The Queen West Art Crawl (in Which There is Mention of Artists)

We (shows around here are always we - it's pretty much a family affair, as I suspect it is for many people) were at the lamp-post. Thanks to everyone who came by!

Safiya took pictures, including the one above, while Mr. S. and I put the tent up Saturday morning. Which means that there were a lot of pictures that looked like this:


and this:


Midriffs and feet. I'd like there to be a movie shot entirely from the perspective of a young child. What a different world view. Do you remember being little? I mean, are your memories from that view? All I remember is not being able to reach the top of my dresser.

Anyway, as you can see from the pictures, the weather was miserable on Saturday, which was why I was so happy when this happened today:


Everyone was happy, because Saturday had been a struggle with the rain all day, with many vendors tents' roofs filled with water and a few collapsed overnight, and there was the threat of an evening deluge today, so we were all just whooping is up.

I was thrilled to be accepted into the QWAC. I am of two minds about applying for it again. The reason being that it is outdoors. This is not a problem when the table fee is $30. The table fee for the QWAC was $175. This is the most that I've paid for an outdoor event, an event which is, of course, weather dependent.

However, (besides the cool-factor...my ego inflated a couple of times when I got accepted) my criteria have not changed. Did I make my table money back? Yes. Did I get lots of work done? Yes. Did I get to meet some very cool people? Yes. For instance, the wonderful Lisa Pijuan-Nomura, who was across the way. And wonderful is a staid word for such a girl. You know those people who, when they cross your path in life, provoke in you that awareness that you are lucky to have met them? Lisa's one of those, and I think it will be fun getting to know her. Which I must. Besides which, Safiya's taken with her ;-) Lisa was there supporting her husband Dave's work, some kick-ass amazing photography.

I also have a new felt love. James Fowler was kind enough to chat for a bit. He has a neat technique for joining little squares of felt together. I wish I would have thought of it. Check out his amazing throws.

Also, I got to meet and ahem, gush a little, over the artist Peter Schacht. Back in April I wrote a little about his work, and the images in that post are postcards of his at which I never tire of looking. He still has the farm painting I pine over. He was kind enough to reciprocate my visit and come over for a chat. That's the thing about these shows. I've found the community to be warm and helpful and full of really interesting people.

The other favourite artist of mine that I mentioned in that post, Shaun Downey, the one whose sketch I have, was also there. Now, from my purchase of his sketch he remembered me (there's a small, slightly humiliating story on my part in there somewhere. I'll tell it to you one day...) and I found out that he was there supporting his partner, Kelly Grace. Obviously I wanted to check her work out. Good painter + another painter = probably another very good painter. He couldn't remember her booth number, so I asked what she looked like. He smiled and said "pretty" (and blushed ever-so-slightly?)

Life should be full of kind, sweet moments like that.

I went and checked her stuff out. I like it very much.

And he was right. Pretty :-)



That's my mish-mashed table - it was much better organised (and better lit) today. There weren't very many people doing textiles. And certainly not much geared towards younger kids. (Oh - swapped stuff with Fish on Fridays - her stuff is clever and cute - good combination!)

Maybe I fit in, maybe I didn't - who cares! I had fun :-)

We're Back

We did this. For a while. And as it is said: it was good.

Now, much too chill air bookends the days. I'm already wearing woolen socks. But in the spirit of a just-passed-us-by-and-much-too-quickly August, this evening we took part in quite possibly the most urban thing ever: we roasted the last of our vegan marshmallows in the kitchen, over our stove...using chopsticks as sticks.

Seems like a strangely Canadian thing to do, too, although I hear generations of campers rolling over in their graves. ha!

There are many stories to tell, much to catch up on. Including my work for this weekend's Queen West Art Crawl, into which I was accepted. So now, on to a some late night crafting.

I hope you have been keeping well this summer's end. Good to be here again.

Welcome, Wee One

Last night Safiya's first cousin arrived!

Welcome, Scarlet Avery. We can't wait to meet you!

