Pick Only One (Really?)

 I recently downsized my 27' RV trailer to an 18' RV trailer. It's just me now and the old RV just had too many memories. Much less storage! I can't have ALL my coffee making methods on board. So . . . which one should I pick?! I can rule out the drip maker because it's just too large. I like the sentimental value of the percolator, but the French press is so darn simple, but it doesn't keep things warm. I just don't know.

Fountain pen, watercolor pencils and water brush. 

No Spark Joy

I've been making strides to get rid of "stuff". Our daughter gave me a copy of Marie Kondo's book on "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up". I can't bring myself to apply it everywhere, but she makes a persuasive case that we don't need to keep all the things we have. I even like the challenge it presents to think it all through and question the past. She has a better way to fold cloths in your dresser. Her acid test for keeping something is great. Does it "spark joy". Love it!

So, I made this sketch for some things that don't spark joy anymore. The CD player is very very old by technology standards. It was the first generation mobile player. It still plays but the sound skips with the slightest bump! Not sure if there is someone out there that would find joy in this or not. It's not junk, though (yet).

The mini waffle iron never really sparked joy. I found it in a discount bin. Such a buy! Really marked down . . . such a steal! That little voice in my head said 'don't' but I did. Never used it.

The coffee mug I never wanted. I found it at a local art/craft fair. The artist had two mugs. Both different but roughly similar. I fell in love with the other one and she made me a (marginal) deal if I bought both. The other one still 'sparks joy'. This one not.

So, these will all go to Goodwill. Every little bit helps clear the house. We have a basement, though, that I need to hit, and I've been avoiding it. I want to develop my editing skills before I/we hit it to improve my confidence because it will be tough.

Quality Not

They just don't make things like they used to! In the last two months we aged out our coffee maker and toaster. I still try to support local stores, so we went to Walmart to replace the coffee maker. Mr. Coffee has been at it a lot of years so I purchase a standard 12-cup version. It brewed fine, but the built-in clock ran three times faster than normal. The 2-hour hotplate shut-off in under one hour. That also meant the timer start fails. Many tries - many fails. I then did a Google search and found that this brand has had this problem for the last 1.5 years. But they have great customer service. A quick message chat on their Facebook page and they sent a replacement. The replacement works great. It just seems like a good quality assurance program would have caught this and saved everyone a headache. I also had to throw away the new-but-defective brewer. That's a lot of landfill!

Then the toaster gave up the ghost. Both of these had over 10 years of service so I don't fault them. The new toaster from Target wasn't the entry level so I expected it to work. However, the lever to load the bread failed to stay down after a couple days use. I had to hold it down manually to complete the toast cycle. It's junk, too! And yet such a pretty thing. The Oster company isn't as helpful. I need to deliver it to the local authorized service center, which is 60 miles away and requires proof of purchase. Who keeps receipts these days? Things should work! The credit card printout for the month lists it, though. Tomorrow we're going to KC for some shopping. The service center said they will determine if they can fix it or have Oster send me a replacement. I suspect it will end up OK, but what ever happened to quality construction!?

This is my first home sketch of the year. It feels great! I don't like being away from sketching for as long as I have, but that's life. The font I used on the title and the appliance descriptions came from a fountain pen Facebook group posting. I thought it was a beautiful font, so I'm trying it out.

Fresh Produce

We've been busy lately. The garden and fruit trees are bearing fruit and we're in the throws of canning. I just love this time of year, even though it gets quite hectic. Wilma and I were both raised in households that had gardens and canning was the norm. Just like home. None of my co-workers get it. Not many of the younger generation do. It's a shame. I like seeing the new interest that some of the younger ones have. A renewed interest in eating better and reducing dependence on the convenient pre-fab foods is good. That's part of my interest, too. Studies have linked a correlation between cancers and the emergence of the "Western Diet" that we all grew up with. I love eating the products of our land, too. It just seems like the right thing to do.

Wilma and I have been doing this long enough that we don't speak much when we have the canning wheels in motion. We each know what the steps are. Depending on what the product is, one will be in charge and the other is the sous chef. It's not a perfect process, though. We're still not mind readers and sometimes we miss. It all works out in the end, though.

