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Delaney and Baldwin, Redux

This morning I awoke to find my brain filled with images of this painting by Beauford Delaney:

Portrait of Ella Fitzgerald, 1968. Delaney had never met Fitzgerald, explaining that he “just painted something I saw in my mind” and that, exactly, is the beauty of this painting, one of a few paintings that has jostled about in my thoughts since I last saw the Delaney Exhibit in the Knoxville Museum of Art in February. I always thought I would go back and see more of that exhibit, felt that I only had only managed to just begin to plumb the depths, when everything shut down. I wrote about those first impressions in a blog post on February 22nd, over three months ago now. And then the world changed. I didn’t forget, but somehow in this whole slowing down, this worldwide introversion, my thoughts have meandered only slowly back into place.

As I wrote in February, one of the aspects of Delaney’s portraits was his abstraction and modernism, and his use of light and color to explore something deeper than just the image of a person. Delaney’s portraits of Baldwin’s for example explore human relationship and each painting feels simultaneously like a complete conversation but also a part of an ongoing and open-ended relationship. This is also what I see captured in this portrait of Fitzgerald, although it is admittedly difficult to get the sense of the painting itself from a photographic image.

At the time, I experimented with attempting to take pictures of the physicality of the paint, the brushstrokes, the layers, the addition and subtraction of color. I am not convinced that it was successful, but the images remind me of the sense of rhythm that seemed to emanate from the painting, as if Delaney had managed to visually render something essential about music. Yes, one sees Fitzgerald’s face in the center, but not clearly, more of a memory of the person as it is interwoven with her music. I heard the music as soon as I saw the painting, felt its harmonic vibration, felt Fitzgerald even before I knew the subject matter — a visual representation of Jazz and Blues, melody and harmony, tragedy and joy. This is the thing we cannot capture, cannot explain, and the reason art is so elemental, universal, and necessary to human experience. It has always been so.

Admittedly. I don’t exactly get that sense from these photos. They serve as reminders, visual cues that my brain can link to specific experiences. But that is much the way memory and experience work. The more literate we are, the more we experience art, music, literature, philosophy, science, the more we explore the complex emotional and physical makeup of humanity, the more we are able to see and experience the world with depth and consideration and even conscience. Literacy is more than book-learning. The more we know, the more we experience, the more we can see that the seeming contradictions that define our human experiences aren’t always so much oppositional as they are representative of our inability to express complexity in a straightforward manner. These things all speak to very real aspects of our lives and our beings; they speak to expereiences and feelings that we cannot easily put into words, but which are no less valid, if not more so, than that which is easily explained away.

Delaney has also resurfaced in my thoughts this week because Marble City Opera is hosting a watch party tomorrow night, Friday May 29th, at 7PM on Facebook live where they are showing Shadowlight, an opera by Larry Delinger and Emily Anderson about Beauford Delaney, which premiered here in February. Above is a preview, and I hope you will be enchanted and encouraged to watch with me.

I saw the opening night performance of Shadowlight, and it was one of the most beautiful and emotionally powerful opera experiences I can currently recall. Everything seemed to come together: Anderson’s poetic libretto, Delinger’s score, alternating between dissonance and soothing jazz riffs, the exploration of art and madness as Delaney, confined to St. Anne’s Hospital in Paris, sings of longing, of light, but also of lifelong struggles with internal demons and schizophrenia. Delaney’s random, sometimes erratic and jerked movements, sometimes alternating between softness and turmoil are offset by the sparely geometric and angular movements of the chorus, a spareness that is often emphasized by the angles created by images of paintings projected onto the set, highlighting and obscuring facial features. Order, erraticism, tragedy and love, yes, love, in James Baldwin’s words as he delivers the eulogy for his friend. The magic of this piece was how it captured and transmitted emotion, of love, of art, even of madness, in a way that made it all palpably real. One left stunned, perhaps transformed. I never reviewed this piece, feeling emotionally overwhelmed until well after my thoughts had settled into other grooves.

