feel sometimes, just a heaviness in my head. Not a good way to end the day, or to start a new one either. We have to run long and hard today too, which is another thing I hate. I'll be out the door by 10:30, and a late meeting will keep me out until at least 7:30 or 8. Let's just say it's a two cup of coffee day for me today, instead of just one.
Perhaps to make up for the rushing we'll do today, we had a quiet evening at home last night, thanks again to Fran Warde. Neel made Pimm's and Gingers, and I made the Crusted Golden Rice Bake from Eat, Drink, Live.
I really have yet to make a dish in the book that I haven't liked, although this one may need more tweaking than the others. Persian in feel, it has some of my favorite Indian spices (cardamom, tumeric and Garam Masala). Perhaps because we're so used to eating Indian, this felt a bit mild to me. Maybe some more cardamom. Or even some cumin. Still, it was lovely and delicious, and the house smelled amazing.
Callum and Neel made the pupodums, we love to see them bubble up in the microwave, and we had those with some cranberry chutney. But what's missing?
Ah, that's better...Have a great day everybody! See you tomorrow.
We spent a lovely lazy morning yesterday. Cozied up and watching out the window at this...
After the floodgates closed back up again, UPS appeared on a shaft of sunlight. Not quite that literally, but close. I came downstairs from painting shelves to find a couple of amazon.com boxes on my doorstep and inside were these:
A totally unexpected treat from my dad. We'd been talking about these movies a lot lately (can you say, "sequel"?), and I knew he'd ordered them for himself, but never, in a million years did I expect them to appear on my doorstep. What fun. And Alfie, thank you SO much.
Then, when I was getting ready to take Callum and neighbor-Rebecca out to dinner, I walked past my dresser and there sat these:
A totally unexpected treat from my husband. I am abysmally difficult to surprise. I hate this about myself. I'll be trucking along, minding my own business, maybe working on a project or driving in the car and suddenly, I'll think, "Oh! I know what Neel got me for Christmas." I'll try to pull that errant and devious thought back, or talk myself out of it, because, really, I love a good surprise. Today I got two. The earrings are blue topaz, and Neel says they're meant to remind me of Greece. Thank you so much my lovely. I *heart* you too...XOXO
Up until this weekend, it has been a dry, dry summer. Suddenly, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, we've had storms and rain. More are expected today. I feel as unsettled as the weather. Restless and lazy all at the same time. We made eager, if tentative plans with friends over the weekend ("It's been too long! We miss you guys.") and let them flit away. Even the neighborhood was socked in. Waiting out the oppressive days.
Mandy-the-corgi went home, as expected, with her first applicant after a frustrating day trying to contact the SPCA. We weren't too disappointed, and I hope she had a nice weekend in her new home. I've wanted a corgi since I was in college and meeting Mandy renewed that interest. There were some pups listed in the paper, but about 2 hours away, and we just couldn't muster the energy. For someone who struggles mightily with impatience and a need to have things ordered just the way I need them, RIGHT NOW, I'm remaining remarkably relaxed and sanguine about this hunt for pup number two. Our dog is out there...we just haven't met her yet. And really, being so remarkably relaxed and sanguine is a new experience for me...I'd like to keep it around.
The SPCA frustrations of Friday were brightened by the arrival of this little package from Laura Kim Jewelry
Look what was inside! I took advantage of a sale she had last week, and I feel oh-so-lucky! I put on Pod #2 (the one on the right) almost immediately. All I need is someone to take me out to dinner to test-drive Maris (on the left). Check out her site...she does some lovely work. Pickins are slim right now as she readies for fall, but I can't wait to see what her next line brings. Shipping was prompt, and as you can see, even the packaging was pretty. Thank you so much, Laura...what a treat.
Remind me never to try to stain a bed when the humidity is over 400%. Seriously. I've made NO progress on that front, just waiting for the first pieces we stained to dry. The bluerainroom is almost shelf heaven, however, as we got the wood for shelves here and in the kitchen. Callum will finish helping me paint those today, and hopefully we'll get them installed this weekend. Progress on the pantry has me a little worried, since Neel has decided he needs to take down some cheap beadboarding and...wait for it...paint before we can put up that shelf. I'll keep you posted.
