restingmotion

Blog Break and Project Updates

This will be my last post for February, which has been a quiet month anyway, at least in terms of finishing things. 

 

I don't need to finish objects, there are more than enough things in my life as it is.  Nonetheless there are quite a few piles here and there, and various ideas floating about that may or may not be beginning to shape themselves into tangible form. The creative fog is itself refreshing, and not limited to any particular medium at this point. I am dreaming of gardens and food, embroidery, sewing, knitting, color, texture form.  It will all sort itself out in its own time. 

  

I have managed to finish one thing, a simple scarf sewn up from a navy/blue/black sweater knit.  This piece had been languishing in a stack for a long while.  I had a sweater made from this fabric when I still lived in Hyde Park, but it has long since been worn to threads.  I don't remember my original intentions for the remaining piece, but lately I keep looking at it, thinking "That will make a nice scarf someday" and then putting it aside.  Well someday arrived.  I honestly don't know why I had been putting this off, perhaps thinking I might have a more interesting idea.  But interesting is sometimes overrated. And a scarf in hand is always good.   

 

On the knitting front I've gone from working on one project (Ausma) to having three projects on the needles.  

One is a rayon ribbon cardigan, that I love but which is proving to be a slow project.    I had started this once before but had trouble keeping the yarn from twisting.  I felt like I was spending more time untwisting the yarn than I was knitting.    I ripped and began again after pressing all the twisted ribbon I had already knitted back into smooth silky shape.

I figured out that a ball, even a carefully hand wound ball, didn't work for me.  Somehow, while knitting, I would twist the yarn even more.  I came up with the idea of winding the yarn on a spindle of sort, using an embroidery frame as the spindle.  This is tedious and time consuming, and each skein must be wound on the spindle painstakingly.  That means the interruptions between knitting each skein becomes tedious. More tedious in fact, because the skeins themselves are twisted and tangled. Each new skein has to be slowly unwound, ironed,  and slowly wrapped onto the spindle.  

 

I do not believe the tangling is the manufacturer's fault.  This yarn has been packed and unpacked multiple times, and treated non-too-kindly I fear.  I take full responsibility even as I mutter under my breath while standing (not) patiently at the ironing table. Although I love the actual knitting, and the pattern is both simple and entertaining, the pressing and winding is far less exciting.  It will be some time before this sweater is done, and most of that time will not be knitting time.

The ribbon project is not portable, so I needed something I could tote around with me.  Enter socks.  I'm not far along yet, but far enough that the sock is stable enough for traveling about.  The yarn is a self striping yarn from Urth Yarns called Uneek Sock and I am knitting them on size 1 needles.  The skein pictured is enough for one sock.

Feeling in need of more mindless knitting time to balance both the annoyances of ribbon flattening, and the fog of creative dreaming, I also started another fairly straightforward project, an assigned-pooling sweater using BFL fingering yarn from Barker Wool.  The pattern is from Barker Wool as well and is called A Murder of Crows.  I've just started this as well, so I don't have much to report.  I am having fun with it so far.  I really need a loose comfy sweater to just throw on all the time around the house and studio and I am hoping this will be the one.  

 

Anyway, I hope the remainder of February is kind, and I will see you in March.

Playing with my food

Somehow I think I didn't cook as much in January as December.  Perhaps my memory is faulty; in retrospect I cooked a lot in early January and then I went through a lull.

 

Let's take a look back and see. 

 

I think January started off pretty strongly.  I had a large bag full of fennel fronds after making fennel gratins for Christmas.    I also had a new cookbook, Tenderheart, by Hetty Liu McKinnon.  I noticed that she made a pesto from fennel fronds, and she did it a little differently than my standard pesto recipe in that she used pepitas (pumpkin seeds) instead of pignoli (pine nuts).  I had some pumpkin seeds languishing away and decided to use them up.  At first I wasn't convinced, but the pesto improved with age.  I still think I prefer pine nuts.