The actual experience of this performance felt like audience and artists were all of a piece, much the same way I feel that Delaney’s art vibrates, blurring the lines between music, art, literature, and experience. I do not think I was the only person in that audience who felt emotionally pulled into the vortex of that experience. I also do not believe the experience of the video will carry that same sense of envelopment, but I do believe it will still be a powerful experience, and I am highly looking forward to it. I hope you will join me.,

May 28, 2020
A Miscellany

Although I seem to have no difficulty keeping myself busy and entertained, I continue to struggle with blogging. In fact I also struggle with keeping up with social media and that seems odd because of the social aspect and the fact that I am once again struggling with balance, albeit in a very different setting than my previous struggles. It seems that once I struggled with having enough creative time, alone time. I admitted to myself that I said yes to too many things, that it was time to let go of that youthful and erroneous idea, that I could only be liked if I was useful. I admitted to myself that sometimes I went out too often, that I was avoiding being home alone, especially at night.

Would that simply admitting to one’s self-perceived failings in an insecurities, to one’s loneliness even, could be enough to turn the world around. It seems like there is always something new to learn, something new to overcome. I do not believe that this life, this physical world and life that we all share is the be all and end all. Often it seems like a proving ground, a place where we get to be tested, to spread our wings, to find out who we really are.

I struggle with the idea that if I am not going somewhere, doing something, hopefully something interesting I have nothing to say. Perhaps then, I continue to struggle with the question of what is a worthwhile life.

On the one hand, I am content to putter about here at home, content for the most part to not wander far. I have been cooking, knitting, sewing, gardening, reading. I have been watching television. I have walked around my neighborhood. I sit and watch the birds in the yard. I love my field of long grass, in back, where the slope is too steep for me to mow easily, where birds and bunnies cavort and play, and where my grand-puppy loves to collapse when his family brings him over for a walk. I mostly walk in my own neighborhood, and am oddly content to see the changes in the same space, day after day. When Tikka loved to walk for miles every day we travelled around, walked the many parks around Knoxville, and part of me wishes to do that again, wonders if perhaps I should go to the Smokies, but my focus has always been on the small, the everyday. I would go if I had someone to go with, but for myself I am oddly content with wherever I can get on my own power.

I am reading, a lot, news and magazines, which I have been gradually shifting from paper to digital formats. I don’t want to be drowning in paper. But books also. I am currently reading the third volume of The Last Lion, William Manchester’s biography of Winston Churchill, as finished by Paul Reid, as well as Richard Russo’s Nobody’s Fool, which I am rereading for book club. I am thoroughly enjoying it; perhaps enjoying it more than I did with that first reading. But I tend to think of reading as an active intellectual pursuit, a conversation, and in a way a relationship that builds between the words and the reader, the author and the reader, not so much a relationship of people, but of ideas and awareness.

The birds get most of the blueberries, but I am not surprised at that. The crop is small this first year, and the bushes are too widely spaced, an issue that still has to be addressed. I do manage to grab a small handful of sugar snap peas every time I walk through the garden. None have made it in to the dinner table, but several handfuls of peas are consumed every day. I am reminded of a few essential truths: the sweetness of a pea freshly plucked, the subtle delicate life of freshly harvested lettuce, berries warmed in the sun, hands in the dirt, flowers you have grown yourself.

Some parts of the garden are doing well although there are a few failures. My bloody dock never germinated. I admit that I am moving slowly. I can only manage a couple of hours of garden work a day, and alas, in this stage of building and digging, progress sometimes seems slow. I started out all gung-ho in the vegetable garden, but then lost momentum as the spring remained chill. There are gaps in my planting. But I see little pockets of progress and they make me happy.

I made cilantro pesto yesterday and froze it in 2-tablespoon blocks for use later in the season. This was from the first planting, which is still going strong. I am about to put in the third cilantro planting, and i want some of the fleshy roots, but never having grown cilantro for the roots, I see that I will have to allow a patch to grow old and woody, to flower. Cilantro, when picked frequently for its tender green leaves, never develops a substantial foundation of thick roots. Once again, always learning.

I see I haven’t answered any of my questions, especially not my question of blogging. Does writing come out of some sense of discontent, of a need to express something intangible. What about comfort? Does one need to write when one is content, like Dash above, to stop and simply lie in the long grass? And does it matter? Perhaps there is time for all these things in this world. And then again, perhaps times of contentment, times of not rushing about can yield their own surprises. Only time will tell.

May 26, 2020
Kitchen Chronicles

Yesterday was stove cleaning day. Never anyone’s favorite task, but happily for me, this new stove is one of the easiest stoves to clean I have ever owned. This is also true for the Stove Vent. Everything pops out, everything is easily washable, and although the tasks still takes time, I find I can make fewer excuses to avoid it.