In knitterly news, the back of Jospehine is finished, I'm almost done with sock #1 of a pair basic two-circulars socks. Both of those knits are in a pretty fine gauge on pretty small needles (ones for the socks and fives for the sweater), so what better to do in the muggiest part of July but to cast on for this scarf on (marginally) larger #8s. I'm using Knitpicks Andean silk in olive, which I have much of...
Every night this weekend we saw this...
...and glory be...is that really rain? Even with Callum complaining that we never get to go to the beach because it always rains, we're soak, soak, soaking it up. Everything seems a little greener, a little more alive. Hopefully it will translate to the humans. I could use some perking up.
Well, while Neel didn't come home and put the numbers on the house, measure for shelves, or hang shelves, he did help me take our bed apart for staining.
It was kind of fun to sleep like this last night, mattress and box spring on the floor. I told Callum that I felt like Ma in Little House on the Prarie when they make their beds on the floor of the newly-framed house. We've slept like this, camped out in our own bedroom, a couple of times before. Once was when Neel was in graduate school, and he and our pup Phoebe and I were all kneeling (well, maybe Pheebs wasn't kneeling, exactly) on the bed to look out the window at a bird. The slats of my grandmother's bed failed somehow and we all came crashing down.
The second time was after our move to California while we were waiting to purchase this very bed that I'm staining today. Our mover wanted to set up Grandma's bed in the master bedroom for us, but I knew that we'd be getting another bed soon. I wanted the mattress and boxspring on the floor while we waited. He just did not understand this or me, and since I pretty much just want everyone to be happy, I let him set up the damn bed. Good grief. What a pushover.
Lucy is really concerned about these latest developments. (I'm sure she thinks it has something to do with that dog she met yesterday.) She has a routine, you know. Every night she comes upstairs with us and crawls under the bed to wait while we brush our teeth and settle in. Only after we're both tucked in does she come out and put her paws up on Neel's side for him to lift her into the bed. She can get in herself, but just won't. Not at bedtime. She had the most pathetic, confused look on her face last night after she hopped up onto the bed and watched us in the bathroom getting ready. Today she's been following me most carefully as I go to work on the staining. Keeping tabs.
So here we are, past the point of no return, right in time for my panicked second thoughts. Oh little bed, how I loved you just the way you were. Seriously, sometimes I am impossible to live with. I know. But I do like the stain, and I think it'll look really nice. I've been wanting to do this for years. It's just the transition, I suppose that has me overwrought.
That's what we're up to today. Staining and knitting or reading in between coats. Trying not to think about little doggies or all the other stuff I want to get done.
The backs for some necklace rolls waiting for me to choose their linings.
Neel asked me this morning if it felt like a burden to post on the blog everyday. No, not really, not yet. Mostly it still feels like an exciting daily challenge, and while I imagine that I'll have periods of feeling burned out and wiped out, they haven't happened yet. Today is different. All that's wrong with today is that I'm cranky and muddled and not sure I should subject anyone to this particular mood. And yet here we are. Sorry.
I feel scattered and restless and well, grumpy is really the only word for it. Not enough time on my own to recharge my batteries and a million and ten things I want to do. And why is it that here I am, working to reduce the clutter and excess in my life, but I need more and more things to accomplish that reduction. Baffling.
Take this cheap Target bookcase for example. It's in my dining room right now, holding cookbooks, some of the pitchers I've collected and Buddha. I don't like that it's a cheap Target bookcase, the pitchers are hard to see and the cookbooks are hard to get to. I end up stashing my favorite ones, the ones I keep going back to, next to the island in my kitchen.
So, breezily I decide that we need to get rid of the book case. (Had I mentioned that yet Neel?) Bye-bye cheap Target bookcase. Here's the problem. I need the cookbooks and I want the pitchers and the cut-glass Turkey that was my grandmother's and the vase my Dad gave me and Buddha. (And really here's where we get to the main crux of my eternal dilemma. I want to minimize my life, but I love my things. Bummer.) Actually, I think I mostly have this one solved. Not the eternal dilemma, just the bookcase dilemma. Read on...
