Southern Fusion Broiled Tofu
Easy, simple, and tasty. Take a block of tofu and press it in a tofu press, or do what I do and wrap it in a dishtowel and pile a plate and about ten pounds of cookbooks on it, then leave it there for 20 minutes. This will press out some of the moisture, leaving your tofu slightly denser and more able to absorb marinade.
Cut the tofu into quarter-inch-thick slices.
Whip a quick marinade of approximately one part hoisin sauce (or similar dark, thick Asian sauces might work) and three parts commercial sweet tea (use the good stuff; I used Beacon Drive-Inn's signature iced tea). Make just enough to coat your tofu.
Drop your tofu in the marinade in a sealed container, roll it around until the slices are coated, and leave it in the fridge for an hour or two, turning it over every so often.
Lay the slices on a lightly greased cookie sheet and broil them five minutes. Turn over and broil another five minutes. Serve hot, with hoisin sauce for dipping.
The flavor is weird but delicious, sort of piquant and hard to identify, and the texture is a delightful mating of crispy and chewy with soft, and a touch of crunch round the edges. Hey, I wonder if you could cut shapes out of them!
---
Unrelatedly, a thing I found out while I was doing copywriting research: Someone on the internet is trying to get marijuana smokers to report how many zippy bags they use for their stash each week. He (I'm assuming it's a man, but I don't know why) will then work out how many zippy bags are used for this purpose nationwide, and report his findings to Ziploc in hopes of gaining corporate backing for the next push to legalize marijuana. And this is why I love the weird world of the internet.
Showing posts with label home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Friday, July 22, 2011
Two Musings
Available here.
1.) Somewhere, there is an earring civilization. Venerable sterling elders with French hooks advise plastic clip-ons on how to raise their feather-and-kidney-wire young to be good and productive earring citizens. Their mythology always seems to center around the quest to find one's soulmate, becoming a perfectly matched pair -- er, couple.
2.) I was reading an out-of-date travel magazine the other day while I waited for the laundry quarters to be spent, and there was an article about the memory triggers of smell. This is something I often tell students about their papers -- scent is the single strongest memory trigger, you can tell me about how Grandma's house at Christmas looked for three pages, but if you add three lines at strategic intervals about how it smelled, you've doubled the narrative's force. It's inspiring in that maddening way -- if only you could make jewelry of a smell.
I'll never forget the first time I stepped out of the airport in Charlotte. The smell of the South is like nothing else, and describing it is as hard as putting into words that waxy, fleshy sheen of a salad-plate-sized magnolia blossom, or finding the perfect metaphor for the sound a cicada makes. Think of clean water, freshly cut grass, and an assortment of fine cigars pristine, fragrant and unsmoked in their cedar box.
Yeah. Like that.
The garden in mid-June: Coleus, native asters, thrift and liatris and rue.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Treasury Wednesday: Royal Albert China
I made this treasury while M and I were planning the tea-and-jewelry party for our coworkers. M's wedding china was in the Old Country Roses pattern, which I initially disliked rather a lot, but then I actually took a close look at it -- it was hiding behind wavy panes in her grandmother's china hutch until we moved -- and realized it was red and orange, not the pink and peach I initially assumed. I still like to set it with our green and white china to mellow it a bit, but I like it now.
Inspired by the Royal Albert "Old Country Roses" china, which is growing on me.
'Teatime: Old Country Roses' by tangopig
Inspired by the Royal Albert "Old Country Roses" china, which is growing on me.
 Scrabble Tile Magne... $9.00 |  Small Needle Felted... $10.00 |  6 Small Fabric Cove... $8.00 |  StayGoldMaryRose - ... $49.00 |
 Spring Flowers - Ne... $23.00 |  Roses Gift Box Neut... $5.50 |  large herbal tea ki... $40.00 |  Little Leaf Houses ... $28.00 |
 Rose Water OOAK Lin... $15.00 |  Roses Flower Hair P... $18.00 |  Vintage Old Country... $45.00 |  SEPTEMBER SUNRISE H... $45.00 |
 Bouquet For Every D... $35.00 |  Variegated kit Swee... $10.99 |  Dollhouse Miniature... $23.00 |  English Garden - 11... $75.00 |
Friday, May 27, 2011
Home decor of nerdy glee
This warms the cockles of my heart and makes my hand twitch instinctively toward the Mod Podge:
Image courtesy Jennifer Ofenstein.
Isn't that incredibly cool? I am thinking of perhaps a desk nook done in Victorian naturalist texts, damaged Audobon guides, cryptozoology sketches, with pressed leaves and flowers added for more color and texture. It would be glorious.
The same person does awesome paper-piecing patterns: Here's a great little tutorial on using them for greeting cards.
Image courtesy Jennifer Ofenstein.
Isn't that incredibly cool? I am thinking of perhaps a desk nook done in Victorian naturalist texts, damaged Audobon guides, cryptozoology sketches, with pressed leaves and flowers added for more color and texture. It would be glorious.