 

 

I also thought McKinnon's proportion of garlic to fennel frond was a little high, but that could have also been a factor of my garlic and my fennel.  At first the pesto tasted strongly of garlic and made my eyes water.  But I left it to rest a few hours, which allowed the allicin in the garlic to mellow, and the balance of flavors improved immensely.    I've grown fond of the numerous variation on pesto that I've tried over hte year and tend to keep on hand now.  Some, like this one, appeal to my frugal self -- "look I'm not tossing the fennel greens" -- but they offer wonderful flavor profiles and easy techniques for sprucing up a plate of vegetables or a simple piece of chicken or fish.  I use them more than true basil pesto right now, but that could just be because my basil crop didn't do all that well last summer. 

 

 

That first evening I used the fennel frond pesto with pasta and seared sea scallops.  I may have added slightly too much parmesan, fearing the the pesto was still excessively garlicky, so the color suffered.  Dinner was delicious anyway.

 

 

The next morning I dabbed fennel pesto on my scrambled eggs with some grated radishes and a scattering of pickled red onions.  This was a revelation in flavors, everything harmonizing and playing off each other nicely.  I've continued eating this combination since, it makes my mornings feel like spring even though we are in the depths of winter, 

 

 

The big hit from Tenderheart was McKinnon's recipe for Garlicky Chili Oil.  I've been slathering it on everything and am finishing up my second batch.  Perhaps I've been a little excessive, but it is that good.  She also has a recipe for Chili Crisp that sounds fabulous, but haven't made it yet, mostly because I am so besotted with all the components of this oil.

 

 

I also made McKinnon's version of celery soup.  Here served with a drizzle of chili oil.  I had recently grown bored of my previous celery soup recipe and this was a welcome change, even when using pale, anemic, winter celery from the grocery store.  I think I still need to play with this recipe, or explore recipes a bit more.  Celery soup is a good basic as celery itself is something I find I need only in small quantities, and then I am trying to use up the rest of a bunch before it goes bad, although celery does make a nice stir-fry, one I loved as a child.  I wonder if my mother stir-fried celery as a way of just using it up before it went bad as well?

 

 

Still on a Tenderheart kick, I used McKinnon's recipe for hoisin sauce and a hoisin-glazed roasted cauliflower.  Roasted cauliflower is something I do regularly in season, and I've been making my own hoisin for years, since I first learned I had celiac disease, when the only gluten-free hoisin I could find tasted nothing like the stuff I had been buying previously in my local Asian market.  I still make hoisin,  but felt my version was rather one-note and basic.   I wanted to try a new recipe and I really liked the one I found in this book.  This may well become my new base for hoisin, although I will probably tweak it a bit here and there. 

 

 

During the big snow I was craving "brown food", slow-cooked, braised, warming dishes.  I made myself a pot of chili and a big batch of chicken paprikas, which has been one of my favorite comfort foods since childhood.  I also made Nigella Lawson's Oxtail Bourguinon, from Cook, Eat, Repeat.    This made a large batch as I had 4 pounds of oxtail in the freezer. All that cooking meant that warm and comforting meals went into the freezer and I just finished off the supply this week.  Perhaps that is why I have not been cooking as much recently. Anyway, that is the oxtail pictured above, with lots of carrots and mushrooms.  It was very good, but not perhaps my favorite oxtail stew.  I'm not 100% on that, as it has been a few years since I routinely made oxtail stew or soup.  Something else that may need to change.

 

I also harvested an armful of bok choy before the snow, not being sure how it would weather the single digit temps.  Luckily we had enough snow that it stayed under its snow blanket the entire time and survived just fine.  I am still eating winter bok choy and broccoli raab.  One of the new dishes I tried was a recipe for stir-fried bok chow with crispy tofu from Nik Sharma's new book, Veg-Table.  This was supposed to be the January book from my cookbook club, and so far it is the only recipe have tried, although there are several that look tempting.  They just haven't appealed to my winter-dining cravings for stews and long braised meats. 

 

Anyway the bok choy was really simple, stir-fried with onion, garlic and a simple sauce made of soy sauce (wheat free tamari for me) and Chinese black vinegar.  I loved the flavor the black vinegar added and it reminded me I do not use black vinegar enough,   The tofu was  cut in cubes, coated with bread crumbs and sesame seeds, and fried, yielding a crispy crust and a tender middle.  The combined flavors were wonderful, with the textural differences of crisp and soft, and the bright savory flavor of the bok chow also enhancing the very mild tofu.  The tofu would also be good with a dipping sauce, but I found it a little bland on its own.  I think, once again, my seasonal tastes tend toward something more deeply savory; this might well be the kind of light meal I crave once the weather brightens.