It also helps that the new farm sink is large enough that I can submerge the burner grates. The sink is divided, but the divider is only half-height, so there is plenty of room for large things when needed.

Soak. Wash. Dry. Replace.

Start the next round (stove vent panels) (oven racks and panels where needed). The whole process still takes me much of a day, admittedly because I take breaks between stages. I am learning to accept that I can no longer stand for a full day without significant breaks. But acceptance is one of life’s major lessons, and one with which many of us struggle.

Today I made biscuits. Not the best biscuits I have ever made, but still tender and flaky and good, especially considering they are the first biscuits I have made in what 13 years? 15 years?

When I was in college, I spent two summers living with my maternal grandparents in Pasadena Texas. The summer job opportunities were better in metropolitan Houston than in Stephenville, especially considering that I got out of school at the end of May, two weeks later than most Texas universities. One of the conditions of my residency was that I get up and make the biscuits for my grandpa before going to work in the morning. I got pretty good at biscuit making. Since I love biscuits, and George enjoyed biscuits, I continued making them for a long time.

One thing I did learn over the years is that biscuits can be frozen. Although my grandparents may have made fresh biscuits every day, we rarely ate more than a biscuit or two at a time, and although I grew up with cold biscuit sandwiches, George never quite adapted. But I learned that if you freeze the just cut biscuits on a tray for 30 minutes, you can then toss them in a container or freezer bag, and bake them at will from frozen, and although they do take a few more minutes to cook, the advantage of having a bag of biscuits (like having pie crust, or cookies, or scones) in the freezer ready to bake is a treat. So I made the biscuits but only baked a couple for my breakfast, placing the rest in the freezer.

It wasn’t celiac that stopped my biscuit baking, although admittedly that did slow me down. I had a lifetime of expectation to overcome, and a lifetime of baking skills to recalibrate. Gluten-free doughs simply are different than wheaten doughs. But I actually stopped making biscuits when George had cancer and the nutritionist that worked with him during chemotherapy put him on a very low carb diet. Somehow we never fully went back.

But during this time of sheltering at home, and less social contact, perhaps I have been craving carbs a little more, and perhaps I am trying to ameliorate my tendency to go through carb-binges followed by fasts. This week, talking to my family about their recent adventures in biscuit-making, and then later with a friend about scones, I realized I wanted to make biscuits. And so I did.

The experiment was only a partial success, which is not surprising. I made baking powder biscuits, the basic kind I started with oh so many years ago. The flavor was good, they are tender and flaky, but they could have risen more, and I have not quite figured out temperature regulation and baking on my new stove, even though I have lived in this house almost a year now. Well, I have cooked; I have roasted; I have braised; but I haven’t really baked. The learning curve continues.

Several things could have gone wrong. I believe I picked a good GF blend. Although I made my own years ago, I have since experimented with several packaged gluten-free flour blends and I used one I think would yield good biscuit results. Biscuit results vary even with wheat flour, and although I am a Texan rather than a “true” southerner, I prefer a biscuit made with softer, lower-protein winter wheat, or its gluten-free equivalent. I would never make a biscuit with bread flour, whatever the components of that bread flour might be.

My baking powder could also be old. The can was unopened, but it is possible I bought it soon after I moved in. I don’t know if baking powder keeps as long as it is vacuum-sealed, only that once you open it it fades quickly. I also think I overworked the first part, where one works the fat into the flour. I did not over-mix once I added the liquid, or overwork the folding and turning, but that first part may have been critical. The oven was too hot, the biscuits cooked too quickly, and I am certain this also had an effect.

But overall they were good biscuits and I am looking forward to the challenge of refreshing old skills and perfecting technique. To me this is like a game.

May 15, 2020
A Walk Through the Garden — Very Much in Progress

I thought I would walk through the yard today. Not all the photos are lovely, but as I’ve been occasionally been posting pictures of pretty flowers, I also want to document that this is very much a work in progress, with far more that is undone than in any way ‘finished’. Not that I believe a garden is ever finished. This one is, however, still very rough.

Walking out the front door, looking across the driveway to the front circle. Those tall things behind the wall are very much weeds, in a future flower bed that has not yet been designed, much less prepped.

