Textiles and Tea, fungi. Misfits and snowdrops

Textiles and Tea this week featured Deborah Chandler who helped found WARP, Weave a Real Peace, and wrote a classic book for beginning weavers. 

She's in Guatemala where she now lives permanently, her signal was weak and intermittent, so I just managed these pictures, with enough information for you to follow up if you would like to, both WARP and her book well worth checking.

Then Misfits box arrived on yet a different day. They're so flexible with delivery that I just order when I need to now rather than on a regular day.

And the chickpeas will be today's lunch, a chickpea stew recipe from Spain on a Fork, involving what you see here

Almonds and the last of the garlic are in the bowl. First I need to make a vegetable stock from the bag of trimmings in the freezer.

Then this little box arrived

The tiny bags of tiny snowdrop bulbs to plant, probably today, as my sister's tiny memorial. They're wildly expensive, hence the small number. 

The one person who would have cracked up laughing at the tiny miniature memorial is the person in whose honor I'm doing it.  So that's a bonus.

On yesterday's walk I saw this fungus, newly emerged, wasn't there two days ago, spectacular color couldn't miss it. 

I guessed it was Chicken of the Woods, an edible fungus supposedly with a chicken-like texture, though I didn't test it. It's a form of bracket fungus, from the growth pattern.

When I came to check my little beginner books at home I found they were a fat lot of use. The Chatto one supposedly for beginners, assumes you already know the botanical name before you check, no common names or help

The little Golden Book not much better

A good picture and a different version of the name.

Finally a site about wild food came through with the common name 

I wonder if the others were terrified of liability if they gave the common name and someone ate a wrong one and disaster ensued.  I know fungus people are very careful about descriptions for safety reasons.  However this one's pretty unmistakable, pretty much no look-alikes.

Anyway I'll visit this one again to see if it develops. 

And I'll leave you with this peaceful corner of a neighboring garden

Happy day everyone, may all your memorials be tiny and powerful.

 

Good news and other news

 So here's the good news

To look forward to. Two whole dozen snowdrops on the way. To be a memorial planting for Irene.

Yesterday's pleasure was to resume this

Too soon to know what it will be. This is the cordage made from daylily foliage and iris leaves, with silk roving added in. To Thrones and Dominions audiobook.

Then the other news. A major talent has left us, but her work survives

If you haven't read the Wolf Hall trilogy, put it on your winter reading list, it's totally gripping.

I have a weird connection with Hilary Mantel. I read in her memoirs an account of the view from a house she'd lived in briefly as a child, and kept thinking how familiar it all felt. 

A bit of detection revealed that in fact I had been in that room in that house. A University friend lived with her family there, and I saw that view on the morning of her wedding from the house. 

Handsome Partner was best Man, I was matron of honor, and it was a happy morning getting them all out to the local church. 

Considering Mantel's later writing on how houses are haunted by earlier inhabitants and events, it feels oddly significant.

And today's art, art will save us all

In good news, Judge Cannon has retracted the disputed classified document order completely, leaving only the other documents to be examined. The first and probably last big case of her career. Total admission of incompetence.

We need to get out the vote, keep the House, improve the Senate and keep good things going.

Happy day everyone, seeing my knitting buds today

Planning ahead, honey, socks, and Celestine

The season's finally cooling down, and I realized this patch of ground cover killed by the fence project, is staying open.

To the right is where my six, this year only three, snowdrops blaze away each January. So this year my annual $30 gardening budget is going on this dream 

Well, not a river of snowdrops, I can only run to two dozen, but I can still dream. And maybe these will, unlike the others, multiply.

Another sign of fall was this little guy

who was apparently sitting inside the storm door, and when I opened it, fell on my head, giving us both a start. I ushered him out, go on, Jiminy, and was glad he hadn't made it indoors to drive me nuts chirping all night.

The bees are amazing. After inviting the cricket to leave, I noticed the very faintest tinge of pink on the Autumn Joy sedum, and instantly bees appeared

There must have been a memo.

