I'm posting the meme here in case anyone wants a go:

gaaked from xebgoc and others...


• Leave me a comment saying "Resistance is Futile."

• I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity

• Update your journal with the answers to the questions

• Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions (I'll also answer more, if asked)


( meme answers behind the cut... )

I'm not sure about this new theme, there is that giant cisco stamp thingy in the corner, but I'm drawn by the swirling greens so I'll give it a go.

summer has proven to be the same battle between my love of fresh produce and hatred of heat and humidity, but with some interesting twists....

( weddings and other social contemplation this way )

Having lived in a rural area most of my life, wild critters have been a fact of life.  Lately though there has been a spate of road kills.  It all started when C called me up on his way over for some pizza to say that he'd hit a wild turkey with his car, had it in the back in a plastic bag, and did I know anything about evisceration?  At the time the answer to that was no, but now, I guess I can claim to know a bit more.  The short and safe answer is to cut out the back bone since all of the major organs are usually attached to it, so you get rid of everything in one process.  This is a severe over simplification, but I haven't died yet, so I suppose there's something to be said for that.  C's next question was if I knew any good turkey recipes.  I think in the end he chose well with braising it (always good for meat you suspect might be tough) with a wine sauce and apples.  Pizza was a bit late, but turned out to be fortuitous since I got my hands on a copy of The Joy of Cooking, and we poured over the game section.

This past week a neighbor brought me another dead turkey he had hit, and that is sitting in the freezer.  A few days later, my brother hit a rabbit with his car, so he and his friend hacked it's head off and skinned it the best they could.  In retrospect, I wish they had let me do it, cause they're both pretty ADD and did a bit of a hack job.  For the sake of safety I doused the parts in vinegar, seared everything, and then brought it to a boil for five minutes before stewing it, I'm pretty sure between the acid and high temp that whatever beasties there were are now dead.  The next night he managed to bash two porcupines with a shovel (yes, this is as ridiculous as it sounds), technically not road kill, but they were in the drive way, and they were a threat to the dogs.  So, at the end of two weeks I find that I have learned a multitude of things about road kill, like how rabbits are a lot of work for not a lot of meat that tastes like chicken (I kind of already knew that, but some lessons are worth repeating), wild turkey is excellent, I'm not as squemish since the last time I saw a wild animal being butchered, and watching a dog throw up porcupine quills is.....harrowing (apparently my brother didn't get rid of them permanently enough). 

  


I've been doing a lot of baking lately, and recently conquered some new territory by making some chocolate filled croissants!  glasere_rev had her b-day and she requested them.  I was kind of afraid the whole thing was going to fail and we would end up with a pile of melted butter and chocolate, but in the end we triumphed.  I think a lot of it is all the reading I've done about pastry and the dire warnings of keeping everything cold.  When I actually set out to put stuff together I realized I already have done things like this when making bread and pie doughs.  It took all day, but most of it was letting the dough sit in the fridge and the rest of the day we could wander off.  The results were amazing, and tasty to boot :)  I kind of want to explore this more, so we'll see what happens.

Hello hello,
It's gloriously above freezing now.  I'll enjoy it while I can cause inevitably we'll get heavy snowfall in the next six to eight weeks.  Then again, there might be a certain charm to making snow men in May.....
we've got a new member of the family.  Our older dog died in December, and we've been kind of mopey about it.  Mom's been trawling the rescue sites ever since, not really committing to getting a new dog, but finally one night I told her to be serious about getting one or to stop spamming my inbox with links to dogs we'll never own.  So after going through some of those links and the application process, now we have a new dog, and boy is she a sweetie.
 

