Summer Food 07-06-13

There are foods that go with seasons - pumpkins for fall, soup for winter, spring greens and abundant fresh fruit and veggies in the summer.   Although Americans now can have anything anytime of year - shipped in from somewhere else.  However, the freshness of locally grown food seems worth waiting for. 


This is the sandwich from a previous year. 
Tomatoes are wonderful and for years I always grew my own, one or two bushes/vines was always enough.  Then they started bothering my stomach and I cut down eating them and stopped growing them.  However, about this time of year I start craving a bacon, tomato, lettuce sandwich on sourdough bread spread with mayo.  Yummy, a taste from my childhood.  This morning I had breakfast out and brought home two of the bacon slices.  Now, I just have to find someone local who is growing tomatoes.  I just need one that has  ripened on the vine.
 

Way back in July 2009 Meg Messervy in Australia shared a salad recipe that sounds odd, but is DELICIOUS!  I sometimes have a hard time finding fresh radishes (and TJoe's doesn't carry them - ever!), but the radishes are a must.  There isn't an exact recipe that I know of, you have to experiment to get a combo that you like.  You need watermelon cut into about one inch squares, a fresh orange also cut into about one inch pieces, radishes sliced rather thick, and sliced black olives.  Mix these all together and refrigerate for an hour or so before serving.  I like to cut the orange over the bowl so the juice is included in the salad.  Serve this mixture on lettuce or stir it into the salad - Meg likes mixed small greens and I like cut up Romaine.  Mix together olive oil and fresh lemon juice, whip well and pour over the salad just before serving.    For just myself I use half of an orange, about a cup of cut watermelon, half a small can of sliced black olives, and maybe six walnut-sized radishes.  Or I use twice as much and save half for the next day, but don't include the lettuce, it needs to be fresh.
With cheese melted on a piece of bread this is a fabulous summer meal. 
Happy Summer to you all.

Friday Feet 07-05-13

Standing in line at Subway I noticed that this young woman had to stand on tip-toe to see over the counter, just like I do.  The shorties in this world have to compensate.  I always think of my sister when I see an ankle bracelet - she wore them before she married and our mother just had a fit every time because it was "trashy".  Aw, ma!


Big Fork, MT  06-12-12 at Subway Sandwiches
 

Big Fork, MT 06-12-12 at Subway Sandwiches

But I really liked her shoes (how many names are there for flip flops?) with the fringe around the strap.   Perfect with raggedy pedal pushers, only I know they are called something different these days.  Everything old is new again with a renaming!

Mimosa blooming time 07-04-13

There is usually some kind of tree blooming in Southern California.  The Jacarandas are just finished, but the mimosa trees are in full flower now. 

 

We planted a tiny mimosa from a pot in the front yard of the townhouse in Fullerton and it quickly grew into a huge pile of pink blossoms in the summer.  Floyd didn't mind raking and sweeping, there is always something dropping from the tree - leaves, flowers, pods - but after we started renting it out the tenants were not interested in the job.  Before long the Homeowners Association had the tree removed because it was buckling the driveways.  I hate to drive by the house, but easily avoid it because I sold it about ten years ago. 

The flowers always make me think of little pink fairies.

 

They are very sturdy trees, growing up to 30 feet in a good location.

 

Very fine "hairs" about two inches long form the flowers.

 

 

The pods hang-on into the following year.  In the winter when the leaves have all fallen, when the wind blows the pods rattle.  The sound is like bamboo wind chimes.

 

I am not very hopeful that the crepe myrtles will have a good bloom this year - too dry and not many of them receive landscape watering.   There are at least two dead trees on our street where they were planted when the houses were built some 50 years ago.  And a number have been remove over the years.  I hope mine survives to bloom again.