The same person does awesome paper-piecing patterns: Here's a great little tutorial on using them for greeting cards.
Friday, May 20, 2011
This blog gives me joy.
City Farmer News. Pay a visit.
Putting the means of production in the hands of the disenfranchised through training and education. Using simple technologies in ingenious ways to create permaculture. Reusing and repurposing everything to carve out a space for living things to thrive. Devising a way for humans to coexist with the necessities of life in a manner both pleasant and functional.
It's like the best sort of Utopian steampunk fiction, only it's news, with bylines and ledes and captioned photos. And it makes me go, "Hey -- maybe the world is gonna be okay after all."
Putting the means of production in the hands of the disenfranchised through training and education. Using simple technologies in ingenious ways to create permaculture. Reusing and repurposing everything to carve out a space for living things to thrive. Devising a way for humans to coexist with the necessities of life in a manner both pleasant and functional.
It's like the best sort of Utopian steampunk fiction, only it's news, with bylines and ledes and captioned photos. And it makes me go, "Hey -- maybe the world is gonna be okay after all."
Monday, May 16, 2011
Steampunk Skills
In my heart, I still really prefer a steampunk that is a lot more "punk" than "steam."
Available here.
I don't think that things need to be dripping in gears (or octopi) to be steampunk. The "purist" view is that it's not steampunk unless it's functional; I'm not sure I ascribe to that either. I like the William Morris standpoint on the technology vs. aesthetic thing: "Have nothing in your homes that you do not know to be useful or feel to be beautiful." To me, it naturally follows that either is good but both is best.
Nor is steampunk just a "look" to me, though there's definitely some level of know-it-when-I-see-it going on here with the clothing and accessories. As an iteration of punk, it's a mindset and an aesthetic.
Primarily, the mindset is characterized by the oft-calligraphied Japanese phrase "onkochishin": "Honor the past to create the new." It's a looking backwards to solve the evils of now and recreate the present; it's looking at the world and saying, "You know? We don't have to break this to remake it. We can have science and responsibility and wonder. They can become the same thing again. We can save the world by changing our ways, not by eschewing them."
(Please allow me a moment to be a Lord of the Rings fanatic: "He who breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of reason," Gandalf advised us. And while Papa Tolkien is no doubt revolving in his grave to have me say it: That applies to the technological lifestyle too. We don't have to destroy either the ways of the past or the ways of now to understand them, nor to improve them.)
The steampunk culture looks to the past and incorporates it in order to celebrate it -- which is almost universal; the only reason it's settled on neo-Victorian is because that's where/when our society's cultural memory says, "This is when science and beauty and romance and heroism and practicality could all be realistic concepts at the same time." It's really not about a particular time period. It's about recreating the useful and the beautiful in one another's image to create a world that both looks and works well.
This isn't to say there isn't harsh, gritty steampunk alongside the elegant gleam. The wisdom of the culture lies not in its settings but in its meanings -- in what it takes as its heroes.
Consequently, while I can't mod my technology and I don't drive a steam-powered hovercraft, these are the things I consider my "steampunk skills":
Available here.
I don't think that things need to be dripping in gears (or octopi) to be steampunk. The "purist" view is that it's not steampunk unless it's functional; I'm not sure I ascribe to that either. I like the William Morris standpoint on the technology vs. aesthetic thing: "Have nothing in your homes that you do not know to be useful or feel to be beautiful." To me, it naturally follows that either is good but both is best.
Nor is steampunk just a "look" to me, though there's definitely some level of know-it-when-I-see-it going on here with the clothing and accessories. As an iteration of punk, it's a mindset and an aesthetic.
Primarily, the mindset is characterized by the oft-calligraphied Japanese phrase "onkochishin": "Honor the past to create the new." It's a looking backwards to solve the evils of now and recreate the present; it's looking at the world and saying, "You know? We don't have to break this to remake it. We can have science and responsibility and wonder. They can become the same thing again. We can save the world by changing our ways, not by eschewing them."
(Please allow me a moment to be a Lord of the Rings fanatic: "He who breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of reason," Gandalf advised us. And while Papa Tolkien is no doubt revolving in his grave to have me say it: That applies to the technological lifestyle too. We don't have to destroy either the ways of the past or the ways of now to understand them, nor to improve them.)
The steampunk culture looks to the past and incorporates it in order to celebrate it -- which is almost universal; the only reason it's settled on neo-Victorian is because that's where/when our society's cultural memory says, "This is when science and beauty and romance and heroism and practicality could all be realistic concepts at the same time." It's really not about a particular time period. It's about recreating the useful and the beautiful in one another's image to create a world that both looks and works well.
This isn't to say there isn't harsh, gritty steampunk alongside the elegant gleam. The wisdom of the culture lies not in its settings but in its meanings -- in what it takes as its heroes.
