analog me

Late November

Now that the leaves are off the trees, and the light is low and thin, it's the architecture of my surroundings that I notice most. My neighborhood of sort-of-run-down craftsman bungalows isn't particularly beautiful. Once the trees drop their leaves, the cracks and peeling paint become more obvious, so I tend to go the the Mississippi River about a mile from my house to feel inspired. Maybe its because I have to look a bit harder his time of year to see the loveliness, but I actually find the colors and textures inspiring. It just takes more effort. 

 On the cooking front, I had a rather interesting challenge. My younger son is studying the Oregon Trail in school and we were invited to share food that the settlers might have eaten. I went to a website, and saw that the eating staples that settlers brought were, by our standards, shockingly limited: salt pork, flour, beans, salt, pepper, molasses. And I don't think the salt was French Fleur de Sel.

I decided to make vegetarian beans. After soaking pinto beans over night, I cooked them with salt, pepper, and sage. (I imagine settlers picking western sage.) To finish them off, I added blackstrap molasses and a touch of apple cider vinegar. No food styling was performed.

  They were quite tasty; the beans were meaty and the molasses and vinegar added a sweet/tangy/bitter/sour edge. It reminded me that really simple food can be so good. But, now I am reconsidering my idea of "simple" as I suppose that the flavors from these ingredients were actually pretty complex. I have become used to thinking of complexity in cooking resulting from many exotic (and thus expensive) ingredients, like dried peppers, balsamic vinegar and fish sauce. 

4th and 5th graders are good food testers: they either eat good food or leave a lot of leftovers. I'm happy to say that the beans were pretty popular. 

The beans seem to fit the season too--very simple architecture (Pintos, salt) with the musky undertones of fall's fermenting decadance. In summer, it's so easy to cook with the season, but winter brings challenges: there are fewer local foods, the garden is mostly bare, the smells of rotting leaves don't quickly translate to something you want to eat. It takes more effort. 

If I can't cook something that tastes like this, 

 I need to start exploring other art forms.  And by the way, what would this taste like? I'm not sure yet.

Cooks without Borders

I haven't been up to much because I just returned from Vermont, where I visited my dear friend and college house-mate Becky. I lived a life of leisure there because all she would let me do was load the dishwasher while she cooked amazing meals. Becky is the first person I ever watched cook with complete abandon. In college, she would call her mom on the phone for recipe advice, and then just start cooking: tasting, and throwing flavor in the pot. She introduced me to things like Kosher salt, rice wine vinegar, chili with cardamom-- and basically cooking with no recipes or boundaries.    

Vermont is full of crazy good food, but my most memorable taste memory from this trip is the PB and J that we ate on a sunny, blustery day out in the middle of Lake Champlain on an old railroad causeway.

Maybe the best appetizer is being quite hungry after walking a good bit outside in the November sun. And I do believe that the leftover half we shared the next day after a long walk here tasted even better. 

Once again Becky expanded my idea of fine dining, this time by pairing a fine peanut butter with a slightly sour pomegranate/cranberry jam, sandwiching it between slices of a sturdy oat bread, and then slightly mashing the whole by vigorous walking. Have you ever noticed that PBJ is much better when lightly smushed?

I can't wait to try and replicate the jam. I'm not going to even look for a recipe.

One Month

At my community garden plot, I have the habit of looking up in the surrounding tree tops. One month ago it looked like this: 

 

Today, the sky has thin winter light shining through the bare branches.

One thing hasn't changed so much: a cabbage. I took photos one month apart, on October 17th:

and below on November 17th. Now, there isn't enough light to grow, but the colder, weaker light is encouraging the outer leaves to draw in more tightly, the winter cloak is turning a metallic purple. 

Maybe I need more excitement in my life, but I can't wait to see what it will look like in one more month.

Baby Sweater

Just yesterday, our family was talking about a "glass half empty" person, when son the second piped up that he had never understood that saying. Shouldn't you ask what's in the glass before you decide whether a half glass is positive or negative? he asked. For example, he always thinks that if the glass were filled with poison --which he was expected to drink--then a half empty glass would be a GOOD thing. A half glass of water, is neutral: just a glass with liquid halfway between the bottom and the top. Half a glass of soda pop is not so good as a full one. 

