Learning New Tricks

One thing that has seemed to fill a lot of people's time during this pandemic has been cooking. I think that's brilliant as people can only control what they y eat by cooking their own meals. I've often seen a sign on local restaurants 'Don't Cook Just Eat', which infuriates me. Turns out this is a delivery service that restaurants can contract with to do deliveries. I gather it isn't cheap and they collect their money whether or not the restaurant is selling delivered food, though I could be wrong about this. 

In any case, Bill and I have been out of the habit of eating out much for years now. Once I retired, cooking dinner didn't seem particularly onerous, particularly since I had any number of 'recipes' memorised. My favourite involved starting with sauteed onions and then adding whatever vegetables and possibly meats were on hand. Stir fries cook up quickly and you don't have to use a lot of oil. 

However, I must admit it started to get a bit boring and, far worse, I started gaining weight. So I got out my Betty Crocker's Cook Book from 1987, which has calorie counts for each of its recipes. I had at some point circled the calorie count of any recipe under 300 calories and those are the ones I focussed on. Besides calories, I've been trying to cook less and less red meat and more whole grains and vegetables. I frequently substitute yoghurt for sour cream or oil for bacon fat (it is an American cookbook after all). 

Some of Bill's favourite recipes of late have been cream of mushroom soup and Pennsylvania red cabbage (cooked with brown sugar and apples). I've never, in the 30+ years I've owned this book, looked at the vegetable recipes. We've also discovered that bulgar wheat cooks up as easily as rice and tastes something between white and brown rice. 

So, amazingly, some bulgar wheat cooked up with a vegetable stock cube and some red cabbage and some Brussel's sprouts (shredded and stir fried with a diced onion) is a pretty satisfying meal. Who would have thought?

Threads of Life

 I've just finished a book that I found very moving. Threads of Life by Clare Hunter speaks about not just historical sewing but about the experience of women. It's difficult to describe further without quoting long parts. 

I did fold down one page to return to. It lists the textiles Mary Queen of Scots brought with her on her return to Scotland from France:

For her voyage to Scotland Mary had packed ten cloths of estate (the ceremonial cloths which hung above monarchs' thrones emblazoned with their coat of arms), forty-five bed sets, thirty-six Turkish carpets, twenty-three suits of tapestry, eighty-one cushions, twenty-four tablecloths and a variety of embroidered wall hangings. There was her own wardrobe of fifty-eight dresses, thirty-five farthingales (hooped or padded underskirts), several cloaks and shifts, petticoats, stomachers, drawers and coifs. They encompassed thousands of metres of luxurious fabric: embroidered, appliqued, braided, beriribboned, fringed, tessellated and studded with jewels.

Never mind cloths of estate, she had me at fifty-eight dresses. I wonder how many pairs of shoes she brought?

At the end of the book the author lists websites that hold images of some of the things about which she wrote:

Bayeux Museum: https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/

Conflict Textile Collection: https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/

(https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/conflicttextiles/)

Craftivist Collective:  https://craftivist-collective.com

Embroiderers' Guild: https://embroiderersguild.com

Foundling Museum: https://foundlingmuseum.org.uk

Hunterian Museum: https://gla.ac.uk ( https://www.gla.ac.uk/hunterian/about/video/)

Judy Chicago:  https://www.judychicago.com/

Peace Museum: https://www.peacemuseum.org.uk/ 

(search for textiles)

Peoples' History Museum:  https://phm.org.uk

(banner-display)

Quilt Museum: https://quiltm.org.uk

AKA The Quilters' Guild Museum

(oh, the shop! - and the close ups of items in their collection!)

Sewing Matters: https://sewingmatters.co.uk

(sadly, this is not a secure site?)

Smithsonian Institution: https://si.edu

(search textiles)

National Museum of African American History and Culture:  https://nmaahc.si.edu

Textile Society: https://textilesocoety.org.uk

Victoria and Albert Museum: https://vam.ac.uk

Visual Arts Data Service: https://vads.ac.uk

(search for textiles and enjoy the amazing close up views)

Sewing a Bit

 My WI Craft group has motivated me to sew where little else has. In the good old days we met each month and I would have a teacher lined up to show people embroidery, needle-felting, patchwork, making wax wraps, all sorts of things. We each would take a turn demonstrating something we knew how to do. I think those are the best groups - where everyone participates, giving and taking in turn.

We still meet each month, but on Zoom. Since the technicalities of demonstrating a craft on Zoom are beyond what most of us have the patience for, we've each been released to do our own thing. Eventually we decided to have a theme for each month, with each of us making an interpretation of that - or not. It has yielded some fascinating results. 

Our theme for January was 'snow'. I couldn't come up with anything but 'make something white' which turned out to be a cross body bag from white scraps. I'm not happy with the finished product: it's too wide and the strap is too narrow. So it's likely not finished but just at a resting point.

Our theme for February was 'red', for George Washington's birthday (cherries), the Chinese New Year (red is an auspicious colour in that culture) and of course Valentine's Day. So I made yet another tote bag. 