 

 

Did we really think I'd stop reading? January Books

As I was dithering, putting off writing this post, I picked up a book to begin my next read.  The Book is The Vulnerables, by Sigrid Nunez, and I found this quote on the first page:

 

Only when I was young did I believe that it was important to remember what happened in every novel I read.  Now I know the truth:  what matters is what you experience while reading, the states of feeling that the story evokes, the questions that rise to your mind, rather than the fictional events described.   (page 3, paragraph 2, line 7)

 

And so, in the beginning of a novel is a statement that completely encapsulates my approach to reading in general, particularly fiction, but I would argue that there is a corollary that relates to non-fiction as well.    Yes we read non-fiction for knowledge, but how we approach a chemistry text for example, should be different than how we approach history.  We are not empty pitchers waiting to be filled up only to disgorge the contents unfiltered.

 

I read five books in January 2024:

1.  Lord of Chaos, Robert Jordan.  Fantasy. Book 6 of the Wheel of Time series.
2. The Fourth Turning: An American Prophesy,  William Strauss and Neil Howe.  Reread from the 1990s. American History, Sociology, Generation Theory.
3. A Crown of Swords, Robert Jordan.  Fantasy, Book 7 of the Wheel of Time series.
4. Generations: The History of America's Future1584-2069, William Strauss and Neil Howe.  Non-fiction. American History, Sociology, Generation Theory.
5. The Vaster Wilds, Lauren Groff.  Literary. Themes include patriarchy, female autonomy, climate change, ecological degradation.

 

In my mind they can be broken into two groups:  the first four, then the final one.

I started both Lord of Chaos and The Fourth Turning before the close of 2023.  They were both slow reads. Oddly, or so it seemed at first, they complemented each other.  But it is not really odd.  They both revolve around a cyclical view of time.

 

I picked up The Fourth Turning, which I had read when it first came out in the 1990s, because I read somewhere that Neil Howe had come out with a new book, The Fourth Turning is Now.  I remembered reading the first book, and the general outline of Strauss and Howe's theory, and wondered whether or not I really needed a further explication of the theory as it relates to current events, or, if would be better just to reread the previous book.  I opted to reread before making a decision. Once I started The Fourth Turning, I thought I should read Strauss and Howe's previous book, Generations, and procured a copy.

 

Both books discuss history, specifically American History, although in the second book they have expanded their timeline backwards to the Reformation in Europe.   Their premise, that history is shaped by generations and that these generations fall into a repeating pattern of approximately a four-generation cycle of 80 to 100 years, called a saeculum, is thought provoking and worth reading.  The idea of the spaeculum is not new, it goes at least as far back as classical Greece.  Nor is the idea of differences in generations or the idea that time and history are cyclical in nature new.  These ideas have a much longer hold on human thought than the relatively new idea that history and time are linear.  

 

In general, people do react to the ideals and actions of the generation that came before them, every era has its own events and stories that shape its particular narrative, and much as many an older generation wishes the younger generations were more like themselves, this cannot be so. We all leave our marks on the culture in which we live, and the world in which our grandchildren live is not precisely the world in which we grew up.  This was as true in the past as now, although rapidity of change is much more marked at this point in time.   There are ages of heroism, ages of rebellion, ages of calm and peace.   Unfortunately the way the previous cycles played out grows dimmer the further removed we are from any particular time.   I am not saying that time or history is strictly cyclical, not in any sense of predeterministic, but I am also not saying that history is strictly linear either.  It seems to me we see what we need to see to survive and in this we see only a fragment of what is true.

