I want to show off a few photos of the quilt I made for Rachel and David’s wedding gift.
A few weeks ago, I stumbled into a plot at the Crow Hill Community Garden. I showed up to dig and help out, got offered a plot, and had it filled with seeds and plants by the end of the day. (That was also the day that Ghana beat America in soccer, and I don’t normally care about sports, but that was spectacular).
This is what my plot looked like then:
Collards around the outside, beans and cilantro and peas and some other seeds in the ground.
And this is what it looks like now:
My beans, getting all big and stuff.
Hot peppers, sprouting out of the ground.
A green pepper, growing.
I bought some plants from the Natty Garden shop and put them in (I wasn’t going to rely just on things from seed this late in the season), and the green peppers are starting to produce fruit.
I’m calling the whole thing the pipe garden, because I excavated this piece of pipe when I was digging up the earth, and put in it in the garden, and planted these little flowers in it.
In addition to the Crown Hill Community Garden, the Little Franklin Garden is doing alright too. Last week, someone stole my tomato, which is unsurprising, but it would have made more sense to wait until it turned red. Why steal unripe produce? Anyhow, that same plant is growing another little tomato; growing just keeps chugging along.
Monday was watermelon-rind pickling day. Man–that’s a serious process. Even just peeling and cubing the rinds is tons of work (that was done slowly, as I ate up watermelon). Then soaking in brine. Then rinsing and boiling. Then boiling sugar and vinegar and fruit. Then adding the rinds back in. Then removing them and reducing the syrup. And then sterilizing and packing and processing. I went to bed much later than I should have; I hope these things are delicious in the end!
The recipe came from Vegan Soul Kitchen, which is not a canning book, but does have a whole section on no-waste watermelon. There are recipes in 2 other of my canning books, maybe I’ll try those too. Watermelons produce a lot of rind…
Last week, my dear friend Jamie and Rufus got married! They had their friends decorate squares of fabric that were then pieced together into a chuppa quilt by some family friends.
Here’s what it looked like hanging up at the party:
Mine is the square with the little triangle trees, far right of the second row from the top.
So, as a gift for Jamie and Rufus, I wanted to make something that complemented this quilt I knew they were going to have after the wedding, so I made some pillowcases that matched (well, close to matched) the patchwork pattern of my square. Inspired by the Little Forest Quilt I made these pillowcases for J + R:
I had never made patchwork pillowcases before, and freaked out a bit when I realized that I wasn’t quilting the work and that there were all these raw edges on the back of the tree panel. Inside the pillowcase, yes, but still problematic. Their exposure would mean that they were going to fray and come apart after some number of washings. For a small while I thought I was going to have to line the pillowcases, which would require more cream-coloured fabric and not making my June 6 deadline. But then I dug through the box of craft ephemera in my closet and found some super lightweight fusible interfacing, which I ironed onto the back of the patchwork panels, sealing the whole thing up without making the pillowcases stiff. Amazing!
This coop haul included fiddleheads.
I took them up to Anna and Naf’s the other weekend, we ate them with eggs and they were delicious. Fiddleheads were totally destined to be the first canning project of the summer. So I bought more.
This, by the way, is the most recent Cat and Girl comic:
Close up on the punchline as Grrl tells past Grrl about the future:
Anyhow, after a bit of googling I decided on this recipe from Fat of The Land and learned that if your recipe doesn’t have photos I don’t really consider making it. Which is silly, but true.
Now the jars are just hanging out…to be eaten in November or February!
Brooklyn Bridge 127th Birthday Bike Ride,originally uploaded by shannon&dave&rosie.
I want to post this photo and say that this is the best thing I did this week–a Brooklyn Bridge Birthday Bike Ride (the bridge turned 127 on Monday) with the City Reliquary complete with cake and pop and a band and a dance party. Giving cake to tourists and locals walking across the bridge at 7pm on a weekday is really just a lovely thing to do. This is me giving a piece with a yellow flower to a girl in a dress with yellow flowers. When her mom came up a few moments later and saw her kid with a big piece of cake, she burst out laughing at her charming cake-manipulative daughter. But it was all part of the plan.
The reason that I can’t say this was the most awesome thing I did this week is because last night Naomi and I went to Jalopy for their Wednesday night free “Roots and Ruckus” show, and we saw the best thing I’ve ever seen. The Bill Murray Experience (silly name for an amazing group of musicians), fronted by the cutest lady who sings and plays the washboard and kazoo, just totally blew us away.
Here is a video!
Rooibus or Ceylon?
www.colettepatterns.com/shop
On St John’s Place, across from the Eye of the Storm FDNY Firehouse.
I just read about the Baltimore Virtual Supermarket project–grocery delivery to libraries in the food deserts of Baltimore. It means that people can get access to fresh, good food, pay with SNAP, and not have to worry about delivery charges or minimum orders.
I think it’s really great that they’re using libraries as the hub–they are community resources that are well-distributed throughout cities (usually, hopefully).
