Reading Roundup and date nut official trials

 Quite a bit of my reading these days is electronic, what with the bother of having to make appointments to pick up physical books, and then driving a fair distance to pick up, just lazy, me.

So, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell is back off my Kindle and at the library again. I already borrowed and renewed twice and I'm still only halfway through.

 I'll have to try again when I get to the top of the waitlist again. Can't renew when others are waiting. This book is good, but long enough it feels like a part time job.

Meanwhile, The Gown, Jennifer Robson, thank you, Dogonart, was very good. It's a really well written, easy read, taking in post ww2 britain, embroidery for Princess elizabeth's wedding dress, with forays into Toronto, some streets I knew, having been there, occupied France, sad reflections on Jewish suffering, all woven together very well. A bit of a quest and a mystery, too. Plenty of triumph. A couple of unlikely scenarios, but even if unlikely, they're things that ought to happen, so there! The history and social life are very well researched, I do like accuracy. I read this as an ebook.

And The Amateur Marriage,an Anne Tyler from quite a while ago, is as engrossing as she always is, based, as often,  in Baltimore with a bit of California thrown in, and a three generation saga.  The characters are never confusing even though we end up with many of them,  very well written. Audiobook, well performed.

And I continue with the audiobook Spoils of Poynton, a long, leisurely Henry James, unfolding slowly and you have to slow down to match the pace. Worth it. One of the classics I'm catching up on. Since I read print at warp speed, it's good to be slowed down to really appreciate the writing. 

Speaking of slowing down, that date nut bread has definitely improved with sitting. I made labneh for a spread, to be authentic, since it used to be a New York favorite with cream cheese. 

The tartness of the labneh is really good against the sweetness of the dates.

Still not sure all the prep was worth it, nearly as much fuss as a Christmas fruit cake. It did however use the little container of good leftover coffee I'd frozen a while back thinking there would probably eventually be a cake to use this in. I found the container when I did the Freezer Winnowing. So there's that.

If you have books to recommend, please do! Always open to suggestions.

A Guided Tour of a Dumpster Furnished Home

 For many years I've lived in a condo then a townhouse where people are constantly downsizing, sometimes after they've moved in and found they can't fit everything into the smaller place. I've done the same, put out useful items in my turn. You use something for a while, then put it out for the next user.

After the lampstand find, probably the only item I've allowed into the house since the Great Winnowing, I thought it would be fun to see various bits of furniture I've acquired via dumpster or streetside.

Starting in the loft, here's the piece of finished pine I've used over thirty years as a dining table top, a bed head, and most recently as an art worktop. It might be a bedhead again, since my platform bed doesn't have one.

And a heavy glass slab I used for many years as a printmaking top

One of two folding chairs

Down a flight, handy bedroom chair

Storage units spare room art supplies and musical instruments

Kitchen butcher block island on casters, which I rebuilt, oiled and use daily

Spare bedroom table

High stool, one of two, used in the studio and as plant stands. Or bedside tables. The rug it's standing near, too, come to think of it

Display shelves, lovely old wood

Coffee table, oak, mission style, porcelain drawer pulls, dovetailed drawers

Fred's chair

Sofa table, craftsman made, hand rubbed and wax finished drawer pull. I know all this because it turned out a friend, woodworker and contractor, had made it. He put it out in the hope of a good home, and was very pleased when he saw it in my living room. Always wanted a table behind a sofa as a room divider. It also works for seasonal decoration, and a spare serving surface for holiday food, the dining table being just to the right of it.

Patio chair you've often seen, from neighboring development renovating pool area and replacing perfectly good lounge chairs. There were two, I gave one away.

I've never bought patio furniture. At the end of the season I'd usually put out my old pieces and drive around to find newer ones.

I think it's good to have custody of things for a while then pass them on in turn. It's just stuff, enjoy but attachment isn't required.  Around here, anyway. I've found and passed on a lot of items to good homes. It's good for the planet, too, not to buy new very often.

Look who's at the door asking to come in, and other events

Out walking today, noticed an interesting item at the dumpster, couldn't think what I'd wanted such a thing for, continued walking, came home around the back to find neighbor doing something very strenuous with a concrete umbrella stand. 

Pausing to help round up the Fluffy Runner aka Appie the Shi Tzu, he was glad to straighten up and chat about tomatoes. Loads of green ones on the plants, and last night temps were at freezing. What to do?

So i suggested he yank out the plants, strip off the toms and ripen them on the windowsill. New idea to him. His partner, the good cook, was there helping patiently to hold the concrete stand, and wondered what if they didn't ripen. 

Whereupon we started talking about breaded fried green tomatoes, which interested her. And about how to plant next year's tomatoes now. By taking one off the stem, putting it where you want it next year, and stamping on it. I did this year after year in my old garden, only bought tomato plants one year. This interested him. I'm an equal opportunity talker.

