Yesterday's Textiles and Tea featured a guest host, weaver Melvenea Rogers, who was so vivacious and enthusiastic she carried along the reserved weaving historian Pat Hilts, and brought her out very well.
She weaves on an antique timber frame loom, and recreates patterns she's found in early German manuscripts. She also creates commissioned church banners for the liturgical year.
She founded a textile museum out of her family home, which has grown and been added to over the years.
She's a serious historian and researcher, and combines that with her weaving practice, where wool is her preferred fiber, followed by linen. She's spun cotton, but that's less emphasized in her work.
Meanwhile back in the kitchen I assembled the cast of characters for a new batch of berbere. This is an Ethiopian spice mix, and some of the components aren't readily available. I used the Together cookbook recipe this time, rather than the more fiery Marcus Samuelsson mix I first made.
I love the fresh smells of all the spices as you grind some of them and use others already ground.
If you see the recipe it lists fenugreek, which you don't see in my array there. What you do see is methi seeds. It's the Hindi name for fenugreek. It's a green leafy plant. It's like the relationship between cilantro and coriander: one's the plant, the other its seeds.
Beautiful weaving on that antique loom!
ReplyDeleteShe says it's much better than modern floor looms.
DeleteThat loom looks like the house would have had to be built around it!
ReplyDeleteDo you keep your spices in the refrigerator or just on the shelf?
They're in glass mostly, on the cabinet shelf. They'd take up too much room in the fridge!
DeleteI think floor looms can be huge. You have to work around them.
I've seen snippets of Pema's writings as people who I follow on various platforms post her thoughts but I've never actually sat down and read any of her work.
ReplyDeletethe nature of happiness is that it's fleeting. it's not an emotion or condition that can be sustained. what we should strive for is contentment which is not the same thing as happiness. happiness is contentment on steroids.
Interesting thoughts about happiness. It's such an elusive concept.
DeleteI agree with Ellen. Happiness is an elevated emotion, like anger. Contentment is sustainable over time, with bumps in the road once in awhile. Beautious weaving!
ReplyDeleteI think joy is an elevated emotion. Happiness is a quietly sustainable state if you grasp the moment. I'm practicing that these days.
ReplyDeleteI'm tempted to try that Pema Chodron book, but I also agree with Ellen. Happiness and contentment aren't quite the same, and contentment is the more stable, long-term state.
ReplyDeleteIt's very readable. A little bit intense, so I'm reading in bits rather than my usual headlong tush
ReplyDeleteWell, that would be rush, but you knew that!
DeleteInteresting spices.
ReplyDeleteA mix I have added to beef stew includes allspice.
Since my last covid booster, my sense of taste has decreased. Age or vaccine, I'll never know.
There's allspice in berbere. Well, there's practically everything in berbere.
DeleteThe host weaver and the weaving historian, look like two lovely, interesting women!
ReplyDeleteThe berbere spice mix (berbere means hot) common in Ethiopia, goes well with just about everything.
I agree with both. I wondered about the meaning of berbere, thank you. There are so many flavors in it that different foods combine with it differently.
DeleteI think that host has presented on the program herself. She looked familiar.
I do spice mixes without salt too. Mexican, Hungarian, and Indian are some of our favourites. I will try the Ethiopian too.
ReplyDeleteI like it a lot. This batch is milder, still very good.
DeleteSometimes I think we strive too hard for happiness as if it is some god given right rather than something special that slips into our lives and then slips away again. I f we took time to just sit and be one with ourselves and our feelings we might not get so frightened of emotions we are told are negative.
ReplyDeleteExactly. This perfect moment, followed by another and another..
DeletePeople who spin and weave are so clever.
ReplyDeleteLike knitting and crochet it connects us to our past I love how we can keep those “threads” strong between us and the mothers and daughters that are our ancestors
This is why I love my spindles. I'm in the company of women thousands of years ago when I make yarn.
DeleteI've woven on an old barn loom. They can be temperamental, as you can appreciate. The loom itself is quite stable as the loom is built of beam sized logs. The trouble comes with the string heddles, which cling to each other, and can pull and tear. They also cling and can/are very difficult to thread. There is as elaborate, modern system for the weft beam, and a very modern apparatus in the new construction on the top for multi harness tapestry weaving. This loom would be a delight to use.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the technical insight! I was hoping for that.
DeleteI was also hoping Joanne saw this post, knowing how interested she would be in it.
ReplyDeleteAnd I just today discovered the Textiles and Tea videos (from #1 upwards) are available on YouTube. Guess what I’ll be doing when I’ve got nothing to do - or when I don’t feel like doing anything😊
Yes, you can go way back. They take a while to upload each episode. There's a lot of good material. I always want Joanne's comments on weaving.
DeleteThe medium is the massage. I have taken two courses recently. Both are good. The presenter for one course has a more dynamic style, so it is a little more appealing. Unfortunately, I am more of the straight-ahead type, like the other guy. We are what we are.
ReplyDeleteWhen the featured artist is more of a writer than a speaker, it's great when the host has a lot of energy. The usual host, Kathi, would have made it so low-key we might have missed some information. But, as you say, we are wut we are.
DeleteHow very interesting. I've never done weaving (apart from little potholders we made as kids!) but I really appreciate it and it would be interesting to hear more about it from someone so committed. And your spice mix sounds wonderful!
ReplyDeleteStick around -- I regularly pass on accounts of textile events.
DeleteHm, sometimes it's easier to see the happiness in a moment than in others.
ReplyDeleteIt's about practice. I'm learning to see even the nano moments!
DeleteInteresting note on the fenugreek and methi seeds, Liz. Do you consider the seeds and leaves interchangeable in terms of taste? Makes me think of my confusion last summer when I was canning pickles. Some recipes said use dill and stated not to use dill seed; other recipes just plain called for dill seed. I'd have to go look in my spice draw to see what I ended up using, but I wondered if it which ever is used actually makes a difference in taste.
ReplyDeleteI have no access to fenugreek in leaf form, so I don't know. But cilantro and coriander are from the same plant and taste quite different, so I doubt if they're interchangeable. About dill and its seed, sounds as if they're similar. Maybe other blogistas can tell us more.
DeleteCilantro/coriander are the same thing...I've known I dislike both but didn't realize they came from the same source.
ReplyDeleteSeeing that loom reminded me of my childhood. Our neighbour had a massive loom (not quite like that one as I recall) and she made the most amazing things. I would sit at her feet and watch what seemed to me like magic happen.
Was the loom in her house? Sometimes they're in barns or other bigger spaces rather than dominate the house. They're big!
DeleteShe had a room I would call a sunroom or, in today's terms, a mudroom. Large room so it handily held her loom.
Delete