Patience is a Virtue except as it comes to Beef

Did I mention that SO and I are waiting for a side of beef to be butchered?





Yes, we have one on order with a local farm that raises its livestock without hormones, antibiotics, etc. I've been talking with the farmer off and on over the last couple of months and a few weeks ago we had the final conversation about how many steaks, what thickness, number of roasts, kebabs, etc.

I thought it would be ready by now and we'd have gone through the process of stashing all of this stuff but I'm still waiting. And, now I'm getting a little impatient and at the same time, I've let it go because SO is getting ready to do a lot of travelling and our ability to deal with this is going to go to zero until things calm down for him. So, the meat may sit frozen in the farmer's meat locker for a couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, I've been noting beef recipes when looking through cookbooks. This is also why SO bought a smoker so that we can do justice to the briskets.

There so much waiting in winter: waiting for the weather to get better, waiting for more daylight, waiting to be able to start planting things...and on top of all of that, I'm waiting for the beef AND for some crazy rare yarn I ordered that's pretty rare. I'm not wishing the time away; in fact, I take some perverse pleasure in the torture of the waiting.

And, at least, I'm not waiting for my refrigerator anymore or the cat to get better.

CL's Masterpiece

I took photos last night of all the blocks from the redwork quilt I bought over the weekend. There are 35 different embroidered designs featuring many different types of flowers, animals, children and fruit. Some of the work is simple (see the rabbit below) and some quite detailed (the cradle, for example). I imagine that the maker started making the simple designs and progressed onto the more difficult ones as her skills improved.

I tackled the challenge of washing the quilt the other night. I always approach these tasks with a lot of trepidation. I use a vintage fabric textile soak which miraculously takes out the brownish stains in the light fabrics, but if you are not careful how you arrange the item in the soaking liquid, I've had colors bleed -- which then becomes another project with which to contend. This time I was very conservative and only soaked the quilt for four hours. The whole thing gave me a heart attack when I drained the water from the tub and saw that the stains looked worse than when I started! Thankfully, upon drying, the remaining stains were not so noticeable and I decided that they give the quilt character and not to go any further with the washing process.

Here then is a sample of CL's work -- at least the maker signed and dated the quilt:



Who was "CL"?
















I think this is supposed to be one of the "Three Little Pigs" as redwork quilting often featured characters from nursery rhymes.





Love the detail on this one!


CL was really getting good by the time she/he did this.















The quilt would not be complete without a couple of chickens. Was CL inspired by chickens in the backyard?


















"Alice in Wonderland" perhaps?














Finally, a shot of the whole thing -- Sorry, I do not have a spot in the house where I could lay it out and capture it in its entirety.

I'm not sure where CL's Masterpiece is going to live permanently. Right now, it's serving as a tablecloth on my dining room table. It's a nice Valentine-sy kind of feel with the red and white.

Winter Treasure Hunting

Here at Broken Dishes headquarters, one of our core values is the continual taking on of QUESTS for THINGS. Luckily, the winter is perfect questing time -- the prevalence of dreariness affords one the opportunity for performing extensive research and having lengthy discussions with one's questing partner over various details, minutiae and conjecture regarding "the plan(s)" aka escapades.

Over the past two weekends, SO and I have been busying breaking in the new smoker where the mission is to duplicate our favorite BBQ joint meats at home. Last week it was chicken wings and jalapeno poppers; this week it was Baby Back Ribs:



Looks good, huh? I rubbed the rack the night before and let the rub sit on the ribs overnight.

Now, what you can't see is that it is raining a little bit and technically, the smoker is not supposed to be out in the rain. Since it wasn't a full out rain, we decided to create a tent for the smoker:










And too bad you can't hear my rendition of "The Cookshack" sung to the tune of "Loveshack"...


The ribs turned out really well! 4 hours at 225 degrees. No BBQ sauce needed!


Also, over the weekend, we rescued some items from the evil clutches of the antique malls:


My big splurge was the quilt -- it's red work from 1930 -- in perfect shape with beautiful needle work. We are going to wash it and luckily, there are minimal tears or threadbare areas. I always look at old quilts and have a few already. I always see something I like when we go out but I never buy. Since I've never seen any full sized perfect pieces done in red work, I took the plunge. I also found some old, hand carved knittig needles. SO got a jar -- we've been hunting jars heavily recently. I knew when I saw this one, it would capture his fancy.

And...to my great delight, we found a teriffic yarn store and I bought a few things there:














As you can see, it was a good weekend or the fulfillment of certain quests; however, many quests are still active and we acquired a couple of new ones -- now, we are hunting a pair of old ski poles and dying to find a bargain on the book, "The Principles of Knitting"...Oh, and getting ready to smoke a salmon and waiting for that side of beef to come from the butcher...

Spring is Coming!!!

Really, it is...I know it because I'm getting ready to sign up for another farm share.

I know I must be crazy.

I've already signed up for a full share with One Straw Farm. That's going to result in about two bags of produce each week from the beginning of June till Thanksgiving.

