Epic Fail

My son had a Birthday yesterday and today I sent him this photo.  I had good intentions and started out to bake him a birthday cake.  Well, that cake just didn't want to be a cake.
          * it didn't rise... it was flat as a pancake and sort of  like two dry cracker
             rounds.
          * I set it aside to make coffee.  Next thing I know all of the cake crumbs ran
             off the plate.
          * danged sugar ants are going to drive me crazy in the kitchen, no matter what
             I do to get rid of them.
          * so I set the plate out on the deck and made my coffee - boy did I need a
             cup of coffee!
          * Later I went to get the cake plate and there was a red squirrel sitting in the
             middle of the plate, happily munching away. Surprised the chipmunks didn't
             find it first.

The remains have now gone to feed my compost pile.  The way things have been going in the kitchen lately, I think I may just have to retire as a cook.

Three Loves

# 1 -Beading:

I just spent a couple of days with two delightful gals, Amy & Susan, from the Phoenix area. They needed a girl's road trip and came down for some studio time in Tombstone. As sometimes happens, the student/teacher relationship got thrown out the window and ideas flowed non-stop. This creative, free flowing of ideas and possibilities is what I thoroughly enjoy about the beading community. I came away with an idea for a bracelet using the African "sequins" that I'm going to have to try out as soon as I can steal a moment to put it to good use. Now I can't wait to put the chaos back onto my studio work surface and see where this idea leads.

#2 - Cooking:

Bagna Cauda
I've royally stunk up the house tonight as I did the prep for tomorrow's night dinner with my 2 Sister's & their men. Oh my.... chopped two whole heads of garlic, added 2 cans of anchovies and it's all simmering in butter & olive oil. My Piemontese Italian heritage is front and center with this dinner. I can hear my Father saying, "NO dipping the bread in!" Guess I'd better get out my stretchy pants as I know I'll need the extra room for dinner tomorrow.

This dinner also gave me the chance to indulge my liking for vintage kitchen implements. I needed something to put the Bagna Cauda in on the table and keep it warm. The only warmer I found in several thrift stores was this Chrome Fire King Fondue pot. Now I'm in real trouble as I don't think I have a place in my smallish adobe to store it. I was planning on getting something ugly and cheap enough to re-donate when I was done with it. This is too good a find to put back out for someone else.

#3 - Gardening:

All I've grown myself is a beautiful dark red Amaryllis which is happily blooming on my window sill. I still miss having a house full of houseplants.

Tomatoes ready for outside planting .... in February! This year I've gotten to enjoy my gardening vicariously. My companion brought heirloom tomato seeds with him and has been carefully nurturing them inside under my beading Ott lights. They are beautiful, healthy, sturdy plants that went into the planting barrels yesterday. We hope to be able to enjoy ripe tomatoes from these plants before we head back to New Hampshire. Sometimes it's very nice to be able to enjoy the fruits of someone else's labor.

There Comes a Time ....

...to take a sabbatical. I need to put the beads away for 6 to 8 months and concentrate on organizing the underpinnings of my life. I've just spent 3 months on a building project in Arizona and have an even larger building project waiting for me in New Hampshire. I like change and will like having my own house in NH again. However, I find that I'm just not as flexible at 65 as I was at 30 and have to admit that I can't do it all at once anymore. When I leave Arizona later this month I'll put my beads in storage until I have a finished studio in the new house. I do know that ideas will be percolating and show up here now and again, but I'll probably be writing about construction more than beading for a while.

International Easter:

We went to my sister's place for Easter dinner with 20 assorted friends and family. Afterwards I realized that the deserts I made sort of crossed a few international borders.


I found this great tin of large German circle cutters at the flea market and had to try them out.



I made a Chilean sweet that was a favorite childhood treat whenever we went to the beach. Dulces de La Liegua are sweet cracker rounds stuck together with cooked sweetened condensed milk and covered with meringue.



About half way through putting them together I was sure I had made way to many. What a production chore with meringue smeared all over me as well as the dulces.


They were just as good as I remembered them to be.


To round out my contribution I made Nanimo bars, a sinful Canadian Christmas sweet and Hot Cross Buns, a traditional British Easter food.


Wasn't too many leftovers, so I guess my choices for the desert were well chosen.

White Christmas - a day late!

The Christmas cake turned out spectacular this year. I love the crisp, detailed bundt mold I found last year. Christmas day was spent out in the Ghost Town of Gleeson AZ with my Sister. She now owns the old 1800's jail and is restoring it. My G'kids think that is cool - a Great Aunt that owns a jail!



Brrrr ... Yesterday afternoon it got dark and then we got sleet, snow and frigid temps. It's a bit early for our area of Arizona to have 25 degree weather with the white stuff. The nice thing is that the sun is out and it's already starting to go away. So we almost had a White Christmas.







It's a bit late to post trip photos, but I did want to share this find from the Windmill Museum in Lubbock Texas.






I found it fascinating that the birds could even work with the stiff pieces of wire plus barbed wire.




Enjoy what's left of 2008.
Did you know it'll be leap second year?

New Kitchen Toy - Part #2

It's a gray, damp, miserable day here today. I finally got the time to try making crackers on my new-old kitchen toy. What a difference .... 2 hours and I had nice crisp, thin chive flavored snack crackers. Rolling the dough the pasta machine made making crackers such a breeze that I may never buy another box of saltines. A real plus is that I know exactly what's in these: flour, yeast, olive oil, salt, water & dried chives.

I found Hodgson Mill Pasta Flour the other day and it will serve for both pasta and crackers. Now I'm wondering what would happen if I cheese flavored the dough, ran it through the angel
hair setting on the machine and baked the results.... Would I get

snack noodles?

The recipe called for a total of 3 cups of flour and this is how many crackers I got. I'm thrilled with the results and it was fun to do.

New Kitchen Toy

When I'm cold, I bake - just ask my kids.... When I'm depressed or upset, I cook - anything, something. I've been wanting to try home made crackers forever and a week ago decided it was time to finally do it and take my frustrations out on the dough. Besides the weather was getting quite chill. After all of the rolling and very tired arm muscles, I decided to surf eBay for a pasta maker to do the rolling for me. I like kitchen gadgets, but not of the electrical persuasion. My West German, vintage pasta maker came in today. What a find as I don't think it had ever been used more than once - all nice painted cast iron with fine brass rollers. I couldn't wait to try it out, so a little cleaning and I put it to use with a pasta dough. We had fresh noodles with a bit of butter and garlic for dinner tonight. You can't beat fresh pasta as it's so different from the dried commercial kind. I'll leave the machine up and tomorrow try another variation of the crackers I made last week ... black bean flour mixed with the wheat flour and a few herbs thrown in. No tired muscles from trying to get the dough as thin as possible. I have just the right, very sharp Cheddar to go with those crackers!