Indian Cooking Class

I first ate Indian food in London, with Peter’s brother and family. I thought I liked it but it was so intense and rich – I found it overwhelming. Then we  lived in Singapore for two years where there are many wonderful Indian restaurants, and that’s when we grew to love it. And visiting India a few years ago was a wonderful culinary experience.

Sur la Table moved into the nearby mall last year and I have been checking out their classes for something fun to take. Indian caught my eye – and – the main dish on the menu was Butter Chicken – my favorite. I was a bit skeptical about cooking an Indian dinner in two hours. I was also wondering if it would be spicy enough. I don’t claim to be able to eat Indian food like a native, but I don’t like what most American Indian restaurants serve.

First up were pakoras. We usually don’t eat appetizers, but I have had these before and love them. You may remember that I am quite fond of fried food. {Oh to have a deep fat frier!} ;-D

I always wondered what the flavor was in pakoras and it turns out that they are made of chickpea flour. The batter is quite simple and you can use whatever veggies you have on hand. We also made a delicious mint and apple riata to go with these.

Next up was getting a mango chutney going. I didn’t realize how simple chutneys are to make and it was delicious!

And then we made naan…..mmm… We baked some on a pizza stone and some on a baking sheet and surprisingly the ones on the baking sheet puffed up better. I ate the one on the right and I think we rolled the dough too thin. Although delicious, it was more the texture of a cracker.

We did get everything made in two hours. Below you can see the main course. The butter chicken looks pretty and the taste was okay, but as I feared, it was not spicy enough. Another lady and I kept salting the dish, which didn’t seem to help. In thinking about it, as I write, when I make this butter chicken, I will double the spices. Adding salt made it saltier, it did not improve the flavor. The chef kept throwing in butter, which I’m not sure helped either. If you eat Indian food you know that if it’s too spicy, you put a dollop of yogurt or riata on the top. And drink more beer! It was a fun class and great cuisine to eat on a night that was 4 degrees.

Chicagoland is finally getting some measurable snow today. I think it’s been close to a year since we’ve had this much. We have been busy trying to keep the birds fed!

Hope you’re keeping warm in this bitterly cold weather!

Foxy Ladies 1/12/13

It’s been several months since I was able to attend Foxy Lady Rug Hooking Guild’s meeting. It’s always fun to see what the ladies are working on. Hooking rugs is slow, so one of the nice things about going to a meeting is getting encouragement and being inspired. Here is some of what was going on.

I had a finish to show! In December, I worked hard on the mat I started in a class with Susan Quicksall. I love the design, and her colors, though I did tweak it a bit. It still needs some trimming and perhaps some more steaming and then I’d like to make it into a pillow.

Here is Pam’s progress on her geometric rug. It looks great, doesn’t it? She has several containers of cut strips and is coloring each section as she goes.I really like it!

Beth went to a rug camp in the Fall and this is the rug that she started there. They really do look like individual tiles, don’t they?

Barbara is working on this rug, which I was most interested to see because I also bought this pattern. It’s called Sebring Circles and it is from Searsport Rug Hooking. They have two versions of this rug on the front page of their website and they are quite different. Barbara is wondering about the background she chose, which is on the left between the two circles. From this shot it looks like it’s linen colored but it’s a bit warmer. Backgrounds are tricky and can make the pattern sing or dull it down; whatever you want. Finding the color you want is not easy.

A new member, Carol, finished her rug during the meeting! It is so exciting to complete a project and we all celebrated with her. The roses and the border are really yummy red plaids.

Another new member, Vicky, was sitting next to me. She was starting her first original design! The paper at the top of her hoop is what she is working from. She is using bits of wool from previous projects to create each square. It will be a fun exercise to see how colors work with each other.

{Isn’t 1/12/13 the craziest looking date? Being in the 21st century still boggles my mind..}

It’s a Sticky Business!

This week’s to do list has been suffering, because of interruptions. It’s a good thing though. Late Summer is one of my favorite times of the year, with the weather cooler and the farmer’s markets full to overflowing with wonderful produce. It’s time to can! Don’t these peaches look great?

Not so much! We bought them on Saturday, rock hard, and I have been waiting for them to ripen. When they did, I went into action, canning our favorite winter treat – spiced peach halves.

I make a very light sugar syrup and put the peach halves into it as it warms on the stove top. This also keeps the peaches from browning. When the pot is full, I scoop up the halves and fill the jars and then pour the hot syrup into the jar. The little trick, that I learned many moons ago, is to add 3 -4 whole cloves. Seal them up, process in a boiling water bath – easy peasy!