But, I've fallen under the spell of Spoutwood Farm too, you see, but I'm being sensible (!) by looking at a medium share.

Can I keep up? I think I can!!! I will either find a way or make a way.

No matter what happens, supporting the farms is the most important thing. This is how we keep stuff like this from disappearing...

Now, for a little trip down memory lane -- some shots from last year's farm share:






And, a yummy pie (because isn't life REALLY all about pie?) made from sweet potatoes from One Straw last fall.

The Best and Worst Meal I've Ever Eaten

The sign said, "Leave no trace" and was written in small, neat hand-writing as it hung in the tiny bathroom on a day I was learning to be mindful back in 1995 at the Mount Equity Monastery.


I spent this day with a zen abbess who was leading a group of six in a day of mindful meditation which included a meal. I believe there was a simple miso soup, a salad and a rice/vegetable dish.

I participated in the silent meal obediently...UNTIL we were told to rinse the dishes with water and then drink the liquid from our dirty bowls. This was to ingest the last morsels of nutrition from the dishes and the teacher was showing us the way things were done according to her monastic experiences. Instantly, my mind rejected the idea of rinsing out the rice bowl and dumping the liquid into the salad bowl and then into the soup bowl AND then drinking it!!! I thought I would gag and fifteen years later, I believe I have blocked out of my mind whether I somehow complied or just how I got out of doing this. Even now, I find this somewhat repulsive although I'm not sure why...I understand that this practice was another form of "leaving no trace", but on that day, I had my limits!

I also remember we performed several sessions of sitting and walking meditation. I remember the walking meditation was performed with the goal of walking as slowly as possible -- entirely different from what I was used to.

The phrase and the image of the written instructions to "leave no trace" are burned into my memory and often it comes to mind in different contexts -- sometimes even in relationships, I contemplate how I strive to walk gently, leaving no negative traces, realizing that everyone at some point walks a painful path and not wanting to contribute to another's suffering.

For a Noble Cause

Living in Baltimore, I have not escaped the fever that grips my town when the Ravens play. In fact, I can now show up to the office on "Purple Friday" wearing attire that seems to fit in. So, upon being invited to watch the game at some friends' house on Saturday night, it seemed natural to do something consistent with the theme.

When I suggested a "football cake" to my SO, he got right into it with me.

I have pictures, but first I have to make a confession: I sort of flunked my Wilton cake decorating class a number of years ago. It's just not my thing even though it's something that I WANT to be my thing. Oh, how I would love to daintily turn out frosting roses like I'd been doing it my whole life! Why am I not the star of "Charm City Cakes"???

Anyway, the cakes that I produced as part of my cake decorating class were so bad that at more than one class, the teacher took over what I was doing to "fix" my project. I used to take the cakes into work so that they weren't hanging around the house to tempt me and I would overhear people saying things like, "What is that thing?" I guess grey icing doesn't appeal to many people.

Now, without further ado, the before and after of the "Football Cake":














SO did the carving -- I was responsible for creating the beautiful shade of purple for the frosting and giving the cake its base layer.














SO also did the white striping and added the texture. I made the coconut-green grass.


Later we both laughed when each of us admitted that at first we were both secretly pessimistic...

In the end, the cake was a big hit at the party. Maybe I do have a future in cakes...

The Agony and The Ecstasy

The Agony: Still no refrigerator. And...they wanted to delay delivering it till Saturday after I'd been told today or tomorrow. This delivery company is awful, but I'm not making a fuss till the fridge is in, the old one is out and everything is working. I had to strong arm a bit, but they've committed to tomorrow. Ugh! This has been stressful all the way around. I hope the stress ends when the delivery is completed.

The Ecstasy: The smoker arrived yesterday and the cookbooks for the smoker arrived today. Dear SO got wood chips today. There's a pork loin waiting in the freezer to be the sacrificial offering to the smoking gods. Sometime over the weekend we are going to give it a try.

Meanwhile, I'm still fantasizing about the farm share and so wishing I'd kept a diary from last year...I sort of remember that there was a lot of cabbage in June and then there were a couple of mega-cucumber weeks.

And, I've taken the notion to make a little zine-style cookbook for the holidays for next year. I'm thinking I will "just" select a recipe each month and then there will be twelve for a little booklet for next year. Of course, artwork will be needed and I'm not much of an artist, but maybe I can pass it off as "charming".

OK, it's the afternoon and still no word on when the refrigerator is coming -- what a nailbiter this has become!

What the World Needs Now is More KNITTING

Yarn: Spud & Chloe, Outer in Peat

Yarn: Spud & Chloe, Outer in Peat and Soapstone

Yarn: Cascade Fixation, Lavendar












Thus are the projects I've completed so far this year.

You can see I've been on a tear so far this year which is just a continuation of the tear that I was on last year (particularly in the fall when I was getting ready for the holidays).

