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Natural regard

Nature is constantly looking at us, human and otherwise. We are a curious bunch!

The experience of 'looking back' is multi-faceted: it expands with practice.

Two-eyed creatures are readily engaged in a mutual appraisal. People with pets know this. Dogs and cats and horses, for sure. Budgies and turtles and guppies are more fleeting and more dramatic. Nature unfettered gives the satisfaction of something wild captured for a brief moment in a stare: chickadee, seal, ladybug, heron, slug..........

A rock is one big eye.

Gaze on a tree in its winter bare state and wait on the realization that it is a multitude of eyes; in summer the leaves are its eyelashes.

A willow tree just after a rain, when the sun pops out and the wind shows off the shimmer, wins its staring contest with me: I have to close my eyes in overwhelm.

STROLL THROUGH STASH <> A Knitting Cookbook

This was a post from ten years ago. The salad continues to please me, only now I use only olive oil. And the cookbook morphed into something different.

(* title explained at the end)

I love quality ingredients lovingly prepared and thoughtfully presented. This applies to cooking and to knitting: a 'feast' results that satisfies and pleases body, mind and spirit. Knitting and food are often intertwined.

Caesar Salad : Simply the Best

The Basic Ingredients

1/2 cup oil
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp vinegar
garlic clove
worcestershire sauce
mustard
kipper or anchovy or.........
egg

croutons
parmesan cheese
lettuce

It's what you do with these basic ingredients that produce the best Caesar salad for you because with instructions as a guide, not a command, the result is suited to the individual.

In a blender put the lemon juice and vinegar. I usually use bottled lemon juice and white vinegar but when I was experimenting with an eggless version I used a fresh lemon and grated in a bit of skin (zest does sound better!) and this was pleasant. It seems that a vinegar like malt or cider would be too strong.

Add a garlic clove: start with a small one - you can always add more: experience speaking: I have made dressings that were eye-watering and tongue-furring, which was distracting from the enjoyment and needed the rationalization that harmful germs were likely being killed off to keep me (and sometimes guests!) eating the salad.

Add a few shakes of worc., sauce - I use about three or four depending on the season of the year and my need for more or less 'spiciness' at the moment. Again you can always add more.

Now - as for the mustard - you can use the plain old yellow hot dog stuff but I prefer the richer-coloured and richer-tasting Dijon. How much? Hmmm. Well, I stick a knife in the jar and swirl it around and come up with a certain amount that looks good, drop it into the blender and scrape off the knife if it feels right. Again, you can add more. Sometimes I use mustard powder and then it's about 1/2 or more of a teaspoon.

I like the 'fishy' taste in a Caesar so almost always add about a teaspoon of plain kippered herring which I buy tinned and keep frozen in a small container in the freezer. Sometimes I use anchovy paste. Sometimes I use tinned anchovies.

The egg. Controversy here! Do what feels right for you. Apparently you can coddle an egg and use this - (I have no idea how this is done - check out Joy of Cooking, they'll know) - which removes the risk of being poisoned by - what, salmonella, isn't it, from a raw egg. And using a hard boiled egg is said to work (I'll try this and let you know: coddling is beyond me). I use raw eggs, organic ones. But then at times I feel alarmed enough by those who caution and say "Never!" so that I don't. The eggless version is - okay. Having said that I'll give it another try this afternoon and let you know.

At this point put lid on blender and mix it all up. I guess medium speed. I have an old Waring machine that has one speed and it does just fine. Once it looks all nice and mixed, carefully take off lid (or the nifty center piece that allows access through the lid) and slowly begin to dribble in the oil. Within ten seconds or so you should have a lovely fragrant creamy dressing. Taste it. Think about it. Would a bit more mustard benefit? Garlic? Worc., sauce? Fish? Don't rush this part. Give yourself time to 'stop and taste the flavours'. It sometimes helps to take a piece of lettuce and dip it in the dressing and taste. I don't add pepper, and the fish is salty enough. Do what feels right.

Oh - a word about oil. Sometimes I use vegetable oil. Sometimes, when I want more of a Mediterranean taste (and the benefits!) I use olive oil. Both work. But they do give a different taste, so experiment. Duck a finger into both and decide before you add. It may be a Prairie canola day. Or a Tuscany one. You'll know. And you'll feel satisfied for having taken the time to make a choice.

By the way, as I was making this dressing for dinner last evening I found I kept glancing down and admiring my Jesus sandals. Now I would have no idea of calling them this but it is a fitting name. I 'chanced' on the description two days ago in an Eric Wright mystery book, the one taking place in England, with Charlie Salter and wife Annie on vacation, (Death In The Old Country). A police Inspector notes the rope footwear of one of his undercover officers and calls them Jesus sandals. I looked from the page to the sandals I had just purchased and was wearing on my feet. Then smiled in amazement and amusement at the serendipity.

