Lemons and Spiders

Candied Citrus Peel -- pg. 382

Good lord, what a week. Couple of weeks. Month.

Did I mention our pet spiders? Two orb web spiders have set up shop on the outside of our kitchen windows. They are Big Girls who have lived there for at least a month now. (We've had to instruct our cleaning ladies to leave their webs alone.) Absolutely fascinating to watch. They're nocturnal, coming out about 8:30 in the evening. They're back in the sack before I get up in the morning. I'm not normally a big fan of spiders, although I'm not an arachnaphobe either. I mean, I'm willing to go mano a mano with the snarliest of black widow spiders. But these 2 are pretty cool. I was cheering for one last night as she caught and ate a small cricket. What a woman!

Did I mention that we were essentially stood up for a dinner date a couple weeks ago? I mean, a dinner I was making? After buying $120 worth of groceries, developing a menu, and planning a day of cooking? (Who does something like that?!) Soooooo, we've been eating endless homemade tomato soup and pork loin chops and potato salad. And then there's that 4 pounds of Meyer lemons. Well, when life gives me lemons, I check the index in TAOS.

Ta-da! Candied Citrus Peel! In this case, Candied Lemon Peel. Sometimes I read these recipes in TAOS and wonder what the heck Alice is thinking. Who wants to make candied citrus peel, for heaven's sake? Then I actually make the recipe and all is revealed. Here's a great way to use (instead of throw away) the peels left over after juicing citrus. Candying the peel is a two-day process, but is simple. Honestly. Then you put the candied peel in a glass jar in the frig and there you have it! Free candy! Dessert. Toppings for pudding, fruit, ice cream, cupcakes, and so on and so forth. Or just a little treat right out of the jar. Oh yum. I think I finally have a reason to squeeze fresh orange juice. I'll never throw away a citrus peel again.

99 recipes down; 206 recipes to go

Potato Salad, Recipe Testing, a Nook & Uninvited Dogs

Potato Salad - pg. 245

Alice's potato salad is what you call a French potato salad. Made with a vinaigrette. I used Chaparral Gardens Winter Ambrosia vinegar which I totally love. The recipe is very simple, which not everything in _The Art of Simple Food_ is. Actually I've made this twice in the last week. Believe it or not, I don't think I've ever made potato salad before in my entire life. I learned that the potatoes have to be whacked up into smaller pieces than you might at first think, and that both the potatoes and eggs chop up far more easily when chilled. I love this potato salad.

Here's more fun in the kitchen-- I'm now on Cooks Illustrated list to test recipes. Yippee! Someone actually wants my opinions! Tonight I made Spaghetti al Vino Rosso with Swiss Chard and Pinenuts, except I used walnuts since pinenuts are way too darned expensive right now. Simple Almond Granola is the next recipe to test. Bring 'em on!

Even though you'll never see me get over my life long love of real books, I have purchased a Nook Color (Barnes & Noble). Randy bought the simplest Nook Reader a few weeks ago and said we could "share." Right. ... (Crickets chirping in the background) ... Every time Randy has come home with something "we can share," we don't. However, I did some research and decided that if I were to get a Nook, I would want the color version since it does just about everything an iPad can do for a lot less money. And then a refund check came in the mail. Made out to ME! Seems that the insurance is paying for more of my implanted molar than the oral surgery thought they would. Mmmmmmmmmmm. What to do with this sudden windfall? Guess. I thought it was the voice of God speaking to me, "Buy a Nook Color, Sally." So I did. I'm learning my way around it a little bit every day. And still reading real books.

Now about the dogs. Well, let's back up a bit. A week ago we were expecting dinner guests for whom I had planned a terrific dinner and bought a $$$lot$$$ of groceries, if you take my meaning. They backed out at the last minute for no good reason. (And you wonder why I've been making all this potato salad....) Fortunately, we also had wonderful house guests early this week; they took the sting out. But then, my weaving study group came yesterday morning. Two women arrived with a total of 3 uninvited, unexpected dogs. I'll spare you the details except to say that I now have a trashed window screen that has to be entirely replaced, and a scratched-up front door. This is the fancy-shmancy custom-made-in-Santa-Fe Big Splurge front door. I could kill. Who in hell takes unleashed, unsupervised dogs to someone's house uninvited and unexpected??? I was speechless to say the least. When do you think that any of these people will be invited to my house again? You got it.

