Wednesday, June 29, 2011
A few of my favorite things
Fresh strawberries, lots of cheese, and my friend Dawn who gave me the excuse to buy even more cheese than the recipe called for. A weekend full of friends and lots of time out front playing croquette, on my new favorite household installation.
Happy Summer Everyone!
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
A few of my favorite things
Some of my favorite things are old things, items handed down from prior generations.
Here is one such favorite that I used to add a little jazz to the Easter dinner table.
I am a big fan of multipurpose belongings and to reuse things for new uses. This tea cup is offset - an indent to the side for the cup, and a generous plate to store things on. For Easter, I used the cup for the grainy mustard for the ham and the plate side for the sour cream and horseradish sauce.I also love tea so when tea collides with aged belongings - we have a fit for another favorite thing. For the royal wedding, I used these for lunch tea alongside a silver platter of cucumber sandwiches. I love cucumber sandwiches. My mother taught me how to make them. My mother taught me a lot of things especially some of the things I hold near and dear, like this set of my favorite things.
I'd give them back in a heart beat if I could bring her back from Heaven.
Monday, May 2, 2011
A few of my favorite things
Yes, that is my one beloved Lilac that is busting out spring on Easter Sunday.
That is also my three beloved children (from left to right) Pickle, Puckstopper, and Baby.
And no, no matter what I ever tell you or them or otherwise, I don't have a favorite. All love.
Today I
... went outside and ate sorell from the field, picked winters rocks out of the garden, and walked barefoot down the road with Baby. He went to work hammering nails into a board when we got back to the house.
It was a beautiful day outside, allowing a quiet pensive time to process a lot of big events to over the past daysweeksmonth. Death does that to you. They say death comes in threes, so I hope the OBL death is the last for a while, tho that one I will not shed a tear. For the victims I will and hope that they will now rest in peace and I will gain strength from the coming season.
Spring is here in Maine, May arrived with glorious weather. My forsythia is in bloom so the time of flowers in bloom all around is just beginning.
There's an early May flower in the grace - cute, white, and carpets the back embankment.
I need to figure out it's name. It always brings a smile to my face when I see it. I am going to go ask Ellen now. :D
I hope the change of seasons and greater exposure to sunlight will help me embrace all the endless possibilities of our future and guide me into the smartest decisions possible. This economy stinks and making sound decisions is daunting.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
The Auction Hat
Yea, I am a hockey Mom on top of everything else. I will also be auctioning a custom made one to go along side.
More information to soon follow about the custom made hats.
My Noro Hat and the first I sold!
My hat is the one on the right. The hat on the left is a "duplicate" of my hat, and the first hat I sold. I love how these are both the same angora blend and dye lot Noro hats, but each is unique - truly a surprise every time.
I love making them. I am currently making a 100%wool Noro Kochoran, like Daughters hat but in hue's of blue and green, for Daughter's Godmother Mia.
Here is the yarn I started with
And here is my work thus far - oh I need a better camera than my iPhone!
Happy Easter!
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Sunday Sandwich
Apparently, the shine has come off the apple. This is the 3rd one in a row with no picture. :(
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Make a purse out of Grocery bags!
http://mimoknits.typepad.com/knitting/2008/04/grocery-bag-pur.html
Please go check it out!
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
I'm following a new blog.
I think this woman is brilliant.
She ate 162 school lunches -- and blogged it
BRILLIANT!Here's the CNN article that brought me to it!
I believe just because they come from families that don't have money, it doesn't mean they shouldn't have access to good food, too.
--Mrs. Q, blogger
Mrs. Q - you rock!
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Our bird tree
We don't put it up every year, but when we do it stays up for a while. SP got most this collection while he was living in Idaho. It's a nice addition to our dining room that looks out over our bird feeding array.
It's snowing pretty hard right now, but there is a chickadee sitting on the feeder all the way to the left. Chick a dee dee dee...
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
A few of my favorite things...
I think I am going to start this kinda post as a new tradition. Favorite things. Pictures of things that make me smile. Kinda like the Saturday sandwich photo post tradition....
Monday, January 10, 2011
Pink and Green Noro Hat
I made this one for Susan for Christmas. Even though the picture is blurry, I really like how the top and bottom are both green, but in the top, the pink makes a subtle stripe in and then goes away again.
Friday, January 7, 2011
My newsest Noro Hat
This is my sister Mush wearing the Christmas present I made her. I took a gamble with it, in color but more so the fiber I chose. This was the first Noro hat I made out of more fiber than wool or silk and as a result is thicker gauge. To make Mush's hat, I used one skein of Noro Kochoran , with a fiber content of 50% Wool, 20% Silk, and 30% Angora. It is thicker than the Noro I typically use and has a wonderful halo effect when knitted.I got my first skein of this Noro from Steve last winter that. I then used for a hat for my MIL. The remainder of it I used for the first beer sweater SP now uses. The thickness of this Noro yarn on size three needles made blisters on my fingers.
