Easter Sunday, Secret Garden, final daffodils

 Happy Easter. I put out the Easter decorations, various views here.  The eggs I used to paint each year as gifts, the Boehm bunny, various cats and Limoges eggs, and, in the miniature Wedgwood teacup, painted eggs from my long departed cockatiel, Emily.

And the last group of daffodils came out yesterday

One was broken by the wind, so I picked her, along with a few others which would have been trampled by the fencing work probably starting here tomorrow. A bit of henbit and pachysandra added in.

Gary and Jackie finally got away at four o' clock yesterday afternoon, after many false starts and goodbyes.

Yesterday I made the butternut squash, sweet potato and cashew soup, and threw out the squash seeds for Butternut Boy. As I was enjoying the soup, he was busy on his seeds.

So we were a team.

Current audiobook is a really lovely reading of  The Secret Garden, a book I haven't read in many years.  It's dated now but still charming to knit and doze off to.

Hope for Ukraine on a day of hope for the world, photo by AC.

And I fly the flag

Sunday, Sunday

You know you lead a quiet life when the day of the week that you are not  scheduled for one of your regular medicines, the six days a week, never on Sunday, one, feels like a day off!

But art is always there, and some lovely things are happening to support Ukraine.

Never doubt that art helps. It feeds the spirits, and that can make all the difference to a people under siege. And to their supporters.

Dave Flitcroft, who painted the sunflowers, plans to sell his current series to benefit refugees from Ukraine.

Meanwhile, chop wood, carry water.

Yesterday's broth, involving vegetable trimmings and chicken bones, soup makings waiting in the background

ended up in this butternut squash, cashew, carrot, macaroni soup

One bowl is a full meal, so filling. The curry leaf sprig does more than decorate. As soon as it touches the hot soup, it gives off a wonderful scent and flavor to it. No need to cook it in. Same with the Thai basil. Same sprig now resting on the next bowl, for today.

General rejoicing outside, too, when the squash seeds were spotted this morning by Butternut Boy and his squirrel friends.

Meanwhile, the spiral socks being near the toe shaping, which needs counting, I knew I couldn't work on them while chatting at the knitting group.  So meanwhile I cast on another pair, different pattern, Sock Ministry Pair Four, to do at the group.

Here's the start, different color way, change of pace.

And as of this morning, couldn't stop striping yesterday, here we are

This design has a different heel, more review needed. I've knitted them before, ages ago, see old photos

The bottom ones went to a friend, and the others I wore till they couldn't be mended further, then cut them back for fingerless gloves which I still wear.

I guess I can figure out the confusing instructions again. Sometimes patterns don't make sense till you're in the midst, then you get it. Anyway that's today's plan.

And about trying to stay calm and centered, in tragic times, I found a great piece of advice: 

imagine a pond, and your feelings are fish. Try to be the pond, not the fish.

I'm definitely taking this on board.

Soup, roast veg, Thai basil, seedling id

This afternoon being the six months follow up mammogram appointment, where I find out if things are okay, this morning was spent in displacement activity,  busily making soup. 

Butternut, cashew, carrot, to be exact.

The little seedling continued, see also below. And the Thai basil is in for the season, complete with seeds off the plant, so my garnish is back.

If you're thinking hmmm, not many carrots there, it's all I had left after making this yesterday

Broccoli, sweet potato, carrots, onions, garlic, hot sausage. And remember that couscous I accidentally made a lot of? It's back from the freezer, and goes really well with this veg assortment. It's under there.

Back to the Rose of Sharon, it's always back to the Rose of Sharon around here. 

Here's the seedling, and though it did have the seed attached, looks unlike an R of S. I know the first two leaves don't always look like the mature ones, but I wonder.

Meanwhile, nature is getting on with the dollar spot fungus without any help from me. I think it's beautiful with early morning rain, so here it is. Again. 

Later today is Textiles and Tea, more tomorrow about that. And Handsome Son has announced a visit tomorrow, great timing, what with oatmeal cookies and great blueberry and other muffin things around the place.

Good vibes for this afternoon, please. 

Meanwhile, life's a banquet. I might not like all the courses.

The kitchen front, two takes

 I'm currently reading The Kitchen Front, by Jennifer Ryan, for which I have been waiting I dunamany weeks.

Set in wartime Britain with food rationing and the workarounds important particularly to women struggling to cope with what really was near starvation, it's an interesting take with all kinds of emotional buttons pushed. A cooking contest, the winner to be a presenter on BBC radio, is at the hub of events. It presents recipes as it goes, too.

It's a bit unfair to read this after Austen, Leon, or Winspear, because the writing level doesn't compare. But I like the concept so I'll finish it. 

And she did her homework on the history of the time, full credit there. If you're not familiar with the British food rationing of the early 40s, her opening account of a week's allowance of food (only if available, not guaranteed), for an adult,  might be an eye opening surprise. Other scenes, too, but I'll leave you to read it.