Consequently, while I can't mod my technology and I don't drive a steam-powered hovercraft, these are the things I consider my "steampunk skills":
Friday, April 29, 2011
Jewelry Sets and Busy-ness
I've become a lot bolder about listing coordinating items separately of late. My bridal jewelry all links to the rest of the collection in the listing, since those are intended to be sort of infinitely mix-and-match. Lately, I also listed this set:
Available here and here. Sold!
That ... is a weird piece. I have to say it. It's really odd. Even more disparate materials than I usually combine, which, with me, is saying something. It would be awesome to layer with a longer piece, though, a pendant on a very long cord maybe? I haven't done a lot of A.) chokers or B.) multistrand before, though I've done a good few of the latter lately.
And I'm fond of the earring photo; I think I managed the depth of field and dimensionality, what with turning the pot that the earrings hang in toward the light and away from the camera, which makes them a little more interesting. Not sure it's visible at the teaser size, though. Hmm.
Also, since I originally wrote this post, the set has sold. Obviously I'm not the only one who likes it!
I always consider jewelry sets to be an excellent gift -- coordinating necklace-earrings, bracelet-pendant, pendant-earrings-bracelet or what-have-you vastly increases the perceived value. However, I'm getting more confident about breaking up jewelry sets listing-wise because I often sell them that way in person, with someone wanting just the necklace but not having pierced ears, preferring studs, or not caring for the pendant but liking the color combination and so purchasing the matching bracelet alone. Things like that. It's only twenty cents more for me, and it takes my customers to the Priority-shipping upgrade faster, so I think this is actually better. Thoughts from the reader pool?
On another note, we've just finished out the semester at the tech college, and in the sudden glut of free time and M-is-home time I've had a couple of stupidly productive days. We're still decorating the house, the garden flourishes, and I made hamburgers with homegrown spinach on them last night. The Japanese maple looks like the Japanese maple. The English primrose and daisies are not terribly happy, which is not unexpected, but my Oscar milkweed, liatris, and (shockingly) trout lilies are all remarkably happy. The Jack-in-the-pulpit died but it's been the only thing to croak out of season so far. More topically, I've made approximately a thousand charm bracelets, two with bits of miniature tea set and three with buttons, including my weird but somehow trademark combination of plastic buttons with pearls. We're discussing having all our work friends over for traditional British tea and jewelry-showing sometime next month.
For those interested, I'm selling off much of my collection of vintage hematite in the Ballet Llama storefront. There are also some nice hard-to-find charms there. Get 'em while the getting's good!
It's hot, but life is nice right now.
That ... is a weird piece. I have to say it. It's really odd. Even more disparate materials than I usually combine, which, with me, is saying something. It would be awesome to layer with a longer piece, though, a pendant on a very long cord maybe? I haven't done a lot of A.) chokers or B.) multistrand before, though I've done a good few of the latter lately.
And I'm fond of the earring photo; I think I managed the depth of field and dimensionality, what with turning the pot that the earrings hang in toward the light and away from the camera, which makes them a little more interesting. Not sure it's visible at the teaser size, though. Hmm.
Also, since I originally wrote this post, the set has sold. Obviously I'm not the only one who likes it!
I always consider jewelry sets to be an excellent gift -- coordinating necklace-earrings, bracelet-pendant, pendant-earrings-bracelet or what-have-you vastly increases the perceived value. However, I'm getting more confident about breaking up jewelry sets listing-wise because I often sell them that way in person, with someone wanting just the necklace but not having pierced ears, preferring studs, or not caring for the pendant but liking the color combination and so purchasing the matching bracelet alone. Things like that. It's only twenty cents more for me, and it takes my customers to the Priority-shipping upgrade faster, so I think this is actually better. Thoughts from the reader pool?
On another note, we've just finished out the semester at the tech college, and in the sudden glut of free time and M-is-home time I've had a couple of stupidly productive days. We're still decorating the house, the garden flourishes, and I made hamburgers with homegrown spinach on them last night. The Japanese maple looks like the Japanese maple. The English primrose and daisies are not terribly happy, which is not unexpected, but my Oscar milkweed, liatris, and (shockingly) trout lilies are all remarkably happy. The Jack-in-the-pulpit died but it's been the only thing to croak out of season so far. More topically, I've made approximately a thousand charm bracelets, two with bits of miniature tea set and three with buttons, including my weird but somehow trademark combination of plastic buttons with pearls. We're discussing having all our work friends over for traditional British tea and jewelry-showing sometime next month.
For those interested, I'm selling off much of my collection of vintage hematite in the Ballet Llama storefront. There are also some nice hard-to-find charms there. Get 'em while the getting's good!
It's hot, but life is nice right now.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Treasury Wednesday: Kiwi and Honeysuckle Kitchen
This one was inspired by how much cooking I've been doing lately! Incidentally, the bread recipe I linked last time I was yammering about my kitchen works with half-white, half-whole wheat flour, but not with all wheat, and if using wheat the water should be increased by a splash.
I also focused on pink, since "Honeysuckle" is technically supposed to be the Pantone Color of the Year. I'm less than pleased since Honeysuckle is Not a Nice Plant in the South, but hey. Pink is nice. Right? This is really more of a salmon pink, though.