We don’t open the canned goods until after Christmas to celebrate the beginning of winter and it is such a treat. The peaches have sat marinating in the cloves and they have a hint of spice in each bite. Several peach halves with cottage cheese is truly delightful! Peter calls the peaches “Summer in a jar”.

Also on Saturday, I found a stall with very nice looking pickling cucumbers. Obviously most people do not know what to do with a pickling cuke and so the ones I had seen at other markets were spoiled and nasty looking. I eyeball the length of the cuke – I want it to be about the length of a half pint jar. No point in wasting it. I enjoy making these pickles as it’s the easiest recipe I’ve ever found. They are spears, so I cut the ends off and slice them. Into a bowl they go, covered with boiling water for 2 hours.

As they sit, I make a syrup recipe, with vinegar and sugar and spices, and I get that boiling. After 2 hours, I drain the cuke spears and pack them in warm jars. I’ve found it’s easiest to pack with the jar on its side. I keep a knife nearby to trim the ends that may be too long. Then I fill the jar with boiling syrup, wipe the rim and add the lid. After the jars are processed in a boiling water bath, they cool for the night.

This morning I wiped the jars clean of sticky juice and labeled them. I “designed” these on My Own Labels. Now all the peaches and pickles are in a dark closet waiting for January.

And next it’s time to clean the cooker top and mop the floor. There is gooey business everywhere, it seems. It takes several buckets to really get the stickiness off, but it is oh so worth it.

Whew! Back to My Quiet Life

Great Nephews #3, #4, and #5 and their parents have come and gone, leaving a sprinkling of Lake Michigan sand and lots of dirty laundry. I taught Second Grade for many years but have never been a parent, so I don’t always cope well with young visitors! Particularly those who open every door and go in rooms they’ve been asked not to! Jasmine tried to be friendly, but got scared off and Gizmo is the definition of a scaredy cat and is still hiding. I spent a lot of Sunday watching the Olympics and resting up…  ;-D

I took them to “the beach” at Lake Michigan and that turned out to be the best thing I did with them – - – everyone was happy. No tears… no pouting…

They went right into the water and had a lovely time. Every day they wanted to go back, but we had rain early each morning and there was a rip current warning, which meant no swimming. Some tears… lots of pouting…

After the marathon of cleaning I did before their visit, I’d like to take a break from that, but a lot of miscellaneous stuff ended up in my studio (where I kept asking them not to go into!!!) and I need to get it straightened up again, not to mention doing lots of laundry. That’s first on the list this week.

The day before they arrived I had another Bernina sewing lesson. It was worse that the first one, so another plan for this week is reading the manual and learning the machine myself . (And Bernina USA is going to hear about how poorly this store is handling their obligation of providing lessons!) I have been looking at my pile of quilt tops and trying to decide which one will be the first experiment on (Ber)Nina and using the BSR. The Gail Garber quilt is going to wait a bit as I want to practice before I start that one. I am thinking maybe I will play with this very old red and white house top.

During the Olympic events that I don’t have to watch closely (swimming and track for sure), I am working on the No Neck Birds rug. I have already hooked 2012 in the corner, so I do need to keep moving along so I don’t have to change the date. And I have two woven Christmas runners completed and am wondering just how much warp is left to be woven.

Like a vacation, it’s great to have visitors, but really wonderful when they leave and life returns to normal!

Summer in the House

I have long changed the “decor” of our homes for the seasons. One of my grandmothers did that and I must have gotten the idea from her. She would get my father to come over (we lived next door) and all the Oriental rugs and heavy drapes were rolled up and stored. In their place came match stick curtains and I guess jute rugs; that part I can’t remember. It made an enormous difference…and it also means you can have more stuff!  ;-D

When we moved to Colorado from Japan, we bought a big new house and had nothing to sit on, so we bought a pair of brown loveseats. I loved them. When Summer came though, they looked so dreary and the upholstery must have a lot of synthetics in it because they made me hot to sit on them. What to do? My mother also did a modified Summer/Winter thing and had custom-made slipcovers….I am sure that would be an expensive option nowadays.

Then I got a Surefit slipcover catalog in the mail and decided that was the thing to do and I bought some denim covers. The loveseats looked so different that the next time my Evergreen quilting ladies came over they thought we had bought new couches! If you look at the brown version, you will see that “matching” pillows came with the furniture. Ugh. I have not been into matching for many years. I stuck the pillows away until one day I thought “Gee, I have 4 ready-made pillow forms!”. On the right above, you can see one I made for the Winter couch. Below are the pair I did for Summer. They are made from all sorts of Asian fabrics that I collected when we lived there – batiks from Singapore and China and the Indigo bunny is from Japan.