Love,

Auntie Marnie and Uncle Mr. S. (wheeee!)

Loot

This morning it was imperative that we have a tea party, first thing, with the loot we brought back from the Kids Trunk Show yesterday. It was at the workroom, and packed full of local artisans who had made things just for kids, so this of course was a dangerous situation (check out Karyn's blog make something, for details on vendors including some cool interviews). I swapped a playcape with Kelly of Leilabug Toys for the awesome anarchymobile, perfect for our friends' baby due soon, and Shannon Gerrard had come up with delectable crocheted treats (hence the tea party this morning), and I finally got to meet Tania of tania (makes sense, I know), which was one of the first blogs I ever started reading. I was very excited and tried not too talk to much and make an ass of myself (hard to do most days, especially when ravenously hungry and hopped up on illicit coffee).


And do you see that ridiculously cute teeny-tiny cake? From the youngest vendor at the fair, Ella. She makes genius little sculptures, each with its own story, and she's a cool gal to boot. Organised, laid back, and getting right into it - she was teaching other kids to make sculptures throughout the show. Very together for 10 years old.

As for the four-year-old in our midst, this was her custom-made display:


That was the "trunk" she wanted. She decorated it, worked on the sculptures, made the sign (noticed the upped price from 2 cents to 25 cents? that's quite the price hike! :-) and then proceeded to accost anyone who walked by to see if they wanted to buy one of her items. I had visions of Covent Garden, a la "My Fair Lady", and I was pretty proud of her. Oh, and notice Safiya's newest prize possession, a cactus from Shannon:


She had talked about it for months, earning money, spending it on ice-cream, then saving up again, and then Shannon, in true good character, swapped her the cactus for Safiya's last two sculptures. That's good people.

My own trunk was packed full, cheerful, overflowing, and slightly throw-together, kind of like I've been feeling lately:


Sold a few things, including:


had a good afternoon (except for an incident involving Mr. S. arriving mid-afternoon carrying a bloody-mouthed Safiya in his arms after an almost-bit-through-her-bottom-lip-little-fall in the park - she's o.k. - lots of noise and blood, very small trip), met new people (some first-time-vendors, which is always cool), and came home really tired, although not as tired as Mr. S., who had lugged all my stuff half way across the city.

So now today is cleaning up and catching up. You'll notice that there are pictures again. It's a new-to-me camera, and I'm happy, but it's not my camera yet. I'm still getting used to it and am in the awkward elated-hesitant stage. Even though I don't have a choice now, I still look at it and say, "Well, we'll see. If you behave, you can stay." So, we'll see......

Oh, and for your delight, when I was looking for the link to Ella's etsy site, I found this bit of awesome-ness by the girl herself:



Enjoy!

Hi There

A crazy number of people dropped by here yesterday - all thanks to the wonderful Sew, Mama, Sew blog. They accepted my excitement about the dresses I re-fashioned for Safiya and posted it on the latest Create & Celebrate post - how exciting! If you haven't already, go take a look at all the incredibly wonderful things that people have been makng - so much inspiration! If you've come by from over there, hi there, I'm so glad you came by!

So, to please your eyes even though my camera's broken, I'm sharing a couple of pictures I had from before of my latest crazy-couple-dollar-thrift-find:


It's so sweet and someone took a lot of time embroidering all those adorably happy animals (I love the squirrel!). My brother-in-law has finished law school and so now our other bedroom is empty. Safiya is excited about having a space of her own, but "not to sleep in". Nope, we're not going there yet.


But this may be a good beginning for a sweet room for a sweet girl.

Good Start

My new favourite breakfast is popped amaranth. It's so ridiculously good, nutritionally, but I've been having a hard time finding uses for it except plain, even though it's a bit gooey when cooked like a grain. It's yummy popped, though.