Well, so much for that. We really did enjoy the heck out of our house guests this week. One of Randy's PhD students from when he was at OSU, with his wife and son. They're doing to college tour thing, hunting for exactly the right school for their son. I'm cheering for CalTech so they can stop and see us more often. We're also expecting the wonderful plein aire artist, Becky Joy, to stay with us again in October. Becky wanted to come back to our house and we are totally delighted to have her. We have 2 of her paintings from last year and may add one or two this year.

Now all I have to do is use up 4 pounds of Meyer lemons that I bought for the fizzled dinner party. Sherbet, pies, sauces, chicken and olives and lemons (it's Tunisian). Yippee! Oh yes, and candied citrus peel. That's on page 382. Stay tuned.

98 recipes completed; 207 to go (time to get cracking here, Girl!)

It's Saturday!

Yup, it's Saturday and I'm STILL being a Responsible Adult. Okay, maybe that's Responsible Adult Lite, but that still counts, doesn't it? I did a necessary but Pain in the Butt (PITA) task this afternoon. Put away winter clothes and brought out summer clothes. If I had fewer clothes (I'm working toward that; really I am) or a bigger closet (as if this one couldn't house a small family in a third-world country) I wouldn't have to do this. In fact, I never had to do this in Los Osos since it doesn't get hot there in the summer (for the most part) and I could always stuff extras in other closets. But here in Atascadero there is a decided winter and summer, and usually an actual spring and fall, too. So, the toasty fleeces, hats, sweaters and wraps get put up on the high shelf for the summer while the short-sleeved tees and linen tops get brought down. Like I say, it's a PITA that I keep putting off because it involves numerous trips up and down the little step ladder. But I did it. And it's done.

In the fiberist area, I bought a black wire mannequin sort of thing at Ross Dress for Less today after our weekly trip to farmers market. Eventually I'll make a custom dress form and this thing will be the stand. Something I've wanted to do for a long time, but didn't know what to use for a stand and was, apparently, too lazy to research and solve the problem. Well, it's solved now. So there. And in the mean, the mannequin will adorably show off my latest whatevers. Cool.

More About Iterative Development

But first, a word about today's Be A Responsible Adult goal. I haven't tended my composting worms in about 6 weeks, although they don't need a lot of attention. Today I just checked them out (they've gotten a lot of work done in 6 weeks!), added some vegetable scraps that themselves had gotten pretty, ah-hem, degraded. I cleaned the dust and dirt off the bins, set the legs into water-filled plastic containers since I found a few ants in the bin, refilled the vinegar fly trap, and drained off accumulated worm tea to feed to plants under the big oak. While I was at it, I cleaned off the outside of the front door and wiped off a few exterior window sills.

But, on to iterative development. I got some helpful feedback from Tien after I emailed her that her WeaveTech post was turning out to be very useful for me right now. I had also commented on iterative development on facebook and received a reply from a retired IT friend of mine, Bill who was just on the Alaska adventure with me and my husband and Bill's wife Mary. Mary is a pretty serious knitter, so Bill was able to see how iterative development might apply to a fuzzy goal (I love the bad joke there) such as "become a better knitter". I added that using iterative development, one might decide over time to specialize in 1 or more specific types of knitting. The beauty of it is that that decision would not have to be made right up front, or even ever really. It would just emerge. Anyway, it was helpful to me that Bill also recognized what I was getting at.

So, feeling that the pressure to perform is now off, I assigned a particular area of endeavor to each of the 5 weekdays. Of course, this is flexible and subject to change, but it ensures that I don't get stuck on any one project or type of work. For the moment, Friday is beadwork day. Today I made a new neckpiece for a much-loved elaborate locket. The previous neckpiece had broken twice. I'll fix something once, but if it breaks again, it clearly is a design that isn't working well. I also didn't want to spend a lot of time on it. I had earlier made a multi-strand ribbon neckpiece with a beaded clasp for a similar locket, so I used that idea for a variation for this locket. Done. What I learned is that my beading skills are a little rusty. Surprise, surprise.

Dinner was Trader Joe's lasagna. But, I think I've found a scarf pattern for my skein of qiviut.

"Setting Goals as a Fiberist"

Maybe that's what I should call myself. A fiberist. But no one knows what that means either. I think I've met exactly one person who knew what I was talking about when I said that I'm a fiber artist. Anyway, that's not the point here.