I also just love food-inspired jewelry, from mini polymer clay birthday cakes to ganache-colored tiaras or what have you. It thrills me.
Salmon pink and leaf green in cookery-inspired designs.
I also focused on pink, since "Honeysuckle" is technically supposed to be the Pantone Color of the Year. I'm less than pleased since Honeysuckle is Not a Nice Plant in the South, but hey. Pink is nice. Right? This is really more of a salmon pink, though.
I also just love food-inspired jewelry, from mini polymer clay birthday cakes to ganache-colored tiaras or what have you. It thrills me.
'Culinarily Speaking' by tangopig
Salmon pink and leaf green in cookery-inspired designs.
 Himalayan Pink Sea ... $3.00 |  Baby Buckwheat Spro... $15.00 |  DESTASH Assorted Fr... $11.75 |  Piece of my Heart -... $8.50 |
 Salmon Necklace - W... $20.00 |  LILY Tea time fab... $38.00 |  Gourmet Salt Trio -... $7.99 |  Persistence $10.00 |
 Super Cupcake Nom f... $6.99 |  bowl scallop pink $18.00 |  Profiteroles Pyrami... $40.00 |  Valentine Buttercre... $12.95 |
 Baked Potato Bag Mi... $ |  Original 3.5x5 -- F... $50.00 |  Fresh Tomato Leaf S... $5.00 |  Sweet Cherries - Fo... $30.00 |
Treasury tool is sponsored by Lazzia.com A/B image testing.
Friday, March 25, 2011
"Bless my eyes! Fresh hot ... "
Not leftover, but definitely lazy. As of mid-February I now bake all of the bread for our household.
I am a big fan of food that I can make ahead of time and have last a while; I'm happiest when I can have one big, traditional, flour-coated apron-wearing "baking day" and then have homemade food to serve and eat for several days.
When I was doing my last quarter of school with my double-schedule-and-a-job-and-a-commute nightmare, weekends were a respite, sort of. I spent them engaged in computer games (I still own, play and love my legacy neighborhood in The Sims 2, where a number of refugees from great works of literature, like Aldonza and Sancho, Count Fosco and Marian Halcombe, Bess and her eponymous Highwayman, have bred and interbred and I now have their grandchildren populating my pixellated dollhouses. Awesome and absorbing time sink). But weekends weren't actually relaxing as such. They were just -- two days when I didn't actually have to drive forty-five minutes to do six to nine unbroken hours of punishing mental work and then drive home in rush-hour traffic to scribble and pound out my homework until I fell into bed.
On a related note, I tend to get a bit steamy when people are vocal about thinking that college students are, as a breed, lazy.
Now, weekends are different. In my own home, with my workspace set up and control over the grocery list, weekends are glorious timeless stretches of beading and baking interspersed with five-dollar DVDs from Ingles, snuggling with Megan, drinking moderate amounts of sweet froofy martinis, and lovely-anxiously tending my garden.
Anyhow. This all started with the bread.
As an example, I spent last Saturday preparing the following:
1. Fresh artisan bread
2. Miniature mushroom quiches
3. Caramel nut sticky buns
4. Artichoke cheese dip
5. Corn and bean salad
6. Apple cider pasta salad
Each a family recipe -- except the bread. And oh god the bread. M and I have never agreed upon a type of bread, but I am pleased to report those days well over.
The recipe, from Mother Earth News and written in this delightful vintage-advert tone, is here. Read it. Use it. Love it. The pizza peel and baking stone are not necessary; parchment paper on a cookie sheet works just fine. The bread is moist and tangy with a delicious sourdough-like texture and flavor. One orange-sized ball yields a loaf large enough for both of us to get crusty, satisfying sandwiches and dip the heels in jam or artichoke dip or plain cream cheese for a flavorful snack. I've learned I need to do a spare loaf that we can eat warm. Without butter. That's how good this bread is.
We've figured out that all the bread costs us about $5 a month to make, and takes about half an hour's work once a week.
So. For no particular reason. Have a special offer. When you mention that one blog post about the bread between now and Monday, March 28, 2011, get 10% off any purchase of $20.00 or more.
Available here.
M has just awarded me a Housewife Merit Badge. She assures me that they are in fact equilateral triangles like Girl Scout patches. Success!
I am a big fan of food that I can make ahead of time and have last a while; I'm happiest when I can have one big, traditional, flour-coated apron-wearing "baking day" and then have homemade food to serve and eat for several days.
When I was doing my last quarter of school with my double-schedule-and-a-job-and-a-commute nightmare, weekends were a respite, sort of. I spent them engaged in computer games (I still own, play and love my legacy neighborhood in The Sims 2, where a number of refugees from great works of literature, like Aldonza and Sancho, Count Fosco and Marian Halcombe, Bess and her eponymous Highwayman, have bred and interbred and I now have their grandchildren populating my pixellated dollhouses. Awesome and absorbing time sink). But weekends weren't actually relaxing as such. They were just -- two days when I didn't actually have to drive forty-five minutes to do six to nine unbroken hours of punishing mental work and then drive home in rush-hour traffic to scribble and pound out my homework until I fell into bed.
