Garlic Sprouts and Maple Syrup

Here's a little picture (not great quality - sorry) of the garlic sprouts that are coming up from the garlic cloves I planted and covered up with lots of leaves last fall in a corner of the garden. We had an unseasonably warm day here yesterday - 84 degrees was the high according to my thermometer, and it made me think of gardening, even tho here in Michigan we can have hard freezes up through the middle of May.

The warmth made the bees really active. I have been feeding them sugar water. Yesterday they went through a whole pint of 1:1 sugar water, so I gave them more this morning. I want to make sure we get some honey this year.

Actually, I have been thinking of gardening already, and have already bought a lot of seeds. I will plant some peas today, and maybe put out a few potato sets, just in case we have one of those rare springs where we do not get a late freeze. I looked for any hints of asparagus, but saw none yet. Out in the woods, I do see the infamous garlic mustard popping up. I'll go pick some and put it in the salad greens for dinner tomorrow night.

I did get the maple syrup canned over the weekend. We ended up with just over 6 gallons, which is pretty good considering it was far from an excellent year for sap collection. Too cold, then too warm all of a sudden. It tastes great. :-)

Poppy seed Almond Shortbread, the best cookie ever

Just got home from holding the final for my Developmental Psychology Class, grading the tests, reviewing the students performance and attendance, and submitting the final grades for the class. Now I will treat myself by making some easy yummy cookies as follows:

Ingredients:

1. 1/2 cup butter - one stick, cool room temperature
2. 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed in the cup
3. 2 cups unbleached white flour
4. 1 tsp almond extract
5. 1 egg white, separated from the yolk. Reserve the yolk for something else.
6. 1 TBL poppyseeds, more or less

Makeing the cookies:

1. Heat the oven to 400 F. Wipe off a very clean sturdy cookie sheet and have ready.

2. Beat the egg white with 1 tsp cold water until it is frothy and the protein mass has broken down, and set aside.

3. Cream the butter with a wooden spoon in large heavy ceramic bowl. When softened, stir in brown sugar until well incorporated. Work quickly, you don't want the mixture to get very warm.

4. Stir in almond extract. Add 1 cup of flour, stir well. Add second cup of flour and mix with your hands to the texture of cornmeal. It will be dry, and just barely stick together when you squeeze a handfull in your fist.

5. Turn the cookie mixture out onto the cookie sheet. Shape it into a circle, about 5-6 inches in diameter and about 1/2 inch thick, by pressing it together with the sides and palms of your hands. You will be able to compress it to where it holds it's shape, but it will be fragile and easily crumble, which is why you want your pan to be sturdy, without any flex in it.

6. Brush the top of the cookie with the egg white (this will make the top of the cookie shiny when it comes out of the oven and help the seeds stick). Sprinkle generously with poppy seeds.

7. Turn the heat down in the oven to 350 F, and put the cookie sheet in the middle of the oven. Bake until the top looks set and it is just starting to brown around the edges, maybe 10 minutes. Once it starts to brown at all it will get over done rapidly, so watch it like a hawk and start checking it early until you know what your oven does.

8. Remove from oven, set on a stable surface and cut the hot cookie into 1 1/2 inch squares (it is very rich). A pizza cutter will work well for this - make four cuts one way, and then four cut at an angle. The cookie will seem very soft at this point. Move the cookie sheet onto a cooling rack and let sit at least 10 minutes for the cookie to cool off and firm up.

9. When cool enough to handle, break the cookie up - it will probably have stuck back together a little bit, and cool completely. Except for the piece you eat right there with a little glass of really cold milk. MMmmmm!

10. Store cookies at room temperature in an air tight container, like tupperware. If you have any left. These freeze well. You can substitute other flavorings for the almond - vanilla, lemon, etc. You can sprinkle it with slivered almonds or sesame seeds or cinnamon sugar or a dusting of nutmeg or cardamom instead of the poppy seeds. You can add texture and change the flavor by substituting 1/2 cup whole wheat flour for some of the regular flour, or mix some of seeds or a TBL of coarse cornmeal into the cookie, or some oat bran, or rice or soy flour or whatever you want to try.

All right, I've talked about it, Now I am going to make some.

What is important?

Spring is time for cleaning out the closets, the garage, the garden, the corrals, and that corner between the shop and the driveway where inconveniently shaped, un-splittable and therefore un-burnable tree stumps and broken pieces of unidentified equipment seem to accumulate. This is also a good time to sweep away the mental cobwebs and detritus of broken commitments, stymied and never to be completed projects, sidetracked plans and those ideas and goals that once attracted my attention but are no longer shiny or important, and are a drain on my energy.

