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  • Circles of Color

    Hmm, It seems I have been enveloped in a bit of a fog.  Although I like to think I accept change and am grounded in reality, this is probably a bit delusional.  My heart doesn't always want to admit what my brain knows to be true. 

     

    And yet, there is comfort in fog, not just disbelief, and we are ready for the sun to rise, it all fades away.

     

    I am rather out of practice at writing.  There is much I have wanted to say, perhaps some if it is still there, floating around in my brain; perhaps it will emerge.  In the meantime at least I have a little knitting.

     

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    There are several failed sweaters sitting in a pile upstairs.  I can't face them yet.  Let's just say that I have had other priorities.  

     

    This scarf, however, was a success.  The pattern is Spectra, by Stephen West, knit in Madeline Tosh Merino Light and Noro Silk Garden Sock. If you look at the photo in the link you will not exactly see my scarf.  My gauge is smaller, intentionally so, and as a result my spectra is smaller and more scarf-like in scale.  I like to think it is more feminine, but perhaps it is just girlish.  

     

    Nonetheless, I love it.  It is the scarf I wanted.  As there are no further photos, you will just have to let your imagination soar.

     

     

     

  • Booklist 2012

    Somewhere along the path that was 2012 I stopped blogging about books read.  Primarily I had doubts as to whether it was relevant to anything at all, even to myself, but also it was just a scattered year full of changes and there were times when both reading and blogging fell by the wayside.  

     

    It was not my best year, reading-wise.  I didn't read anything for rwo months, and yet I still managed to read only 62 books.  Granted  a significant number of them were light escapist reading,  with less than half (26) being books that made me think, reconsider, or open my eyes or mind in any new ways, but I think it is ot so much what I read that is important, but that I read, and that I found it worthwhile for whatever reason.
    Now I shall subject you to the list. (an * has been placed at the end of each book which is light, escapist reading)
    1. Azar Nafisi. Thing I've Been Silent About
    2. Andrea Eames. Cry of the Go Away Bird
    3. Danielle Steele. 44 Charles Street *
    4. Charles Frazier. Nightwoods 
    5. Diane Mott Davidson. Crunch Time *
    6. Danielle Steele. Happy Birthday *
    7. Danielle Steele. Hotel Vendome*
    8. Stuart Woods. Grass Roots *
    9. Sophie Kinsella. I've Got Your Number *
    10. Paul Fussell. Class
    11 John T. Molloy. Why Men Marry Some Women and not others
    12. Dan Wells. Partials
    13. Isabel Wilkerson. The Warmth of Other Suns
    14. Carré Otis. Beauty Disrupted
    15. Alexandra Zissu. The Conscious Kitchen
    16. Mark Walton. Boundless Potential
    17. Suze Orman. Young Fabulous and Broke
    18. Suze Orman. Women and Money 
    19 Annabel Pitcher. My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece
    20. Tim Gunn. Shaken not Stirred *
    21. Diane Mott Davidson. Dark Tort *
    22. Diane Mott Davidson. Sweet Revenge *
    23. Diane Mott Davidson. Catering to Nobody *
    24. Diane Mott Davidson. Dying for Chocolate *
    25. Diane Mott Davidson. The Cereal Murders *
    26. Diane Mott Davidson. The Last Suppers*
    27. Diane Mott Davidson. The Main Corpse *
    28. Diane Mott Davidson. The Grilling Season *
    29. Diane Mott Davidson. Prime Cut *
    30. Diane Mott Davidson. Sticks and Scones *
    32. Diane Mott Davidson. Chopping Spree *
    33. Diane Mott Davidson. Double Shot *
    34. Carolly Erikson. The Last Wife of Henry VIII *
    35. Margaret Lazarus Dean. The Time it Takes to Fall
    36. Michael Chabon. The Final Solution
    37. Eric Abrahamson. A Perfect Mess
    38. Karent Thompson Walker. The Age of Miracles.
    39. Maria Dueñas. The Time In Between.
    40. Andrea Pomerantz Lustig. How to Look Expensive *
    41. Jennifer Baumgartner. You are What You Wear *
    42. Penelope Fitzgerald. Offshore.
    43. Elizabeth L. Cline. Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion.
    44. David Brooks. The Social Animal.
    45. America's Test Kitchen. Slow Cooker Revolution
    46. Luca Turin. Perfumes: The Guide.
    47. Anne Lamott. Traveling Mercies.
    48. Elizabeth Warren. The Two-Income Trap: Why American Middle Class Families are Going Broke.
    49. Gillian Flynn.  Gone Girl.
    50. Thomas J. Stanley. The Millionaire Next Door.
    51. Suzette Hollingsworth. The Paradox *
    52. Suzette Hollingsworth. The Conspiracy. *
    53. Lee Child. Bad Luck and Trouble. *
    54. C.S. Lewis. Out of the Silent Planet.
    55. C.S. Lewis. Perelandra.
    56. Diane Ackerman, The Zookeeper's Wife
    57. C.S. Lewis That Hideous Strength.
    58. Keith Devlin. Introduction to Mathematical Thinking.
    59. Andy Andrews. How Do You Kill Eleven Million People? * (stupid)
    60. Lisa Jackson. Unspoken. *
    61. Tom Clancy. Locked On. *