On a related note, I tend to get a bit steamy when people are vocal about thinking that college students are, as a breed, lazy.
Now, weekends are different. In my own home, with my workspace set up and control over the grocery list, weekends are glorious timeless stretches of beading and baking interspersed with five-dollar DVDs from Ingles, snuggling with Megan, drinking moderate amounts of sweet froofy martinis, and lovely-anxiously tending my garden.
Anyhow. This all started with the bread.
As an example, I spent last Saturday preparing the following:
1. Fresh artisan bread
2. Miniature mushroom quiches
3. Caramel nut sticky buns
4. Artichoke cheese dip
5. Corn and bean salad
6. Apple cider pasta salad
Each a family recipe -- except the bread. And oh god the bread. M and I have never agreed upon a type of bread, but I am pleased to report those days well over.
The recipe, from Mother Earth News and written in this delightful vintage-advert tone, is here. Read it. Use it. Love it. The pizza peel and baking stone are not necessary; parchment paper on a cookie sheet works just fine. The bread is moist and tangy with a delicious sourdough-like texture and flavor. One orange-sized ball yields a loaf large enough for both of us to get crusty, satisfying sandwiches and dip the heels in jam or artichoke dip or plain cream cheese for a flavorful snack. I've learned I need to do a spare loaf that we can eat warm. Without butter. That's how good this bread is.
We've figured out that all the bread costs us about $5 a month to make, and takes about half an hour's work once a week.
So. For no particular reason. Have a special offer. When you mention that one blog post about the bread between now and Monday, March 28, 2011, get 10% off any purchase of $20.00 or more.
Available here.
M has just awarded me a Housewife Merit Badge. She assures me that they are in fact equilateral triangles like Girl Scout patches. Success!
Friday, March 18, 2011
A more ephemeral creation
Inspired by the menus of the Steampunk Cookery blog, for St. Patrick's day yesterday I decided to do a steampunk-style holiday meal: a made-from-scratch meal incorporating a number of different cultural culinary traditions into a Victorian-style course plan.
St. Patrick's Day is very much an immigrant holiday. Though celebrated in Ireland, there it's a literal holy day. In the U.S., it marks an entire day celebrating an immigrant culture that was once rejected. It celebrates through the unthinking use of really terrible stereotypes, mind you, and consequently bothers me, but I honor the spirit of it, at least.
M loves corned beef (which is multicultural in itself; it's a traditionally Jewish dish adopted as a bacon replacement), but we're waiting for it to go on sale as we do with most holiday foods, so I prepared the following:
I quartered, boiled and mashed with butter five pounds of small russet potatoes. Mashed potatoes are remarkably easy if you don't mind the skin; actually (cocktail party fact), a diet of milk and potatoes with the skin on provides all the nutrients necessary for human subsistence, the same as a diet of rice and beans.
Then, I made Swedish-style baked cardamom meatballs with a couple of Italian-style additions: torn fresh basil and extra garlic. These bake for thirty minutes, then are covered in sauce and baked for twenty more; I replaced the traditional sweet-savory brown gravy with a sauce inspired by the traditional Middle Eastern garlic-yogurt dressing for dishes like Turkish cacik. My version used thinned sour cream, garlic, paprika and some red pepper flakes.
I served the baked sauce and meatballs with sliced onions over a bed of the mashed potatoes. This was accented by a spinach, romaine and homegrown kale salad tossed in honey mustard dressing, plus my homemade wheat bread with butter (about which more next week). We replaced the traditional beer-or-whiskey with a pear cider.
The meal was a huge success, the five pounds (99 cents) of russet potatoes and one pound ($1.96) of ground beef yielded easily enough for four to six (we love our leftovers!), and I spent an hour concocting the recipes from five different online sources. They are now taking a proud place in my recipe box -- another old tradition that I am wholeheartedly adopting as my own.
St. Patrick's Day is very much an immigrant holiday. Though celebrated in Ireland, there it's a literal holy day. In the U.S., it marks an entire day celebrating an immigrant culture that was once rejected. It celebrates through the unthinking use of really terrible stereotypes, mind you, and consequently bothers me, but I honor the spirit of it, at least.
M loves corned beef (which is multicultural in itself; it's a traditionally Jewish dish adopted as a bacon replacement), but we're waiting for it to go on sale as we do with most holiday foods, so I prepared the following:
I quartered, boiled and mashed with butter five pounds of small russet potatoes. Mashed potatoes are remarkably easy if you don't mind the skin; actually (cocktail party fact), a diet of milk and potatoes with the skin on provides all the nutrients necessary for human subsistence, the same as a diet of rice and beans.