Now I am regarding these sandals analytically. They have a rope sole and three ropes come out on each side, spaced, at the front of the foot, cross over the foot, intertwine, meet at one point of attachment at the back of the foot halfway along the heel. Two joined side-by-side ropes catch these three ropes on either side and circle back around the ankle. The sandals are amazingly comfortable and totally adjustable. I'll get a photo of them and you can see for yourself. Of course I am now thinking on how to 'knit' them. What comes to mind is knitting a rectangle and densely felting it, cutting two soles for each shoe from this, and then cutting strips, putting it all together with the strips attaching between the double soles. Or - knitting a sole shape and using I-cord for the ropes. Rope knitting is challenging.

Back to the salad.

Croutons. Once you've had croutons that make 'sense' you'll find it hard to accept those dry, powdery, usually chemical-tasting 'nonsense' lumps of (supposed!) bread that often accompany a Caesar salad or are sold for same. Try this. Take a nice thick slice or two of bread, like French or Sourdough, (the latter is my very favourite) and toast it lightly. Let it cool somewhat and then cut it into bite-sized pieces. Put the dressing in the bottom of a salad-bowl-with-a-story (this far into the cookbook you will know what I mean - or can imagine it!) and then mix the croutons into the dressing. 'Commonsensical' croutons are crisp but soft enough to hug up some dressing.

Add the lettuce - Romaine is really the only lettuce that stands proudly enough to do the dressing justice - toss and serve. I suggest you put the parmesan (worth the effort to seek out something worthwhile here) on the table in a shaker or bowl with a wooden spoon and allow for individuals to add it or not. Same with a pepper mill. (I hate the lingeringly-trendy practice of a server in a restaurant showing up with a massive pepper mill, cradling it like some fine wine, offering to crank it over your salad until you say "when" and expecting you are a woos if you don't go along with a substantial covering. I am a total woos and decline, I suspect, making a face. Truth is I seem to react to the pepper and so it is a food aversion rather than a simple dislike.

Here's another strong feeling due to experience. Salads at room temperature - that's lettuce, dressing, additions - are the best! The very best! Chilled ingredients - well, - chill the taste buds. It is so common to have salads 'cold' that unless we try the alternative we may never get the chance to make the choice.

What are you eating the salad with? This is not an idle or rhetorical question. On some level I anticipate and receive a response and if it is before the fact - well, I don't understand that, but I do acknowledge and appreciate it. I suggest you try the teriyaki chicken breasts described somewhere else in this book. (If I give a page number then I risk it not matching in the finished book - easier to avoid by having you look it up in the index. If it's wrong - well, hey.........)

Just took another peep at the sandals and my feet responded to the eye gaze with a tiny dance.

*Why the Name: A Stash is what Knitters call their supply of wool, acknowledging the fact that it might suggest an addiction. To me, since I knit with anything I think might work - wool, cotton, linen, twine, plastic, ribbon, shoe laces, vines, fabric cut into strips, hair, kelp etc. - the idea of 'stash' is rather limitless. And when we 'stroll' through 'stash' anything is possible. Stash signifies the basic, raw ingredient. And since knitting and cooking blend often easily and readily in my life - thus the name.

Garage sale treasure: pocket watch stand

I had no  idea what this was when I saw it on a miscellaneous table at a garage sale;  sometime the objects surrounding give a clue; not this time. I had to inquire.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The side view was as interesting as the front.  At this point it reminded me of something nautical.

It was solid to the touch. Worthwhile.  Weighty.

I had just come from a garage sale where the person did not know what an item was or where it had come from and seemed a bit cagey about my inquiries (this happens often enough to make me increasingly curious about the whys and leads to some interesting speculation in the weekly church sale line-ups).

However the seller knew exactly what this item was.  A pocket watch stand!  

Well, being immersed in Downton Abbey, film and  book, I could immediately  'see' that stand on one of the gentlemen's bureaus.  

"Are you interested?" the seller asked as I was admiring it.

I told him I  had no use for it but it was very lovely and likely had quite the history.

Then he gave it to me.

I accepted it with gratitude, saying I was not sure what I would do with it beyond admiring it, thinking that perhaps this was yet another incidence of being a 'catalyst'.  He said that was fine.

It sat in the living room for a few weeks, being admired .... waiting ......

  

It was waiting for me! 

The pocket watch without its band (I forget what happened to it; have some notion that I also got it at a garage sale years ago without a band) which has been leaning against the kitchen window for years,  suddenly ticked or blinked or whatever watches do to catch one's attention and.....  some black twine got attached as a hanger ..... it now 'stands out'.

 

Victoria, BC; snow, sort of .....