  • Make This

    This week I cooked this (not my photo):

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    chicken with clementines and arak (courtesy Jonathan Lovekin via wsj.com)

    It was fabulous and I will be making it many times this clementine season, and hopefully next week for family dinner night, when both of G's children are here with their families.  The recipe is from the new book by Yotam Ottolenghi that I wrote about last week, Jerusalem, but this particular recipe is available all over the web, at epicurious, and in a Wall Street Journal article from this past September.

     

    Probably the only tricky ingredient in this recipe is the Arak, but as the recipe states you can substitute Ouzo or Pernod.  If it were me, I think I would chose Pastis before Pernod, as I personally find Pernod too sweet and the dish is already sweet enough, but that is just me, and I find that both Ouzo and Pastis have a drier herbal anise flavor and are less sweet than some of the other anise liquors.   Since I do have Arak, and I have to thank my lovely step-daughter and her husband for bringing some to me last summer after their visit to NY, it is not an issue in my house.  There are quite a few things I cook with Arak, so it has become a kitchen staple, but It is one of those things that I erroneously believed were available everywhere, as it was widely available in the Hudson Valley, only to find there is no Arak in Knoxville.  There are a lot of things I thought were widely available, and now I realize how truly spoiled I was, culinarily at least.  That, however, is another story.

     

    Anyway, I didn't make this exactly as written, although my modifications are quite small.  The original recipe called for 3 tablespoons of brown sugar, but when I went to the sugar jar I only had two tablespoons left and I use a fair-trade dark brown sugar that I find has a wonderfully rich sweet flavor that is more pronounced than standard supermarket brown sugar.  (yes it is true, I buy everything based on how I think it tastes; no detail is too minor to ignore.)  I could have used some other kind of sugar, but felt that the dish would probably be sweet enough for my taste, given all the citrus flavors, and I left it out.  The original recipe also calls for 3 tablespoons each of orange juice and lemon juice, and I omitted the orange juice.  I am sure the original is wonderful, perhaps even more wonderful than my version, but the final dish had a rich luscious citrus flavor and was plenty sweet for our tastes.  You will have to make your own judgements.

     

    Roasted Chicken with Clementines and Arak

    serves 4

    modified from Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi

    6 tablespoons Arak

    4 tablespoons olive oil

    3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

    2 tablespoons grainy mustard

    2 tablespoons dark brown sugar

    2 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt *

    1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

    2 medium fennel bulbs, cut in half lengthwise, then each half cut in quarters

    2 pounds bone-in chicken thighs. **

    1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves, minced

    4 clementines, unpeeled, thinly sliced

    2 1/2 teaspoons fennel seeds, lightly crushed

    minced parsley for garnish

    Put the first five ingredients in a large mixing bowl and add 2 1/2 teaspoons salt and 1 1/2 teaspoons of black pepepr.  Whisk well and set aside.