But in front of the wall, the ‘max frei’ geraniums are starting to bloom, even though they are still quite small. It has been a cool spring. I don’t yet know how the Siberian iris behind the geraniums will fare, but at least they are up, and there is promise for the future.

To my right (east) is the Japanese maple (previously posted to instagram) and more landscaping in waiting.

Walking toward the back we see the tomatoes, which i staked the other day. A deer had made a romp through the garden — I could see the deer prints in the soft soil — and had broken one of the tomatoes, a costoluto genovese tomato I cannot easily replace. I wrapped it and hope it wills survive.

The peas and favas are finally blossoming. I hope not to late. It has been a long cool spring, but this feels more like Hudson Valley timing than Tennessee, and I hope the heat will not set in too soon, giving these cool weather crops a bit of a chance. It could just be that I got them in too late, and the shade came out too early in their development. But then, I have known all along that this, my first vegetable garden in decades, and the first one in Tennessee, is a bit of an experiment.

I am starting to plan, dig, and prep the back beds. There are a few dwarf sedum in the front bed along the driveway. They will spread. I planted bloody dock seeds which have not yet sprouted. I wonder if they will, or if I have to start over. Still much to clear, but the bunnies (and the cat) love to hide in the weeds. And so far the bunnies prefer nibbling on the weeds over my veggie garden, so I am loath to uproot their hiding and dining spots.

First bloom on the fringe tree.

Various things have been transplanted to this bed by my small back patio. So far, they seem to be settling in, but only time will really tell.

The peonies are blooming profusely in my secret garden behind the garage. I decided to keep this cozy space and transplant them after bloom, probably after the blueberries bear fruit as well, as they will go up in that bed, where everything needs to be dug up and rearranged, as the landscape crew could obviously not follow a planting diagram and I was not here when they showed up to do the planting. Never hire a landscaping crew who sneaks in and plants when one is away. (although admittedly that was not my intention)

And there is Moises, walking along the eastern pathway. The oak leaf hydrangea has leafed out, the established hellebores are doing well, and there are plenty of areas that were dug up and need to be replanted. Much space for dreams and imagining along with getting hands dirty.

May 12, 2020
Six Things On A Saturday Morning

I missed Friday and a planned, well obviously only hoped-for, five-things post. I don’t know that six things on Saturday is a thing, but I will do my best.

1 — I finished the prayer shawl that I had been doggedly working on. There was a fair amount of ripping back and re-knitting, primarily due to the knitter’s state of mind and enthusiasm.

2 — This iris, Iris versicolor John Wood, was rescued from its temporary holding spot behind the garage and planted and has now rewarded my efforts by bursting into bloom. There is not much around it but an empty bed and weeds, but all of that will change with time, lots of time…

3 — I went through of nearly three weeks where I did not pick up a book, finding myself oddly unable to focus. And then, in one week, I needed to read Barbara Kingsolver’s Unsheltered and Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks for book club discussions. I enjoyed both books, although I also struggled with both in some ways and I realized near the end that I just needed to read something that would draw me in to the story, without the mental side show that I experienced with Kingsolver and Skloot. I ended up ripping through Karin Slaughter’s Grant County series over the course of about 10 days. It was what I needed, a gripping story, completely outside of my life. I can’t review each book individually, but as a whole I loved the way the series built on the characters through both the exploration of both the seriously dark and brutal side of human nature and our own need for, and fear of, vulnerability. In the beginning the characters are, in many ways, flat and stereotypical, but through the course of the books Slaughter adds layers of complexity, and the beginnings of insight, which often flat as characters return, time and time again, to their default modes. Much like all of us. This reader found the interweaving of character and story to become steadily more complex throughout the series. At times the characters walk a fine line between engagement and a shallow shadowiness, enough that the reader can read his or her own world-view into the experience. And well, I can relate to Sara Linton: smart, too much in her head, but also insecure when it comes to her emotions. In short, my reading of Slaughter might not be the same as yours.

Anyway Grant County suitably whetted my reading appetite, and I have pulled few books from the stacks and ordered a couple of more — got to use the May book allowance after all y’all. Shown above is the current stack. I am currently about 50 pages into The Splendid and the Vile and enjoying it very much. When I am done I will finally finish off the last volume of Manchester’s The Last Lion. Both books begin when Churchill becomes prime minister, and they should be an interesting pair to read together, although I tend to think of Manchester as a savoring slowly kind of book, whereas Larson writes more of a gripping read.