Another Batch

Many years ago my daughter-in-law made me a batch of aftershave for part of a Christmas present. I found that I really liked it. It doesn't have the strong heavily-perfumed presence of commercially made aftershaves. Many months later I needed a refill and she said it was easy to make and gave me the recipe. It was a recipe of rough proportions and left room for interpretation, but it worked!  Now it's what I use most of the time. 

I found that recipes vary a great deal in the liquids used, and the ratio of essence oils to the main liquids ranges all over the place. I kept with the pine needles and eucalyptus essence oils. So many to choose from. Maybe the next batch will have a change.

The use of rum intrigues me. It's in the shaving soap I just bought, too. It must be part of the heritage of men's toiletries. I don't really go for rum drinks. Rum and coke tasted good when I was in college but not so much now. So I don't have any emotional ties to the rum smell, but I do like it in shaving products. I may research that more.

Sharpening Tradition

I like the old-school way of sharpening knives. Our kitchen knives needed some TLC, and I always take some time in the holiday season to get them in great shape again. It's getting hard to find the supplies any more to do this type of sharpening. The world wants FAST and NOW. That means power grinding wheels, ground diamond stones and sticks, and other fast-is-better-forget-quality approaches. That's just not how I view things, so I do it the slow and steady way. The proof is in the finished blade seen with a magnifying glass.

When you consider what the routine tasks are for a kitchen knife, any sharpening method will get the job done. If I'm making a sandwich, store bought bread makes a sandwich just as functional as home-made bread. There's more to life than 'functional'.

On a lighter note, I can now sleep soundly knowing our butcher block of knives are all in top working condition. It may seem like such an invisible thing that doesn't mean much, but it does to me. They are the right tool for the job!

A Couple Recipes

No sketches today. Just a couple bread machine recipes as requested. My usual bread is a standard recipe with either bread flour or a mix of bread flour with whole wheat flour. I usually throw in some wheat germ and ground flax seed. I think every bread machine comes with a recipe list that includes a basic bread recipe that works fine. Of all four machines I've used, the basic recipe always performs well.

Here are two recipes I make when I want something that's not the standard loaf:

CREAM OF WHEAT BREAD (I don't make it all the time, it's a treat. Makes the best toast with butter and honey! I make this when our grown daughter visits, too. It's her favorite. I cut off the rounded top in a really thick slice that JUST fits in the toaster for her. She's putty in my hands.)

milk   1C
butter   1/4 C
eggs   1
sugar   2 Tbs
salt   2 tsp
bread flour   2 C
cream of wheat (uncooked)   1 C
yeast   1 1/2 tsp

This is a medium size (3 cups flour size). If you want small or large, let me know.


BRANDIED PUMPKIN BREAD (From Gold Medal Bread Machine Recipes book. Just made this last night and I'm in LOVE. Soft. Semi-sweet. Moist. Plus I'm a pumpkin nut.) Use the Sweet or Basic/White cycle.

canned pumpkin    3/4 C  (plain pumpkin, not pumpkin pie can)
water   1/2 C
brandy extract or vanilla   1/2 tsp
butter   2 Tbs
bread flour    3 C
sugar   1/4 C
salt   1 1/4 tsp
pumpkin pie spice   1/2 tsp
yeast   2 1/4 tsp

Spicy Glaze (drizzle over loaf after it cools)
powdered sugar   1/2 C
milk   1 to 2 Tbs milk
pumpkin pie spice   dash

This is a medium size (3 cups flour size). My new machine can handle a larger loaf, so the one I used is large (4 cups flour size):

canned pumpkin    1 C  (plain pumpkin, not pumpkin pie can)
water   1/2 C plus 2 Tbs
brandy extract or vanilla   3/4 tsp
butter   2 Tbs
bread flour    4 C
sugar   1/3 C
salt   1 1/4 tsp
pumpkin pie spice   1/2 tsp
yeast   1 3/4 tsp (yes, it's less than the medium size)

I come from a German bloodline and Wilma's bloodline is even more-so. Breads are a big thing. The carb-free movement is of no interest to me. Those are almost fighting words. Hope you try these recipes and share my joy.

Junk Is Junk

I haven't had much luck buying a bread machine that is built well. I just purchased my fourth one. They wear out if you use them on a regular basis like I do. Two electric knives have worn out, too. They're junk!