Next thing I'm on my way with samples.

Then a while later a homeless plant showed up. Could I house her? Too many plants next door, what with dogs and cats and pandemonium. I allowed as how I could. Can't remember for the life of me what it is.  

Any help on an ID? Some kind of palm.

Then I suddenly remembered why I wanted this lampstand at the dumpster.

 And to see why, go 

HERE

Last flowers, cricket, abdication

 Yesterday I picked what might be the last of this year's flowers while they're still blooming. Russian sage and Montauk daisies

Then a cricket match broke out behind the house! The parents brought out chairs to watch the kids. One or two can really bowl and hit, the rest just have fun trying. I was offered a seat but didn't stay, a little chilly for me.

 Cricket is big in the Indian community, followed avidly. Before our Indian neighbors arrived it was mainly older West Indian men from the Islands, with fabulous old cricket pads and bats and wickets, playing in the park.

Later there was a little excitement when I tried to combine bottle and can recycling with picking up mail, both being close together, and ended up dropping an important mail notice into the recycle bin. This is chest high on me, no way to reach in. So I went home for a pair of tongs, had to precariously tip the bin nearly over me, and retrieved the mail. Nobody watching, I'm glad to say. Definitely no pictures.

The Saturday evening movie was David and Wallis, I think that's the title, about Edward VIII and the abdication. I was really in it for the hats and jewels and interiors. And the views

Wallis and her Aunt Bessie, Marjorie Margolyes

The queen, Margaret Tyzack, curtsying to her son, David, the new King, right after her husband, the old King, died. Monarchy thrives on theater.

The Prime Minister, Baldwin, showing Parliament the signed abdication document. More theater.

The interiors were great, the story pretty familiar. After all they went through, and the upheaval they caused, they were stuck together for life, and I sometimes wonder if they regretted it. They were a terrible nuisance during the war, prancing about with Hitler, creating diplomatic messes, having to be rescued from various escapades.

 I think they, along with quite a few anti-Semitic English aristos, were hoping Hitler would win, assuming they would continue with their privileged life, Jews gone, with the Windsors on the throne. Nasty scenario, and dubious thinking.

Churchill positioned himself as a champion of Edward, (David in the family, very confusing), and I suspect it was a crafty move in case he ever did get the throne under Hitler. Churchill was not an unvarnished hero, but don't get me started!

Anyway I recommend this movie for great couture and scenery! 

Saturday stream of consciousness

 This is how I start my Saturdays, with this lovely work

"Interior" by Brynhild Parker of the East London Group.

Courtesy of the East London Group Twitter account. They exhibit, document and preserve the paintings and their significance. You can learn more at Wikipedia.

 The ELG  were working class people in the East end of London, in the 1920s and 30s, who studied art after working hours, were hugely talented and developed a following. Walter sickert was one of their teachers, and some of the members made it to the Slade. A working class artist myself, I really love this group. They struggled to buy materials, some became illustrators and created commercial posters for big companies. They worked in various media, and Steggles' watercolors are just enviable. Their work documents their surroundings, many street scenes of places now gone, their occasional travels. 

The ELG account shows work daily, with a repeating work on Saturdays and another one on Sundays

This is what you can get from Twitter if you curate your timeline to suit yourself. Mine is full of art, history, medieval manuscripts, farms, pets, writers, comedians. Some political writers, some local police and library news. Like a lot of things, it's what you make it.

It also has good news, as in today's report of a kindergartner finding the lemur, stolen from the San Francisco zoo. There's video of him and his Mom crossing the street after school, suddenly seeing it and leaping around, getting the other kids to see.

Mom called police and animal  control, and the lemur was quickly found in a backyard playhouse, fed and taken home to his habitat. Smart five year old knew it wasn't just a funny looking cat. Police have also found and charged the man who broke into the lemur's habitat and stole him. The finder's family now has lifetime free passes to the zoo, and the school accepted the $$ reward.

In other news, as they say,  I have this full spectrum light on order, doctor recommended, which I'm going to use to try to avoid my December crash. I'm hopeful.

It was a friend's doctor who said this is the best at the moment, and since the maker's instructions are vague, I took notes of how to use it

Green soup, powerhouse soup, today. Broccoli, scallions, celery, carrot greens, pesto water from lemon balm pesto, red potatoes, garlic, onions. Old Bay seasoning. Good for a few days.

If I were serving this to guests, I'd do a little drawing on each bowl in cream. 

Very high end. But I have no guests and no cream. So I'll just eat it and like it.

Last note on high tech things: there's an international archaeology conference underway, and they now find their software is banning the word bone. Bit difficult to discuss important findings without mentioning it. Somebody never thought to add it to the whitelist, I guess, never dreaming it would be redflagged.