Typically this Noro hat pattern is made using Noro Kureyon, 100% Wool recommended Needle size: 7, and I use roughly 1.5 skeins per hat.The Kocharan, hahaha , it calls for size 10 needles, I made it on 6 maybe 7. I have also made this hat using one of the Noro Silk Gardens which it acts just like the Kureyon. After seeing what a smashing success Mush's hat is, and I am sure its also toasty in windy cold winter, I am already decreasing the rows on a Kochoran hat for ME to replace my missing Silk Garden Hat. Pictures soon to follow I am sure.
I am contemplating custom making these, one at a time, on Etsy. Wonder what I would price them at. Any thoughts?
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Local Foodies Eating Locally
Natural Foodie: Two Portlanders chronicle their year of eating locally
By Avery Yale Kamila akamila@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer
In foodie culture, eating local is all the rage. But few go as far as Luke Fuller and Cassi Madison. The recently engaged couple reached their one-year anniversary this week of eating a diet made up almost exclusively of Maine food.
Luke Fuller and Cassi Madison prepare a chili using all Maine ingredients in their West End kitchen. Fuller, who is an artist, created the artwork above the stove. The piece on the left depicts the late Jim Cook, who founded the Crown O'Maine Organic Cooperative.
Sweet and spicy tempeh salad with nasturtium garnish.
Fuller's work is included in a group show opening Friday at June Fitzpatrick Gallery, 112 High St., Portland. The show, "MECA Painters 10 Years Later," features artists who graduated from the Maine College of Art in 2001. It opens with a reception from 5 to 8 p.m. during the monthly First Friday Art Walk festivities.
"It's been a long year," Fuller said from the couple's cozy apartment kitchen in Portland's West End, where a chili composed of Maine beans, tomatoes and tempeh simmered on the stovetop and stuffed squash baked in the oven.
"We started out being really strict," said Fuller, produce manager at Lois' Natural Marketplace in Scarborough.
But they relaxed a bit as the year progressed, allowing for the occasional coffee or restaurant meal. Fuller estimates they ended the year eating a diet made up of 90 percent local food.
On the first day of the local eating adventure, Fuller and Madison showed this isn't a deprivation diet. Their meals that day included a kale, onion, Gouda and goat cheese omelet with home fries for breakfast and a dinner of boiled lobster, roasted red beets and parsnips complemented by a wheat berry salad with delicata squash.
The recent popularity of eating local food has caused some to complain that only the rich can afford to eat local food. Madison is quick to bust that myth.
"The thing for us is, we don't have a lot of money," said Madison, a waitress at the Pepperclub Restaurant in Portland. "So we're doing the most we can with the money we have. We've also gone times without health insurance. The food we're putting into us is making up for it."
As with all aspects of life, higher quality generally comes with a higher cost, and the world of food is no different. Madison, who does the shopping while Fuller does the cooking, notes that a rooftop garden and a community garden plot helped stretch their food budget.
"We home-cook all our food," Madison said. "It's expensive when we buy scallops or lobster. It also gets expensive because we buy in bulk, but then we have local beans for months."
In addition, the couple has found creative ways to make their food dollars go farther.
"I traded a painting for a CSA share at Freedom Farm this year," said Fuller, who is also an artist.
The idea for embarking on a year of locavore eating grew out of an art show Fuller mounted in 2009 at the Arm Factory in Portland. The show was called "Local Rootz," and for 30 days in advance of its opening, Fuller ate an all-local diet.
He found the meals and the challenge of tracking down Maine products to be so satisfying, he decided to try it for a full year. Madison was game, so together they set about revamping their pantry and menus.
Right at the start, they made an exception for non-Maine grown herbs and spices they already had on hand. Since it would be wasteful to toss these items, they decided they could continue to use them, but they wouldn't buy more during the year.
At the start of the project, Fuller explained on his blog how as a landscape artist, he's witnessed profit-driven concerns destroy and degrade land. He wrote, "I have also noticed public demand to make everything faster, cheaper and easier take priority over what we once considered common sense environmental practices. It made me very frustrated watching humans' relationship with nature become more and more artificial and it really caused me to analyze the way I was living my life as well as my role as an artist in my community After much meditation and consideration I reached the conclusion that the most sustainable way for me to continue to habitate my environment was to live as locally as possible."
