Under Construction

A little photo journal of Slow Food San Francisco

Today I went with my mom and sister to the Taste pavilion at the Slow Food Nation event in San Francisco. (Thanks, Mom!)

The food was tasty but I may have enjoyed the booth displays even more. In case you didn't go, here's a sampling:

Overview of the (crowded) pavilion

The pickles and chutneys booth (probably my favorite). The ceiling was hung with canning jar lids that made a sort of curved roof and the counters were raw 2x4s.




The jam and honey booth (it said "honey" on the outside if you look closely)(well, this photo says "hon")


bees everywhere

giant bread snail

before it was bread

and cheese


fish (the photo does NOT do this display justice--it was all fishing stuff)

Beer

Meat


And here's the three of us. My dress (that makes me look like I'm wearing a 50's tea towel) was a Bend, OR thrift store score at $5! I was very excited to wear it for the first time to a food event.

Hope you are having a great weekend!

Mustard and gray

I've got tea towels on the brain. Along with vegetable printing. And, apparently, stacked rocks.

The other day I was thinking about how potatoes, in cross section, are nice ovalish (ovoid?) shapes. And I had a conveniently wrinkling up bag of potatoes in the pantry (very squishy but fine for printing).

I've also been stocking up on fabric ink.
If you need different size ovals, slice your potato in rings.

If you use white ink, watch out for accidental snowmen.

The potato aftermath.

I need to hem (or bind) the edges of these tea towels and I think I'll make some matching potholders. I'm loving the mustard linen (especially since I got several yards for free! Score!). Someone I know is going to need a housewarming gift soon so I need to get these done!

I don't want to scare you with a photo of my laundry pile

So no photo this post (because Laundry Mountain is all I've got). I think my last post said something about the Olympics being over and my renewed crafting/blogging inspiration. To my credit, I made 10 jars of jam last night (if I photographed all the jam I'd have to rename this blog "the jam blog" so I won't). Tonight I cooked up a double batch of mac and cheese to bribe my way over to hold this snuggly little newborn. I swear, she was the size of a kitten. Did you have any idea newborns were so small? Very small. Very cute.

In other news, the Olympic washcloth is done! I learned how to cast off just in time for the closing ceremonies. I think I may just take up knitting!

Hmmm. That's it. Oh, except that I have a major travel bug and my sister, who works for a travel company and goes on 3 international trips a year, is NOT helping. If you had your choice (and airline prices weren't so crazy), where would you go? I'm thinking Belgium to visit my cousin (don't worry, Kathy, tix are too expensive). Maybe Mexico? Turkey? Most likely my kitchen to do the dishes.

Pepper printing

Everyone's done potato printing but have you tried pepper printing? Inspired by Lotta's book I've been wanting to print everything so decided to do some jar lids for all the jalapeno jam I've been making. I'm stocking up so I'll be ready this holiday season (now's the time to let me know if you don't like jalapeno jam!)

The only permanent markers I could find were super fine tip and didn't work on this loose weave fabric so I pulled out the stamps and love the look. But then I found another pen and got lazy. Plus I kept making "typos" (stampos?) with the stamps.

Here they are in their natural environment (the jalapeno plant). That photo didn't work out too well.

Now that the Olympics are over I expect my productivity to rise dramatically. Watch out!

Halloween and other things on my mind (also a photo of a sheep!)

I'm thinking of making Biscuit a "Max in his wolf suit" costume for Halloween. Potentially complete with "her own private boat." So, of course, the only remaining question is if Mr. H can pull off a Wild Thing costume. Biscuit has been just a little bit obsessed with that book lately.

Of course Biscuit's birthday is before Halloween so I should be thinking about birthday party ideas rather than Halloween...

On to some other good stuff:
The Autumn issue of Small Magazine. They have a spread on Halloween costumes (the praying mantis is awesome)

Not sure if I've ever linked to Arounna's weekly art project instructions via Bloesem Kids.

Pink Chalk Studio has a cool, easy quilt tutorial (a giant log cabin--what a great idea).

And a few blogs I love but don't have on the blogroll (because I like to have a treat)

Design Sponge (interior designs and cool sneak peeks)

Here be Hippogriffs (parenting--twins!)

Loobylu (crafting from down under)

Orangette (cooking)

PS I was trying to find a photo for this post and came up with nothing but, in scrolling through iPhoto, I found a bunch of photos my dad uploaded from his trip to Canada. Dad, did you really get this close to a bighorn sheep? Wow!

Yogurt in the oven; was it just a dream?

When I was about 10 I had a confrontation with my two best friends in my neighborhood. We were walking side by side down our street and I can't recall exactly what happened but my feelings were hurt. It was months (years?) before I realized, through an innocent conversation, that I had dreamed the entire episode. It was so weird--it felt real.

So you can see how I'm starting the second guess the reality of a recipe I SWEAR I read in Craft Magazine for making yogurt in the oven. It involved a few tablespoons of plain yogurt, a lot of milk and a night spent in the oven and sounded really fun and delicious.  Imagine my disappointment when I went through the most recent issue of Craft and found----nada. Previous issue---nada. Web search, no help.  If you have recently read anything about making yogurt in a bowl in the oven, please enlighten me.