    Add the fennel, chicken pieces, clementine slices, thyme and fennel seeds to the liquid and stir well with your hands.  Place chicken in the refrigerator to marinate for at least a few hours and up to overnight.  The authors say it is fine to skip the marinade step if you are short on time.

    Preheat the oven to 475° F.  Transfer the chicken and its marinade to a roasting pan or baking sheet large enough to accommodate everything comfortably in a single layer.  The chicken skin should be facing up.  Once the oven is heated, put the pan in the oven and roast for 35 to 45 minutes, until the chicken is colored and cooked through.

    Lift the chicken, fennel, and clementines from the pan and arrange on a serving platter; cover and keep warm.  Pour the cooking liquid into a small saucepan and place it over medium-high heat.  Bring the liquid to a boil and simmer until the sauce is reduced by one-third, so you are left with about 1/3 cup.  Pour the hot sauce over the chicken, garnish with the parsley, and serve.

     

    *  I use Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt, which is produced by a different method than most salts with the result that it has half the weight per volume as does table salt or Morton Kosher salt. Therefore a teaspoon of Diamond Crystal salt will taste less salty than Morton Kosher salt because there is less salt per teaspoon. If you use a different brand you will have to adjust the quanitity of salt to your taste.  Diamond Crystal salt does not seem to be available in Knoxville. I tried many other salts before deciding it wasn't worth trying to relearn 30 years of cooking habits.  I did learn that Maldon Sea Salt is a good substitute, as it is slightly lighter per volume than Diamond, but as it costs roughly six times as much, I finally ordered the Diamond kosher salt and am a much happier cook.  I do have a box of Morton Kosher salt which is used only for cleaning my cast-iron skillets.

     

    ** The original recipe calls for a 2-3 pound chicken.  Chickens are variable things, and I am sure the weight and amount of meat on a chicken can be highly dependent on diet as well as breed, and this varies probably from place to place.  In Hyde Park there was a free-range poultry farm in the next town, and they raised several types of chicken.  Their small chickens (2-3 pounds) were meaty and good.  I have not found a similar locally raised organic or sustainably-raised free range chicken in Knoxville.  The small chickens I have purchased seem to be skinnier cousins of the same birds that are good at 4-5 pounds.  Hence they are all bone with little meat and do not serve 4 people.  The organic chickens sold in the stores are also larger.  If I want less than 4 or 5 pounds of chicken, but still want the flavor bones will add to the final dish, I opt for bone-in chicken thighs.

  • Lighting up the Darkness

    Yesterday evening, when I went outside to turn on the holiday lights**, I looked up and saw the remnants of this beautiful sunset.  I paused and turned the lights on first, then ran inside to get my camera.  

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    I barely made it in time.

     

    Then I snapped another picture as I came back inside.  

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    This is the first year I have put decorations outside the house, as our previous home was not visible from the road.  I would only decorate if we were having a party, and we had not had a party during the holiday season for many many years.

     

    In early November I got really excited about Christmas and holiday decorating.  The last few years had been difficult and I struggled with capturing that hopefullness that Advent and preparing for the winter holidays entails.  Not this year.  I started planning the outside lights early, knowing full well that the covenants of my new neighborhood do not allow lights on the house or large displays.  I wanted something pretty but discreet, and it is possible I erred on the side of over-discretion, but I do like the result. 

     

    IMG_7814I knew I couldn't put anything up more than a month in advance, and I have never been among the tribe who decorate for Christmas over Thanksgiving.  In my mind, Advent and holiday lights are combined, and in the past I always aimed for the first Sunday in Advent as "tree day".  Despite my early exuberance, the week after Thanksgiving and the first week of Advent were a little rocky and my hopeful mood slipped behind some clouds.   We pulled ourselves together this week though, and the tree is up and the decorations have been hauled out of the attic and unpacked.  

     

    The sunset the other night, combined with the rituals of decorating and lighting, have reminded me, once again, of the importance of slowing down and taking time.  It reminded me of the importance of ritual, and how sometimes ritual can help ease our path to joy.