The rescue shelter named her Sukie, and we've decided to keep it cause the foster parents were telling us it took her a long time to learn her name, so we don't want to confuse the poor thing anymore than necessary.  She was rescued from a puppy mill, and was pregnant.  She lost the pup and it had ruptured her uterus, so they had to do some pretty extensive surgery to save her...eep!  She's 4, which I think is a good match cause our other dog is 12 and I don't think she would have reacted well to a puppy who wanted to play with her all the time.  We haven't had her long, but already she's proving to be a real sweetheart, snuggling with us on the couch and trotting around the house. She's still nervous around new people, especially men, but she warms up pretty quickly when she figures out you just want to pet her.  It breaks my heart to think of what might have been done to her before she was rescued.  As you can see, she's super cute too.  We have plenty of land and soft couches, so we're hoping she'll get less skittish and be a happy dog here :)

While I'm pretty sure my parents tripped the light fantastic at some point in the 60s, this kool-aid test is far more pedestrian.  In an attempt to get back into textile mode while house sitting and take my mind off the gloomy task of finding a job, I've been taking all my spare bits of white wool and dyeing them with kool-aid.  Quite possibly this could be labeled electric too, since I used an electric cooker to make this :)  I got the procedure off of this site  and it has worked really well as far as the stove top directions go.  There is practically no color to rinse out at the end.  I also like the relative non toxicity of this since I've used chrome and alum in the past along with some pretty toxic natural dyes (funny how when you put the word natural in and folks seem to think that it's somehow all lovely and safe).  However, it does make me glad that my parents didn't let my brother and I drink kool-aid growing up, so we never got a taste for it.  The idea that a chemical I could permanently stain wool with going into my stomach....yeah.  I meant to get blue, but turns out tropical punch is red too.  Does anyone know if raspberry is the blue one?  In the end I'll probably stick to regular acid dyes cause they're cheaper overall  , but using kool-aid means I can dye in the same pots I cook in, which is an added advantage, and I've been having fun playing around with mixing colors.  Here's some pics of the results.  The lighter one was 2 tropical punches and 1 grape, and the darker one was 2 cherries and 1 grape.  I also had more yarn in the bath with the lighter one, but that went to a friend before I could take a picture.

   

Hello All,
This will be brief, but just writing to say that I've moved back to the States.  I can't deny it's been great to see family and friends again, but I find I still love the UK and am heartbroken every time I leave it.  I guess this past year's been good.  I was on the fence about a lot of things in my life and living over there was sort of a testing period if you will.  I'm pretty sure I'd like to live there, I felt so at ease and in tune with the people and how things are run.  I know I'll be back, but it still feels somehow like a failure that I had to leave.

My dog also died on Friday.  He was 17 and not doing too well at all.  He went while laying down in his favorite spot in front of the fire and there had been talk of taking him to the vet to be put down, so I'm infinitely grateful he got to die at home.  I'm gutted though, he was such a sweet dog, and we had him for so long it was easy to think he'd just be around forever.  We buried him up at my grandparents farm, cause he loved being there chasing the wild turkeys and the land will stay in the family so we can always go visit him.

Yeah, I know this isn't a very cheery entry given that the holidays are coming up.  However, there is some good in all this.  I got to come home to see my dog before he died, and even though I had to leave the UK, I learned a lot and it's given me some new goals.  I'll update soon, as the holidays have given me a lot of opportunity to do a lot of cooking and textiles.

Be well everyone

Okay okay, that's a really bad pun, but every profession has them.  In any case, I've just spent a lovely week in Nayland doing some weaving, something I had to give up when I came over here, so it was really nice to be sitting in front of a loom again.  I've not used this technique before so it was also good to be learning new stuff ontop of refreshing the basics.  I'd happily talk about the structural detail, but I find when I do that to non-weavers their eyes glaze over after the first sentence, so I'll spare you all.  Pretty much everything I know about rug making I've learned from Jason, along with a lot of practice and some spectacularly ugly rugs (I made a brown shag one once, it looks like I went out and dragged some road kill into the house).  I was so afraid I was going to mess up a lot cause I've been away from the loom so long, but it was easy peasy to get back into routine.  Really, it was exactly what I needed, getting back into weaving, being back in a village, creativity and quiet :)  So I'll leave you with the promised pics of the rug (it's reversible, hence a pic of each side) along with a link to Jason's website cause he does make some gorgeous rugs and is definitely the boss when it comes to weaving them :)    sorry the pics aren't bigger, but I'm still wranggling with how lj works, sigh.