4 — There has been some sewing, although not yet really for me. Above are the results of one day’s worth of bias tape making. Those masks have all been sent out. Another 28 yard pile of bias tape has been created, and 14 more masks cut out, all waiting for assembly.

5 — Yesterday was a cold rainy day, and I suppose it would have been the perfect day to work in the studio, sewing those masks, but somehow I couldn’t drag myself out the door even for a short sheltered walk to the studio. Chalk it up to COVID unsettlement. Last month I binged on the Australian series “Offspring” and loved it. Really that series is what helped me get that prayer shawl finished and kept me somewhat sane. A couple of days ago I found the Norwegian series “Beforeigners” and I finished it off yesterday. It is a little gritty, and of course in Norwegian with subtitles, but fascinating. I love the way it explores the the idea of immigration with people immigrating through time, so the race question is obviated but in the end all the issues remain. It is a great reflection on otherness, on the seeking of safety and the disruption of chaos, and the way we define ourselves, and redefine our understanding of history through the lens of our current experience, as well as the shock of the reality of that history. I hope there is a second season.

6 — My TV day was also a knitting day. Finishing “Beforeigners” and watching a Metropolitan Opera production of The Magic Flute, yielded ample knitting opportunity. My current obsession is a sweater knitted holding two strands of lace weight linen. I started this last summer and then put it aside after finishing the first piece of four. I am now almost finished with the second piece, and I don’t want to stop knitting. Linen is not my favorite yarn to knit, although it is a favorite for wear, and yet, the changes in the colors holds my interest and drives me on. I will be wearing this sweater this year.

May 9, 2020
A COVID Chronicle

Yesterday I had one of those days that approached what was once considered normal, but which I now realize is not at all the way I want to spend my life and time. Am I in a cocoon which I refuse to leave? or is something else going on?

Let’s start with yesterday. In what now feels like another life it would have been just another day: two doctor’s appointments (only one for me) a prescription run, book club, two meetings. Yet I chafed. I went out, I came home, had lunch and went out again. I missed book club because one of those appointments got in the way. I didn’t want to go to meetings, even Zoom meetings. I wanted to zone out on the sofa with my knitting in my hands and something entertainingly mindless on the tv.

But why?

As we all know the last two months have not been particularly easy. And yet I am remarkably privileged. I have a safe home. I have a yard so I can go outdoors without meeting other people. I can afford food. I can afford Tikka’s medications. I am not worrying about how to pay the mortgage, the utility bill, my insurance premiums. I am well. Many others are not so fortunate.

On the social side of things, I miss people. I miss sitting with friends with a drink, adult or otherwise, the casual camaraderie of friendship, of sitting close together, of that palpable sense of presence that exists in all living things, the soul we might call it in humans, that thing that is there in all of us. That sense of presence feels muted on Zoom. Of course Zoom is better than isolation, but is still not the same as connection. We can connect when our eyes are focused and present, but I have been in too many distant conversations, where it is apparent that we are all there and not there simultaneously. Even when we pay attention, our attention seems muted. We can see but not feel. Virtual communication is better than no connection at all, but it is not babies alone who cannot thrive without touch.

Admittedly I have loved the absence of distraction, the time to get lost in a project. I has been many years since I fell prey to teenage boredom. More likely there are more things to explore and do than there is time available. Is that because I am an introvert? Possibly, although I sometimes think our world has taken this whole introvert/extrovert thing to an extreme, perhaps even an extreme of extroversion — where the big event, the casual gathering, the escaping from solitude and in a sense, even close personal connection, is the norm. What if all this has left us less resilient, less connected. What happens when all the distractions of busyness are taken away?

Well, here we are finding our way through. I can’t say that I have done particularly well. I was good at slowing down, at creating small routines. I thought I was slowly mastering letting go of a sense of obligation, that my worth in the world depended on what I accomplished in the world. Now I see that I was only taking baby steps. All this fell apart. I would have a day or days of joyful work and busyness and then I would have a day or days where I could barely drag myself off the sofa. If I didn’t have a dog, or need to drink and/or eat occasionally, I might not have managed at all. I don’t see the point in pretending that everything is happy/busy/full all the time. Our humanity is in our vulnerability. Increasingly, it seems to me that to deny this, to hide it, sets a dangerous precedent, for individuals, for societies.