Then, I made Swedish-style baked cardamom meatballs with a couple of Italian-style additions: torn fresh basil and extra garlic. These bake for thirty minutes, then are covered in sauce and baked for twenty more; I replaced the traditional sweet-savory brown gravy with a sauce inspired by the traditional Middle Eastern garlic-yogurt dressing for dishes like Turkish cacik. My version used thinned sour cream, garlic, paprika and some red pepper flakes.
I served the baked sauce and meatballs with sliced onions over a bed of the mashed potatoes. This was accented by a spinach, romaine and homegrown kale salad tossed in honey mustard dressing, plus my homemade wheat bread with butter (about which more next week). We replaced the traditional beer-or-whiskey with a pear cider.
The meal was a huge success, the five pounds (99 cents) of russet potatoes and one pound ($1.96) of ground beef yielded easily enough for four to six (we love our leftovers!), and I spent an hour concocting the recipes from five different online sources. They are now taking a proud place in my recipe box -- another old tradition that I am wholeheartedly adopting as my own.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Gardening Again
So, after all that, we got to the garden center and the all-purple-and-green idea went immediately out the window. It's still all in shades-of-aqua pots, anyway, ranging from muted to quite saturated indeed and from seafoam to robin's-egg to stone flecked with blue ... but the colors, man, the colors. They tempted us far too much.
I also made the amateur's mistake of planting two months early. Our average date of last frost here, apparently, is April 15. "Well, hell," I said to the computer screen, and started tucking vintage army blankets around the plants every night.
They're under shelter. I don't think anything has died. They just marked time until the soil warmed up. And they got a nice soaking from our major thunderstorm last week!
In our most sheltered corner, we have a young Japanese maple (a Suminagashi) and three specimens of an apricot-colored viola cultivar. These are an annual, so next year I may replace them with a threatened-endangered Southeastern viola species. This is the corner at the beginning of February:
This is it now:
I've added pots of spinach and basil, moved the ephemerals (the little brown pots, about which more later) to the railing because they seemed to want to be warmer, the creeping phlox has gone from pink to purple, and that ornamental grass is much happier. Up in the corner waiting to be hung, the hummingbird feeder we bought for five dollars at the Mennonite thrift shop, its missing parts replaced with polymer clay and beads.
The tree is promising to bud any ol' time now; it's mulched with Spanish moss and the pot contains one of M's polymer clay fairy doors.
I got my native-woodland spring ephemerals, which, to my shock and delight, are available cheaply, if in limited varieties, at Lowe's of all places. I now have my liverleaf hepatica, a red trillium, and a trout lily in individual pots.
Liverleaf, Hepatica nobilis or H. americana. Photo copyright Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
It seems those fuzzy stems have lovely deep red winter foliage.
Trillium, Trillium erectum. Photo copyright Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
I'm not sure that's the right species. I thought mine was a T. grandiflorum, but apparently those only come in white aging to pink, and I seem to recall mine will be deep red. These also have the really delightful and ephemeral-appropriate name of "wakerobin." This is one of those moments where my writer's acquisitiveness of names shines through into a jewelry design idea: Expect a Yellow Wakerobin Necklace or similar in my future.
Trout lily, Erythronium americanum. Photo copyright Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
The turned-back petals are lovely! Though apparently not actually characteristic.
Apart from this, we have a white astilbe (apparently pronounced "a still bee," not "a steel bay" as I've been), which we purchased because we liked it and it was non-invasive -- but which apparently is a show cultivar of a native Appalachian False Goat's-beard. Accidental success! The astilbe is going mad with delight where it's planted, which is worth recalling for the future. Between the two astilbes is a jack-in-the-pulpit, also a woodland native:
Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Arisaema triphyllum. Photo copyright Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
Or rather, this is what I thought. When the sprouts came up a couple weeks ago, the distinctive leaf shapes indicated I had the trillium in the box with the astilbes and the jack-in-the-pulpit on our glass-topped table ... oops. Either way, the jack-in-the-pulpit is in one of the two sunnier spots to encourage those bold burgundy stripes to develop.
There's also a box of lavender and a box of peas, out of sight, and a big pot of "Firecracker" gladiolus, the one with the cool stick in it. Which is native to nowhere. But also noxious nowhere, so I'm still okay. There's one sprout, abruptly and at long last; it liked the thunderstorm.
In addition, there's a non-invasive planting by the railing of cilantro, primrose and English daisy:
Lovely!
All those deep reds and oranges are going to be splendid against the shaded aquas, especially as the plants further mature, so I have high hopes!
I also made the amateur's mistake of planting two months early. Our average date of last frost here, apparently, is April 15. "Well, hell," I said to the computer screen, and started tucking vintage army blankets around the plants every night.
They're under shelter. I don't think anything has died. They just marked time until the soil warmed up. And they got a nice soaking from our major thunderstorm last week!
In our most sheltered corner, we have a young Japanese maple (a Suminagashi) and three specimens of an apricot-colored viola cultivar. These are an annual, so next year I may replace them with a threatened-endangered Southeastern viola species. This is the corner at the beginning of February:
This is it now:
I've added pots of spinach and basil, moved the ephemerals (the little brown pots, about which more later) to the railing because they seemed to want to be warmer, the creeping phlox has gone from pink to purple, and that ornamental grass is much happier. Up in the corner waiting to be hung, the hummingbird feeder we bought for five dollars at the Mennonite thrift shop, its missing parts replaced with polymer clay and beads.