Here is my "pantry." It's actually fairly close to an ideal pantry for me which would be long and narrow and have shelves that were only one can deep so I would never again end up with four cans of garbanzo beans. It's a hallway attached to the kitchen that has two sets of stainless steel shelves for all of our food. (I know, I know, I could stand to do some minimizing here as well.) You can see that there's tons of wasted space up near the top, and for a long time I've been wanting to put a shelf along the top for some of our appliances. Not appliances like the refrigerator. Appliances like the Cuisinart. It'll be a long shelf, so I'm thinking that the cookbooks could go here too. Definitely more accessible, and that takes care of three shelves in the cheap Target bookcase.
So what to do with the pitchers, the vase, the turkey and Buddha. Well they need to be somewhere...I could scatter them throughout the house. Still, I'd really like to do some more work on the bluerairoom, and I'd love to surround myself with some of my favorite pitchers, turkeys and Buddhas up there where I work. What do I need for that to happen?
More shelves. I'd like the whole wall behind the sewing machine to be shelved. I'd use it for storage, for sure, but what a great place for some of my favorite things. I went to Lowes and bought some brackets and looked briefly at their pre-cut laminate shelving. I want color, so I want to paint these (both the pantry and the studio shelves) instead of going the easy laminate way out. I just want it now. I want Neel to come home from work and help me measure and then go to Lowes with me to have the boards cut and come home and put in the brackets while I paint and then help me put them up. Now. (Hi honey! Hope you're having a good day!)
While I was at Lowes, I got some numbers for our house that I want to put on NOW. I got gel stain to stain my bed that I want to take apart and prep NOW, and I got an extra hose that I don't really care when it gets attached to my outdoor shower.
A restless muddled midden. That's what this is.
Yesterday was one of those "best-laid plans gone astray" days for me. I had sewing that I wanted to do and cleaning that I needed to do, but we ended up playing Emergency! with our dwindled supply of Legos instead.
Did any of you ever watch Emergency!? This was my all-time favorite show growing up. I must have seen it in syndication, but I can clearly remember waiting so impatiently on Saturday nights for it to come on. I think it was at seven, right after the Lawrence Welk Show. On some particularly long weeks, I would watch the LWS in hopes that it would help pass the time until 7 p.m. It never worked, and as my friend Megan pointed out, "time slows down on the Lawrence Welk Show, that's why old people love it."
While everyone was ga-ga over Paramedic John Gage, it was pissy doctor Kelly Brackett who caught my eye. I think Rampart Hospital and the Cherry Ames nurse series by Helen Wells are what made me want to be a doctor or nurse. And we see how long lasting and significant those impulses were!
So I'll make do with introducing Emergency! to my kid, and hope that more than just the 1st three seasons come out on DVD.
Callum made Station 51 and I made the squad car. We imported a hook and ladder truck.
Here we are at the fire. See how the flames have burst out through the roof? I was the dispatcher and Rampart Base, and Callum was Johnny (of course!).
Lucy was Dr. Brackett, who had been opposed to the paramedic program since the pilot episode.
In our other pup-date, we took Neel to meet Mandy at the SPCA (a requirement for adoption). She was still there and as sweet as ever. I must have misunderstood two key things (I have to say that while everyone there is so nice, the process is very confusing.). The first is that I thought the 1st applicant had until Friday to decide if they wanted her and could pick her anytime. No, they have to wait until Friday just like we do. Still not completely sure why. Also, I thought we wouldn't bring Lucy to meet Mandy until after the adoption had gone through. Nope, they need to meet for us to be approved. This means that I have to make another trip to an SPCA almost 20 miles away for a dog that someone else is going to end up adopting. We muster on.
In Josephine news, I'm about 80% finished with the back. Need a few more inches of the all-over pattern before I start binding off arm-holes, etc. I'm enjoying this project very much, and liking the Knitpicks Shine Sport as well. We muster on. It's all we ever do.