When I got up this morning it was snowing.  There was a snow warning.  When I went out for my morning walk those puffy snow flakes had turned to rain.  Likely the excitement of seeing that they were about to land on green grass and snowdrops and forsythia and daffodils  made them melt.

However this car was parked and it had snow on it.  One takes one's snow where one finds it.  And one remembers, after forty-four winters in Ontario, how to make - and throw - a snowball. 

 

PS  It is snowing again.  Oh, wait, no, it isn't .... wait twenty minutes.

 PPS  My Ontario relatives would consider, from that tiny snow splat on the wall, that I had made a snowmarble.

Home : You are where you sit

The quest:  comfortable seating.

The reasons:  physical:  living in different countries such as India, Belize, Turkey, Iran and experiencing floor sitting, charpoys,  hammocks;
'playing house' across many years having tub chairs, basket chairs, modern chairs, antique chairs, rocking chairs; having  clawfoot bathtubs, Japanese bathtubs, regular bathtubs; constructing window seats, gazebo benches,  driftwood seats, swing seats; travelling in car seats, train seats, airplane seats;  discovering the variety of toilet seats in Canada, Europe, Turkey, Iran, India, Belize.

psychological:  realizing that the degree of relaxation we experience wherever, whenever and however we sit affects the situation in like manner in which we are seated - office, living room, classroom, restaurant, theatre, cruise ship, bathroom, doctor/dentist etc. office, garden, church, vehicle etc.

- communication improves in a relaxed seating - with other people, with ourselves.
- communication can increase when the people are not facing each other; for instance, a parent and child in a car or people sitting watching birds at a feeder or water flowing in a fountain.

The practice:  give thought and consideration to the choice of where we seat ourselves;  choose seats for comfort; consider beyond conventional for conventional settings - deck chairs in the living room.... ;    "put feet up" - foot stools, daybeds, coffee tables, storage cubes, magazine racks...... ;  face seating outside - face windows,
face doors...... ;  plant the garden for 'home appeal', not 'curb appeal.'  Curb appeal happens with 'home appeal' focus.

Experiment with an open window with a screen, an open window without a screen.

Considering how many minutes we sit in a day, it makes sense to assure our comfort when doing so.

Curbside art ...... branches

(re-p0st)

I'm not sure if it is people out in their gardens in February, pruning, that causes the city to schedule the branch pickup for then;  or if the branch pickup gets people out in their gardens, pruning.  In any case, I thought how wonderful it was to see all this curbside art.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A green ......  Xmas?  .......tree.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Artist in minimalist period.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Car must just squeeze by.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beautiful backdrop.  A play, not a painting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dried bouquet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The textures .... oh, the textures and the hues.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This would likely come when called.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe  from Xmas 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No bud vase in the car, darn;  dashboard has to do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then it snowed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The house sale is likely purely coincidental.  

Forsythia ... indoors.

Pruning is happening and piles of branches are appearing on boulevards waiting on the city pickup. A week or so ago these were lifeless-looking twigs stacked by the curb.  My car brakes and does u-turns for garage sales and possibly forsythia branches.  The reward is huge.

Apron/pinafore: beyond the kitchen; clothing with meaning # 2

An apron tends to evoke pleasant memories and wearing clothing that has meaning is a major reason I am 'taking it beyond the kitchen'. 

This is the basic shrug design.  While wearing the variations of it over the past few months its 'apron qualities' (in the garden, kitchen and doing carpentry) nudged enough to bring the design to mind in this series on aprons.  Again, the pinafore element which is particularly satisfying.

I considered using linen but what I have on hand is either too light or too heavy (and a piece of heavyish linen is waiting in the wings for another apron idea);  this woven material proved very suitable. 

People are becoming increasingly  aware of the beneficial effect of meaning in what they are wearing.  

Ladybug dancing

A sign of spring is ladybugs appearing indoors on windows.  I think this one was dancing.  I think it might have been the Jitterbug.

MOZART AND THE PAPER

re-post

I was standing out on the front verandah enjoying the early morning, that time of day that seems to be in chunks:  bird song in chunks, sunlight sliced into wedges by the tree trunks, fragrance of the nighttime past coming across in cubes of scent. 

Suddenly the sound of whistling came dancing through the air not in chunks but in crystals of music.  I could not see anyone but the pieces seemed to be getting louder if not coming closer; at least that was how I thought of it then: it was so incongruous that it didn't seem a person need be involved, simply some magic of nature, not human.  However a very human paperman suddenly strode the pathway joining this house with next door and startled when he saw me. 

I told him I was glad to hear him whistling.  "It's Mozart," he told me.  I thought perhaps he might be joking.  He was not.  "Greatest composer," he went on, handing me the newspaper, and then he whistled some more crystals as he strode away.  I am not at all familiar with classical music so do not know what piece (I don't think it is called a tune or a song, is it) he was expressing.  But it was very beautiful.