I burnt my first batch because the instructions I found said "highest heat possible". They obviously hadn't met my stove. So medium heat is just fine. When you pour the amaranth in, it should start popping almost right away. I found a little demo (halfway down, under "Amaranth Porridge"). It only takes a minute to make, so easy and quick, perfect for first thing in the morning.

Plain is good, or with milk, like teeny-tiny rice krispies. It's a silly way to start the day.

Especially if you forget to put the lid on when you're popping it.

My New Career as an Illustrator Awaits...

My hand hurts. My right hand. With my left I've eaten almost an entire batch of granola (which I made for breakfasts - ha!) so that I could concentrate. (We don't have a scanner, hence the awesome picture in MS Paint :-)

That's the dress. Some yellow scraps pieced together for the front, the rest is a grey linen. In case you can't see it - ahem - it's partially lined with a seventies-baroque-ish grey and yellow and lime green flower print. I'm really loving the yellow and grey - it was seeing Soulemama's dress that prompted me to finish Safiya's, which was languishing on a recently-thrifted footstool in the studio which has, of course, become just another flat surface on which to store fabric.

I'm tempted to do a "finish-a-project-a-day" kind of August, but a) I don't have the commitment and b) no camera, so that would be kind of mean to anyone reading this, 'cause really: "look at the beautiful quilt I finished and then had to draw in a really awkward manner to get the point across"....

If I were Mr. S. I'd do it...just because. ;-)

Arg! and Addresses?

Safiya has a new cute dress that I finally finished. It is grey and yellow, which you cannot see because the camera was left outside during a downpour. I am waiting for it to dry out. Has this ever happened to anyone else? Do digital cameras come back from the dead? Anybody got a second-hand one they want to part with?

Weird. Blogging without pictures is not very satisfactory, and I guess my business is dependent on that little machine. Etsy certainly is, eh? Nobody would buy anything without those cute little pictures...Can you believe catalogues used to be drawn?

Sigh.

And, on a totally different note, it would help if I'm going to mail packages if they actually have addresses to go to :-) And since there are exactly 3 stories of generosity in the comments, I've decided to give a package to each of you. Yay! So, will Rachel, Alexis, and Tracey please stand up and email me your addresses? Thanks!

There now, I feel a bit better.

Celebration

Safiya will be four on Wednesday. Her birthday party was yesterday. Thank you to all family, friends, and neighbours who jammed into our little place and shared a wonderful day of food and kids running around and the tides of party-noise that is always music to my ears: talking, laughing, kids banging various musical instruments at various times, clinking cutlery, the telling of stories, books read out loud to children crowded around, the yelling for coffee...


A delightful day, with a very happy little girl in the middle of the whirl.

The Vegan Mennonite

The vegetable dishes section in the revered cookbook above are heavy on cheese and half have meat in them. Butter and eggs are applied liberally throughout, and the idea of a vegetarian is an aberration of nature....

But these things must be understood within their context, surely. When asked to submit recipes years ago, these ladies would have submitted their most proud, their most delicious. Recipes that indicated bounty and celebration (think eggy paska), not thrift (bacon fat sandwiches, anyone?)

And it is within that frame that I remember the savoured foods of my childhood. Tummy-filling borscht (tomato based, not beet), flaky perishky with savory or sweet fillings, platz, hand-cut kielke, deep fried rollkuchen, and, of course, Mennonite sausage with cream gravy and wareniki - oh, and that staple of faspa (late afternoon lunch) - zweiback (double buns)...my grandmothers' food lavished well-being on us with its freshness and evidence of hand hard work. Although, the Mennonite Treasury of Recipes, like any good 50's cookbook, has it's share of ingredients such as condensed milk, soup-in-a-can, and jello. Why not? Thrift, although unspoken, was a virtue bred in the bone.