     

    There is no doubt that G is somewhere along the path of his own personal sunset, his own journey through darkness, and I was reminded, as I looked at this sunset, and turned and saw our lights how important it is to take time and celebrate the small joys in each day.

     

    What I love about the entire Advent, Christmas, Hannukah, Winter Solstice, or Whatever-you-call-it Season is the emphasis on hope and joy.  In the darkest days of the year we focus on hope and promise and the sharing of gifts; we focus on coming out of darkness and into rebirth.  It isn't always easy.  In fact the culture we live in can make it harder to focus on these small joys as we fight the frenetic pace of holiday traffic and the cult of more.  But the lights still come on.  And joy is waiting if we pause long enough to take a breath.

     

    **my lights do have timers, but the timers only run for 8 hours.  If I turn the lights on at night, the house is dark when I leave for the gym at 5:45 AM.  It brings me great joy to see the sparkle of tiny lights in the early morning and is well worth the effort of a twice daily walk with my trusty remote.

     

  • Experimenting with Winter Salads

    One of the things that I found particularly nice about Thanksgiving this year was that I was able to spend time cooking in a relaxed way.  This inspired me to return to my cookbook collection and to purchase a couple of new cookbooks as well, filled as I was with the joy of anticipation of happy hours spent in the kitchen.  

     

    IMG_7802My kitchen time hasn't worked out to be quite as stress-free as I had hoped, but I have nonetheless, been playing around with new flavors.

     

    This is a roasted cauliflower, celery and pomegranate seed salad from the new cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi, Jerusalem.  It was quite delicious, and better yet, it was also excellent pureed.
    9781607743941_p0_v1_s260x420 In fact, it may have been even better in the pureed form.  This is my new priority in the kitchen, as long as G still enjoys eating, the food needs to be good for me and enjoyable for him as well.

     

    Of course, I was not surprised. Ottolenghi's two previous cookbooks have been great successes in my kitchen, and many of our staple dishes and family favorties have come from them, especially the first, eponymously named book:  Ottolenghi.

     

    One of the unexpected joys of this book has been how many salads and dishes there are that employ winter vegetables.  Now that we have returned to that season when I must rely on grocery-store produce, that alone is a great boon.

     

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    We have also tried, and enjoyed, roasted butternut squash and red onion with tahini and za'atar, which is also excellent left over, as shown here over lettuce (not part of the original recipe).  In fact it works better for G with the addition of the lettuce, which lightens the puree.  

     

    I originally served the squash as a side with the recipe for chicken adobo, which I cooked without the potatoes since I was serving the butternut squash.  The chicken is another dish I highly recommend, although it is unfortunately not nearly as photogenic as it is flavorful. 

     

    Next up will be a few recipes featuring kohlrabi, one of G's favorite vegetables.  There used to be annual skirmishes in our Hyde Park garden between G and the woodchucks over who would had first dibs on the kohlrabi crop. Now I just have to drive up the road to a local grocery store.

  • Mundanities

    Here I am.  Better late than never I suppose.

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    (we were supposed to do an initial, but I had to get all fancy and try somethng special with my initals)

    I meant to write yesterday, I woke up all focused and raring to go and then got worn down by all the simple and totally mundane stuff that needed to be done:  

        1. Gym

        2.  Have breakfast with my sweetie.

        3. Recycleville (you know the place one takes the cardboard, plastic etc.(It seems by the time I move to Knoxville, the curbside recycling slots had all been taken).  Actually it is a fun trip.  G likes putting the aluminum cans and the cardboard in their respective bins, while I run around with the other stuff.

        4. Audiologists to get a malfunctioning hearing aide repaired.

        5. Lunch with my sweetie: vegetable soup and bacon-wrapped chicken.

        6. Combined Costo and Sam's Club runs. 

        7.  Early dinner with my sweetie (Shepherd's Pie and Mustard Greens)

        8.  Needlepoint class.

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    Actually I am behind in the needlepoint class.  Not behind on lessons per se, but I am the only one in my section at least who hasn't completed the borders, and that did put me a little behind last week, in that they all learned a stitch that I didn't.  Well I listened and did it anyway.  Now I am back in step.  But I'm going to finish those borders.