The point is that my Responsibility Goal today was/is to clear 6 things off my desk. Just start at the top of the pile and start working at it. I got to a really interesting post from Tien Chiu (a very talented and accomplished fiberist) written a couple years ago on the topic of setting goals as a fiberist. I knew that Tien would have something really meaty to say on the subject, so I printed the post from the WeaveTech list. Studying it today was great timing for me.

Tien talked about iterative development from the realm of software development. Basically you develop your "product" in quick iterations EACH OF WHICH PRODUCES A USABLE PRODUCT. For me, personally, I see this as a call to quit thinking about it and just start doing it. (Yes, I often suffer from the paralysis of analysis.) I see this as looking at my UFOs in a whole new light. Here's the new attitude:

Each project, each UFO, is a lesson -- a learning opportunity, if you will -- in design, technique, whatever, that I can then carry on into the next project. So the projects, the learning, keep accumulating like Russian dolls getting bigger and bigger and bigger. This approach puts the emphasis on the process while still offering the payoff of completed projects. All of which builds toward mastery and excellence, which is really my goal in everything I pursue in the fiberist world.

That's it.

Still Responsible...

July 5 - The monthly trek to Costco and Petsmart. (Mostly for soy milk, toilet paper, paper towels, cat food and cat litter.) I even stopped in at my salon and made appointments for a pedicure and hair cut.

Jyly 6 - (That would be today.) Did piles of laundry. But, the real GOAL today was to clean out -- and clean -- the kitchen cabinets under the kitchen sinks. I understand how they get so messy, but I will never understand how they get so dirty. Anyway, they're neat and clean now.

As a reward for being so damned responsible, I'm back in the studio again. I'll probably spend the rest of my life just making stuff I've already planned to make, but that's okay. Most of the time. Saves me a lot of shopping time. A few years ago I got some great fringy, tasselly trim in pink, blue, green and ivory and some upholstery fabric that looks great with it. This afternoon I started making a bag out of it. I want more bags (what we used to call purses), so get to it, I say. I've got plenty of fabric, even a few patterns. I'm even taking process photos since soon, very soon, a daily goal will be to get up to speed in that area.

In the meantime, I'm watching So You Think You Can Dance and continuing to knit the aqua mohair and silver crochet thread strand ribs-and-lace scarf that has given me vast quantities of grief in the last couple of months. Yeah, I'll take a photo of that, too.

Is there anything philosophical to discuss tonight? Nothing knew. Same old stuff. How do I become the person I'd like to be instead of the one I am? I'm 62. I haven't got all day.

Dinner tonight? A melange of leftovers. Leftover control is a constant battle since there are only 2 of us. What does Alice do with leftovers, that's what I want to know.

Moving on With Alice!

Cauliflower Salad with Olives and Capers - pg. 247

Good grief! It's been nearly 4 months since I last worked on my cooking project, which is cooking my way through Alice Waters' cookbook, The Art of Simple Food. Well, I was on a pretty strict diet for awhile, then we went to Alaska for a couple weeks, then I had a bad cold. That's just the way life is.

Yesterday we got a call to attend an impromptu 4th of July neighborhood potluck. Aha! What's in the frig? A cauliflower, capers, frozen lemons (for juice for dressing). Looks like the start of a salad to me! I zipped out for a couple jars of kalamata olives, which I should have on hand anyway, and a red bell pepper for color in the salad. I picked a fistful of spearmint from the garden. Whack, whack, squeeze, squeeze, steam and toss. And an excellent salad that was well received by everyone at the potluck was born. Okay, husband wasn't thrilled with the olives, but then he doesn't like olives. Neighbor Tom, OTOH, praised the addition of the olives.

I've got a long way to go. 97 recipes completed; 208 recipes to go. I've learned so much already. My confidence in the kitchen is so very much greater. I'm excited to see where I'm going to be after another 100 recipes, then at the very end.

Otherwise, I'm feeling scared about a potential health issue which is, in all probability, nothing. And I'm feeling that I'm not being responsible or disciplined, but then again I never do. During July I'm trying to have one, just one, I MUST DO THIS RESPONSIBLE THING TODAY goal each day. And I MUST do that one thing.

July 1: Catch up with spending records and bill paying. DONE

July 2: Box up Bill's bird book and Mary's birthday present to mail next week. DONE

July 3: Sort out rug wool that's been living in the guest shower. DONE

July 4: Clean cat fountain and order new filters for the coming year. DONE

Will I ever reach a point in my life where I don't feel guilty for falling short in all areas of life? Oh, probably not. But life goes on.

97 down, 208 to go, so let's keep cooking!