A Little of This, A Little of That

I've been putting in a fair amount of time with my Italy photo album.  I had started on it not too long after I got back and had prints made of LOTS of pictures, but began to realize I was forgetting what a few of the pictures were and so put it aside promising myself to do it right.  So this week I started and have had the pleasure of going back through my Italian posts as I'm going through my album to make a list of what each picture is.  It's been a nice revisit to a truly wonderful experience.  But, I'm telling myself I must never take so many pictures again!  I had ordered a "book" of all my Arno River photos, I had a separate little scrapbook for my Montefioralle visit, and still was having nowhere near enough room in the 300 photo(!) album I had purchased.  Of course, in my own defense, one reason there isn't enough room is because it's a "bi-directional" album which means you can either put three horizontal photos on each page or two verticals (or one horizontal and one vertical), so really you're not getting 300 available slots.  But it is nice not having to turn the album each time you come to a vertical photo.

So, yesterday, after getting yet another small album and putting all my duomo pictures in that one, I moved all the remaining photos in the big book, added as many new ones as I could and still don't have enough room.  And it's almost painful taking out pictures - I love every one of them.  But I will get it done.  I'm thinking I may just have multiple pictures in one pocket ...

I wanted to report on yet another cookbook I bought recently at the library's book sale.  It's "The Pleasures of Cooking for One" by Judith Jones and I find it inspiring.  So far, I've cooked two recipes from it one of which I cooked last night.  It was her "Strata: A Savory Custard".  I've seen strata recipes lots of times but had never got around to trying one.  I didn't follow the recipe exactly (didn't have asparagus), but I stuck to it relatively closely, the outcome was quite tasty, and I think I'll make it again with a few more changes.  So, I'm going to put that one in my recipe collection (here) noting what I did differently last night and what I'll try in the future.  Here's a picture of it fresh from the oven (not very colorful, but it's eggs after all...)

I had to go to the store to get some ham for this recipe and found such a neat thing.  It's a "quarter ham" off the bone and it's already been sliced.  I went ahead and bought it cause I can use it for all kinds of things.  Although as I say in my recipe notes for this dish, next time I'll snitzle up the slices before I put them in the strata.

And one other thing I think I've never posted is pictures of my birthday present from Chris which he had for me when Jamie and I went up to New York.

Chris purchased this at an arts festival and the woman who makes these does them in cast resin.  It looks framed but isn't - so she paints the whole thing and then has to very carefullly paint the "frame" around the picture.  It is about 1-1/8" square.  And I think I'm going to put a different fabric backing in that old frame (I have two of those - they were my mother's) and use foam core behind the fabric so I can put in two tiny brads and hang the pin on it so I can display it which I will really enjoy.




And that reminded me that I could share one of my Italy souvenirs too.  The same type thing although not such careful painting.  I bought this from that huge vendor space in front of I think the Santa Croce cathedral - can't remember for sure.  But I saw the woman painting them and so I know it's really from Italy, not China. :)

And, I think that's all the news from Huntington.  I've got to go chop up some cabbage and slow cook it.  It's still chilly tonight so I'm going to have a big baked potato with cabbage and its broth on top.  That's an idea I came up with when I was doing Weight Watchers and I still love it!

Musings

I am such an idiot or maybe not that bad, maybe just not a consummate journaler/photographer.  I was looking out my windows today at the cold, gray river and thought "hmmm - it almost looks like it's freezing up a little" which wouldn't be too surprising considering that I think it hasn't been above freezing since before I got home from my travels.  Anyway, I decided I needed an outing, got all bundled up and walked down to the river.  It wasn't actually freezing over, but there were little patches of ice which made the water move differently than normal and so from my window, it had the look of non-moving water.  Did I have my camera with me???  No.  Did I have my new phone with its camera with me???  No.  So no pictures of the river in its fairly rare state and no pictures either of two very large flocks of geese which were wandering the riverbank.  There are always ducks there but this was the first time I've seen actual flocks of geese.  The ducks were all in the water which made me really glad I'm not a duck!