           

Though the fireworks going off in my neighborhood are in celebration of Guy Fawkes Day, I can't help but feel it only adds to the utter sense of joy in the house.  I walked up to the shops to get some papers and I couldn't stop grinning.  I hardly dare to hope for the future, as this is merely the first step on the road to possibilites, but it is a good place to start. 

I remember the stories my parents have told me of living through the Sixties and Seventies, and those of my uncle who was at Kent State during the shootings.  I like to think we have taken those lessons to heart, but I'm sure there were a multitude of other factors as well.  Aside from the results, it was almost more pleasing to see such a high participation.  I loathe to see and hear so many apathetic people in my nation, it is unhealthy for us to adopt that attitude so fully, since not caring places our affairs in the hands of the few that do care enough to speak or take action. 

Election night was shared with </b></a>olivia_circe and some curious Brits that were kind enough to let us hang out at their flat and watch Beeb coverage of the election, that was far more entertaining and to the point than American networks.  Pitting John Bolton against Simon Schama at 2 am, while neither orthodox or perhaps prudent, was entertaining nonetheless ;)  It has been intriguing to in part see my country's election process through the eyes of another nation, and it has I believe helped me to think more critically about politics, especially when being asked by non Americans about the process, policies and attitudes.

All in all this was incredible and amazing, and even though the future stil looms uncertain, I feel better about coming home.  I could probably be more eloquent about all this, but I haven't got the words

Peace everyone

In the past few years this has become one of my favorite dishes.  It is creamy and filling, with so many wonderful flavors, many of which can be changed on a whim.  It also happens to be what I made for dinner tonight and thus I was able to photograph it.  I went with a pretty classic interpretation, using white wine and my absolute favorite, mushrooms.  So, as both winter and the election approaches, it is good to have something comforting at hand to ground and nourish you.  I do hope people give this a go, cause it is really very tasty.
( Molto Bene..... )

I'm putting this in the links section so once I've built up a fair amount of entries, you won't have to trawl through all the posts to find stuff.  I'll put up new categories as I post things that fall under them and I'll try and do my best to index stuff right after I post.

( come this way for the list.... )

Hello All,
As promised here is the first of my food focused entries.  I know that I've been teaching a few of you to cook, so I thought maybe this would be a good way to show you the process through pictures since I can't be standing next to you all the time.  I'm also doing this to document my own progress with cooking, and hopefully capture some triumphs as I explore new territory....

( this way for the chocolatey goodness..... )

Wow,
Nearly Halloween and more than a year on from when I started this trip.  No longer am I in my little flat with K and M, but that's the way it was always going to be.  This autumn has been what I needed in some ways, and I've done an awful lot of thinking about the future, but I suppose when you're young, that's about all one can do....
( clickity click..... )

Hello Again,
I know, my god, I'm posting more than once a month.  I did promise a recap of the trip and here it is.  I think I'm going to break this down into location or periods of travel, as we were pretty inconsistent in where and how long we stayed.  I suppose I should start at the beginning.....

Hello All,
I know it's been a month and I've been horrible and not updated.  I recently traveled pretty extensively across GB and I shall be putting that in my next post cause it really deserves it's own description.  In any case, I shall be relating more recent events here.  Backwards I know, but hey, when has that ever stopped us before?

Hello all.  Things are pretty good, even if a wee bit scary.  I say scary, really it's just the unknown, and I've done the unknown before and lived to tel the tale.  So really, things are pretty good.

Hello all,
yeah, it's been a really long time.  sorry bout that.  April was a bit crap, for various reasons.  In any case, I've just noticed it's spring so I've been taking in the green and hopefully am on my way to getting over April.

Okay, this is my first real whack at fiction.  I'm still learning how to lay out dialogs and whatnot, and my punctuation and grammar are shit.  The prompt is behind the cut.