My fourth machine is a Panasonic and I can tell the design is better than my prior models. The on-line reviews are great, too. We'll see how it holds up.

I'll be going back to a plain bread knife, too. Nobody makes a more durable electric knife that I can find on-line. I give up. It can't be that hard to make a better knife! The trigger switches have all worn out. I suspect they are not designed for the high vibrations of the reciprocating blades.

I think the problem is that I'm not the statistically average consumer that the designers consider. I use these products on a regular basis. They design for the occasional user, and probably prefer the user that simply stores the gear away and never uses them. It's a sad state of affairs.

Kombucha!

I'm trying something new . . . rather it's old. Centuries ago kombucha was created and claims to have healthy benefits. My daughter Amy started making it this year and spurred my interest. So far I've made two batches, a half gallon at a time. I don't know how much is a daily serving, but I'm starting at a juice glass worth. This stuff is easy to find on the east and west coast, but is new to Kansas. Our health food stores in Topeka have it, but most of the population here has never heard of it.

I had the bottle caper from my old beer brewing days, but needed some caps. We have only one store that sells brewing supplies, and it's a guy running a business from a home. I drove up to get the caps and found out he, too, is brewing kombucha. He showed me his gallon jug of fermenting tea, with a smile. We are both cautious with our expectations, since we don't buy into all this alternate health stuff blindly. It's worth a try, though. We both see the similarities to brewing beer or wine. Fermented food is hardly a new concept. Plus there is the fun factor.

I'd be interested if any readers of my blog have experience with kombucha? Let me know. The traditional American medical community isn't buying into the claims, but that's true with a lot of health foods out there.  I figure if it's been around for centuries, if it was killing people the recipe wouldn't be around today.

Good and the Bad

This is a random sketch.  I use my smart phone camera to capture images that I like but don't have time to sketch. Then, when I have more time, I stroll through the pictures and sketch them. It's now time to catch up.

I've sketched my pack rats before. They are a bother and can cause costly damage to any vehicle parked outside. When they show up I use a catch-alive trap to catch them, and relocate them down the road. We live in a rural area with few houses. It's easy to drive them to a large field with great habitat for them and set them free. In the big picture, these rodents proliferate well and I could just kill him and cause no damage to the ecosystem. However, he's so darn cute I can't do it. When they make it into the garage I do, but when they're outside, their crime doesn't warrant death.  However, a coworker had one eat a hose on her automatic transmission that she didn't notice until the transmission was totaled out. I may change my protocol if that were to happen to me.

As for the bread, we like to cook it fresh instead of buying it. We like the artisan no-knead breads as an occasional treat. They are photogenic, just like the rat. I'm baking some rolls for Easter as I'm putting this post together, too. Can't get enough fresh bread!

More Winter

Well, Punxsutawney Phil performed his annual duties to predict the seasonal weather trend, and he saw his shadow, which equates to six more weeks of winter (at a rather low probability of validity, by the way). Seeing his cute publicity shots got me on-line to learn more. I found one head-on shot that was particularly cute. Every hair on his (or her) body seemed to radially emanate from his nose. Had to try my hand at sketching that!

I also found that this day of celebration goes back decades, and in the early years we would feast on these cute rodents. That begs the question - recipe for groundhog? I found a couple on-line. In today's world we derive some finicky eating rules that had no credibility in a day when you lived more in tune with your environment. You needed calories and protein to go with the carbs, etc. You looked at the world around you for mammals that could fill that need. Wala! Groundhog.

Then I just happened to talk with a friend yesterday who was raised in the eastern states and he grew up on the meat that they could get from their farmland.  Groundhog was on the menu often. He says thumbs up. Good meat. It was one of many mammals and fowl that his family relied on to survive.

We have groundhog in Kansas, and we call them woodchucks. I've only seen two in the wild, so I wouldn't kill one to try the recipe. However, if I had a connection to back east and could get one, the recipe sounds good to me.

Followup on Biscuits

In my last post, Jane Angell responded and was supportive of my quest to understand the English Biscuit. To help in the dialog, here is the recipe I found on allrecipes.com: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Cinnamon-Biscuits/Detail.aspx, submitted by Rhonda Warhol, called Cinnamon Biscuits.

