Puzzles old and new, mixed media art, spun knit gloves

Today I got out to the local library, returned the all red all the time puzzle, and borrowed another. Slim pickins, but here's a reasonably good one, though it's flowers again.

I had hoped for a change of subject, but the other choices either I'd done or I'm not up for them. "Primitive" paintings, balls of yarn, shelves of preserves.. no baskets of kittens though, so there's that.

On the way back to the circulation desk to check out, I passed the "take any number and don't bring then back" deaccessioned book table, so this came along.. I quite like Joanne Trollope, haven't read her in this persona though. 

And they had federal tax forms and instructions, which will save me a bit of searching online and printing. I still, dinosaurus boudicus, do a paper return.  

At home I had the second of the tilapia plates, heated with a bit of butter on top, and it worked fine, with some pickled beets.

Then a bit of drawing and painting

Mixed media landscape with tree. 8"x8", butter, beet juice, basil on  Corelle background.

About healthy food, my Misfits box, full of vegetables that make Gary shudder, he only likes cucumbers, reminded me of his doctor's recent advice.

I think she really knows him and his devotion to frozen dinners. So she wants him to improve his diet, and acknowledged he wasn't going to give up his favorites. So she suggested he just add  in green leafy vegetables. Whereupon the only green leafy vegetable he could think of to buy was collard greens from his childhood 

So he got some and boiled them. Then came rushing into my kitchen, boiling pot in hand, greens looking pretty good, and said "What happens now? How do they get out?" 

And I showed him about draining! And how I didn't chuck away beautiful greens water, but he insisted it was mine because he didn't want any part of soup made with it. 

Anyway he went home with his drained greens, came back immediately to leave some with me, way too much for him, once he thought about it.  I never found out whether he did add them to his dinner. Mine went into soup with the greens water.

After the trip to one library this morning on puzzle business,  I wasn't  up for another trip to the other, further away, library to the knitting group. Just didn't feel like talking and being in a group, however nice, and they are.

But I did get to spinning and decided to wind the yarn off the spindle to make it easier to knit.

Resulting in this, first of the pair 

I think I may make a batch of brownies this afternoon,with Gary and his grandchildren in mind, in case they visit this weekend. Speaking of healthy food. . well, mental health maybe.

And on the subject of sweet stuff, the latest word puzzle from Haggard Hawks was

CARAMEL!

I think quite a few blogistas got this one. 

Happy Remains of the Day, everyone! Celebrate whatever day it is where you are, why not. Your mental health may need brownies, or puzzles, or spinning. Go for it!

 

Assembling and taking apart

I had a few adventures in cooking and art breaking-down yesterday. Destruction precedes creation.

The cooking was about a veggie mix with a blue cheese sauce 

Steamed broccoli, the remains of the roasted cauliflower, microwaved fingerling potatoes, which were very good, the blue ones a pale color inside. And I made some sort of sauce with crumbled Gorgonzola, bit of mayonnaise, whole milk, Worcestershire sauce, dry mustard, salt, pepper, minced garlic. It came out pretty well and there's enough for today, too.

I think this would be a good dish with roasted chicken or hot sausage added in, too.

But it was fine just with the vegetables.

Then I was wandering about upstairs looking for materials to complete the current figure and found a piece, an assemblage of molded handmade paper, from long ago, exhibited, some sold, the rest came home, eventually hanging on the second floor stair.

Sorry about the angle. It was hanging high up.

Not being a conservator I thought these would be great raw material, having served their purpose. 

They were great fun to make, molding wet paper pulp over various tools, pliers, knives, spoons, rollers, cookie molds, and, once dry and, the tools removed, spraying the molded paper pieces with gold. Hung it looked like a weighty metal piece. Men liked this, men often seem to like metal. But it's not heavy,  very light in weight. And this was long ago, so it's time for it to move on.

And I took the pieces off the background, I noticed that one was already repurposed.

It was a print I pulled off a wood engraving, which I had already exhibited in a show of prints of all kinds.  So I reused it in this piece. And it may be used yet again. Handmade paper is tough stuff. In fact the paper I used here was my earlier paper which I repulped.

Here are more. You'll notice human forms and faces seeming to show up, from the molded impressions of tools. A trick of the brain I think.

This is the front of that printed piece

I assembled a few pieces just as rough drafts. Nothing decided yet, but I thought you might like to wander along with me 

The background of the work is a piece of foam core, which I will probably cut into to make a base for the current figure to stand on. And the lath I made the frame from might be internal supports.  There will be more fabric, too. 

I'm now thinking about reusing the molded paper piece from this work for a future figure.

Several of the pieces from this series were bought out of my exhibit, then eventually left to me, so I inherited them. and now they're getting another life.

As always, we'll see!

Veggies veggies all around, ways to cook them abound

Contemplating large amounts of shredded zucchini and chopped green beans and onions in the freezer,  after an avalanche of frozen items fell on me, I thought, self, you had better use some of this up.  The farmshare season is in full swing, tons of fresh vegetables falling on me every week, and I eat fresh, share round several friends, and still have plenty to freeze.

Sooooo, I thought, what about Diane's  crustless spinach quiche? Daunted only for a moment by not having a lot of eggs and no spinach, I figured, fewer eggs is okay.  

And I made a nice sort of quiche using caramelized onions and garlic, except for the garlic segment that flew across the kitchen and vanished as I was smashing them with my knife blade, Pepin style, this never happens to him, unless they edit that bit out..where was I?  oh right, big cup of shredded zucchini and cut green beans, plenty of shredded cheddar, three eggs, seasoned with kosher salt, dry mustard, cumin, buttered pie plate, 350 degree oven for 30 minutes, and here's a nice dish. The seasonings are not very evident, but just make it interesting to eat.

Several lunches here.  And since corn is a staple of my farmshare, next one will perhaps be a corn quiche.  I might experiment with freezing it, just to see if it works out.