 

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Wordless Wednesday 07-03-13

 

Glimpses of Quilt National opening. 07-02-13

The opening of Quilt National - 2013 was May 24 and 25 in Athens, OH, at the Dairy Barn Cultural Arts Center.  I planned a Road Trip around it, which I enjoyed very much (except for the tornadoes).  But at the time I ran out of steam by the end of the day and didn't blog much about the event.  So, I will do so in little drips and drabs over the next few weeks. 


On Sunday everyone who could squeezed into the gallery to hear the artists speak about their work and the specific quilt they have in QN '13. In the center of this picture is Marianne Burr talking about "Thru the Lens".  Marianne says that she is primarily an embroiderer and her quilts are covered with very detailed even hand stitching to create the image.  Her quilt is the cover of the catalog.  www.marianneburr.com
In the background are quilts by Anne Smith, Catherine Kleeman, and Susan Shie.
 

One activity that the artists seem to enjoy is acquiring the signatures of the other artists. They carry their catalogs around and form these little knots of autograph hunters.  I usually join in, but I didn't do much of it this time - don't know why.  Here we have Kris Sazaki (of the Pixeladies and also President elect of SAQA), Susan Polansky, Leslie Bixel, Beth Smith (Director of Visions Art Museum/SDiego), and Deb Cashatt (the other half of the Pixeladies).  Background left is "Bow" by Sylvia Gegaregian and on the right, "Moonset" by Brienne Elisabeth Brown.
 

Deidre Adams with her quilt "Tracings III"  60"square.
This is one of my favorites in this exhibit.  She has used the technique/style that she has developed over the past years, refining and "growing" it into this amazing blend of texture and color.  This quilt sold immediately or I would have added it to TCQC.  The image in the catalog doesn't do it justice and neither does this one - one too dark and this one with a gallery spot shining directly on it.  www.deidraadams.com

 

Here is a close up of Deidra's quilt.  It has been heavily quilted and then painted so that the higher parts of the surface show the paint.  The white rings are added by hand around each "rock".
 

"Solar City" by Katherine Knauer who stands beside her quilt talking of her art.  That is not a microphone in her hand, but a recording device set up by QN staff. 
This is one of the most "traditional" quilts in the exhibit, but only by comparison to what else is hanging.  I think this is the "happiest/sunniest" quilt in the exhibit.  No website.
 

"No One But You" was made by Susan Polansky (picture above) and is another of my favorites.  The details are marvelous and viewed from a distance it just made me smile.  Another happy quilt.  www.susanpolansky.com
 

Isn't it amazing that these details read as they do from a distance.
 

 
"The Conversation" and artist Mary Ann Tipple.  This diptych is 72"W and 92"L.  A large piece that makes a striking impression from a distance.  It is hung at the end of the gallery so that it can be seen when visitors first walk through the door.  This is Mary Ann's father and his sister in the late 1930s.  She comments "since they are on two panels they can be switched to positions of agreement and disagreement.  I admire Mary Ann's work very much and have one of her large quilts (but not this large!) in TCQC.  This quilt sold at the opening.
www.textilearttipple.com
 

Monday Browsing 07-01-13

For cat lovers:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6uL0WURuZ4

(Love the “ear fall”)

Many of us have read “Drawing with the right side of the Brain”.  Here are a few more differences between left and right: 

 http://mail.aol.com/37834-111/aol-6/en-us/mail/DisplayMessage.aspx?ws_popup=true

Craig’s List fan?  Crazy about antique mirrors?  Antique hunter?  This is a great story:

http://victoriaelizabethbarnes.com/huge-victorian-antique-mirror/

Sleepy time!       https://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?v=138747322997129&set=vb.144957385672240&type=2&theater  

Deborah Boschert has done some tabulating in the Quilt National catalog which I find interesting.  No conclusions, just the things she observed, but she has not seen the actual exhibit in Athens, Ohio.     http://deborahsjournal.blogspot.com/2013/07/quilt-national-2013-stats.html

Portals

A motel entrance in Barstow, CA, repeated across the country.  This is an HEI, but almost every place I stay has this type of doorway.  A very current portal.