Years ago when this kind of software blocking was new, one of our unlamented NJ politicians, whose name will be partly withheld, called a press conference to show how up-to-date he was with protecting everyone's children from Awful Words. Which they probably hear all the time, but anyway.

So he has the computer fired up, press assembled, and he goes to unveil his website. Which wouldn't open. Flusterment ensues. Then one of the techies said, um, Sen. Z, your name is stopping it. Name was  Dick. Gleeful reporting happened.

Date nut bread, better be worth it

 Since it's raining today, not good for walking, but good for baking, I made a date nut bread thing.

It was a pretty fancy recipe, with about 12 ingredients, including a slug of vodka!  They claim it's about flavor, but I wonder if it's just to keep  the cook going, if she takes a nip in the process.  Anyway, it's a pretty high maintenance bread/cake. I don't do spirits, so that was absent.

 I buttered and oiled the castiron skillet again, since it's great for cakes and I wondered if my square pan would be big enough for this fairly extensive recipe.

As I say, high maintenance.  I think recipes ought to come with charts showing how many bits of kit you need in the course of making them.  This is just the dishes from this recipe, the three mixing bowls already washed and put away to make room in the sink for the ever growing pile of equipment.

Compare this to the total of the equipment above, including pot, needed for my giant loaf of bread. Just sayin.

Anyway, back to the date nut bread, which used almost all my high-end dates from Misfits, and nearly all my midrange walnuts from ShopRite. Also the three mixing bowls you see in the background here. There's also a tinfoil hat it required after thirty minutes so as not to get too brown.

I had to take it out of the pan in two halves, since though it was willing to come out easily, my wrist isn't strong enough to hold up the iron pan complete with cake in one hand, tip it onto the other and then to the cooling rack.  I started then decided that way madness lay. So I halved it and lifted it out without incident.  And cut a slice to try.  The texture is very nice, all the ingredients nicely distributed. Looks moist. So I took a bite.

Hm. Maybe this is the sort of cake that needs to mature a bit for the flavors to work.  Right now, it's okay, but it tastes a bit random.  And I'm not at all sure it was worth all the time and effort.  I think the simple sweet potato bread was better.  This one may benefit from cream cheese, though, since a lot of people like to spread it on.  For that I need yogurt which I don't currently have. So we'll see. I satisfied my curiosity, but I'm not sure this is a hill to die on.

I wonder if you can use cooked beets in cake? it would certainly make a nice rosy color.  Hm. Maybe I'll investigate that next. In a while.

Doesn't get any better

 Beautiful sunny day in the 70s, nice wind, home after walking, pick up the mail, then afternoon tea, last of the  sweet potato bread. And a faithful weekly art postcard from dear honorary granddaughter.

It doesn't get any better than this. It just doesn't.

Holiday plans, plants at home

 I really don't do senior activities, too many old fogies...however, I got an email from the township recreation department about a free of charge box lunch for seniors for the holidays, a drive by event in early December. Which, since it's around Thanksgiving, my birthday and Christmas, in that series, seemed like a really nice thing to accept.

So I went to the township website, and tried quite a while to find the event, did so, then had to open an account in order to sign up. Oookay, fine.  Then found that in order to receive texts you had to, get this, tell them who your carrier is.  From a dropdown menu.  On which my carrier is not listed. So I had to forgo texting.

Moving along, filled out several screens of information, including creating password, etc., and was rejected since there is already an account with that email.  I don't have an account with the township, so who knows what that means. Anyway, if I could substitute another email address, I could open my account. Okay.  Except that there's no way to do that. You can't delete and replace. You can't edit. So after quite a while, wondering if this was actually worth doing, I sent an email to the rec. department asking if it had to be this hard.

I heartlessly played the age card, and the birthday card, and the widow card, and the alone since March card, and asked them for help.

then, first thing this morning, an email from the admin, saying, oh sorry, I can sign you up directly, just tell me this and this. She even offered to get the lunch delivered if I were homebound! Which I declined, thanking her profusely, and said I could get there.  Then this:

The squeaky wheel rules.  But there are no answers on why they want all the info, or why the website is so clunky.  Handsome Son, who's a software person when he's not a grocery store person, said, ah, typical of a low budget supplier.  Which, given that its the township, which probably had to accept the lowest bid, may be the whole thing. I wonder how they get participants in their senior programs, though, given that I'm a lot more computer literate than many of my agemates and I couldn't make it work. 

Meanwhile, back at the conservatory (!) the potato plant is growing tall, but not looking all that healthy.  Probably not enough light

And the Vicks' plant, which I looked up to see if it is in fact a coleus, which it isn't, I also found is supposed to have a cascading growth pattern. Which explains why it was lying about on top of the groundcover when it was growing outside.  So I gave it a hanging place and it does indeed cascade nicely, above the other plants on the shelves.

