Purses of various kinds, edible and otherwise

 Breaking news from the White House: 

A letter from Joe telling me to look out for the relief payment which arrived several weeks ago, and not to spend it all in one place. I expect he was carrying it around in his pocket for weeks forgetting to drop it in the mail.

I wonder if I should let him know I did spend it in one place, but it added to the sum of happiness for at least four  humans that I know of. 

On to the other breaker: the Changing of the Purse. 

I doubt if I'm the only person who has several purses and ends up using one most of the time. 

Here's a selection for your viewing delight

Reading clockwise from seven o'clock, a hand made Indian bag brought back for me from an Indian friend whose philosophy is that a lady can't have too many purses. This one is Gujarati I think, with those windows, and the shells. 

Next an African handmade woven straw with leather handles, from an organization selling their crafts in the West at fair prices. 

Then one I crocheted freeform using hardware twine, and lined with a scrap of linen.  

Another Indian embroidered bag, different region, same friend. 

And finally, a freeform Tunisian crochet one I did, lined with a scrap of black satin, and closed with Dorset buttons.

And another bunch

Top, a knitted one I made, with an Icord handle, lined with linen, to house the Dollivers for travel to photo shoots. I said they were gowned and bagged, they claim I meant bound and gagged.

Moving on to a little group of sparkly antique purses another friend found at a great flea market she used to go to, Columbus, if you're local, and decided I couldn't live without.

And here's the Winter Suede, free cycled to me, lovely quality, now divested of its vax stickers, emptied of an interesting variety of contents and ready to rest.

To give way to the Summer Crochet, from the thriftie, and often mistaken for my work, which is nice but not true in this case. And now stocked up with pretty much the same stuff from the Winter Suede. Loyalty, that is.

Future edible purses are in progress. The pasties I'm so devoted to for using up tasty items and being great when I can't think what to make, to be exact.

Here's a bowl of various ingredients. This is the equivalent of what Renaissance and Elizabethan musicians had in the way of sheet music. 

The composer, knowing they'd got professionals out there, would write a few intro measures, might indicate sharps and flats, not always, then say there you go, lads, that's the idea, embellish at will until you think it's gone on long enough or the queen's looking fed up, then finish with these few measures. Done. That'll be fifty three ducats please.  I've seen music exactly like this.

Modern feeble musicians need it all filled in, I ask you. Especially the ones I play with, most of whom, well, me, haven't even found out what the circle of fifths even is for.

Anyway back to pasties,  edible purses. The contents, since we are modern cooks and need to know (old recipes were as sketchy as old music, aren't you glad you live now?), anyway the contents are:

Mixed mushrooms which, cooked in butter, smell whoah! a hot Italian sausage, cooked in olive oil, a bunch of cilantro I found in the freezer, and the rest of the crumbled blue cheese. The other bowl, oiled, houses the dough, resting for an hour while I played with purses.

Now I'm off to play with dough.

And read the latest Maisie Dobbs, which I picked up this morning from the library.