So I came back home and put on a pan of prunes to stew.  I've rediscovered stewed prunes the last year or so.  I've made the rediscovery a couple of times in the past and don't know what makes me suddenly decide to stew some prunes after so many years.  But I love them - they're like eating candy in my humble opinion and without guilt - I mean, they're calories of course, but such healthy calories.

And while they were cooking I dipped into a book I bought off one of the bargain tables at our local bookstore and that I am loving.  The title is "Alone in the Kitchen With an Eggplant - Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone".  It's a collection of essays on that subject by various writers and foodie types on their thoughts and experiences of dining alone and cooking (or not) for oneself.  I always hesitate to recommend books if there's any foul language or anything in them which might offend some sensibilities (remember my excitement about the tomato book and then having to recant a little as it got weirder and grosser?) .  This book has some of that periodically since it is writing by a diverse collection of individuals.  But that's not a problem for me if the book is really good and this one is really good.  Not every essay includes a recipe but some do and, of course, some of those are going on my list of things I'm going to try.  If I did half the things I put on to do lists, I'd be a super-achiever! I just went to ABEbooks.com to see if they had this title and I shouldn't have - they have a bunch for $1.00 + $2.63 shipping. But that's only a couple dollars less than I spent and I've been enjoying it without having to wait to get it. But I do love ABEbooks...

Oh, speaking of cooking ideas, I made a recipe that January told me about that uses French green lentils.  While I was with her we were talking food and she told me about this recipe and how she had searched and searched for the lentils and finally found them at a strange little store near where she lives.  So, of course, we went to the store and bought some lentils for both of us.  The recipe she gave me is from the website 101Cookbooks.com which is one of her favorites.  I made it when I got home and as it cooked, I kept tasting and thinking this doesn't have much taste so I started adding various things the recipe suggested you could add if you wanted to and when it was finally done cooking, it was almost a little too tasty.  But I ate it a couple of times and enjoyed it well enough.  Then, last night I had decided I wanted one of my toasted (not grilled) cheese sandwiches with a bowl of tomato soup.  And that made me think of my sister who buys tomato soup by the carton because she uses it with leftovers (any and all) for their lunches in the winter.  Some of the things she's said she puts in I've thought sounded a little strange, but she finally fixed a batch once when I was there and whatever all it had in it, it was real tasty.  So I thought "I'm going to put some of this lentil stuff into the tomato soup" which I did and it was real tasty too and I will probably have that again tonight.  That's one benefit of eating alone and cooking for yourself - you can have the same thing five nights in a row if that's what you feel like doing - don't have to come up with different menus all the time.  So, thanks to January and Virginia both for two ideas that went together very nicely.

What with having a new magnifying lamp, I've returned to my stitching which I had forsaken for quite a while. I've had to work at finding a good position for me, the piece of work, and the lamp, but I think I'm getting there and it is a fantastic aid. I should be working on the 48 count piece that prompted me to ask for the lamp, but so far I've been working on a rug I had last worked on in the summer of 2008!! I took pictures of each project to post to the Yahoo petitpointers group that I belong to and will post them here too.

This, obviously, is the rug.  It's a chart by Joan Adams who I discovered years ago and whose patterns, I think, are beautiful.  She created bunches of charts and I have them all because for a few years, I sold her charts at miniature shows (with her permission, of course).

and this is the start of what will be a sort of Grecian urn type vase with stylized flowers in it.  It's a design taken from a life-sized chart that a woman has commissioned me to do in miniature for her (just the vase - not the whole chart which is quite large).

Once I get over the pleasure of being back to work on the rug (which is kind of an idiotic project since I have absolutely no place I will use it!), I'll get to work on the little vase and it should go pretty quickly.

Guess that's it for now.  I need to go out in that cold and get some groceries...