Anyway I am here. I am actually better. I am slowly returning to a sense of routine, at least a minimum of acceptable behavior. Acceptable to me, at any rate. Those last couple of days of mindless televised anaesthesia seem to have helped me face another one of those inner demons, those voices determined to keep us down, the ones we run from and hide behind a veneer of business. I cannot be the only person who does this.

Which brings me back to the beginning of this post. I miss small social gatherings. But I also realize that I am happy in this little space called home, that something about me has always seen and yearned for home as a sanctuary. Although I don’t wish to hide in my sanctuary, I also do not want a life of distraction.

I am sure I will spend another day on the sofa. I am also sure that in the greater scheme of things it does not matter if I do or not. Perhaps it would be bad if I stayed there for days, or weeks, but that is not about to happen. In the meantime, I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, and although I claim that this space, my home is my sanctuary, the truth is that I carry that with me wherever I go. If I learn anything, perhaps it should be that I should be far more careful about who and what I allow to impinge on that space.

May 5, 2020
Corned Beef Chronicles

Back in February the idea popped into my brain that I needed to make corned beef. I cannot actually remember which came first, the thought, as March was rapidly and somehow the idea of corned beef and cabbage was floating around the world, or seeing the brisket in the store. I suspect the brisket came first, and although I grew up occasionally eating a “New England Boiled Dinner”, corned beef and cabbage is not really a part of my culinary lexicon, although I like both corned beef and cabbage separately.

Whatever the origin of the idea, the idea of corning my own beef was not new. I cured my first corned beef in my late 20s, after George and I were married, when we could get really good corned beef and pastrami in NYC but not really up in Poughkeepsie. Perhaps I was also a bit of an overachiever, but making corned beef is not difficult, and I make corned beef a couple of times a year for 30 years or so, until George got sick, I got overwhelmed, and I simply stopped. I have no idea why I wanted to start again, but I suspect it was more about wanting corned beef hash than anything else.

So I bought the brisket and had to order some Prague powder, which arrived in a day or two and started brining the brisket using a traditional wet brine, in a pot in my fridge, much the way I have always brined a brisket. After two weeks I cooked the brisket and absolutely loved the final corned beef. And then, just this past week I did it all again.

Truthfully, the repeat process began before I even finished cooking the first brisket. I started on a whim, doing something known and true, something that had worked well for me, but it has been a decade since I last made brisket, and I have learned things in the intervening years, changed things, and have become perhaps even more curious, even more of a nerd in the kitchen than I was in my youth, even though as a single older woman I indulge those nerdy kitchen impulses less frequently than when I was feeding others.

Sometime while that first batch was in the brine, but before cooking, a notice popped up in my inbox, an old post from Serious Eats about making corned beef by Kenji Lopez-Alt, probably simply an annual St. Patrick’s Day marketing ploy. But this year I had corned-beef on the brain, even though I tend to think of corned beef as it was adapted my the American Jewish culture rather than Irish American culture. Either way though, corned beef is corned beef.

Reading the article, I noticed that Kenji compared the traditional wet-brine with a dry brine technique and I was intrigued by this, but my meat was already in the brine so it was a little late for that. When it came to cooking he recommended a slow braise in a low oven or cooking the meat sous-vide. Well, that did intrigue me. Initially I had boiled my corned beef simply because that was how i knew to do it, but somewhere along the line I had stopped boiling it and started cooking my corned beef in a low (200°F) oven for somewhere between 8 and 12 hours. The change occurred mostly because I had tried another recipe for brisket that cooked it in a slow oven braise and liked the results, so I adapted the technique for my semi-annual briskets with good results. I did not indulge in rigorous testing, but was tickled that Kenji liked the slow braise, and also that he recommended cooking the brisket sous-vide. I had never thought about cooking a corned beef sous-vide although I could not think of a reason not to do so. I have been cooking sous-vide for about a decade now, although I actually had not made a corned beef during that time. It was time therefore to try something new. I removed the first brisket from the brine, rinsed, and cooked it sous-vide at 180° for 10 hours, the time Kenji said he preferred.