The tree is promising to bud any ol' time now; it's mulched with Spanish moss and the pot contains one of M's polymer clay fairy doors.
I got my native-woodland spring ephemerals, which, to my shock and delight, are available cheaply, if in limited varieties, at Lowe's of all places. I now have my liverleaf hepatica, a red trillium, and a trout lily in individual pots.
Liverleaf, Hepatica nobilis or H. americana. Photo copyright Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
It seems those fuzzy stems have lovely deep red winter foliage.
Trillium, Trillium erectum. Photo copyright Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
I'm not sure that's the right species. I thought mine was a T. grandiflorum, but apparently those only come in white aging to pink, and I seem to recall mine will be deep red. These also have the really delightful and ephemeral-appropriate name of "wakerobin." This is one of those moments where my writer's acquisitiveness of names shines through into a jewelry design idea: Expect a Yellow Wakerobin Necklace or similar in my future.
Trout lily, Erythronium americanum. Photo copyright Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
The turned-back petals are lovely! Though apparently not actually characteristic.
Apart from this, we have a white astilbe (apparently pronounced "a still bee," not "a steel bay" as I've been), which we purchased because we liked it and it was non-invasive -- but which apparently is a show cultivar of a native Appalachian False Goat's-beard. Accidental success! The astilbe is going mad with delight where it's planted, which is worth recalling for the future. Between the two astilbes is a jack-in-the-pulpit, also a woodland native:
Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Arisaema triphyllum. Photo copyright Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
Or rather, this is what I thought. When the sprouts came up a couple weeks ago, the distinctive leaf shapes indicated I had the trillium in the box with the astilbes and the jack-in-the-pulpit on our glass-topped table ... oops. Either way, the jack-in-the-pulpit is in one of the two sunnier spots to encourage those bold burgundy stripes to develop.
There's also a box of lavender and a box of peas, out of sight, and a big pot of "Firecracker" gladiolus, the one with the cool stick in it. Which is native to nowhere. But also noxious nowhere, so I'm still okay. There's one sprout, abruptly and at long last; it liked the thunderstorm.
In addition, there's a non-invasive planting by the railing of cilantro, primrose and English daisy:
Lovely!
All those deep reds and oranges are going to be splendid against the shaded aquas, especially as the plants further mature, so I have high hopes!
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Adventures in housewifery
"I'm setting your cell phone alarm," M said to me this morning. "While I'm gone, please scrub the colander of the remains of that evil-smelling turkey soup failure from Monday night, since you have been neglecting it, and also vaccuum up the popcorn remnants. I'll set the alarm for a quarter to nine, because you are uselessly asleep at the moment, but remember, our stylish and put-together apartment manager and the polite, oddly diminutive bug guy will be coming to judge you and your inability to hold a bowl of popcorn without spilling it everywhere while we watch Masterpiece Theatre."
Muzzily, I told her, "Okay. You look pretty," and went back to snoring.
Actually, that's not what she said. What she said was, "I'm setting the alarm for 8:45 because pest control's coming, okay? And try to get the dishwasher unloaded. I'll be back around three. I love you."
And indeed, I told her, "Okay. You look pretty," and rolled over and went back to sleep.
I am not good at being a housewife, but I'm learning. And screw Betty Friedan. This shit is hard. Which side of the sink should the dishes soak in? Do they need to soak? Which T-shirts from our shared wardrobe are M sufficiently unattached to that I can wear them while using Clorox? How fast will I die if I Windex the floor and then wear tabi socks? Can normal people do housework without having the iPod on so they can do frenetic swivel-hipped gyrating dances with the spatulas? Questions arise. No answers fulfill them.
See, learning how to do things like this:
Available here.
... doesn't leave a lot of mental space for learning how to do things like this:
Clipartguide.com.
Actually, the first time I was here in September, I sent my mother a long email detailing these questions and others. She was kind enough to reply with her wisdom. I expect that my mother, who is one of those brave third-wave feminists who said "Wait. Wasn't the point here that I had a choice?" and decided that she had the right to prioritize a beautiful home and a relaxed family life over the High-Powered Career that she was told to want in college, was probably pleased to have me throw myself on her mercy and recognize what hard work all of this is.
Mom also reads this on occasion. Maybe I should stop saying "shit" on my blog. Maybe I should stop swearing on my blog anyway.
I could never be like Mom. She has the patience and the task-breakdown abilities to keep a comfortable home and an incredibly gorgeous garden, and she would have brought them to bear in a day job if she'd chosen to remain in that path. Mom is an educator without being dependent on a fragile education wage. She actually would be much better than she thinks she would be at a High-Powered Career -- and she taught me that I don't have to have one to be happy, but I don't have to sacrifice that chance to be happy, either. That there's no single way to be a woman.
