Yours 'til Niagara Falls

Benedict the XVI

I was lucky enough to be in New York City on Saturday.  The Pope must have been stalking me, because he was there, too.  I wanted to see him, so I went to the corner of 57th and 5th Avenue (near Tiffany's) and stood behind the barricades.  I got there about three hours before the motorcade which was planned for 1:30.  I was with a nice group of people.  Hour one, I waited.  Hour two, the crowd started singing hymns and chanting.  Hour three, you can feel the anticipation building.  Finally, the purr of the motorcycles is heard. The moment arrived!  The Pope mobile was making its way down 5th Avenue.  The moment I had been waiting for!  I was ready with my camera to commemorate this big event:

(click to enlarge)

Oh, well, better luck next time!

Inspiration Hits Close to Home

Inspiration for home decorating is pretty idiosyncratic.  There are as many ways to arrange one's possesions as stars in the sky.  One particular image has resonated with me for years.  There is a British children's author and illustrator named Jill Barklem who has written a delightful series of books called Brambley Hedge.  Her paintings depict a world of well-dressed mice who live in a gentle world of abundance and happiness.  Many of the stories have plots revolving around residents of Brambley Hedge celebrating happy events and doing nice things for each other.  I have a tea set from Royal Dalton with seasonal illustrations on all the pieces.  My favorite one is Winter:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The picture on the right is my interpretation of that cozy scene.  I'm pretty happy because I finally got my fireplace inspected and cleaned so I can use it with confidence.

Another inspiration that struck me on this lovely Sunday involved making banana bread.  It might have been because I had some bananas that were past the point of no return.  Mostly, though, it gave me the chance to play with my new dolls:

They are measuring cups!

A Trip to Albion

My maternal grandmother was born in Albion NY in 1891.  My mother and her sister have often mentioned that they would like to take the 90-minute drive to visit the town.  Today was the day we made it happen.  It was the very best kind of a day for a road trip.  Western New York is having a string of perfect weather.  The leaves are about half changed and not many have fluttered down.  

Our first stop in the tiny town of Albion was the church my grandmother attended as a child.  Back then, it was St. Joseph's.  Now, after a diocesean re-organization, it was combined with another parish and re-named Holy Family.  It is a beautiful church featuring massive amounts of pink marble.  The alter is exquisite. Here is a picture: (credit Woj Photography)

   

This photograph makes it look considerably larger than it really is.  Being that it is indeed a small world, the priest that celebrated the mass was my aunt's former pastor In Niagara Falls.  Furthermore, this priest's father worked on the railroad with my grandfather.  He even had a story he remembered about my grandfather, Daniel Buckley;

Dan Buckley and a companion were walking down the street.  As they walk past a local gin mill, they notice a man stagger out and proceed to vomit.  Seeking to comfort the afflicted, Dan Buckley lays his hand on the poor man's shoulder and says, "Better an empty house than a bad tenant".  

And so it goes...

My New Old House

So... this is my new house.  I've been living here for about a month.  I'm just mastering which switch goes with which light.  I'm also re-learning how to cook now that I have a gas range.  As I have mentioned to some people, I am opening up boxes that have not been opened since two moves ago.  The newspaper I used to wrap the items has a 2004 date, so it has been a while.  

And so it goes... 

Italian Sesame Seed Cookies - Giugiulena

These are very nice cookies for several reasons.  Although a little tricky to make, the recipe makes 3 1/2 dozen, so your effort is well rewarded.  They are a little fancier than average and they are very good keepers.  The only downside is that no matter how careful you are, you will find sesame seeds on your counter two days after baking day.  

 

 

Giugiulena Recipe

Ingredients:

1 cup shortening

1 cup sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

4 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

Pinch of salt

1 cup sesame seeds (Seek out large bags in the Indian section of the grocery store.  The minuscule bottles in the spice rack are astronomically priced)

small amount of milk to roll cookies in

Preparation:

Combine shortening and sugar, add vanilla.  Add eggs and mix til smooth.  Alternate combined ingredients with milk.  Roll dough into logs about 2 inches long. Here is where a technique specific to this cookie comes into play.

 

 Set up an assembly line with your dough, a shallow bowl with an ounce or so of milk and a dish with the sesame seeds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After forming the 2 inch log, dip your fingertips into the milk and roll the cookie to give the dough a very slight coating of milk.  This serves as the glue to make the sesame seeds stick.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roll the cookie in the seeds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

To speed up the process I form several cookies and then roll them in the seeds.  You might want to do this whole process near the sink because you will need to rise your hands as you alternate between steps.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.   Yum!

