Textiles and Tea, Karen Hampton, also clams

 Yesterday's Textiles and Tea featured Karen Hampton, about whom I've written before, a wonderful woman, former anthropologist, 

Dr Hampton examined the (lack of written) history of black weavers in the American South, in order to retrieve the stories and add her own. Now, in retirement, she's a full-time weaver studying and expressing the history of weaving and her family.

She works in cotton and indigo, and other natural dyes, even visited a plantation in the course of her studies, which a lot of black weavers won't because of the history. But she believes you should look history in the face to conquer its hold on you.

She honors her ancestors from Florida, black and white and treasures what photos she finds recording them. She uses photo transfer images superimposed on her weaving, and echoes the repetition of Andy Warhol and other modern artists working in prints. And she uses symbols to record the brutal history of her family's endurance. 

Her work ranges from large to huge, and she says it will be bigger yet.

And she stitched this piece to honor her grandmother's dressmaking skills 

 Definitely a weaver to study and honor.

Then, several food related visits from Gary. His houseguest wanted to bake a batch of lava cakes before she left. 

This involved one visit to get three eggs. Then another to borrow the muffin pan. Then, later, another with a sample cake, pan to follow later.

Finally last evening, a shared dish of littleneck clams and lemon juice. He'd cooked them, and ran in with them still steaming.  He'd earlier come for ice cubes but borrowed my Misfits ice blocks instead. The clams explained why the sudden need for ice.

Never a dull moment! 

Happy day everyone, warping today, for skirt panel three. 

The air quality not being great, smoke from Nova Scotia fires this time, I may give the outdoor discussion group a miss. But a local trip to change my jigsaw puzzle might be on.

I'm glad the current word puzzle is being suitably annoying!

Banana suits, puzzles and Eine Saite

 Today I finished the current jigsaw puzzle, surprisingly tricky, because of the repetition of colors and shapes, but fun to do.

And this morning I completed the second panel of the skirt

It's much better work than the first one.

And I'm currently reading lighter material in the interludes  of reading Caste, which is very important, but harrowing

Here's a lighter touch, a fictionalized story of Clementine Churchill, political wife of Winston Churchill

and there's something I've been planning on bringing you for a while but didn't want squash in with other reports.

So here's Eine Saite, meaning a thread, a lovely blog, worth going to and enjoying and savoring

Cut and paste if the link's dodgy, blogger not always coming through.

Happy day everyone. Next I have to rescue the ficus which has been blown over five times now. The butterfly bush which was such a protection last year has been dramatically pruned, and the new fence can't be used to hitch the ficus as I used to with the old wood fence. And this spring has been very windy.

So I have to try yet another approach, involving cinderblocks to keep it not only upright, but straight, and in contact with the earth, so as to put down roots.

Enjoy your day, enjoy Eine Saite, keep your ficus going!

And here's a puzzle

And about the banana suit: it's worn to designate the pace runner for a race. Granddaughter was pacing for the 5K after her own marathon run, hence the suit. Now you know!

Memorial Day in the US

 It's Memorial Day, to remember and honor the people who died in wars. 

One way to honor them is to celebrate the living, and when Handsome Son announced he plans to come over this afternoon, I thought I'd better make a little something.

Yesterday I'd set dried apricots into apple juice overnight thinking maybe a sauce for fish. 

Then Gary came dashing in last evening, i was spinning and winding on, so I couldn't put the spindle down. 

He had been grilling chicken and got a plate out of my kitchen cabinet to leave me some slices for today.

So then I thought ah, apricot sauce and chicken, great. Then when handsome Son planned to come over I rethought.

Made the apricot, juice and cane sugar into preserves this morning

the idea being jam tarts. 

A search for a nice pastry recipe not written in impenetrable British terms was, um, fruitless. So I searched on and remembered making the artisanal apple pie which readers will remember from a while back. That was when I found that artisanal doesn't mean quick. 

But the pastry, buttery and flaky, was worth a try.

I noticed that the preserves set up much more glutinous than expected because I forgot the pectin in apple juice as well as apricots. 

So I had to think yet again. I doubted if it would work to bake the tarts as usual with the preserves in them. Better bake blind (empty) then add the preserves.

I like this way of baking blind which I did ages ago and liked - draped over the other side of the muffin pan

I rerolled the extra pastry to freeze for a future fruit pasty

Cook's privilege bottom left 

See it's lovely and flaky

 

I had to take a guess at baking time, so settled on 15 mins at the normal flaky pastry 400°f. I could have taken them out a minute earlier, noted for next time.

So here are Memorial Day Fruit Tarts. A couple will probably go next door, Gary loves anything to do with jam. And I have extra preserves, maybe to go with the extra pastry.

Yesterday I took a stab at gardening, got the sage tied up searched in vain for Iris rhizomes. I think they may have rotted. 

Found one, which I'll hopefully replant in a better spot. Out front I know there are quite a few under the pachysandra waiting for rescue another day. 

And in honorary family news, most people wave cute baby pictures of grandchildren, or sweet little dancers in tutus. 

Here's my honorary granddaughter with her marathon and 5K friends.

Front row. Banana suit. I rest my case.

Also seen lately, on Freecycle

And let's not forget on Memorial Day, the people now fighting and dying in Ukraine, fighting our proxy war, to secure Europe from a would-be dictator.

Happy day everyone, enjoy being here.

Whitsunday, weaving, red lentils continued.