I can remember where quite of bit of these fabrics originated. Some belonged to Rita. I have a photo of her wearing a red dress made of the taffeta-like fabric of the front pocket. Others were from upholstery fabric samples. The French toile picture is from having my kitchen curtains made at an outlet in Blaydon. I asked for the scraps left over - I'd paid for the fabric after all. 

The inner pocket has some cross-stitching on it. I lined that pocket to protect the back of the stitches. Both the cross-stitch and the lining fabric came from Jan, a lady formerly in my Thursday night craft group. Jan is terminally ill and no longer crafts so she handed over her enormous stash, some of which came my way. I will share photos of this bag with that group and perhaps it will get back to her. Leslie, another lady from that group, gave me quite a bit of the patchwork cottons. She is a crafter who buys the materials for a project, finishes the project and discards any leftovers. About as opposite to me in every way!

The theme for March is 'Easter'. I've no interest in eggs or rabbits, so will likely make another tote bag...perhaps in green.

Strange Lights

Somewhere around Christmas I read that it was OK to leave the tree and decorations up longer this year as they lifted peoples' spirits. I had a think about this but still opted to take it all down in the first week of January as per usual.

I did suggest to Bill we try putting some lights up, though. We have red lights in the dining room (red is supposed to stimulate appetite, not that ours generally is in need of help) and white lights along the stairs. I had it in mind they would be on the bannister, but Bill put them on the ground.

These have turned out to be rather practical, lighting our way without having to turn on either the downstairs lights (even if I did feel that turning on the upstairs lights produced a slightly better photo).

We may need to keep those even after the pandemic (if such a thing happens). I see the neighbours across the street left some lights up in the doorway between kitchen and dining room, also some on one of the trees in their back yard. Another neighbour has lights up in their conservatory. 

Have you done anything to keep a festive/light-hearted spirit in this dark time?

Cajun Gumbo?

Morphy drank a bottle of Breux Bridge and I had a soda. Angie sipped a glass of white wine as she cooked. She cut four chicken breasts into about sixteen piece and set them to one side as she set about preparing the roux. Cajun gumbo is made with roux, a glutinous thickener, as a base. Angie poured peanut oil into an iron-based pan over a hot flame, added in an equal amount of flour, and beat it with a whisk continuously so it wouldn't burn, gradually turning the roux form blond to beige and through mahogany until it reached a dark chocolate colour. Then she took it off the heat and allowed it to cool, still stirring. While Morphy looked on, I helped her chop the trinity of onion, green pepper and celery and watched as she sweated them in oil. She added a seasoning of thyme and oregano, paprika and cayenne peppers, onion and garlic salt, then dropped in thick pieces of chorizo sausage. She added the chicken and more spices, until their scent filled the room. After about half an hour, she spooned white rice on to plates and poured the thick rich gumbo over it. After that, we ate in silence, savouring the flavours in our mouths.

From Every Dead Thing by John Connolly

No idea if this is a good recipe for gumbo (I thought there was okra in there somewhere) and I'm not sure about cooking roux until it is dark brown, but this sure made me want to give this a go. May do a bit more research first.

Grandpa's Birthday

They say women marry men who are like their father. I can't say this has been obvious to me in the past but it might be possible; I need to consider this a bit more. The thought crossed my mind the other day that Bill was a lot like Grandpa: kind, patient, a tinkerer, someone who loves good, well made clothes for a very long time, sociable, a do-er more than a thinker.

Grandpa's father was a blacksmith. I remember reading or hearing somewhere that blacksmiths had an important position in their community, in part because they tended to be quite strong men who mastered fire and metal, but mainly because they were the makers of the tools that all the other craftspeople relied upon having. They were also frequently the repair shop for many household goods.  Not to mention that horses were the made mode of transport of their day and they were the source of horseshoes. The 1880 census says that Grandpa's father was a plough smith, so he was supporting the source of food. The 1900 census tells us he was now called a blacksmith, also that he immigrated from Germany in 1868, at the age of 27. He was 53 and his wife, Catherine 40, when Grandpa was born.

Grandpa's mother died when he was 11, in 1905, and his father when he was 17, in 1911 (and I thought I was young when mine died: 32 and 34). He was the youngest of eight children.  Three of Grandpa's siblings died before he was born: a girl aged one, another girl aged 16 (along with her twin babies) and a boy aged three. The rest of the family reached maturity. The last to die was Grandpa's eldest brother, John, who predeceased Grandpa by 10 years. I was seven years old when John died and I remember Grandpa being very sad. He said the John had largely raised him. 

I always count myself very lucky to have had Grandpa in my life. He is still one of the best men I've ever known.

Mom's Birthday

I've spent some time wondering what I might write about Mom this year. I feel I'm overlooking something that would be obvious had the world not gotten so weird of late, but there it is. Then I remembered a Facebook meme sent by my friend, Vivien. 

My reply was that either this was addressed to younger people or it was a British more than American thing. I could only identify a few things I remembered Mom as saying, and quite I few I couldn't even imagine her ever coming up with.  She may have said "Because I said so" or "Ask your Dad", I'm sure she said the thing about taking someone's eye out. 