Vintage Therapy Materials circa 1977

Late June can leave an educator in a tizzy.  Organizing and cleaning are a big part of the end-of-year routine.  I was weeding out some very old therapy materials in a kit called "Language Rehabilitation Program" that was designed to use with elementary schoolchildren.  Keep that fact-a-roo in mind as you peruse these gems:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I love Mr. Lonelypants.  The receding hairline, the mouth-watering feast he is preparing and the paunch he is sporting make him loveable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This foolish, foolish madam gambled with mean ol' Mr.Gravity and lost big time.  What are the odds that her hip will survive this tumble?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mr. Drunkymonkey is pouring three fingers of cheap whiskey to start his day right.

 

 

My favorite illustration in this whole kit is this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is something vaguely illicit about this picture.

 

I can hardly wait for September to use these cards to help eight-year-olds expand their language skills. If nothing else, my class will be memorable for the little tykes.

Trip to Manhattan - Eataly

 
I had the week off, so I took a little trip to Manhattan with three knitting friends. We took the train down - an elegant mode of transportation that gives one a number of hours to organize the coming days and have a gabfest with your travelling companions. It's especially nice if you're on the Hudson River side and have a view of one of the most beautiful rivers in the world.

My first order of business was to take a behind-the-scenes tour of Mario Batali's Eataly.  It is a stone's throw away from the Flatiron building. If you are a fan of Italian food and more specifically Italian cooking, this is an experience you would enjoy.  

Eataly is an Italian-themed food complex devoted to beautiful products and ingredients.  Many of the food departments also feature restaurants.  Before leaving home, I signed up for a walking tour which allows you to see the products that are sold or used in the eateries being made.

 I saw how fresh mozzerella is made.  The cheese curd is pressed through wires to cut it up, very hot, salty water is added to get the cheese to the right taffy-like consistence and then formed into the finished balls of cheese.  The sample I tasted was warm, tender and milky. 

We had a chance to talk with one of the people who was an expert in the cheese department.  I bought some of the Grana Padano cut from one of these giant wheels.  I asked the man if it would be okay to travel without refrigeration.  His response was that cheese is a preserved food and simply doesn't require refrigeration. Cheese is meant to be kept out on the counter.  I took him at his word and treated myself to a sizable wedge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next stop - pasta!  There was an impressive variety of prepared fresh pasta.  The pumpkin ravioli looked tempting.  I love the massive spool of sheet pasta being loaded onto the machine in the picture above.

The bakery was a compact space that produces an incredible amount of product.  No granulated yeast here - a starter which originated in Italy is used.  There is a vat of the stuff that needs to be fed every six hours around the clock.  who doesn't love fresh bread?  We were given a sample of fig bread that was out of this world.

The wood-burning pizza oven was covered with goldtone glass mosaic tiles.  It was beautiful.  I must say I didn't love the pizza.  The sauce was the very simple type made with crushed canned tomatoes.  No complexity and rather watery.

Our group was also herded past the meats, the chocolate and the gelato.  At the end of the tour, the samples became laughably stingy.  A dab of melted chocolate less than an eighth of a teaspoon and a nip of gelato on the end of one of those tiny spoons.  Rather a let down.  Some random shots of pretty food:

 

It was a lovely experience.  I must say that now I recognize that, in my neck of the woods anyway, we have sources for Italian food every bit as nice as what can be found at this emporium.  The produce looked to be rather tired and there was not the wide variety I see at my local Wegman's. Now I'm a little wiser about the lovely products I have at my fingertips at the farmer's market and local mom and pop stores in my neighborhood. 


 

 

A Tale of Two Conferences

I just returned from a two-day conference in Ontario, Canada.  Like all of life's experiences, some of it was good and some not-so-good.  It was an early childhood conference sponsored by the Waldorf School of Toronto.  I'm glad I went but at the same time, in retrospect, I could have taken a pass on the whole thing.  Here is how the weekend went according to nice me and crabby me.

Registration: 

Nice me: It was organized 

Crabby me: Registration was supposed to begin at 6:45.  The registrar was ready fifteen minutes early and there were a dozen-or-so folks standing in the vestibule of the school.  The registrar actually insisted on waiting until the scheduled time to let people pick up their conference materials. She sat with her hands folded for the intervening time.  Rigid people like this are the reason we can't have world peace.

Friday night keynote speech:

Nice me: It started with a sing-along.  I love sing-alongs.  We did a song based on a piece by Mozart and a Celtic chant.  The audience of 200 was split into four groups and we sang rounds.  Waldorf-ers have skill doing this sort of thing.  Not a single person in that huge group bellyached about this activity.  They all did it willingly and we sounded beautiful.

Crabby me: Midway through the keynote speaker, I began to feel unwell.  I had chills and sweats and an awful ache in my lower back.  I left the lecture hall before the lecture was done.

Sleeping accommodations:

Nice me: A night in Toronto for $10.00. Even though it only amounted to camping out on a carpeted classroom floor, you can't beat that with a stick.