And I loved that brisket. It was perhaps a little less firm, with a more shredded texture than some might prefer, but reading the article I was wondering if this was as much due to the wet brine as opposed to the dry brine. I have always liked my corned beef to be soft, fork-tender, and ready to fall apart, and am not fond of it with too much bite. In his article you can see a photo of the difference in the meat between dry and wet brine techniques, and looking at that photo I see much the same result I as found in the two brining techniques, shown above (first) and below (second). The cut, grade, and source of the meat was the same, the cooking time was the same, only the brining was different. In the second brisket I used the dry-brine technique in a vacuum-sealed bag in the refrigerator for 1 week. This is certainly more convenient in terms of timing, although that ay be more adaptable, and space, since beef in a sealed plastic bag takes less space and is easier to turn than a big hunk of meat sitting in a large bucket or pot in the refrigerator.

And the final brisket was also good (sorry for the smaller picture here, I ate most of that serving before remembering to take the picture). You can see the difference in the texture of the meat. The second batch is firmer, meatier, and holds together better. This is also what is shown at the top of this post, although that photo was taken cold, before steaming the meat, which does soften it up further.

The problem is that although I see advantages, I am not convinced that I like the second batch better. I can admit that perhaps the texture of the first batch was a little far to the falling-apart side of things, but the second batch was perhaps a little too firm and dry for my taste. It is possible that this is simply a question of cooking time. The second batch may perhaps have needed to be cooked longer, at a lower temperature, the first batch for a slightly shorter time. These are minor points and I can play with them. At the moment however, I am wondering if, the next time I simply need to simultaneously cook two briskets, wet-brined, and dry-brined, assume that the final cooking time might be different for each simply based on the effects of the brining process on the texture of the meat, and work side-by-side from there. I am also wondering if I can wet-brine in a vacuum sealed bag. Perhaps I am just getting too much in my own head.

I did like the second corned beef, seared briefly in a hot skillet for breakfast, kind of hybrid, corned-beef/bacon texture and flavor. Not traditional perhaps but who cares. In fact, this second corned beef is making me think about pastrami more than corned beef, about the idea of using the dry brine on a pastrami. I’ve never made pastrami. I don’t have a smoker. That doesn’t mean that it might not be time to start thinking about it a little more seriously.

April 13, 2020
Update

Have you ever found yourself in the middle of a project and just had to force yourself to move on with it? That is exactly the position I have found myself in lately with a prayer shawl I have been knitting.

I was given the three skeins of yarn and the person who gave them to me asked me if I could make a prayer shawl or shawls with them. I agreed and then decided to use all three skeins, three skeins of Lion Brand Cupcake DK in three different but related colorways in one shawl. The colorways are Mint Chip, Tundra, and Coffee Break and I am alternating them throughout the shawl, which is a simple gridded pattern of knit and purl stitches, as you can see.

At first I really liked the way the shawl was turning out and I liked the colors, especially in the purple and green sections shown at the bottom of the photo above. Then I wandered into a large expanse of dirty browns and grays and I was not so happy, although now, looking back, it seems unsurprising that this would be the case given names like “coffee break” and “tundra”. I began to dread the knitting. You can kind of see that color shift just above the greens and then it is thankfully mostly hidden in the fold.

Today I just put all that aside and told myself I was going to work on this shawl until I reached a place where i was happier with the colors, where I would once again felt like picking it up and knitting a couple of rows here and there. It took me most of the day at a gauge of 5 1/2 stitches per inch on size 4 needles but I never claimed to be a fast knitter. Finally, although I am still knitting with browns, which are never my favorite colors, the effect is lighter and brighter and some other colors are become subtly mixed in again.

Yes there will be more brown. But this project has moved onward from feeling like a burden to something I will enjoy finishing up, eventually. Now I can give myself permission to take a break however, and work on something else, should I desire. I have an impossible number of UFOs, which I will also begin cataloging soon, so my personal goal at the moment is that I have to finish two projects before I can start another. And yet there is hope.

April 10, 2020
Monday Miscellany

It seems that all I can manage right now are these odd updates. The coherent stringing together of long passages eludes me. I initially blamed this on my back, but that is not truly the case. Let us just say that the peripatetic nature of my brain is currently jammed on run, and, despite the fact that I take two brief periods a day for silent contemplation, “always running” is far more descriptive of my mental process at the moment than any nod toward “peaceful contemplation”. I am not unhappy at home. There is plenty to occupy my attentions, but I also recognize that a certain lack of close human contact leaves my nerve endings slightly leaning toward frayed. This too will pass. In the meantime, if you know someone who lives alone, give them a call.