Were you born in a barn?  This is a saying that circulated in the US not long before Mom died. She would have said "Shelley! Mind your manners. When ____ we do ____.

Move away from the TV, you'll get square eyes. She may have said I would hurt my eyes, but 'square eyes' wasn't mentioned. She often encouraged me to 'sit up straight'.

You wait until your Dad gets home. Mom was the primary disciplinarian in our house. She may have said something like Your father will not be impressed with this.

Who's SHE? the cat's mother? I think this is quite British. I gather - reading between the lines - that it's considered rude to refer to someone as 'she' if they are present. I am guessing they are supposed to always be referred to by name. No idea if this also applies to He. 

Do as I say not as I do. I think Mom may have said this a couple of times, but more along the lines of sheepishly acknowledging she didn't set a good example than to issue orders.

Eat your crusts, you'll get curly hair.  I'm not sure if this is a stick (that curly hair is bad) or a carrot (that curly hair is desirable). In any case, I've always liked bread crusts - in fact they are my favourite part - and I spent a good part of my childhood in hair curlers.

There is no such word as CAN'T  I don't believe she said this, but rather "You won't know unless you try."

Say 'Pardon', not 'What'  Pardon would have been considered an affectation where and when I grew up. She would have instructed me to say 'Excuse me? I didn't catch what you said'. I gather from various reading that here in Britain 'Pardon' is working class or perhaps regional (Bill's daughter Helen says it since marrying a man from Manchester). As I recall people here seem to say 'Sorry' for when they can't hear or when they bump into people. 'Excuse me' seems to be used when they want someone to most out of their way. We say that for the same purpose in the States, only followed by 'please'.

I've told you a thousand times   I'm sure Mom must have said this - doesn't every parent? - but I can't remember her saying it. She might ask me 'What have I said about...?'

What did your last slave die of? Mom didn't employ sarcasm, she was just straightforward. I do remember the first time she said 'Get it yourself'. I thought I'd die of shock, but at 12 years of age it was long overdue.

I want never gets  Not an American saying. However, I was definitely taught not to ask for things. I could say what I would like to have in a general way, or issue a wish list for Christmas or Birthdays, but not to whine and wheedle to my parents all the time - that was the surest way NOT to get something. And it was supremely bad manners to ask anyone else to give me anything; they had to offer first. When we were in funds I was allowed to chose one treat at the supermarket and I remember eating a basket of cherry tomatoes or a bag of cherries in the back seat on the way home. I expect I could have had candy, but I didn't like it nearly as much, which is very much down to the way they raised me. Being taught not to ask for things has sometimes proven to be a handicap. I have wondered, would  they would have trained a boy in the same way?

Back in my day... Mom's childhood was different - and in some ways far more privileged - than mine. Her father's family was well known and respected in southern Oklahoma. Her father was a road contractor and she and Grandmother travelled with him for at least the first five years of Mom's life - they lived in a tent until then. This sounds hard but they had servants AKA as 'coloured help'. I often heard about Gussie, who brought Mom a chocolate bar and a bottle of Coca Cola for her breakfast in bed. She said Gussie spoiled her. There were times when they were quite poor, but everyone was during the Depression. When Grandmother married a second time to an astute businessman Mom had quite a few luxuries again. But I always understood Mom made her own luxuries through her creative talents. I don't remember complaining about having it hard, because she was so clever about making things pretty or special in a way that other kids' Mom's didn't seem to know how to do. 

What's for dinner, mum? Shit with sugar on. Mom didn't swear beyond 'damn' or 'hell' and only then when really annoyed. She did sometimes fix S.O.S. which in military parlance was 'Shit On a Shingle' (meat in white sauce on bread). She never called it anything other than 'chipped beef on bread'.

No pudding unless you eat your dinner We rarely had pudding - dessert - and I don't expect there were many times I didn't eat my dinner; a lot of the time I asked for seconds. The only time we routinely had dessert was at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sometimes she did make pudding (AKA custard in Britain) for a snack or a treat, but not as part of a meal.

If your mate asked you to jump off a cliff, would you? She may have said this, I don't recall. What I do remember was complaining about what other kids were allowed to do. Her reply was that I wasn't Jill or Sarah, I was Shelley J__ B___. I recall one time when she was trying to get me to conform to something she said, Why not be more like Joanne or Mary? My smart reply was because I was Shelley J__ B____... She laughed.

It'll all end in tears  She'll have said something to this effect, but not these words. 

It's like Blackpool bloody illuminations in here.  I'm sure I never heard of Blackpool until moving to Newcastle - and having been once I can report that there are a lot of neon lights there. I'm guessing this is a complaint about too many lights on in the house. I don't recall us being very conscientious about the electric bill in this way, though I expect we should have been. 

Mom wasn't at all like the person described in these sayings. She was tough as nails in a determined sort of way, but decidedly a Southern lady in all her endeavors. Her hardest battle was to try to make me into one.