     
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    Once I catch up, we will have Christmas break and I can either start on another project while I wait for the next lesson.  Or I can turn my attentions back to knitting, which I have had to give up in order to keep up with the needlepoint.  Obviously my classmates don't knit while they watch TV, or they have more time on their hands than I manage, or they just watch more TV. Or they just manage their time better than I manage mine.  The latter is the most likely.  

     

    In the short term, I am looking forward to stretching my legs out on the sofa and working on this some more tonight.  I overdid something at the gym today and my knees are complaining rather vociferously.  I knew it, and I did it anyway so I have no one to blame but myself.  I just wanted to master a particular move.  Perhaps finding the right balance of mental focus is an issue, as in fitting in time to do the things I want to do, but at the same time not focusing on one thing so intently that I ignore everything else, including warnings that I am over-doing.

  • Giving Thanks

    It is the nearing the end of Thanksgiving Day here in the United States, and it has been a lovely day, revolving as it has around family and food, and the rituals we humans share of filling body and heart with warmth, companionship, and love.  Thanksgiving is a good day, and I am grateful for it and the opportunity to reconnect and reconsider all the good things in our lives.

     

    Mail-2I spent much of the early part of the day in the kitchen, cooking at a rather leisurly pace since I was not hosting the actual dinner, and this gave me ample time for reflection as I worked.  It was a pleasure to be working in the kitchen, sunshine filling the house, G entranced by the Thanksgiving Day Parade, occasionally dozing.  

     

    It seems like it had been an eternity since I actually enjoyed cooking, reveled in it in fact, and it struck me on Thanksgiving morning how lucky we were to have found this peaceful place in our lives. 

     

    MailAs I chopped and stirred, cleaned and started the process all over again, I thought about how well this move to Knoxville has gone, how much happier G is here, and how memory and the weight of history is sometimes a burden too great to bear.  Although there are many good things to say about this move, I am also certain that no small part of the improvement is due to the simple fact of the change in location.  Part of acceptance involves letting go of the past.  In the process of releasing those parts of our pasts that weigh us down, we also release our selves from self recrimination and even allow memory to flow more freely.

     

    Freed from the constraints of "should-have-done" we are free to enjoy and explore.

     

    Mail-1There was a brief moment during my kitchen labors when my personal demon, the little gluttonous spirit who drives me to over-do, tried to step up and plague my thoughts, but I banished her as I placed a bowl of onions in the freezer for a few moments so I could chop them without crying, and instead thought sharing food is an act of love and a reaching out to others.  Enjoy the process and the sharing and it is enough, but too much of anything becomes a burden.  Better to cook with love; better to sit on the sofa holding my sweetheart's hand.

     

    I shall simply give thanks that I have enough.

     

    Well, perhaps I have too much cranberry sauce.

  • Brooches

    Une Femme has put out a call for the showing of the brooches. Oddly enough, I have been wearing a few brooches lately and it seemed fitting that I should comply.

     

    IMG_7788I don't have many vintage brooches.  This one is an exception in many ways, not in the least of which is that it was given to me by G over a decade ago, and it is not the kind of strongly modern piece that usually attracted his attention. I have also worn it rather regularly since he gave it to me even though I went through a long period where I otherwise did not wear brooches.

    When I was in my 20's I was enthralled by brooches and pins of all sorts.  I wore them all the time, on jackets, on belts, on my collars and my cuffs.  Mostly they were cheap things; they often broke.  Few of them remain in my collection.  Later, I drifted away from brooch wearing although I never quite gave up on them. 