When the year of eating local began, Fuller posted an update each day at lukaduke.blogspot.com, along with the list of local food he and Madison consumed the day before and often a picture or two of a meal.
"Once I got to 260 (posts), I got a little burned out," Fuller admitted. In June, Fuller switched to posting information roughly every other week about standout meals and farmers market finds.
"You see a different vegetable and we say, 'Let's try it,' " Madison said. Such openness to trying new things led them to sample squash blossoms and Saskatoon berries for the first time this year.
And the pair quickly learned what local stores carried which Maine-grown, -caught or -raised foods.
"Local eating is not one-stop shopping," Madison said. "You have to go to different stores."
Explaining the rapidly expanding range of Maine-grown foods, Fuller said, "We get corn flour, rye flour, sunflower, mustard seed and canola oils (from Maine). There's so much great stuff out there."
Of course, there are some things you just can't get from Maine. Neither hesitated when asked what foods they missed while eating a Maine-based diet. For Madison, it was chocolate; for Fuller, it was beer.
Fuller explained that while Maine is filled with locally brewed beers, almost all use ingredients imported from other states and countries. The only exception is Sebago's Local Harvest Ale, which is brewed using Maine-grown hops and barley malt. However, the popular brew is currently sold out and won't be available again until next fall.
Instead, the pair relies on wine from Bartlett, Sweetgrass Farm and Savage Oakes, the three Maine wineries that use local fruits in their fermentation processes.
Fuller and Madison are both former vegetarians who switched to eating seafood when they started this project because they recognized that eating an all Maine-grown, plant-based diet in the winter could be tough. As new pescatarians and long-time conscientious eaters, they are careful to make sure the seafood they purchase has been sustainably harvested. The Seafood Watch site is bookmarked on their home computer, and they check it frequently.
Madison said they've found Maine oysters to be one of the lowest-impact seafoods available in the state, because their harvest doesn't involve the pollution of fish farming or the overharvesting associated with drag-net fishing.
But for both Fuller and Madison, eating Maine food 24/7 really comes down to getting to know food producers and then putting their money behind enterprises they want to see prosper.
"It's all about creating a community and knowing the farmers," Fuller said. "Every dollar we have is a vote."
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
It's been over a month since my last blogfession....
Sorry.
I hope to find some balance soon.
M
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Saturday Sandwich
Below is last Saturday's sandwich.
I fell Columbus Day weekend and broke two bones in my foot. The problem is that it took the "Experts" in my life a full 3 weeks to figure out what was wrong. First the ER took X-rays and told me I had no breaks. WRONG. A week later I went to another doctor who found a fracture in that first Xray. I have a fractured navicula.
But I knew I was having pain in a separate area, and after doctor number 1 kind of dismissed my concerns, I went for a second opinion.
That doctor found a second fracture - in my heel somewhere - I was too knocked out on pain pills to think clearly enough to write down the name.
I am currently bouncing back and forth between my first opinon doctor and my second. I am thinking of going to the first opinion guy on Tuesday and demanding the MRI I asked for in the first place. I probably have grounds for malpractice, but not sure I have the cajones for that. For now, me and my Tramadol are going to sit in bed and catch up on lost time.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Say Cheese!
May I introduce to you, my baby Camembert.
I have to say, on my drive home I kept singing to myself, "I'm bringing home a baby Camembert. Won't my family be so proud to share!"
Friday, October 15, 2010
The Farm's Family Picture
Do you know what that means?
Baby has his first blog post.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Stems for the smoker
plus the stems from the herbs I dried in the dehydrator.
That could be some yummy goose! :D
Monday, October 4, 2010
Mortars and Pestles
I know... it's blurry... all I have's an iPhone.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Hanging vs. dehydrating Herbs
I cut my stalks of tarragon and hung it to dry on the cast iron pots over the stove.
Then I broke out my dehyrator and set to work.
First the oregano
I bagged the oregano and then started on the thyme.
I was surprised at how quickly the dehyrator worked.
Now I just need to decide, to hang the rosemary or to dehydrate?
Local Honey
My dearest husband stocked up on some yummy local honey today.
Why? I'm sad to say because I have been sick this weekend with the nastiest chest/ear cold.
SP is keeping me afloat with regular infusions of hot toddy's.
Yum. Slurp. Nightey night!
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Common Ground Country Fair
Here's a photo essay of some of my special finds.
Fresh Maine Blueberries (which I had missed earlier in the season)
This Feta cheese from Long Fellow's Creamery was fabulous in my Chicken Feta Wonder
And last but not least... meet Broodus.
He is my first angora bunny and will be my stud.
I got him from Beth at Akers Angora's
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