Strauss and Howe combine a view of history with sociology in describing social movements and the way ideas shape history.  Was this new at the time? I don't know.  I think both books are good, although the latter book trends a little more toward pop sociology than appears to be the case in the first book, Generations, seems more solid to me, even if a little dry.   In both books, the authors sometimes appear to take great pains to adapt the flow of historical events to their four-generation, four-season outline, and sometimes  they leave out events that I might have thought important.  I am not a historian, but my father was, and he drummed the idea of historicity into me from an early age.  I am also aware that the way we look at the past, the way anyone looks at the past, even a historian attempting to be objective, is shaped by his/her understandings of the world in which he or she lives.  There are facts, but we see them darkly.

 

Anyway, reading these books along with the 6th and 7th volumes of The Wheel of Time was fascinating.  In once sense, the entire series, which takes place over the course of just a few short years, very much fits into the patterns of a crisis or "turning" as Strauss and Howe use the term.  Jordan also employs the idea of time as being a wheel, not repeating exactly, but themes and cycles that recur again and again.  He artfully weaves in "legends" that refer to events of our time, although so misconstrued and misremembered that they could be missed if one was not paying attention.

 

In retrospect I think the first few volumes of The Wheel of Time were a sort of prologue, defining the world and its boundaries.  Now, in the middle of the cycle, I find myself fascinated by the world itself, the societies, the individuals, the complexity of this world that also seems all too familiar in its humanity.  Everyone sees the world through different lenses.  Everyone believes they are right.  Everyone, absolutely everyone, is wrong.  We have a group of young adults who are changing the world, but not so much changing it because they want to, but because they see circumstances that others do not, respond in ways others do not.  They too make mistakes.  Everyone, in trying to help, in trying to guide the future, compounds the crisis. 

 

I find this fascinating because I see it play out all around me.  In global events.  In local politics.  In petty feuds and misunderstandings, some of which drive people apart because they can't let go of their own tiny piece of the world.  I am no better.  This is part of what it is to be human, although I still believe we have the option to attempt to reach beyond this, if we can.   This is what fantasy and science fiction do so well, they explore the everyday themes of human life, society, religion, in an abstract way that allows greater depth through distance.

 

I will continue reading The Wheel of Time but I will also probably take a break when I finish my current book.  I feel no need to read Howe's newest iteration of his theory.  Even in The Fourth Turning, I thought the book was making missteps as it tried to apply a general theory to the specifics of what is happening today.  I still find the ideas fascinating and thought provoking.  Reading the books was time well spent.  The same for Jordan.  But that is about the extent of it. I'm not sure any of us can really understand the forces that govern our life while we are in the midst of living it.    

 

And that takes me to my last book, which is a different thing altogether.

The Vaster Wilds, by Lauren Groff is definitely a literary novel.   The setting is roughly 1609-1610, Jamestown, but this is not specifically an historical novel even as it definitely references some of America's founding myths.  The story takes place over the course of a week or two, and revolves around the struggle of a young girl who has run away from the Jamestown settlement, who is pursued, and is sick and dying in the wilderness.  The scope is simultaneously very small and very grand.  The plot is minimal, and yet the story is compelling. I did not want to put it down.  

 

To this reader, the novel explores many of the themes that were explored in Groff's last novel, Matrix: patriarchy, misogyny, loss of female autonomy, capitalism sometimes masquerading as evangelism, climate change, ecological degradation.  Yet where Matrix explored these issues in a very external way, through a fictionalized character  based roughly on Marie de France, in this novel the exploration is very internal, through the musings of a young unnamed girl.  Yet this story is also very internal to the experiences of a woman in any age.  That the girl has no name is important to the story, as is the fact that she is called by many names, none of which feel real even to herself.

 

There are several things I like about the story and the structure of the story.  I like that Groff has intentionally chosen to write in a voice that is not modern, deliberately evoking the period.  And although our narrator is omniscient, and sometimes perhaps anachronistic in that between alternating sequences of dreams vs the reality of her plight, our young narrator explores issues of male sexual violence, discrimination both on the basis of sex and differences in religion/race, as well as the human need for possession and domination.  Groff bridges this gap well, with beautiful prose.  She also manages to make her protagonist not sound like a 21st century girl trapped in a 17th century setting, a problem I find rampantly annoying in many historical fictions.  In fact we don't know all that much about what 17th century women thought about all of these things, but I suspect their thoughts were not that different than ours even though their contexts and expectations would have differed wildly.