     

    The coral and gold cameo is the only brooch that I packed in the immediately accessible "will wear" box when we moved.  Everything else went into a vault, where it still languishes, or carefully wrapped up in a box to be sorted through later.  Most of the contents of that box remained under wraps until lately when I have begun fishing out a few things.  It seems I made a few major miscalculations as to which pieces I would want to wear, and as soon as I finish a few other projects that I have been obsessing over lately, I will turn my attentions to sorting through the jewelry box  as somewhere hidden in that box is a tiny silver Llama pin from South America that my grandparents gave me when I was quite young, and which I have been longing to wear again.

     

    IMG_7707While I was searching for that llama, I happend across this much larger (and therefore more easily found) silver pin which I have since been wearing a great deal. I am not, for the most part, attracted to really geometric pins but I find this one fascinating because all the little square pieces in the center move around so you can rearrange their alignment.  If you click on the photo to bring up the enlarged version you might see the single open space in the upper left hand corner (with a bit of scarf peeking through) and that the pieces are not fixed together.  

     

    Cameo2The last piece I want to share is the only piece that remains from my 20's. I haven't really worn it much in recent years and yet I can't bring myself to let it go either.  It was the first piece of "real" jewelry I ever purchased for myself and it continues to have strong sentimental value.  The last few times I wore it, in fact, I wore it as a pendant on a fine gold chain, layered with another necklace under a simple shirt.  I haven't given up on it as a brooch, just expanded the options.

  • Just Another Monday

    It has been cooler here in Knoxville this fall than it was most of last winter, and I admit I am enjoying the crisp mornings.  The best news is that I am finally sorting through my supply of more wintery clothes, which have been sadly negleted since my arrival, and I am thrilled to be pulling out wools and cashmeres and rediscovering old favorites.

     

    IMG_7762Still everything is different here. I am different here too, less worried about things, more relaxed, more willing to let clothes just be clothes, at least most of the time.

     

    Shirt: J Crew summer 2011

    Sweater: Bompard fall 2011

    Jeans: Lafayette 148 New York spring 2012

    Shoes:  Moschino, at least 4 years old, quite possibly older.

     

    Things I have learned:

    1. I had forgotten how much I like a classic button-front shirt worn with a sweater. 

     

    2.  When wearing a fairly sporty outfit like this, narrow jeans, sweater, shirt, I found I prefered a feminine shoe, heels or a pretty flat.  With heavy shoes or boots I felt too clunky.  I am still trying to figure out my boundaries as to what makes one combination feel just right and another not so good.  

     

    3. i don't particularly like sleeves that extend down over my hand, even just to the metacarpal joint of the thumb, except in outerwear.  For non-coats I prefer that sleeves only go to my wrist bones, and I prefer them narrow. I might like a soft wide sleeve if it were short, somewhere between 3/4 and bracelet length, but I don't really know.  Most of my sleeves are too long and too wide and I fuss with them all the time.  The outfit above was perfect.   This is an issue that requires more thought.

     

    It has been a long time since I've joined the group over at Not Dead Yet Style for Visible Monday. Come on by a visit.

     

  • Transitions

    Duchesse asked for a closer shot of my hair.

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    The current cut is still transitional in that it will take a long time to grow out the layers to a more uniform length..  The problem with the earlier haircut wasn't so much that it was short, although that was part of it, but that I am no longer interested in the many short layers that gave curl and "life" to my otherwise fairly fine hair.   Although I wore my hair intentionally mussed for years, I realize now that I like it a little on the sleeker side without being severe. What I learned is that there is a balance between the long and the short that needs to be maintained, and that is where my cut has gone astray.

    IMG_7703

    In order to keep my hair from being either fine-flat or a heavy limp mess as I have a lot of hair, layers are necessary. The bangs need to grow out, and then be thinned, and you can see that this side is still heavy. In fact this heaviness will be the most annoying part of the transition process for me.  My hair is on the fine side, but I have a lot of it, and taming it as it grows will take some patience.  It will obviously be a couple of months before I have the length I need but so far the transition is working well.

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    This side needs less attention.

     

    In retrospect, now that I am looking at these pictures, I see that the cut was very much in keeping with how I wore my hair for the past few years.  But I'm not the same, and that cut doesn't fit anymore.  It is time to move on.