It reminds me of this article that Kurt passed along about the US Postal Service, which mentions that post offices used to offer small savings accounts, especially important and useful for folks who live in places that banks have ignored. Seems to make a lot of sense to me to utilize already-existing infrastructure to do good things.
$27
Much of this is destined to become Leek Bread Pudding.
Leeks, fiddleheads, lemons, asparagus, cheese, tomatillos, mustard greens, brioche, butter, cream, milk, linewaiter’s gazette.
This is fun: at about 1:36 you can see my friend John and I cross the street (from bottom left corner to the bar), lock up my bike, and go inside. And then my bike gets to be front and centre for the rest of the little clip.
Freddy’s Bar - Last Days from tracy collins on Vimeo.
NYT article and slideshow about Freddy’s here.
Inspired by Emily’s farmer’s market haul photos, (inspired, in turn, by Sweet Juniper), this is today’s Park Slope Food Coop haul
1 cucumber
bag of brussels sprouts
cream cheese
blue cheese
peccorino cheese
2 avocados
bag of baby carrots
2 packages of frozen ravioli
1 loaf amy’s bread
4 tomatoes
1 kiwi
4 limes
1 bunch kale
3 packages frozen peas
yogurt
milk
4 bottles of beer
2 leeks
6 eggs
bag of salad greens
bunch of mint
handful of basil
2 lemons
2 lightbulbs
current issue of the coop newspaper
$48
HRH Edward Prince of Wales, and a terrier on board HMS ‘Hindustan’,originally uploaded by National Maritime Museum.
Reproduction ID: P07390
Maker: Unknown
Date: about 1911
From the National Maritime Museum’s “Animals at Sea” flickr set.There are some of kitties!
The Official Management Company is responsible for all the lovely design at the Ace Hotel (in New York and Portland and a few other places).
These are some of my favourites, but the OMC website is certainly worth a look.
This is a good post from my friend Laurie about bike lanes. She rides in Toronto, but what she’s saying applies everywhere.
And what she’s saying is that drivers should be in favour of bike lanes. Especially the drivers that hate cyclists the most. Cyclists are not going to go away, but they will be less bothersome to drivers if there is a safe place for them to be on the road.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot (I drive in the city, as well as cycle), and the thing that slows cars down (which is what seems to make drivers the most angry) is unpredictability. It’s not cyclists specifically, it’s mostly double-parking! Double parked cars, delivery trucks, taxis…they force cars and cyclists to change lanes and zoom around them, which is what makes driving (and cycling) awful. And dangerous.
Every time I read blog comments on bike-related things I get all upset at the mean-spirited anti-cyclist sentiments. The anti-bikers actually need to support bicycle infrastructure to get what they want! And traffic needs to behave better so that things are safer, but also so driving is predictable and moves faster. Transportation Alternatives has been pushing the Biking Rules, shouldn’t AAA push good driving? It will make the streets better for everyone.
Only slightly related, here are some photos of the April 9th Critical Mass ride in Brooklyn. It was lovely: we went to eat ice cream and check out the new Brooklyn Bridge Park. About 20 cyclists at peak, about 20 cops (in a van, a few cars, and those half-car golf-cart things) following us for some unknown bureaucratic reason.
I’m addressing 12 envelopes to mail CDs off to people in my CD exchange. It feels incredibly magical that you can just write where you want the thing to go, put it in a box, and it goes there!
This feels especially true as I write “Canada” on the envelopes. Go to Canada little package!
Last summer my brilliant friend Sarah and I were musing about a strange turn of phrase: “I’m in a place where I can’t date right now” or “I’m in a place where I can’t go for coffee.” Where is this place? Sometimes the phrase is framed in the negative, “I’m not in place where it makes sense for me to see you,” but if you’re not in one place, you must be in another, right? So still, where are you? Where is this place?
We imagine this place to be an awesome fantasy park, full of dudes throwing baseballs around, hanging out with puppies, maybe there’s a hot dog vendor. There are definitely no girls allowed in this place, but it’s awesome, and the guys are having a good time and the appeal is apparent. Still, being in this place prevents them from being in a place where they can go for coffee or go on dates or make out or whatever.
So when dude says “I’m not in a place where I can date right now” what they’re not saying out loud is “BECAUSE I’M AT THE SECRET BOY AND PUPPY PARK!”
So what the awesome girls do, is they bike down to the place, on their 3-speed Schwinns with good stuff in their baskets. And they lay out a blanket and set out a picnic full of baguettes and brie and mason jars full of gin and tonic. Now this picnic spot is open-access, and the boys can totally see it from dude and puppy park, and maybe they’ll be tempted by the smart girls who planned for the day with all this rad stuff that the dudes didn’t think of. All they have are hot dogs and baseballs and maybe they’ll start to think that if they got out of the place then they too could have fancy cheese and picnic cocktails.
Sometimes Sarah and I think that the Place is the Red Hook Ballfields, but the food is too good there for this to make total sense.
Anyhow, welcome to spring everyone. It’s bikes and picnic season!
Here are some unrelated photos of dudes and puppies.
(photo by buzzchap)
(photo by thebigblackmariah)
(photo by unfocused mike)
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