The back of the loveseats are what you see from the kitchen in this house (and in Colorado too) and it’s always looked so plain. Now you see it with the Animal Party quilt that I finally finished earlier this year. It is not just for show – we get plenty of cool weather that makes a light quilt feel good. In Asia I started collected blue & white everything, so that has been the default scheme ever since, with liberal amounts of yellow and red too.

Here is a yummy haori (Japanese ladies jacket) that I actually bought on eBay. Isn’t it a beauty? It’s such a dreamy blue.

Blue & white pots are all over the house, but they show themselves more prominently in the Summer. Here is a group with one of those minute Chinese double-sided embroideries.

For those of us who don’t have Summer homes, this is the next best thing!

Seeing Double quilt show

My show is hung! Yippee!!! What a fun thing to do on Monday, the first official day of the new year. And what a relief! I have spent the last year thinking and quilting and worrying. I’m not sure why I did so much worrying, but I was concerned about a theme for this show. I did not make any quilts specifically for it, but I finished quilting several tops, and I was mulling over how to make these quilts “work” with each other. (Four of the quilts are new and four are old; I guess that’s not bad.) I came up with  variety of titles, like 2 by 2 and Duplicates, but Seeing Double seemed like the best one. As I thought about all my quilts, I could also have designed a show around triplicates; when I like a quilt pattern I often repeat it and since I teach, I make a lot of samples.

Since this is the second show I have had at the library, we are pretty organized. Here is the car ready to go.

This is the empty wall of the library’s auditorium. Looks like lots of room -

- but the quilts fill it up! I like this wall of samplers. I think people, particularly kids, will enjoy finding the squares that are the same in the quilts on this wall. The bright one on the left is my latest quilt, and the dark one that’s hard to see is my very first one.

Here is the opposite wall. This one looks less put together, since it has the “brown” quilts and the hand appliquéd ones. Peter’s comment on my dithering about how to make the quilts relate to each other was that all the quilts are useable and made to be enjoyed up close and personal. He’s not a big fan of art quilts!

And I must say thanks to my very DH Peter! Long story, but he is the reason that the librarian in charge of shows found me. He is so supportive and positive when I am discouraged or overwhelmed and always makes time to help me. We came up with the technique for hanging the quilts for the last show, but he gets out his tape measure and nippers and drill and makes sure all the hangers are perfectly prepared. And then he patiently waits for me to squint at the quilt and say “up” or “down” or “crooked” and he fixes it. And of course, though I consider myself to be a working Fiber Artist, in reality I make a pittance and so he is my Patron as well! {xox}

Should you be local and want to visit the show, you need to check the Morton Grove Public Library site. If there is a program in the Baxter Room, then it will be hard to see the quilts. And if you would like to look at the quilts close up, I have updated my website.

A Delicious Summer Squash Soup

My favorite summer soup is Gazpacho…. with lots of chopped veggies and a bit of sour cream to top it off. At the moment, I have two cherry tomatoes ripening in my garden and the tomatoes I bought at the Farmer’s Market taste okay but are crunchy, so I won’t be making Gazpacho for a while. Last night I was looking online for some summer soup ideas and found this recipe for Golden Summer Squash & Corn Soup.

I had yellow squash from the market and two ears of leftover corn, so all the ingredients were in the refrigerator! The soup is quite easy to make and we enjoyed it for dinner with some ham. The squash base is really creamy; you almost feel like there is some heavy cream in there somewhere, and of course the corn makes it chewy and crunchy. I did not have feta cheese, which probably adds a nice salty note to the subtle flavor. We crumbled up some herb cheese and it was good, but if you love these two veggies then the cheese isn’t necessary.

There’s a bit left in the refrigerator, so I will try it room temperature and see what it’s like. And, if you are watching calories, the corn is the only “high ticket” item in the soup.

What really tickles me about this recipe is that the Deputy Editor of Eating Well turns out to be a little girl that I taught in Second Grade many years ago! How lovely to find her after all these years. Good job Jessie – I’m finding many recipes I like on your website.

This Week’s Projects

Here are some projects that are on my to do list this week….

These 6″ hooked squares are going to be “mug rugs”; that is mats to put a coffee mug on. My rug hooking group, Foxy Ladies, is demonstrating in the Fall at a craft event and the organizers want us to sell little things. The ladies call these items “smalls”, and many people are making mug rugs. This is not something that I would normally make; I like to make rugs; but I have lots of stray strips of wool and it’s a good way to play with color and design.