Another group of the Azaleas I purchased last fall are blooming.

And I am digging a hole. It is a slow and tedious process. This is an area near the garage, which is hot and sunny, and where I intend to plant rosemary. This photo was pretty early on in the dig, and the soil ends about 4 inches down, at least an inch of that is really just mulch. So I have a lot of digging to do.

I have since excavated much of that small cut out where these plants are supposed to go. I have two “tuscan blue” rosemary plants, which grow quite large and tall in an ideal site, and have delicious flavor. They are iffy here, but this site is hot and sunny and a place where I can easily protect them if necessary. But first they need a good place for their roots to grow. I now have three small buckets of rocks and am still digging. These buckets were purchased out of desperation. Kitty litter buckets would be perfect, and about the biggest thing I can hope to lift, but at the moment I have none.

Impatience and busy synapses being in the lead right now I am also cataloging fabric and back to sorting and putting things away in the studio. And working on masks as well as a few other things. The house and the studio are therefore cluttered. “Little Piles Everywhere” would be the story of my life at the moment. That is directly related to my inability to write thoughtful blog posts. But I know this will settle out in time and life will simply move forward at the pace it will move forward. Eventually my brain may slow accordingly. At least I am starting to sleep a little better.

I did update the knitting blog with more details about my pink sweater. Very little else has happened since then and I will gradually move from cataloging fabric to yarn and staring into the deep black hole that is the UFO closet. It will be good to have a list, and from that list create goals, things to work through with items that can be checked off as minor accomplishments.

April 6, 2020
Completed: Cozy Cowl

It feels like ages since I have finished anything. It has, in fact been ages since I started this project and what feels like eons since I wrote here. More exactly a year and half. And only half a year for this sweater.

Presenting the cozy cowl cardigan.

Pattern: Cowl Cardigan by Lisa Richardson. Pattern #7 in Mode at Rowan Collection One.

Yarn: Kid Classic color 899 Floss

I used 13 full skeins and some part of the 14th skein, but not a full half. How is that for exactitude?

My sweater is not exactly like the original. I did not get gauge, and after about 4 different attempts on various needles, I simply picked the swatch I liked the best and recalculated the pattern from there. I wanted a long cozy sweater, but I did not want it to be particularly oversized through the shoulders, and I do not like long slouchy sleeves. The sleeves were calculated to be close fitting at my wrist and to be exactly the right length for me. I never thought of my wrists as being that tiny, but the pattern, as written would have had been quite loose.

I love the combination of the stitches, garter stitch and double moss stitch and the way the texture of the sweater added depth and richness to the color of the yarn, which appeared very pale in the skein, at least to these eyes.

The pattern stitches were slow-going though, although interesting, and tedious to seam. Particularly tedious was mattress stitch on the garter-stitch sleeves, simply because there were so many rows. Alas. I do find seaming relaxing though even though this sweater took a particularly long time.

Before seaming the sides of the body and sleeves however I had to join the sleeves to the body. Given the difference in the stitches of the two pieces, and their differing gauges, I used back stitch to sew the sleeves to the body of the sweater. I do love back stitch, even in fine fabrics, and think I could happily sit for hours and hours doing back stitch and never tiring. Well, that is probably an exaggeration.

Although I feared that I would not finish this sweater in time to wear it this year, and I did not finish it until Mid-March, the weather has cooperated and I have worn it a few times (see photos above). In fact even though I am writing this on April 2nd, the temperatures have dipped back down into the 40s and I am wearing this cozy sweater as I write and I may wear it when I go out for my morning walk.

I might have finished sooner had I not messed up the cowl twice, although I left the second mistake intact. If you look closely you will see that I knitted in a full twist rather than a half-twist. I can live with that and it suits me. The first time I knit the cowl I had no twist at all and had to rip the whole thing out. Given my own version of left-right dyslexia, and the general confusion it engenders when trying to twist anything in the round, I am more than content.

In fact now I am so content that I want only to knit or sew things I am going to wear from here on out. Well, I am sure that motivation will wane, and I am not going to strip my closet bare. But let’s just see what happens, shall we?

April 2, 2020