Today I did the unthinkable, and I may have created a new mission for myself. On a substituting roll, I veganised my Grammy's raisin cookies, the recipe for which is contained in the Mennonite cookbook. It's not a traditional Mennonite food, but for me it reminds me of Grammy's house, which is authentic enough for me. So here I proudly present my first vegan "Mennonite" recipe:

Raisin Cookies

1 cup raisins
1/2 cup boiling water
1/3 cup canola oil
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp ground flax seeds
3 Tbsp boiling water
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup unbleached white pastry flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp cloves
1/8 tsp nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350 F. Combine ground flax seed and the 3 Tbsp of boiling water and let sit while continuing with recipe. Combine raisins and 1/2 cup boiling water and also let sit (at least 10 minutes).

Mix dry ingredients, including sugar, in a large bowl. Drain the raisins and reserve liquid. Add oil, raisins, vanilla, and ground flax seed mixture to dry ingredients and mix until combined. Add a little of the reserved water until you get a sticky batter (don't overmix).

Drop by teaspoonfuls, bake for 10 minutes (they should rise and not spread too much, but they'll fall again when you take them out), remove from oven and cool on racks (they're a soft cookie).
..................

They turned out great, if not quite like Grammy's, then yummy in their own right. Now, the holy grail for me is zweiback, which, as Grammy told me this morning, "need butter...you really can't make them without butter." But you know what? I just found a recipe that doesn't use butter, and a really neat tutorial on how to make them, 'cause there would be shame in the room if I tried to do this at the side of Grandma or Grammy ;-)

And I'll end with my favourite part of this cookbook, the part that reminds me of the trinity of weddings, showers, and funerals in church basements, the MCC (Mennonite Central Committee - a relief organisation) sale, of youth Sunday suppers, of family reunions and church picnics.


"Quantity Servings". For 100. Now, when we get a vegan cookbook with that section, that will be a real cookbook. All else is mere child's play ;-)

Also, In Which Lillian Was Generous and so there is a Give-Away with a Package Actually Ready to Give Away

"S" is for swell..


And sweet and sgenerous and sthoughtful....

When I did the Children's Trunk Show, my booth neighbour was the sweet Lillian, who runs Bamboo Lily. Her stuff is adorable and well made and environmentally conscience, so please go and check out what she makes because she is due some awesome karma. She was cleaning out her studio, she had extra fabric, she knew from the show that I use recycled fabric, and next thing you know there's this email asking me if I would like two large garbage bags full of fabric.

My head almost exploded.

And to top it off, she passed on to me some incredible fabrics from her Mom, who had brought them from India in the 60's. That is about the coolest thing I've ever heard, and so to delight your senses, here's a little sampling:


Good quality fabrics; silks, wools, psychedelic polyesters, cottons, just about like falling into fabric heaven.

And I'm really excited about this, which is a ruched chiffon:


Actually, I love the paper in which it is enclosed as well, and my mind is racing, thinking up possibilities...

And to top it all off, some awesome vintage dresses, also from India:


Thanks, Lillian. Generosity like yours is truly kind-hearted. And being the fortunate recipient of such generosity prompts me to pass it on. So, please share a tale of generosity here, in the comments. If not just for the fact that stories like that spread warmth, but for the fact that I've got two identical packages ready to be sent out containing pieces of some of my favourites:


There are some surprise pieces in there as well, and some of that chiffon, just to spread the happiness around.

Now, for the sake of transparency, I have packages from two give-aways....last year, that are still W.I.P. I've been pretty good since then, but if you are someone who is waiting for one of those, do not despair! And please comment again, because these packages are hot to trot and waiting to go :-)

Let's see...leave a story of generosity in the comments for this post by Wednesday, July 30, which is Safiya's birthday (yay!), and we'll randomly draw two numbers and have the packages out by the end of that week.

Thanks Lillian!

In Which Mr. S. Has Delusions That Become Reality

On Friday I had a little surgery to rid my leg of veins that were threatening mutiny - a condition I inherited and have been putting up with since I was 16. But the point of this story is not poor me, the point is that Mr. S. is a masochist. A sweet one, to be sure, but there are times like this where....