Yesterday was a gardening rather than a walking day, tying up the Russian sage which had been blown all over, and pulling out the last of the iris and daylily foliage, cutting back the spent black eyed susans and marigolds. I also took out the spent foliage on the patio, and saved that for future cordage

And I expect this beautiful skeleton is the result of some deadly critter eating my Japanese maple, but it's still lovely

Meanwhile indoors to read, I finished the Donna Leon, Give Unto Others, and it was the best yet, full of ambiguity and coded dialogue. 

She found ways to acknowledge the pandemic and its impact on daily life without making it a central issue. And Brunetti, main character, being a thoughtful man, she always introduces moral issues often based on his favorite Greek tragedies. 

He loves the Oresteia, which reminds me to continue into the second part of it, and discusses Electra's power with his teenage daughter. Not incidentally, one of the more powerful characters in all the Brunetti books is an admin named Elettra.

This book also gets into the concept of the  prime mover, the force which causes action without itself being changed. This plunges you from Aristotle straight into Aquinas. And you consider who in this novel wants to be that prime mover. This is why Leon is such a satisfying read.

And it required a batch of wholewheat scone things and Manuka honey. This is a treat from Misfits, expensive and worth it. A tiny little jar is how it's packed, seen against the usual honey size I get 

And a dab packs such a flavor that you need a lot less to get the impact. This is the official real NZ thing, the retail grade.  Thank you NZ blogistas 

Not the high octane Manuka you can heal wounds with as in the Crusades, where battlefield wounds were sometimes treated by pouring on honey then wrapping and hoping for the best. I think it's also why honey and oil are mentioned in the New Testament parable of the good Samaritan.

Anyway back to teatime chez Boud, here is a scone thing split, Vermont butter, spread of Manuka honey

Glass of lemon iced tea because it's still hot in the afternoons.

The personal socks are progressing turn by turn, and soon we'll see how far the blue goes. I think I'll have to add to it to make the length of leg I like. 

I've been making Ministry socks either nine inch foot, seven inch leg, or ten inch foot, eight inch leg. Not knowing the calf size of recipients, it's better to make them that size rather than trying for over the calf size. Tube socks bypass the issue of foot and calf size, so they're more flexible.

Anyway my socks are planned for nine inch foot, seven inch leg, so we'll see how far the blue gets me. 

Today's art is a selection from the Fall collection of  lovely Karin Celestine, aka Celestine and the Hare. She's Swedish living in the UK.

She's a wonderful artist in fiber, metals and imagination. She also works with other miniaturists to make accessories for her animals. She's been in nationally juried and invited events in the UK and you can see why. On Twitter she's @andtheHare 

Her Lightbringer books helped a lot of schoolchildren in the UK get through lockdown. 

And she's very happy to be introduced to you here, I checked.

 https://www.celestineandthehare com 

will get you more info.  No, this isn't a business arrangement for me, just signal boosting good art.

Happy day everyone, may all your crickets stay outside, enjoy your day

Snowdrops, yay, and other good things

Today is a bit less bitter, and in the sunshine on the deck very workable 

I did some indoor plant care, involving raking the area around the ficus. It's that time of year when the rising light levels get her restless and starting to throw down leaves in her annual campaign to get outside before it's mild enough.

Anyway I tossed the leaves outside and noted that the brambles have not only grown, but touched ground and rerooted. 

Sooooo I went for the big kitchen scissors I, and all the neighbors, use for minor pruning, and set to work cutting as close to the ground as I could. I'm not strong enough to yank them out, and the ground's solidly frozen, so cutting is for now.

I was immediately rewarded, after doing this and carrying the jaggy, stabby, branches out to the woodland for shelter. 

Got back and found another suet feeder no doubt taken by squirrels, still with half a block of suet, buried where the brambles had been. And, great excitement here, look, look 

Snowdrops, all three of them!  Bravely under the snow till now, blazing away.

So the exercises no doubt stood me in good stead fir a bit of gardening here. It's a lot more fun to be outside cutting and carrying and exclaiming, though. And walking will definitely happen today.

Meanwhile I've been provisioning the inner woman with some mass roasting. Chicken drumsticks and vegetables. Several meals, also a couple of roast drumsticks now in the freezer, handy for various purposes.