Despite this important truth, it turns out that I have the attention span of a gnat, no ability to compartmentalize whatsoever, and am both intellectually bent and really frickin' weird, so there is no place for me but academia. Hence the chagrin with which I regard my kitchen.
My family seems to be aware of this. Among my Christmas presents were a second frilly apron and a number of cookbooks. Here is a picture of me at Christmas:
While I look wholesome and competent in that photo, I assure you this is not the case.
Some of the cookbooks I'm holding there were from the 1950s. This is awesome, because I am a Gallery of Regrettable Food addict, and also very touching, because a close look at the dates of them reveals that they're M's grandma's wedding cookbooks.
One of them is called "Dishes Men Like" and was printed by Lea & Perrin's. It earnestly informs me that there is no better way to please my man (I'm quoting) than to get in the habit of keeping a bottle of Lea & Perrin's Worcestershire Sauce -- his familiar favorite from the country club -- on the dining table as well as in the kitchen. This will also save me extra trips.
After I absorbed this well-meaning advice, I informed M, "You're fetching your own damn ketchup." She seemed okay with this.
And then while I return to the breach of housewifery (not, I hasten to assure the world, in my apron and pearls) I find myself thinking, "Since we're always just over dishwasher capacity but not sufficiently to justify a second load, maybe I should prioritize items with more than one utility," and then I realize I just need to do the world a favor and stop using words, and then I go write a blog post which doesn't help with that goal while the white Formica countertops marinate in Comet, and here we are.
Being a housewife is hard.
Muzzily, I told her, "Okay. You look pretty," and went back to snoring.
Actually, that's not what she said. What she said was, "I'm setting the alarm for 8:45 because pest control's coming, okay? And try to get the dishwasher unloaded. I'll be back around three. I love you."
And indeed, I told her, "Okay. You look pretty," and rolled over and went back to sleep.
I am not good at being a housewife, but I'm learning. And screw Betty Friedan. This shit is hard. Which side of the sink should the dishes soak in? Do they need to soak? Which T-shirts from our shared wardrobe are M sufficiently unattached to that I can wear them while using Clorox? How fast will I die if I Windex the floor and then wear tabi socks? Can normal people do housework without having the iPod on so they can do frenetic swivel-hipped gyrating dances with the spatulas? Questions arise. No answers fulfill them.
See, learning how to do things like this:
Available here.
... doesn't leave a lot of mental space for learning how to do things like this:
Clipartguide.com.
Actually, the first time I was here in September, I sent my mother a long email detailing these questions and others. She was kind enough to reply with her wisdom. I expect that my mother, who is one of those brave third-wave feminists who said "Wait. Wasn't the point here that I had a choice?" and decided that she had the right to prioritize a beautiful home and a relaxed family life over the High-Powered Career that she was told to want in college, was probably pleased to have me throw myself on her mercy and recognize what hard work all of this is.
Mom also reads this on occasion. Maybe I should stop saying "shit" on my blog. Maybe I should stop swearing on my blog anyway.
I could never be like Mom. She has the patience and the task-breakdown abilities to keep a comfortable home and an incredibly gorgeous garden, and she would have brought them to bear in a day job if she'd chosen to remain in that path. Mom is an educator without being dependent on a fragile education wage. She actually would be much better than she thinks she would be at a High-Powered Career -- and she taught me that I don't have to have one to be happy, but I don't have to sacrifice that chance to be happy, either. That there's no single way to be a woman.
Despite this important truth, it turns out that I have the attention span of a gnat, no ability to compartmentalize whatsoever, and am both intellectually bent and really frickin' weird, so there is no place for me but academia. Hence the chagrin with which I regard my kitchen.
My family seems to be aware of this. Among my Christmas presents were a second frilly apron and a number of cookbooks. Here is a picture of me at Christmas:
While I look wholesome and competent in that photo, I assure you this is not the case.
Some of the cookbooks I'm holding there were from the 1950s. This is awesome, because I am a Gallery of Regrettable Food addict, and also very touching, because a close look at the dates of them reveals that they're M's grandma's wedding cookbooks.
One of them is called "Dishes Men Like" and was printed by Lea & Perrin's. It earnestly informs me that there is no better way to please my man (I'm quoting) than to get in the habit of keeping a bottle of Lea & Perrin's Worcestershire Sauce -- his familiar favorite from the country club -- on the dining table as well as in the kitchen. This will also save me extra trips.
After I absorbed this well-meaning advice, I informed M, "You're fetching your own damn ketchup." She seemed okay with this.
And then while I return to the breach of housewifery (not, I hasten to assure the world, in my apron and pearls) I find myself thinking, "Since we're always just over dishwasher capacity but not sufficiently to justify a second load, maybe I should prioritize items with more than one utility," and then I realize I just need to do the world a favor and stop using words, and then I go write a blog post which doesn't help with that goal while the white Formica countertops marinate in Comet, and here we are.
Being a housewife is hard.
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