Food and fiberarts, such a sustaining day

This morning I made a Spanish rice and beans dish from Spain on a Fork, with substitutions galore and it came out fine. Mine had more liquid but it cooked down further and tomorrow it will look like Alberto's picture.

Mine subbed mixed greens for bell pepper, curry leaves for bay leaf, diced tomatoes for tomato sauce, Better than Bouillon for vegetable stock, black beans for kidney beans and brown jasmine rice for Spanish white rice. It made four meals and was really good. The Better than Bouillon was great, thank you Sandra and Mary for talking about it.

Here's where the cotton seeds are as of today 

100% germination, and they need to be indoors till warmer weather. 

Then on to the Tuesday knitting group, and all kinds of interesting stuff going on.

Toad got his bathing suit, needs some finishing, so this is a try on

And here's a silk camisole, plus a closeup to show you the stitch pattern 

This sweater is racing ahead, beautiful choice of contrast for the yoke. It's pale blue and reads as off-white against the darker color, really great color design choice 

Then she learned the lucet, two views. She caught on fast, as did another participant who tried it. Both now fancy owning one, so Beka should pay me a commission.

Chat ranged widely, over travel in India, driving in the mountains, Sikkim,  building a trebuchet in the basement, the trebuchet at Les Baumes that the public can fire, music, quilting, tai chi, cotton seeds, shoelaces, No Kings, Earth Day, Stand up for Science, shoulders, orthopedics, physical therapy, and much more.

Home to Textiles and Tea and weaver Emerson Croft, pronoun they.  A teacher/director of the weaving program at Berea College Kentucky, the work skills college which teaches crafts with output to sell to help support the program, they're endlessly inventive and playful. 

Emerson explains they have no minds eye,  that ability to visualize, so the creative work happens in the making.  And humor gets in all over.

Being non-binary, Emerson  first had an impact as a student on the baby blanket design from the college weaving program. All pink and blue and they suggested more inclusive colors, which the weaving studio now routinely uses and sells.

I've included a bit about the college and its sales aspect, artisanal small production items 

Emerson as a student with the inclusive baby blankets 

This was a great episode with a gifted thinker and artisan, and I wonder if I can get a broom from Berea. I can use one.

Happy day everyone, mine was full! Roger that, sez Ted and Big Ursy and Pony and Ursula 

Baking, cooking,Pilates, in the moment

On this Superb Owl Sunday, admire 

And a great moment from the monk leading the Peace Walk 

While he was speaking a drone flew over head, distracting his audience, and he instantly used the moment to remind everyone to note for a moment, let it pass, then return to the moment. He's a wonderful teacher.

Because I can't get out again and it's dispiriting, I did some Pilates first thing and felt much better. April and Aiko on yes2next.

This was created for a past Christmas but it's legal to do it in February, too.

And there was baking because cold weather is baking weather. Here's a banana chocolate chip loaf

Cook's first slice with a spoonful of plain yogurt.

Then I found lovely Alberto of the Waving Hands, at Spain on a Fork on YouTube, with a great sauce. 

I dressed roast potatoes with it, he did boiled. I used Greek black kalamata olives, he used green Spanish ones. 

The package is frozen thyme from the garden years ago but still with plenty of flavor.

Second picture's the sauce and boiled potatoes awaiting roasting. I dressed them right before eating, and forgot a picture, but they were excellent. Enough sauce to do this a couple times more, too.

The other good thing was that it finished up, finally, the capers and olives I've been using for ages. Bananaz honey and yogurt for dessert.

He used a food processor because I guess he's advertising them. I don't have one but my stick blender and a narrow container usually work just as well, and did here.

For other purposes, a hand held mixer will work fine, too, where YouTube chefs are using fancy food processors. We don't hafta.

About the fiberarts presentations, I think I'm still okay with Textiles and Tea. They know I blog about them, and I think they're okay with it. I've recommended a number of presenters to them, so I don't think they look on me as a passenger.   

The others, TMASC, Hajii Baba, New England Rug Society I'll give you a heads-up when they notify me, and you can sign up.  

TMASC has a lovely long, picture-rich monthly newsletter, too.

Pro tip: they get hundreds of viewers from many countries and usually fill up before they start, sending latecomers to YouTube, where they can watch but not participate in q and a. So I sign in at least five minutes early or more, because I like to have my say.

Happy day everyone, keeping warm here and hoping that warmer weather gets here 

Temps in the thirties! I don't know how I'm going to manage.

 

High winds, warm kitchen, important information

The house is harder to keep warm in high winds, drafty, so this was a good day to cook and get a warm kitchen.

And I seem to have got into a frenzy of cooking, what with deciding on Spain on a Fork potato croquettes, to use potatoes, then remembering I had the halibut defrosted in the fridge. 

Then I thought why not both. Lifelong mantra: when in doubt, do everything.

So I had a bunch of things going at once. Nuking potatoes to mash them, frying onions and garlic, grating cheese, mixing spices, panko,  that's the potato things, and grinding almonds, finding the oats, panko again, drying fish, that's the halibut pieces, oiling glass pan likewise. Cooking for one and I need a sous chef, and a dishwasher.