Mix these in a large bowl-
   All-purpose flour  2 cups (250 g)
   salt  1/2 tsp (3 g)
   ground cinnamon 2 teaspoons (5 g)
Cut in-
   butter, softened  1/2 cup (115 g)
Mix with a fork until crumbly.
Add-
   white sugar  1/2 cup (100 g)
   vanilla extract, 1 teaspoon (5 ml)

Mix to a stiff paste. Mix in one beaten egg. Knead dough on a floured surface until smooth. Wrap in foil or plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350F (175C). Grease cookie sheets. Roll out dough thinly and cut into 24 rounds.

Bake 12 to 15 minutes, or until lightly gold in color. Let cool on wire rack.


Comments on the site for this recipe said they missed the milk. I found it too dry, too, so I added some. However, I'm American and the recipe isn't. Do the Brits use milk to form a tacky dough? The recipe said roll out thin. I did, and got closer to 50 biscuits so I went too thin. How thin is thin? And is this really "The basic English biscuit,with a dash of cinnamon." as specified on the recipe? Does anyone have a recipe they could hold up as a prime example to a classic English biscuit?

BTW: Sketching will continue. This blog has NOT been converted to a food network channel. This is a food compulsive tangent that must be satisfied, though.

Tea & Biscuits (?)

I just don't know what an English Biscuit is. That's not something we run across in Kansas.We don't have fine china tea cups (Corelle works fine). I don't know what you do in a Tea Room. But I do know I like hot tea. In an effort to drop a few pounds I've tried to cut out late night snacks like cookies or ice cream, but I need something. Recently I've gone to hot tea, but that causes late night bathroom runs. Then I figured out that, in true American fashion, portion size was excessive. I was drinking too much tea with my 12-16 oz cup. Maybe the British have something with their 6 oz. serving. 

Also their biscuit idea may have merit. Low sugar and nice and bland. That would be good before bed. So, a quick Internet search yields a recipe that claims to be a traditional English biscuit. The results were fine by me but I still don't know if they are the "real deal". They'll work just fine.

So, one small cup of hot tea with a little milk, and a couple small biscuits. That beats down the craving for REAL calories. I will continue my quest to understand the Brits cuisine, and to question the American super-size and super-sweet approach.

If anyone has exposure to the British tea and biscuit cuisine, I'd value your observations. Also, what IS a retail tea room and its rituals, as Liz and others talk about? And with that I end my not-so-masculine post.

Process notes: I used my Noodler's Ahab flex nib on this post again, followed by watercolor pencils, waterbrush on Arches Velin text woven. The ink flow tends to be finicky at the start, after not using the pen for a few days, but it does wake up. I still like the responsiveness of the nib. The ink is Noodler's Lexington Gray.

Smoked!

I guess I needed to start the new year with a piece of equipment failing. At least I get sketching time out of the expense. This time it's our blender. We're not sure how old it is, but it's a nice one. WAS a nice one. I was making a batch of hummus when it spewed some electrical burn/melt smells and slowed down until it stopped. Puff of smoke and all! Luckily no fire.

New appliances don't tend to impress me. Too many stories of people buying kitchen appliances and never using them. Out cupboards were full so we weren't going to get a food processor until the blender died. We had to wait a couple decades, but now is our chance. In a few days we had our food processor.

As soon as we got home I had to make something. We viewed the DVD and the breads looked good. They always look good to me. So I chose one that looked like cinnamon rolls (labelled Breakfast Bread?) and went to town. The mixing goes SO fast in these things. Results came out great. This thing is going to work fine.

As for this sketch, it's using my Noodler's Ahab flex nib pen again, with Lexington Gray ink. I still like it but I'm learning some things. This ink takes much longer to dry than my art marker pens. That would go for any fountain pen that lays down as much ink as this does on wide lines. I need to keep my fingers away or ink smudges everywhere! Also, once in a while a mysterious ink drop comes from nowhere. It just shows up. I can't tell if its from the nib or the feeder under it or from the pen body. Time will tell. I still love the ink feed rate and the ease of changing pen width. It's still a keeper.