Well, like I said, the surgery was on Friday. Afterward, Mr. S. drove Safiya and I down to my Mom's to hang out while I was off my feet (and to have a lovely baby shower for my new sister-in-law - yay!), and as for the picture above, that was what our kitchen looked like when we left. I'll not show pictures of the floor, which was in a miserable state.


This is what I walked into when we got home Tuesday morning. Cabinets painted beautifully and floor tiles regrouted. It wasn't a surprise; I knew it was going to be done. And that's the scary thing - I knew it was going to be done....in three days. You see, he gets this look in his eye when we are discussing stuff like this and then he says "You know what? I bet you...I bet you I can get it done in three days." And then he shakes his head emphatically "yes", looks at me with three fingers held up and says "three days!"

Like I said, masochist. Not that I'm complaining ;-)

The Day Safiya Decided to go to Granny's By Herself

Yesterday Safiya ran away. Well, almost. She had finished what she was doing, I was in the middle of trying to get an order done, and she wanted me to teach her how to crochet a Daddy sea slug. My suggestion of "later" was not part of the plan, I got frustrated and she got upset.

She went upstairs to vent, and I heard her complaining away (she doesn't realise I can hear her, which is actually quite amusing), I went upstairs to give her some solace, then back down to the studio.

A long pause, some pattering around, supplies falling on the floor, and some muttering. This is the conversation that followed, us communicating between floors:

"Mama, how do you spell Mama?"
"M-A-M-A"

And then I heard her spelling first Mr. S.'s name and then her name S-A-F-I-Y-A....

"How do you spell is?"
"I-S"

"And Going?"
"G-O-I-N-G"....And here my scissors pause, intrigued...

"To?"
"T-O"

"A?"
"A"

"Different?"
"D-I-F-F-E-R-E-N-T.....A different what, honey?"

"I can't tell you"
"Oh, o.k...."

pause

"Mama, can I tell you anything?"
"Yes, honey, you can tell me anything."

"A Different House. Mama, how do you spell House?"
"H-O-U-S-E"

And then I went upstairs.


I found her lying on the floor by the front door, shoes on, despondent in the way that only little almost-four-year-old girls can be, and having decided she was going to Granny's house because there, "Granny plays with me all day." There was a note. With tears in her eyes, she patted my arm and told me, "Don't worry Mama, I'll be back in 12 days."

I asked her if she had everything she needed. She perked up, pattered back into the playroom and returned with one of her stuffed animals and her piggybank "because I'll need money...." We talked about bus tickets and she remembered to ask me for the key to Granny's house so she could get in. She asked me to open the door, I asked if she needed her hat, she said "Thanks Mama", got about 3 feet out the door, and then turned and cried...."But I'll miss you, Mama!"

Hugs, more crying, some ambivalence about staying or going - she missed Granny so much, you see, but also, "I like it here". It was an afternoon of between-us talking and much hugs and kisses, me trying to hold back laughter and tears at the same time.


Safiya, my honey, you never cease to amaze me. Thank you for an afternoon of just us.


As for the rest of the day, this was the song that floated around in and about the two of us, comforting and holding my hand....



Where are you going, my little one, little one?
Where are you going, my baby, my own?
Turn around and you're two,
Turn around and you're four,
Turn around and you're a young girl,
Going out of my door.

Turn around, turn around,
Turn around and you're a young girl,
Going out of my door....

Wardrobe Refashion, Kid's Version

Every once in a while I quickly go through my clothes and put things in the donation bag. Lately though, I've become a bit more mean. Yes, there's a perfectly good shirt of Mr. S.'s that he doesn't dig anymore in there, but you can't have it because the buttons can go in the button box and the rest can make rags. Stingy, I know, but might as well get as much use out of it as possible.

So there was the top in the picture up there, which was an early-pregnancy-friend-gave-me item that seriously? Awesome on a hot summer beach day when the pregnancy boobs are so big that they can be seen from space, but these days squishing is hardly to their benefit ;-) I quickly shortened the elasticized bodice (just cut the top couple of inches off in-between rows of stitching), took the side seam in, added ribbon for straps, and hey presto!