Originally I planned on walnuts, not almonds, for this breading, and found I'd used them up, so I had to use what I had.

And here's lunch. A beautiful piece of halibut with crisp breading, 20 minutes at 400f, in case you wondered. This time and temp cooks the fish and the breading nicely.

The other things are Alberto's recipe, more or less, mashed potatoes (!), grated cheese, egg, scallions, fried onions and garlic, seasoned with cayenne, smoked paprika, turmeric, seasalt, cumin, fried in the onion pan but I didn't wipe out the pan between, because flavor.

This frenzy has yielded several meals, and will mix and match with the soup and bean bread things.

It occurs to me that when I need an afternoon nap, it's after a morning like this.

Elsewhere Meetch (!) discussed names and how they're pronounced. My sister Irene,  EYEreen in the UK became  eyeREEN in Canada, never eyeREENee, despite the name police. She adapted to Canadian ways, Missy. Considering her temperament, it's ironic that her name means peace. Maybe my mom was being aspirational.

Nephew Gerard,  GERud in the UK,  became GerAHRD in Canada. You could tell whether a brit or a Canadian was calling him by how he pronounced his name when he answered!

Me, I'm often addressed as Lisa, don't ask me why. It's a mystery. I occasionally also have a little discussion with people who insist they want to use the full version of Liz, despite my preference.  The long version was my mother, not moi.

We had a lovely neighbor long ago who said she'd never met a PhD before (Handsome Partner) and she really couldn't call him by his first name, nor me by a nickname, not respectful.

She resolved it by referring to us as Betty and Doc! Like an oldtime comic strip. We loved her and everyone knew who she meant, so no harm done.

Today is about keeping warm, after a brisk interlude outside in my bathrobe earlier. I'd stepped out into a high wind, to put out the Freecycle bag and found the steps covered in earth and debris. Probably squirrels digging furiously as they do. 

I couldn't ask my nice Freecycler to step over that mess, so I swept it clean and more or less righted the lavender container plant knocked on its side, wind tearing at me. 

Now I'm up for knitting and reading. Hamish is still on my schedule. I wonder what I'll do after I've read all the Hamish books. 

My days have devolved into:

up early, morning care, breakfast, QiGong, email, blogs, Hamish, cooking, lunch, Hamish, knitting, Downton Abbey YT shorts, afternoon tea, Hamish etc.

On the other hand, it could be worse. And the fish will keep my brain working, at least that's the hope.

And, since gender and ignorance about it keep appearing in our news, here's the Talmud's take on it

Happy day everyone, eat fish. Or something.

This flag display is getting like my sock mending -- more darn than sock. Any more rights threatened and I'll end up with more flags than blog.

Sometimes a sandwich is all you need and other ramblings

Just wondering about supper Thursday, and this showed up on my YouTube feed. I love Spain on a Fork, cute arm-waving presenter, very good food. 

I forgot the lemon juice and subbed fresh chives for parsley, used my fresh supply of yogurt, the greens were arugula, and one sandwich, two slices of grainy, seedy bread,  was a fine supper.  It helps when you have all the ingredients right there. 

I've been thinking about food, partly because of Kamala, who not only wows thousands, settles the hash of hecklers and has half the population in  love with her, the other half wants to move in with Tim Walz, but is also a fine cook. 

She loves food to share and feed people, not a lone ranger. But I am, and, aside from my baking, which the neighbors and Handsome Son are happy to help with, I'm cooking for one. I sometimes feel this is a bit inadequate, though it's just chance that I'm living and cooking solo.

Then it dawned on me that it's still a social act, because cooking good food helps me keep good health, which, in turn, keeps me independent and not causing anxiety and work for the people around me. So there's that. 

I like to feel it's a responsible act. In fact I like doing it anyway, but it's always good to find a bit of moral high ground where you can. So there, sez Boud, smugly. This is a joke. I'm laughing at myself. In case anyone wondered.

Today, Friday,  the housecleaners came so I spent time at the library, to be out from underfoot. Here's what I did part of the time 

Once I realized that quite a few pieces had been put in where the shape fitted, the image didn't, I took them out and it went much better. I left plenty to do, and a young girl started piecing once I stepped away. This serial puzzling is good. 

Especially since that girl had been left to grapple with a rambunctious little sister while her mom was elsewhere. As soon as Mom returned, she dashed for the puzzle, seizing the moment. They're lovely kids, I've seen them around, and the mom is very attentive, doesn't push off the baby on the elder.

Today we have tornado warnings. It's certainly very disturbed up there, whipping winds, hot, with bursts of rain. I think safer at home than at the knitting group this afternoon.

Before the winds get any higher, here's the news from the patio 

New bud on the hibiscus 

New little friend resting between zinnia leaves 

Thank you everyone for your helpful and kind words yesterday. I'm not quite up to individual replies, just thank you everyone.

Happy day, we're here, that's pretty good.