One regret I have from last year is that I didn't document my knitting projects as I completed them. I just kept racing along like knitting was going out of style. I accomplished a lot -- many pairs of socks, a half a dozen or so scarves, a big wrap, some mittens, some hats, some toys. I'm sure the count is something like two dozen completed projects and there were a couple big, complicated projects.

I have scads of hand-knitted socks now and have given away a fair number of pairs as gifts. Universally, once someone puts on a pair, they are ruined forever for commercially knit socks. There's nothing like the softness and fit of the hand-knitted sock. I have a lot of them but I do treasure them and can now delight in being able to find a pair to match just about anything I want to wear.

I was never much of a hat wearer but I have to say now that I have some beautiful, soft, hand-knitted hats, I'm converting (of course, it could also be just getting to a certain age and giving up having "perfect hair").

I even bought an old suitcase to put my yarn stash in -- it gives the stash a cool place to hang out and I have set a rule that I must not buy beyond what I can fit in the suitcase so it's keeping my accumulation of yarn under control. There are simply endless amounts of gorgeous yarn to buy but one must exercise SOME restraint.

I treasure all of my knitted objects and hope that the recipients of my knitted gifts are just as delighted.

And, I have really, really GOOD NEWS: I paid for my farm share today. That means that warmer weather is on its way! The farm sent out a great email describing the new plants they are putting in (raspberries, blueberries, double the strawberries, many more varieties of tomatoes). It's cold as the dickens outside today but with putting up my money for the farm share, I'm ushering in the sunny days.

Chili

My 8 year old cat, Chili, loves to eat stinky, fishy, canned cat food with a passion. She knows all the sounds involved: the snap of the lid coming off the plastic container, the clank of the saucer coming out of the cabinet, and the tapping of the spoon on the saucer when I place the food on her plate. And, of course, there's also the all-mighty sound of the opening of any can that makes her run to the kitchen in hopes that the can contains stinky, fishy cat food.

I confess that I've reproduced these sounds with the skill of a Hollywood foley artist when I've wanted to flush her out of hiding to put her in her carrier to go somewhere (she hates car rides). I feel guilty about that.

Chili isn't fed to excess, but unfortunately, she doesn't have a very good metabolism and she's a bit roly-poly. I thought she'd lost weight this past year and then at the vet's last month, we discovered she'd gained another half pound.

Once again, I got the talk about putting her on a prescription food to get her weight down. We've tried that before and she wouldn't eat it so I'm reluctant to get involved with buying a bunch of food and then having to find time to take it back.

But, I took the vet seriously and vowed to somehow deal with her diet issues after I returned from my holiday vacation.

Unfortunately, upon my return earlier this week, Chili seems to be having trouble walking and definitely having trouble jumping. Of course, I'm worried that it's a consequence of her being chubby and I'm feeling terrible about this. We have an appointment with the vet tomorrow to see what they can figure out.

She's sitting by me right now, getting cat hair all over my cloth briefcase but I don't care. Seeing her hobble around this week, I'm reminded that she won't be with me forever and it's very painful as I have completely given my heart to this little animal.

I can say without any hesitation that I have loved and treasured her every minute we've had -- she's truly a broken dish for me (see first post of this blog for explanation).

I picked her out at an animal shelter when she was about 8 weeks old and weighed about two pounds. She'd been found outside with her mother and sister. In the shelter she was quiet and still -- totally freaked out and I worried that she wouldn't have much personality. Boy, was I wrong. Named after a nail polish ("Deeply Chili"), she blossomed into loving, highly interactive goofball that once for the hell of it, jumped out at me with her whole body extended as I was rounding the corner to go to bed. As a kitten, for a long time, she slept right on top of my head.

I got her when I was still struggling with post-divorce life and she listened to my problems and once, when I was crying, she ran into me full-force and head-butted me as if to say, "Snap out of it!". How could I not fall head over heels in love with her?

Climb Every Mountain...

Did I mention that my refrigerator quit on me right before leaving on vacation? Ugh! I have a new fridge on order but no delivery date yet. I get back from my trip tomorrow night and originally was planning to start the year out right by working on becoming a "smaller person".

This whole thing falls under the heading of, "The Best Laid Plans". In the weeks before we left, I spent time thinking about exactly how I would execute and implement my master plan for 2010. And, then the darn fridge broke and now things will not be going as planned. Isn't that always the way? I was hoping to get out of the gates smoothly...

So, there are bumps in the road right away. I had planned on going to the grocery store and getting all of my fruits and vegetables ready on Monday morning and now I have to postpone that until I know when the delivery is going to happen.

The truth is, the bumps were coming at some point. I have to hang in there with this whole initiative for awhile so I'm going to get lots of opportunities to respond to challenge -- like going on a business trip in three weeks.

Even with the challenges, I'm looking forward to this project. I've thought about it for awhile and I'm ready to let go of some old, comfy behaviors. Instead of working on my cookbook project, I will be working on this and won't be busy testing yummy, high fat recipes until perfect.

My SO asked me what my target was and I replied, "I don't know yet, but I will know when I get there." It will be an interesting journey. I promise to keep this blog updated with highlights from the ride.