On a roll, I got daring with this:


Love the pattern, love the cut, but too small. I'm not sure if doing the following is officially sanctioned altering - is this allowable? Apparently, 'cause it worked!


I put the t-shirt on Safiya, got her to stand still (!), pinched it up on top of her shoulders until I got a decent fit, marked one side with a safety pin 'cause that's all I could manage given the level of wriggliness, and then turned it inside out and pondered for a minute.


This is a view from the back of one of the shoulders. The trick, which I almost got, is to line up the neck binding and the sleeve seams from front to back. There was extra fabric on the back, so I just pleated it as I sewed the seam, following the original line of the shirt (which yielded a perfectly fitting sleeve - I was pretty amazed!) It still puckered a bit across the back of the neck, so I just folded it under and stitched, as you can see.

O.k., the following is my doctored version (the red arrows are where I lined up the old seams, which are in white, and the green line is where I sewed the new seam - does that help, or am I making things more complicated?)


Anyway, not the most glamourous of jobs, but it created, it all of 5 minutes (minus the pondering), a perfectly serviceable dress:


I'd love to show you a picture of her wearing it, but most of the time today she was sticking her hands in the pockets and pulling it up over her head. I can, however, show you what happened at the end of the day:


That's our vegetable "garden". There's herbs, sunflowers, and sunchokes in there somewhere. And the often played in but rarely photographed mud hole. With the dress as accessory.

Like Scoring Three Goals in One Game...

I tried to convey how excited I was about this to Mr. S. using terms he could understand, but to no avail. "That's nice!" He tried, he really tried to be happy for me, but there was still the unspoken "whatever, crazy lady" behind his words :-)

This is my spool graveyard. I've gone through a lot of thread. Does anyone have an idea of what to do with these? I guess somehow load them up again, eh? Anyway, a couple of days ago I ran out of white. And off-white. And beige.


The halcyon days of simply buying new thread, the days before I realised what I sewed with ended up being swallowed by sea life, are long gone (and that includes the dyes - I'm starting to think, if I wouldn't want to drink it, it shouldn't get thrown out...I know, crazy talk....)

Thread on spools is hard to come by second-hand. And I haven't graduated yet to buying organic thread. But I have scored a couple of cones of thread for sergers, in the hopes of figuring out what to do with them. Ages ago I remember seeing how to rig them up on a non-serger machine on someone's craft blog. I have a million bookmarks - did I bookmark it? Of course not. So, after some searching last night, I came up with a combination of this idea posted on instructables and this. And for all you out there going, "well, a thread stand, of course..." I did not know that thread stands existed, so there.


The hanger was bent with pliers and tacked down with some electric-cord-hold-in-place-thingies from Ikea, and I just placed the cone on the spindle and put it underneath.


And it works like a charm!.....

.....GOAL!

Like Candy

I would have loved to see what came from the creative hands that previously owned this bowl of goodies. Crocheting something so fastidious holds no appeal for me, but I bet there will be another use for colours so luscious around here. It makes me happy just looking at them. Anybody got any ideas?

Another stroke of thrift-store luck yielded this wonder stack, and do you see the mod pink? Two big sheets!


Way back in September I lamented that there was only one little piece of it left in my stash. It's very odd to re-find pieces, but then of course, the manufacturers would have made stacks and stacks of the same thing, right? Actually makes you wonder where the rest of it is lurking :-)

And finally, after much waiting, Safiya and I found our very own button haul. I was always jealous of other crafters' stories of button hauls - where were all these second-hand buttons hiding? And voila!