Wilma's Obsession

Ahh! The smell of a busy oven in the holidays. Food is such a part of it all. Watching Wilma cook up a series of confections gives me the idea for a sketch, so I get my gear out and sketch to the smells that only fresh baking can produce.

As the journal says, she has a love/hate relationship with the baking tradition. It's stressful and rewarding. She has trimmed down the quantity from a few years ago. Back then she did candies, too, like chocolate covered cherries. Very talented. Very addicted to creating confections. The whole extended family knows it, too, and has come to expect tasty treats when Christmas rolls around. They even put in a word for their favorites in the hopes she'll keep making them. We'll end up freezing some, too, so we can extend the good times.

150

Well, here's the primary driving motive for our recent rash of canning jam this year. It's been a great activity for the three of us, for the teamwork needed to pull it off. The canning continues, too, even though we've met our goal number of 150 4-oz. jars of jam. One of our campgrounds (good ol' Clinton Lake, land of criminals singing into the Quiet Hours and felony banjo) has crab apple trees. The're ripe! So, we are trying some crab apple jelly. I think we're going to have a bit of excess inventory. We haven't hit regular apple season yet, either.

Command Central

We're in the thick of it now. Canning jam. It's not every year we can a lot of jam. Just don't go through it as much as an empty nest. However, our son does raid the jam/jelly stock when he's back home on visits. I like having a reason to can, and having a bumper crop of blackberries is one such reason. The next blog post will tell of another reason. I just like the sights and sounds of the kitchen when it's in production. The stove is Command Central. All the counter tops in arms reach are strategically stocked to feed the canner and to take its output. Then the random sound of popping lids as they cool. It's a flashback to childhood years by Mom's side watching. It's an event.

Old Iron, New Bread

Cooked up some bread using a new approach my son told me about. It's the crunchy crust/soft inside type, and it doesn't need to be kneaded. This isn't even work.

I made my second loaf this week. The first loaf, made while the kids were home over the weekend, didn't last long and I only got one piece. Bummer.

There's a story behind the Dutch Oven. It's Wilma's, inherited from her Mom. Wilma, an accomplished cook, says she never saw her Mom use it, so it probably hasn't been used for 50 years. It's been out in the garage forever . . . patiently waiting. Well, it came to life and it's neat to use such antiques for their intended use. It's going to be used pretty often now, thanks to this bread recipe.

I Found Balsamic

I know the rest of the world already knows what this stuff is . . . but I just found it. Always heard the name. My recent readings on food and health point to the benefits of whole foods, and cooking from scratch. One author of a cook book mentions balsamic vinegar on her short list of base ingredients to have around the kitchen, so I bought some. Now that I have a bottle of good stuff I recognize the taste from foods at our Italian fare restaurants. It seems related to other things I like: malt vinegar for fish (thanks, Great Britain), brewed soy sauce (Kikkimon), and burgandy wine served at room temperature. All these are old foods that pre-date our industrialized food industry, too, which is something author Micheal Pollan advocates. Hmm, maybe there's something to this whole food thing.

BUT, I'm not turning veggie. Although I won't become a vegatarian, I'm beginning to think that vegatarians have more things right than wrong in their beliefs. Looks like we kinda screwed ourselves up with this diet most of us have that they call the Western Diet. Pursuit of profits have created a food industry that has mislead the way we've learned to eat, but it's not hopeless. I've got more to learn. Still not sure who I can believe and who I shouldn't.

As for my journaling, I am now using one of those tall green journals seen in my last post . . . one of my babies. My Moleskine had a few pages left, but I just can't bring myself to sideline my new journal until the Moleskine is finished. Journaling in the book I just made is like eating the crackers I just made . . . they're whole . . . they're me . . . they're basic. It just seems like a good way to go.

Note: Using the doggie biscuit cutter to make the crackers was my idea (yes, I have a recipe book and cutters to make pet food). My daughter was not humored.

Cabbage Convert

More garden produce sketching. We had some good looking cabbage this year. A little cabbage goes a long ways, so a couple heads is enough. Wilma cooks up a big batch of bierocks and freezes them for quick meals. Can't beat them! Once in a great while I'll find a restaurant that gets close to their quality, but not often. This is a dish I got introduced to when I married her. Glad I did . . . both.