Meanwhile on the other kitchen front, D's suggestion yesterday about ginger strawberry jam came to pass. Small batch jams are good. Just enough to enjoy and give a bit to the neighbors.

Here's the makings. Small batches aren't a big deal.

And this is on the way to unboildownable. See soup pot on the other burner, we'll get to that.

Here's the resulting jam. I boiled it for quite a while longer than usual, and I hope I succeeded in getting it to gel. Once it's cool I'll know. Its delicious, with that bite of ginger. If it doesn't gel, it's fruit sauce.

And since I urgently needed lunch, a soup of butternut squash, red lentils and cashews also happened at basically the same time. The broth is a Rachel Ray vegetable one, and very good. 

The sprig of thyme on the soup is more than just pretty. It gives a lovely delicate flavor too. The hot soup seems to release the flavor molecules or something. Anyway you get flavor without cooking it in. 

The Thai basil you've often seen over the winter on my soup is just now starting again from my saved seeds, and when that's advanced enough I'll use it. I grow it as an annual.

The kitchen smelled like America's test kitchen! All good stuff going.

In less happy food news I opened the latest package of the English breakfast tea that I've been drinking and enjoying for years, same company, same high price. Name redacted because they have deeper pockets and more lawyers than I.

I noticed the packaging had changed but attached no importance to it. Then when I opened it and took a sniff expecting the usual lovely scent, I was surprised. Hardly any. I made a pot as usual, same amount, pot, everything. It tasted of nothing. 

So I got an immediate refund. I'd got it through Amazon, yes, I know, but I rarely do use Amazon, and for once was glad. They instantly processed the refund, instructed me not to return the two large bags, maybe foodstuff related, maybe Covid, and I was done. No need to contact the tea company.

Wanting to be fair, I went to the tea folks website to explain and see what's up. Their customer service asks you to email, because they're now remote. Fine. I went there. And the email is disabled. Nothing daunted, I went to their Twitter account to message them privately. And found their DMs are disabled.  

I don't want to go nuclear and put out a public tweet, so I'm leaving it there. I'm done. I wonder if they've changed hands. The quality drop won't get them far with people who like tea enough to buy high end leaves, no matter how fancy the packaging.

Meanwhile I went to Reluctant Trading and I'm going to get a bit of chai mix to see if that works for me as a change from English breakfast. I've tried other companies' English breakfast tea, and it didn't compare, so maybe a change will be good.

I've been given chai by Indian friends and it was like drinking hot candy. But I wonder if I can make my own without sugar, since I don't like sugar in any hot drink other than chocolate. We'll see. I'll report back when it arrives. No rush.

More snow, olive oil, soup, wisdom of Maisie

Another storm started this morning, and is now at the point where police are begging people to stay off the roads, at home, that is, since a whole lot of optimistic drivers set off this morning and went off the road in no time.  Impassable bridges, slippery corners, ditches, fill in the blanks.

But there's always soup.  Which reminds me, it beats me when I read other bloggers who complain they have nothing to write about! Because they're home, some even with families and pets.  How do they manage it? I seem to have enough ideas that I choose which to bother with each day.  Well, moving along here.

Last night I roasted potatoes for supper with a fried egg, comfort food, and put the butternut squash in at the same time, 400F for half an hour, so it was nicely done ready to use this morning.  The seeds are now flung out on the patio for the squirrels who love them. They're still warm, too, so they have a hot meal coming.

 

Butternut squash, cashews, carrot greens.  And the usual cast of assistant spices, kosher salt, nutmeg, turmeric, Old Bay, chicken stock.  I added milk powder after I'd blended, and it's definitely a good idea.

 This is my current Misfits olive oil, the best, lovely stuff, great flavor.  Which brings up a point: I don't agree that there's a cooking grade of olive oil.  Or of wine, come to that.  If you don't want to drink the sherry, why on earth would you cook with it? Likewise, people insist that this very high grade of oil is for finishing, for salads, and so on.  Yes, but I see no reason why I can't use it for anything else.  And that malarkey about the smoking point doesn't apply to soup.  So I use the best, and it's lovely.

 

And I like these people, too, note the instructions on storing it.

 And here's lunch.  It's very good, because I soaked the cashews overnight, better than a couple of hours.  And the color comes from the carrot greens, whose flavor works as well as carrots in this soup, I find. I don't think I'll ever get tired of soup.  Just as well, I suppose.  

This afternoon is Misfits Choice afternoon, where I Build My Box, as they grandly put it.  And where I get to choose salads greens, too.  Last night I dreamed I'd done it all, and the box had arrived, and I woke thinking oh good, I'll have a salad today.  Oh, wait, that was a dream only.

 Then there's the What Would Maisie Do book, which has quite a few helpful thoughts for meditating on, very a propos at this time, though the book came out before the pandemic.  And yes, everyone in the world is facing a change in circumstance just now. So it's worth thinking on this one.  It's like a fortune cookie thought, only it makes sense.