We had a great afternoon just hanging out sorting buttons. Kids and buttons are made for eachother. There were some real beauties in the bags we found:


So now I'm set for buttons. For life :-)

If I needed something second-hand, I used to anxiously peruse the thrift stores pretty frequently. "Maybe this time the hand blender I need will be there!" Freaking out is not good for thrifting karma. I've had much better success just relaxing and checking when I happen to go instead of making it a mission. Thrift-store disappointment is harsh. Case in point: the hand blender. We went without after ours broke because after watching Manufactured Landscapes I just couldn't bring myself to by one new. I freaked for a while and then resigned myself to mashing soup with my trusty yet ineffectual potato masher. (Oh the deprivation!) And then, having let it go, a hand blender appeared when I wasn't even looking for one. Huh. And it was even better than our old one.

Can I keep talking about thrifting? 'Cause really sometimes it feels like finding treasure.

It All Started with the Maple Syrup

A couple of days ago I was picking up emergency maple syrup from the grocery store close to us (emergency as in, we're going to have pancakes for breakfast tomorrow :-) and I gasped (yes, out loud) when I saw the price.

It had been $8.99 for 500mL. It was now $10.99. That's in the space of a month or so. I asked the clerk about it and she said "Yeah, it's gone up, eh? They said there was a reason - I can't remember what it was, but they said there was a good reason." Yes, it's called high oil prices.

Food price rises only happen to other people, right? Like a lot (most?) people we kind of keep a watch on how much we spend on food, and we kind of have some debt, not including the mortgage. What happens when the money that needs to go to that debt now has to be diverted to food? We're not there yet, but it's not hard for me to see that path, and I can imagine that some people (especially our neighbours to the south) are already there.

And I'd like to introduce you to our $9.50 bowl of peas:


Please note, I am not complaining, because sweet freshly shelled peas straight from the farmer is foods for the gods. We live literally in the middle of the largest city in Canada, and this farmer travels about 100km to bring fresh food to the market. I am not going to begrudge her/him $9.50 for a four quart of peas (which yielded about 4 cups shelled - hard to tell, we ate as we went along :-). My grandmother would be shocked, and I grew up on a farm, so it hurts a little, but did I grow my own peas? no.

But what happens when the cost for that farmer to get here keeps rising? My confession is that a lot of this creates for me some anxiety and a vague sense of unease. Hence the very cheery food posts lately glossing over all that ;-) Actually, it is exactly why there's been a bit more food posts around here. Lately my focus has been my fledgling business, planning to sew more for us, and really buckling down and learning to plan ahead with food and trying to make everything at home. Instead of ordering pizza on a day when Mama and Mr. S. ain't got the energy, I'd like to be able to take something out of the freezer or shelf. That requires planning and budgeting; more than I realised.

So, we made our own jam because not only does it taste waaaaay better, but it costs (and will cost if you figure what jam might cost in a year - ha!) slightly less than buying it. And I love having jam....for the year. And learning skills. Because that's what's important, right Napoleon Dynamite? Skills?


She started off really enthusiastic and then that predictably waned. Safiya's almost four and it makes me glad to see that she doesn't view anything (yet) as a chore. We'll see when she gets older.

I wonder what food will cost then.

Chickpea Cutlet Love

That may not look particularly appetizing, but it represents a breakthrough in food at our house. Safiya has never eaten a sandwich before. She loved Veganomicon's chickpea cutlets so much that not only did she eat this schnitzel-ish food item, but she suggested the bun and then insisted I take pictures of her eating this crazy food.

Having never worked with vital wheat gluten before, gotta say, it's easy-peasy. The recipe (you can find it and a slightly ribald review at Yeah, That "Vegan" Shit) calls for liquid smoke (eeeew), which does not live at our house, so I omitted the chili flakes and subbed just a tiiiiny bit of this phenomenal stuff:


I'm on the chickpea cutlet bandwagon, and it is a yummy ride :-)

There are No Pictures of the Cookies...

...because we ate them all in one 24-hour period. And by we I mean me.

The chewy chocolate gingerbread cookies, that is. Sub 1/3 cup oil for the 1/2 cup butter. Bake for 8 minutes so they don't get crispy. They'll be a little flatter than usual, but it doesn't matter. I'm telling you, it doesn't matter.

Heaven.