These litle notes are my favourite thing about being home. Vancouver, August 2010
a small collection of what people like
Also, people who like knitting like sewing. And country music. More on Flickr (click the photo to get there).
2 years in America, my phone contract is up for renewal, and I am coming to realize that I just don’t want an iPhone, or any other “cool” phone. Maybe I want a Razr, they were cool phones once. It’s nice to know that my friend Kenan doesn’t really want one either.
Instead of playing word jumble or brick breaking games on the subway, I’ll read John Steinbeck (the other day a woman tapped me as I was reading East of Eden and asked if I was reading that for school or for fun. When I said for fun she was impressed; I wonder would she would have thought if I had been reading The Production of Space?)
Not that I am anti-technology, mind you. I very much appreciate my sewing machine, which I used to make a banner for the Crow Hill Community Garden, and am using to piece together some blocks for a quilt (one for myself and my home, this time).
Also, I like my new dehydrator, gifted by Emily in her going-away-paring down. Sara, my awesome new roommate, and I made kale chips, with kale she grew in her friend Stefan’s garden.
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.
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