Which reminds me to ask something I've been wondering about. It's about recycling, reusing, all that.

This is the coldpack bag I got from Misfits, which had the chicken, eggs, cheeses, yogurt etc in it. They pack the cold items  in this,  then include it in the produce box.

 It's perfectly clean, insulated, waterproof, large, and though it's probably recyclable since most Misfits packing is, I can't help wondering if I can get a second use from it.

*I already sent a pic to handsome Son, suggesting it for his car, to put his grocery bags in and keep the food cool, haven't heard back yet.

So, dear Blogger Brain trust, do you have any ideas?  All will be studied, and the decision of the editor is final. Oh sorry, forgot this isn't a newspaper contest from the fifties.

And here's the result of my studying ideas for bread adjacent recipes, including one for apricot and walnut bread.

I have plenty of both, so I investigated it and found it's that kind of terminally fussy bread recipe with half a dozen stages, and I decided it was the Recipe Writers'  Full Employment Act at work and life's too short.

So now I have a nice batch of apricot walnut hot biscuits. Split and buttered, they're proving just fine. 

This afternoon I'll check in on Textiles and Tea and report back tomorrow, along with the current stage of the Renovation of the Dresses. The Chinese licorice poultice restored my thumb to working condition so I've been stitching, yay.

I have no idea why Blogger has suddenly started centering text despite my attempts to left justify it. It just doesn't feel like it evidently. Taking a centrist position. Chicken.

*Late breaking news: Handsome Son just messaged, definitely wants it. But I'm still open to other thoughts.

Persistence of snowdrops

 Apologies to Dali for reworking his title. Remember the two brave little snowdrops who came up in January, frigid weather, they didn't care?  Then vanished under a lot of snow. Today the rain is washing away the snow, and here they are, still doing just fine.

 they stood straight up again as soon as the snow was melted.  And my chair is reappearing, too, finally.

So, after all the drama and excitement lately, I thought it would be good to peacefully mix up a little something in the kitchen.  I have nothing at all in the little something category, so this was urgent.  

And I found a recipe, sort of, on YouTube, for Pancake Cake.  I won't give you the reference because I found the speaker completely unintelligible, tiny childlike voice, and talking at such speed I just couldn't.  So I copied the recipe, which was not at all like what she'd done on screen, so I improvised a bit, and here's my version, I guess.

It's similar to a pancake, cooked on top of the stove, but supposedly cakelike. Hm.

I melted the butter, because I saw something liquid in addition to the egg and milk, going into the mix, which she may have explained and I couldn't catch it after rewinding three times.  So anyway, okay.

And you start it in a cold pan, which I found interesting, but tried it anyway.  Low heat, covered.

This lid is from something quite different but fits this pan a treat, so I often use it.

And she says to cook it 12 minutes.  Which I did.  Completely liquid.  So I raised the heat a bit, cooked for a few more minutes.  Getting there.  Then I ended up cooking for about 20 minutes, before it became something you could actually lift out.

Here's the pretty side, also the side that won't stick to the plate

So I turned it less pretty side up, and let it cool, to make an icing, yellow colored, with vanilla flavoring,using milk as the liquid.

As here. And cook's privilege, a slice to go with this afternoon's pot of tea.

I'm not sure if I like this or not.  I'll see what Handsome Son says, since it's mainly in his honor I'm making this before he visits Tuesday.  If it goes down well, I'll keep the recipe. 

It may be one of those novelty ideas that doesn't hold up very well.  It's also a bit thin, and I used the 8" pan she recommended, but if I do it again, I think I'll go one size smaller.  One good thing, it got me to use the giant lifter thing that came in a recent set of kitchen tools I had to get to replace my ancient rusty spatulas.  It was so big it lifted the whole thing easily, to slip it onto a plate. I don't usually buy sets of anything, art materials, kitchen tools, crafty stuff,crayons, pencils, pens, because I only need a couple of items and the others are surplus. But maybe this one was okay after all.

If it's a pancake type thing, I wonder if I can have it for breakfast? Asking for a friend.