I also “had” to start this little hooked piece! (Really.) I will be teaching Primitive Rug Hooking at Pieceful Gathering quilt store again this Fall, and I thought it was time for a new design. This one has the look of an appliqued quilt, which I hope will be appealing. I did a number of designs and let Katie, one of the owners, choose. I will hook all of the designs and then at the second class we plan to invite past students to come and hook and perhaps buy a new design to make. I love the Fallish orange of the leaves and am debating what color the flower should be. The pink wool you can see is too harsh. I’m thinking a blue.

I am continuing to hand quilt the beginning sampler. I spent last Friday afternoon at the Highland Park Historical Society demonstrating hand quilting and competed a whole square. They are hosting a show of crazy quilter Addie Mangian Davis and I volunteered to do some related demonstrations and classes.

Here is the clam shell rug and I have gotten a good bit completed. I worked on it at lot in the evenings last week, and then at the Foxy Ladies’ guild meeting on Saturday. I am very happy with the warmer greens that I dyed. People keep asking what color the outside rows will be, but I want to complete all the green areas and then decide. Peter loves this rug, so it will be his and we’ll choose colors together. It won’t be anytime soon….. it takes a long time to hook this fine wool.

We had a ferocious rain storm Monday morning, hooray! The ground around here hardens into cement when it doesn’t rain, so I have lots of weeding and edging to do while the ground is still workable. If it doesn’t rain, we have to water in order to get the weeds out…. So I have made myself do this less than fun chore for at least an hour each day…. Lots of pretty purples and pinks are out.

What are you working on this week?

Midwest Fiber & Folk Art Fair-

- Registration is Open!

This is the fair’s 5th anniversary and it will be held June 24 – 26 at the Lake County Fairgrounds in Illinois. This will be the second year at this location and I am sure will be better than ever.

I have been teaching there since the beginning and over the years I have taught some fun classes and enjoyed great students. One year I was crazy and taught an all day shibori class. The students were exhausted by the end of the day and I was too! In the morning we did folding and clamping and a bit of sewing,

and in the afternoon, it was on to arashi shibori. I often wonder if any of them still dye…

Last year I offered wool applique.

I think the ladies chose some pretty combinations.

This will be the third year I have taught Primitive Rug Hooking. Here are some of the colors I’ve dyed for class.

And here are a group of ladies happily hooking! Doesn’t it look like fun?

As well as rug hooking, I will also have several hour class/demos on English Paper Piecing. There’s yummy food, music, many, many vendors and lots of interesting artsy people to chat with. There are loads of interesting classes with some “big” name teachers this year, and as I said, registration is open, so I hope you will check out the Midwest Fiber & Folk Art Fair.

Fiber Shows & Summer Plans

Peter and I just took a walk and it barely feels warm enough for Spring, much less Summer, but I continue to get e-mails about shows and thought I would share again. Should you want to enroll in classes, it’s always wise to do it as soon as you know registration is open.

June 24-25      Midwest fiber & Folk Art Fair Grayslake IL

• Celebrating its 5th year, this is a wonderful and growing show. There are lots of great vendors, a show to enter and classes. I am teaching primitive rug hooking  this year.

July 9                Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show Sisters,OR

• This is a very famous one day show where about 1300 quilts (!) are hung all over town! I believe there are other events connected to this show.

July 13-16       American Quilter’s Society Knoxville, TN

• This show is in its 3rd year at this location. Sounds like there is a lot to see and do there!

July 29-31       International Quilt Festival Long Beach,CA   (March 23 online registration)

• This is still a fairly new show for the Quilts, Inc. people. I always want to go to take the tours to fabric designers’ workshops and see all the amazing local quilt stores.

Here’s an idea : have you ever considered going to a crafts camp for a week or two? I went to the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina many years ago for a two-week weaving workshop. It was a fabulous experience. Working in the studio every day, I was able to look out over a large field with the Smokies in the background – a piece of heaven for sure! Studios are open for 24 hours so you can work as much or as little as you like, and there are so many interesting people to talk to. Classes include hot glass, ceramics, paper, jewelry, blacksmithing, and more. The food was wonderful. There were nightly lectures by the teachers and I went to every one, regardless of craft. It is overwhelmingly stimulating and you will be buzzing with ideas for weeks after. Here are some other notable places like Penland to check out:

Arrowmont in Tennessee

Haystack on an island in Maine

Pacific Northwest Art School on Whidbey Island near Seattle

Peter’s Valley Craft School in New Jersey

Harrisville Designs in New Hampshire (weaving & knitting)

And while we’re talking about summer plans,  don’t forget to check out when your county and state fairs are to see quilts! Peter and I went to the Iowa State Fair a few years ago and were amazed at the number of quilts displayed (see photo above) as well as a lot of beautiful needlework. Our Lake County Fair had some quilts last summer, but I think perhaps I should enter this year… Something else for the to do list?