As usual, we were silenced and completely forgot what we had been yakking about when presented with this take on things. I probably won't so easily throw that expression into a conversation ever again.

What does this have to do with a baby sweater? Well, it's an empty sweater. 

As I was trying to take a photograph, I was wishing I had a cute toddler to stuff inside and thus show off the cut of the hood, the subtle color, the way the tassel hangs down in the back.

I wanted a filled sweater.

Then I remembered how hard it is to make a toddler do anything, least of all put something on (especially a hood) and stop moving for 1/60th of a second. So maybe taking a photo of toddler sweater with no toddler inside is a good thing. 

This is one of those projects that turned out well, but when it came time to give it as a new baby present, it just didn't seem finished enough. I think that's because nothing ever seems perfect enough for a new baby, and having just held the lovely recipient, it seemed even more inadequate. But, just like a full glass of soda-pop, I'm sure that once it is filled with a lovely child, it will finally be perfect.

How-to Notes:

I re-fashioned this a while ago from a women's cashmere sweater that had ripped at the V-neck.

I used the basic 2918 Kwik-Sew knit top pattern and drafted my own hood pattern. Instead of a body hem, I use the bottom ribbing. The sleeves are supposed to have sewn on ribbing. I taped the wristband pattern to the bottom of the sleeve pattern (overlapping the seam allowance) and smoothed the angles down to the sweater ribbing.   Embroidery before sewing. I made the hood first and sewed the front edge with a 4mm double needle for a nice, stretchy finish. The double needle sewing worked so well that I decided to use the same technique for all the seams since I don't have a serger. A tassel is mandatory. In fact, with only a baby and the tassel, it would be perfect.  

Perfectly Imperfect

I just went to an event  called "Empty Bowls." Local potters make and donate hundreds of bowls and volunteers cook hundreds of gallons of soup from donated food to raise money to fight hunger. After selecting a bowl, the visitor makes a free-will offering and then can enjoy a wonderful meal of soup in their new bowl. 

The difficult part for me is choosing a bowl. The artists don't sign their bowls, so you are just looking at the artistry. (Even so, my son, choose a Jennie bowl.) During the soup-eating, I try to avoid looking at other people's bowls because I can develop bowl envy.  

This year I was distracted during the meal because I had good soup-eating company, and there was this insanely-good Italian butter on the table and I became preoccupied thinking that people might notice how much butter I was eating. When I brought my bowl home and looked at it without distractions, I saw that it is not perfect. In fact, it is sorta crooked. 

Which makes me love it even more. I really love the inviting way it tilts toward me when I eat out of it.

Most of what I do ends up being somewhat imperfect too, and yet it rarely makes me like it any more. Unfortunately I always imagine that when anyone looks at what I have made, they will see all the mistakes and think less of it. I don't know why I feel this way, but I blame it all on 4-H. I grew up in a rural area where 4-H was the only organization for kids. As part of being a member, I was forced to enter something to be judged in the county fair every year. 

Usually it was something I had sewn. I had to watch the judges (usually judgmental types) as they turned my handwork inside out, picked out all the mistakes, publicly discussed them and then catalogued the errors on a "judging card" that was probably displayed.

Now I'm guessing that the point was to introduce us country kids to standards of quality, but at the time it was just plain terror and devastation. No one turns my handwork inside out anymore (at least in front of me) and yet I still fear that as someone holds my work in their hands, or sees it being worn they are looking for the flaws. If I was a perfectionist, this might not be a problem, but I am of the type that likes to do craft without a lot of stress about the outcome. And yet, I even inspect the things I make for myself to metally tally up the imperfections. 

Looking at a lot of the things I treasure, I see they have imperfections: chips, cracks, tears and crookedness that are the signs of being handmade, or old or well-used. Its a good reminder to enjoy the things I make in the same way.