In the meantime I am continuing to use tomatoes. Processed 8 pints of salsa tonight and have consumed several tomato-based dishes of late.

Exhibit 1: Pasta sauce

Exhibit 2: Salad

:::
In news unrelated to cooking, our trip to Bend, Oregon was great. Among other activities I managed to turn our hands blue.

Oops. My friend was good natured about me smurferating the family. Thanks, Wendy!
:::
Olympic watching is taking a good chunk of time (washcloth is almost done!) and I'm off on a short business trip tomorrow so posting will continue to be sparse. I hope to catch up on blog reading soon... Hope you are well.

Like locusts (but yummier)

Locusts. Aren't they the ones that show up only every 17 years? My biology major is not helping me right now, but I think it's locusts.

Anyway, this spaghetti sauce is kinda the same; comes around every decade or so.

In 1997 I was living in my college apartment. I'd recently broken up with the ex, was getting to know Mr. H better, and invited him over for a spaghetti dinner. I made the sauce and meatballs from scratch, wore a red dress and, apparently, that was about the time he decided he'd like to marry me.

Needless to say I never made the sauce again until last night.  This is much more of a "leisurely weekend morning in the kitchen" recipe than a "weekday evening while trying to watch the Olympics" recipe but you've got to strike while the tomatoes are ripe (as they say).  The sauce was pretty tasty, the meatballs pretty bland (I forgot to add any salt) but the whole thing went over well.

Except for the poor kitchen. Look what this did to (half) the kitchen!

If you have a few hours to spare, a lot of tomatoes and a big pot, make a double batch. Here's the recipe (sorry, awful photo, too lazy to type) (you can click to make it bigger and possibly readable):

My adjustments:

• used tomato juice (only 64 oz for a double batch) and an extra six oz of tomato paste.
• fresh oregano (about 1/2 cup)
• a few extra (unpeeled) fresh tomatoes to go with the 6 lbs of peeled fresh
• sauteed onion/garlic first and added tomato stuff then spent an hour doing the meatballs, added them, then the other herbs etc.  Added juice as it seemed needed
• It takes about 4 times longer than the "30 minutes" of prep time. Seriously, what idiot said 30 minutes?

We froze some, ate some, gave some to the neighbors. Now I need to tackle the dishes.
.........
We're off to Oregon tomorrow to visit friends so I'll be back next week.

Kelp

 
Dang it took a lot of driving to get there but Shell Beach was nice.

Of course all that driving meant we missed low tide (and the supposed tide pools) but there was a wide variety of kelp.

and more kelp (and kelpish things)

ok, one last kelp (I discovered that kelp is quite interesting viewed close up--look at that hairy kelp)

(Pebbly) sand is also very interesting close up. Behold my miniature rock collection. I think some of these stones (and shells) would be gorgeous in jewelry. My dad found the sea glass!

Despite a very foggy drive, the sun was out at the beach and Biscuit warmed up to the idea of being there after about 40 minutes. Check out that kelp!


Ok, one last kelp shot. Hope you had a great weekend!

Olympic washcloth

I took up knitting again; just in time for the Olympics. You can see my progress as Matt Lauer was introducing the opening ceremonies last night (I started last week). I hope to have at least one washcloth done by the end of the games.

Too bad I'm not a good enough knitter to knit without looking so it's kind of slow going. #6 needles, 50 stitches, cheap cotton yarn from walmart.

Did everyone else think those opening ceremonies were just amazing? I was really impressed and couldn't believe all those performers stayed t

Back to the knitting, I'm trying a new stitch, the seed or moss stitch. Very simple knit a stitch purl a stitch, knit. Then, on the next row you alternate.  Two things I've learned: cast on an odd number of stitches so it works out that you can start with knit on each row. If you cast on an even number of stitches you can keep track of which stitch to start with by paying attention to the tail at the end of the first row (where you cast on). I doubt that makes any sense but it's working for me.  Here's where I was near the beginning of the parade of nations.

I'd love to be settled on the couch all day today but I remembered I have a two year old. Oh well, that's why they invented tivo.

Habit

I'm trying to get myself back in the blogging habit. Not a lot of luck, sorry. But I thought opening Typepad and starting a post might help.

Hmmmm. Nope, guess not.

Here's an online game to distract you while I come up with some content. Via Bonny Glen.

And I had a great photo to post (future blackmail material for my darling daughter) but it seemed mean to post that on the internet so let me describe the scene if I may. Almost 3 year old, cute t-shirt, no pants, Lightening McQueen Big Girl Boy underwear (with black accents) and my brown sling back heels. Posing in the hallway door. Funny stuff.

Instead, here's a photo of what happens when we try to get 20 minutes of extra sleep on the weekend with the kid in our bed without any rules.

And here's what happens when you try to take a photo of the kid with her grandparents:
#1 Biscuit=good; grandpa=bad; grandma=mediocre

#2 Biscuit=bad; grandpa=mediocre; grandma=good

And so it went. Not a single decent shot. This reminds me of Swistle's Christmas card woes but shouldn't it be easier if two people are adults?  Oh well, thanks for the free childcare mom and dad!