Crabby me:  The ache became intense.  I realized I had a kidney stone.  It must have been a smallish one because although it was mighty uncomfortable, the pain was tolerable.  One odd thing about kidney stones is that one can track the progress of the little bastard due to the localized pain as it travels to freedom.  As I swigged massive amounts of water to wash the thing away I was able to find a couch in the faculty to sleep fitfully between trips to the washroom (ha! I speak fluent Canadian). By 4:00 am the stone was history and I felt LOADS better.

Morning market:

Nice me: This school has a farmers market featuring organic, biodynamic foods.  Shopping at the market is one of the best things about this conference.  I bought some turkey eggs I plan to use for an Easter centerpiece.

Crabby me: I bought a wildly expensive slice of a lemon loaf for my breakfast.  "It's gluten free!" chirped the cute little vendor.  I never experienced a gluten free product before.  Didn't like it.  Lemon-flavored sawdust.

Workshops: 

Nice me: The presentors wanted very much to do a good job and give us as much information as possible.

Crabby me:  I was looking forward to a presentation called "Gifts from the Garden".  What it ended up being was a lesson on how to identify edible weeds.  So far, so good.  Her presentation consisted of having the group of fifteen participants huddle around a 15" laptop to look at pictures of the aforementioned weeds.  I bailed on that workshop and joined in another that was only marginally better.

Lunch:

Nice me: The organizers put forth great effort to provide a beautiful vegan, gluten-free lunch.

Crabby me: Not to my taste. 

The participants:

Nice me:  These people are earnest in their desire to raise children in an environment of love and peace. They are very ardent in the quest to establish family routines and avoid having "media-soaked" children.

Crabby me:  These folks are slightly humorless.  Very serious about the way they live.  Very few of the ladies dyed their hair or used make up. I felt slightly to gussied up.  I think it's fair to generalize that lots of these ladies did not have their children when they were young.  What with the undyed hair, there were more than a few grey-haired mothers of toddlers.

I do enjoy the handmade toys and tablescapes that are part of the Waldorf pedagogy:

 

So... It was kind of a wash.  On the way home I treated myself to a stop at Ikea and a grocery store.  I picked up some lemon curd, arrowroot biscuits and some hot cross buns.  I have next week off from work, so I have a few adventures planned.

Polish Paper Cutting - Wycinanki

I had a very nice afternoon learning to do Polish paper cutting.  The word in Polish is "wycinanki". The workshop was part of the "Through Polish Eyes" exhibit of the work of Alice Bak at the Castellani Art Gallery on the campus of Niagara University.  I felt lucky to be able to participate because I was on the waiting list and got a call on Friday that I could join the class.  This red tulip is my finished project.

The teacher for this workshop was Barbara Frackiewicz. She brought along quite a few examples of paper cuttings from Poland and a portfolio of her own work.  

The winters in Poland are long, and Easter is anticipated with great joy.  The homes are decorated with fresh, new paper cuts to decorate for the season.  According to Barbara, the old pictures are taken out and displayed the barns for the animals to enjoy.  

The basic technique was demonstrated and almost each participant was able to produce a lovely greeting card. Examples:

The elaborate yellow flower (lower right) was accomplished by an eighth grade girl.  Very impressive.  Barbara's samples were interesting.  In order to pique the interests of males who might not want to make floral motifs, Barbara showed some insects she designed.  Her samples also featured the use of papers such as pages from telephone books and shiny catalog images.

One of my favorite works was an original by Barbara.  I love the way she layered the colors on the birds.  Sorry for the glare, it was really lovely in person.  Another idea she mentioned was using these motifs in a tiny scale and decorating eggs with them.  Hmmm...

The workshop did make me think of something that annoys me.  Say a person signs up for a workshop.  This wycinanka class is a good example.  So, the instructor gives directions for a folk art technique which has been handed down for generations.  Why, oh why, do some of the folks in the class decide not to follow the traditional manner of construction and jazz it up with their own spin?  Do they really think they will "improve" an age-old art?  What generally happens is the wanna-be artist ends up with an unattractive project and does not really know how the technique is done.  For example, one person in today's class decided to do her card with a Matisse influence.  It was, in the end, neither Matisse or wyncinanka.  Sadly, it was neither pretty or interesting.  And, after attending the class, she still doesn't know how to create a Polish paper cutting.

 I think the reason I am sensitive about this is because I have led workshops where somebody decides to ignore what I am attempting to demonstrate.  They end up frustrated with an ugly end result and tell all and sundry about the mediocre class they attended.  So... I think people need to make up their mind to actually learn what is being taught and then experiment with the technique.

Spring, Spring, the Birdies Sing!

I'm starting to get a few little projects done for Easter.  Thedirections for these little birds here were explained in a tutorial I posted a couple of years ago.  I plan to give the tutorial for the little nest sometime this weekend.  It's going to be a pretty busy one!