 Yesterday I featured may, aka hawthorn, in my post title, followed by a picture. But evidently the meaning didn't carry over since I've had a couple of questions about what the flower is! It's may, folks! Not the month, the shrub.

And here's Edith Holden and Chaucer's take

Yesterday's blogging was full of glitches, but here's the catch-up on what blogger didn't save for reasons involving probably ny phone dropping the signal and blogger not liking some of the pictures.

I made the red lentil croquettes from various recipes on YouTube. They call them patties which I think is like that cooking babytalk crispy, yummy, melty, and I'd rather not.

The YouTube cooks all have food processors which I don't, but done in batches in the ancient blender it works fine. Pictures of the ingredients in the previous post.

I fried a couple, to go with the soup. It's all very artistic, there being cannellini beans in both soup and croquettes, also lentils in the soup. Echoes, as in painting where you introduce the colors all over to create harmony.

Anyway I fried a couple, rolled in panko crumbs 

And whoa are they filling. One would have done it. 

A couple of notes if you try these: they can take any amount of seasonings, being bland despite the ingredients, onions, carrots, parsley.  So don't hold back.

And, as you finish with tools and bowls, rinse them instantly. Red lentils harden to immovable in no time, and you'll hate me if you leave the dishes till later and need a drill to get the debris off.

These are also great for dipping in plain yogurt, which is what I'll do today, along with soup.

I baked the rest of the batch, 25 minutes at 385°f. 

They didn't brown, but did cook without falling apart, and they're in the freezer for future soup accompaniments. Or friendies, as babytalk cooks might say.

About falling apart, this can happen with red lentils. They're all set up in nice little cakes then, once they hit hot oil they collapse. That's why I added in the mashed cannellini beans, as a binder, which worked fine, and a sprinkling of flour. I let the mixture sit in the fridge about half an hour. So try that.

About weaving, I've learned a whole lot with this project, thanks to Joanne, Caro and a lot of YouTube videos. 

Here's where we are, a few more inches to complete panel two.

You'll notice that it's falling into regular stripes. That's because I didn't do any fancy stuff with the weft as I did on the first one, which disturbed the stripe pattern. I liked it and with four more panels, I can do the fancy weft again.

I'm also getting better selvedges for two reasons, one the tip from J and C about threading through holes at both edges, not slots.

The other is that I realized that the advice to slant the weft threads at 45° before beating down applies to wider fabric than this. 

You do that angle so as to accommodate the under/over path of the thread across the warp. If you just traveled straight across, the warp threads would be drawn in and you'd get an ever narrowing fabric.

But here's what I've found works much better for this yarn and this width, a smaller angle

This way I get a firm straight selvedge with a lot less trouble and tugging about. Another one of the things you find out as you go, like learning your own rhythm and how it works.

Speaking of which, remember my discovery of whistling? I've been trying it now and then and find  I can definitely whistle, a lot of tunes. Not a big range, and not always dead in tune, but I can do it. Even chromatics!! 

So I'm adding it to my list of instruments! Piano, violin, flute, recorder, voice and WHISTLING! Taking bookings for June weddings. I can do you a tuneless Mendelssohn's Wedding March. No? Everyone's a critic. 

On to less consequential things, today is Whitsunday, the original reason Brits and other European folk have a Bank Holiday. 

Also known as pentecost, commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles sitting around glumly after the Ascension. 

They were wondering what now? He went off and now who'll give us the user manual? Which the Paraclete, another name, came down with tongues of fire, and did, and they went from there. Or so I'm told. 

Big feast in the English Catholic church, processions around the church, kids in white dresses or shirts and shorts.   Illegal for Catholics to process outside the building even on church grounds  without special hardwon permits. One of the laws passed during the reformation and still in force.

Moving right along, that doesn't apply to the municipal Whit Walks I learned about when I was at uni in Manchester. They're pretty secular, but still in white and with social backing as you see

All caught up now, unusual for Memorial Day  weekend to coincide with Whit. The second follows the Church calendar, seven Sundays after Easter, rather than the secular calendar of the first, which is the last Monday in May. 

Official summer opening of the Jersey shore, pools, park passes, summer concerts, all that. Bracketed in early September by Labor Day, where a lot of things close back down again.

So that's us all caught up, and I had other thoughts about Padraig O'Tuama and time, but I'll save that. Enough for one day.

Happy day everyone, weather permitting!

May, lentils and soup

Beautiful sunny day, cool enough to walk, warm enough to sit outside and read. No biting insects. Yet.

Spied on my walk, very luxuriant this year

Considered unlucky where I grew up, never to be brought into the house, too close to the other world of fairies and danger.

And today was otherwise a frenzy of cooking. Made vegetable stock, then used it for celery, collard green, red lentil and cannellini bean soup. 

And at the same time, why not overdo it when you can, I organized the makings of red lentil croquettes, to go with soup, when I make them, maybe fried, maybe baked, when I decide.

I was a bit tired after this, looked at the clock and realized I'd been on my feet for about three hours, so after walking and loafing on the deck, I had the last of the local strawberries with a bowl of the latest yogurt.

Sprinkle of raw cane sugar. The texture of this batch is really good. I fermented it for 24 hours, so I think that's what I'll do from now on.

I ordered my Misfits box this afternoon, strawberries at half the local price (!). 

I expect everyone who tried it got the puzzle, judging from the great clues, an art form in themselves. Yes, it's

ARMCHAIR

suitable for Saturday, whether or not you have a long weekend

Happy day everyone, cook if you want, don't if you don't. The kitchen police are off duty today