So that's us today.  Beautiful day for walking, low 70s, nice wind, cheerful other people out walking, met a beautiful brindled dog, very muscular and handsome, probably a Staffie. His owner was so happy when I admired the dog.  Dog owners of course, totally agree that theirs is the most handsome dog anyway, and you're just confirming their opinion.

Cricket, supper and new pots for old

 Yesterday there was a ring at the door, I went to answer it and there didn't seem to be anyone there. Looked down a bit further to see a tiny masked boy. Asked what's up and he said well, we were playing and the fence and you know, well, the ball..Ah, you lost a ball in my back yard? Came over the fence? Fine, let's find it and I'll meet you back there.

By the time I put my shoes on and arrived on the patio, he'd already run down to the corner, around the houses, up the back and with about twenty of his cricketing pals was waiting eagerly at my gate to crowd in and search. I  could guess the results of a crowd of kids yanking at all the ground cover in a search, so I asked them to supervise from outside the fence, while I used a yard broom to sweep through the plants and search. They were happy to issue instructions and were all comvinced about the exact spot, no, there, no, there, while I fruitlessly brushed. 

They're lovely kids, thanked me for trying, said they hope they hadn't stressed me out (!) I promised that if I found it I would return it, thanked them for their courtesy in coming all the way round to my front door to ask. Quite a love fest.

After tea I was tipping out my tea-leaves and thought I'd look further. I eventually found the grimy old ball far from where they were sure it landed, and tossed it back over to the group, who had found another ball to continue with. Bg chorus of thanks, she found it, she found it, yay. Everyone happy. Note: every child was masked.  They do get noisy, but what great kids. This is nowadays an Indian neighborhood, and I've never had better neighbors.

Supper included salad, of course, and a few pickled carrots, remember them? 

Verdict: the carrots are very good,  the asparagus not so much. But the asparagus was frozen not fresh, so it didn't have that nice crunchy texture that pickles need. Egg salad on whole-wheat bread. I eat an egg a day, no patience with the people who have not kept up with the research showing they're fine. Dietary cholesterol is unrelated to system cholesterol. One doesn't govern the other. But you'll still find rehabs insisting on some synthetic lab based version of eggs because they don't follow the facts and, says she darkly, they have contracts with the producers. 

Then the Vick's plants, needed bigger pots, flourishing after I nearly killed them twice and brought them back. You know Vick's vaporub? This is the plant it is derived from. You can put the foliage in simmering water in winter to create a menthol mist for congestion. So it's worth keeping around. Vick's grows energetically. I think it's related to coleus, and you know they're fast growers.

Here one is sharing a pot with a spider plant

While I was out my neighbors came to thank me for the sweet potato bread. Very warmly, clearly hoping I'd make it again. He has a pumpkin which he wants only for the seeds, and he'll give me the rest. He rescued it from his step after squirrels took a bite. Maybe I'll make pumpkin bread. Didn't mention it to him, not wanting to get his hopes up.

As you see I have a little sugar pumpkin, designed for eating and currently decorating my step, but I need to keep an eye on it in case of marauding squirrels.

Sharing is good. Said Peter Rabbit.

 I did a bit of cleanup outside. That huge white mass of chrysanthemums covering half the path was battered by rain and ready to be done. You see the darker color of the ground cover where it's been shaded since July by the spreading chrysanthemum.

So now it's out back feeding the earth in the woods, leaving the Montauk daisies to shine. They look better without the competition from across the path.

Then it was lunchtime so I thought hm, some chives and dandelions would be nice additions to my salad, and on top of the vichyssoise soup. So I went to cut them

and found that word had got out that I was a Potter fan, and Peter's cousin had swiped the lot.

So italian parsley subbed. I used all the leeks and potatoes from my box, and yogurt whey. Milk added, not cream. I forgot to add in celery. Next time.

On the subject of fitness which we were, indirectly, this kind of eating being pretty good for health, I needed a change from hasfit exercises, so I've added chair yoga as of  today.  When instructors pronounce it eeyoga, it sounds like Cherry Oga, new singing sensation, but I digress.

But however you say it, this is good.

Many of the hasfit exercises are based on yoga practice, so they all go together.

Knitting group online today, where I'll be stitching, not having any knitting going right now.  And hoping not to crash or freeze, this event being generated from a dodgy connection in a branch library. The other, alternating, knitting meetings are from the main library with the Big Cables, much better signal. But I'll sign in anyway, to be supportive. Also to see who's there.

And I delivered samples of sweet potato bread next door as promised, to some excitement. Doesn't take much these days!