I tend to have a hard time giving myself permission to move on. So, while I conduct the recurring battle that is the end of every semester (a project in itself that is loosing it's appeal), I think about what is most important and what I really want to do. I love teaching Ceramics in the studio. I am no longer entertained by teaching students psychology, and I really don't like the on-line Art History classes I am doing. I love being out in the woods at Maple Knoll, but I am really really tired of not having enough money to go around.

How can I arrange my life so that I make enough money doing what I really like to do to keep doing it, rather than doing things I don't like to make money to try to do what I like in my spare time? My next project is to figure this out.

Planning the pit firing

Adorable hubby wants to cook a bunch of clay chunks and use it as grog in some of the soggy spots in our road, since we have lots of clay and lots of wood. I am escalating this plan to a regular pit firing of some pottery, which I will invite my pottery friends to, with the goal of getting some pieces that look like This!

Here is a nice link that gave me lots of ideas, and here is another one with great pictures.

Ceramics Monthly also posted this very concise summary of what to do:

1. Dig a pit of the appropriate size, depending on the amount of work to be fired.

2. Place a bed of dry leaves and twigs and possibly coal, which will burn slowly, at the bottom of the pit

3. Place the pottery on top of this.

4. Carefully sprinkle oxides and carbonates around the pieces (particularly copper carbonate), which volatilize and result in flashes of color appearing on the fired work.

5. Cover the work with more leaves, twigs and dung (if available), building up a mound over the pieces.

6. Once the stacking process is finished, light the pile around the edges and leave to smolder for several hours, or until the next day.

7. Towards the end of the burning process, bury the pit in earth or sand, which will cut off the oxygen supply and create a strong reducing atmosphere inside the mound.

8. Allow the kiln to cool overnight and open the next day.

9. Remove excess scum with a wire brush under a running tap.

Tips:

1. Additions of grog or volcanic ash 'open up' the clay and make it more resistant to heat shock.

2. The best color results can be achieved with iron bearing, or red clays.

3. Bisque firing the work first helps to prevent shattering and cracking.

Not hard at all! I've done this with just a few pots in a garbage can. Maybe I'll do a little experimental hole in the ground the first part of May, before I invite a bunch of people over for a party.

Spring agitation

Seems like everyone I know is experiencing some sort of obstacle right now. My impulse is always to back up to when my life seemed obstacle free. So, here is a little painting I did several years ago, before I moved to Michigan, during an obstacle 'lite' time. Ladies Who Lunch was done from a snapshot I took of cows at a branding. In the spring time, I seem to miss Wyoming the most. And, the anniversary of my father's death is just a few days away. I feel like giving myself a little break, but everyone around me seems to be experiencing overwhelming pressures of some sort.

When I painted this picture, I had a structured and reasonably rewarding job, and a stable living situation, so I was painting a couple hours a day.

Design and sequence

Here are some very interesting images curated by some people who collect the work of self-taught photographers and artists.

While the images are fascinating in themselves, the best aspect of this page is the design - a successful sequence of images that led me to cycle through the set several times in a row - seeing different aspects of each image as a result of looking at the other ones.

This reminds me of Christopher Alexander's new work on sequences.  I wonder if the people who made the webpage here know his work?  I'll have to post something about him later.

Pruning the Grapes

Pruning the blueberries was so satisfying, I went out late yesterday, and pruned grapes for a while before I went to pick up Adorable Hubby at the Park and Ride, and take him over to pick up the small blue car, which got shiny new brakes and a shiny new part for the clutch so that it can start and stop on demand, rather than randomly or not at all.
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Ah, the grapes. So I whacked at the grapes, which I started to prune up last year. I read some different advice on-line about pruning grapes, so I cut them back severely again. I plan on removing more leaves after they start to make fruit. The vines make fruit, but then get various diseases of the fruit, and we have yet to eat a grape. But, one of the extensions sites I read said to take away leaves that cover the fruit to ensure good air flow, and that will cut down on some of the fungal diseases! Since my vines get extremely leafy, I will try that.
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Also, checked the garlic I planted in the garden last fall. I planted 24 cloves, and it looks like about 8 of them have come up so far. I put a lot of mulch down, so I disturbed the mulch a little, to give them more of a head start.
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Speaking of garlic, I read some Greek recipes the other day that also involved grape leaves, so I want to find out how to process the grape leaves so that we can eat them! So many projects, so little time.