 

I was particularly struck by the question of dominion vs domination and the way it plays out through the story. Although the author addresses this question head on in the middle of the book, as one reads, one realizes that the theme has been pervasive throughout the novel in the various relationships between the characters, both men and women, but also adults and children, englishmen (deliberately not capitalized in the novel) and native americans, humans and nature, even to some extent in the struggle between outer life and inner life, or the ego and the soul.    

 

In this sense, I find the ending of the novel fascinating and necessary.  Our dying protagonist experiences a series of fever dreams in the moments before death in which she has survived and lived for some years, self-sufficient and yet lonely, in the wilderness. Through each iteration of her dream she makes a new realization about the meaning of life and what is truly important, another way of looking at dominion vs domination,  not just of the world, but of the way in which we are willing, or not willing, to embrace wisdom and who we truly are.  

 

In this story of a nameless girl I found, in one sense at least, the story of humanity.  Life is filled with nameless people who lived brave, sad, honorable or terrible lives.  We do not know about most of them, but they are no less important to the world we know today just because they as individuals are forgotten.  The same is true for each of us, each of us embodies humanity.  Most of us will not be remembered a few generations from now, much less hundreds of years.  But each of our lives is valuable, each of us is valuable for the choices we make.   I may be reading a lot more into this book than the author intended but I am not sure whether or not that is the point. I continue to maintain that a book opens the opportunity to form a relationship with an idea.  Reading this book opened a conversation. Discussing this book with my book club, refined and shaped that conversation in new ways, as have my meandering thoughts since that date.  Definitely a book I will want to read again.

 

I am going to conclude this post with a quote from near the end of the novel, during the prologue to the period of fever dreams, as much because I love the wording, as because it captures both the sweep of awareness of grace as the acceptance of peace to come. 

 

And in the air, now, she had a single bright flare, a vision that extended her life vastly beyond this moment of her dying, both in the greater sweep and in the smaller grains.

                                                                   page 233, paragraph 5

 

 

Hello Ausma

Let me introduce you to Ausma!

The pattern is Ausma by Inese Sang and is knitted using A Verb For Keeping Warm's yarn, Reliquary II. The yarn is lace weight, 80% merino, 20% silk.  

During 2020 - 2022, and even into 2023, I belonged to several mystery yarn and knitting clubs. I joined in order to support favorite vendors during what was a difficult time.  I wanted to do my little part.  I didn't actually manage to knit everything I received during that period, but I have no regrets.  This was one of the club offerings I received from A Verb for Keeping Warm, and although I adored the pattern, I was initially less  than thrilled with the colors of the yarns.    I did not re-up my membership in the shawl club, but not because I regretted anything about the club.  In fact participation in these clubs has converted me into a knitter of shawls.  I don't think I will ever give them up, even though sweater-knitting remains my first love.  However, I prefer to have more control over what I actually acquire and make.  When I was younger I would make something just to try a technique, to learn something new.  Now I only want to make what I love.  I feel no need to be on trend. I feel no need to be the first.   I want to knit not just for the joy of knitting, but for the joy found in the finished object.

 

Back to Ausma.

This is basically a warm neutral shawl.  But my coloring is basically soft and cool.  Beige has never been my color.  The base color, Santolina is a beige.  It is a fairly neutral beige, but it is not a taupe.  As I knit this I have made a valiant effort at convincing myself that I can wear this shawl with taupe, and you might think so as well from the photo below. 

But you would be mistaken.  In this photo, in low bedroom light, on a black background the shawl looks beautiful with my silver/taupe evening skirt.  And it would probably work in an evening situation.  But, in bright sunlight, in florescent light, or anywhere the lighting is warm or glaring, the difference in the colors becomes markedly incongruous.  The skirt looks more silver/taupe, and the shawl quite yellow in comparison.  It would not flatter the skirt; it would not flatter my skin. I do not have a photo to show you, so you will have to trust me on this.

 

The contrast color, Paloma, is definitely warm.  The Santolina tones it down in the interior puffed rib panels, but the outer border is definitely warm soft pumpkin color.   

Despite this, I have no regrets.  I loved knitting the shawl.  I have already purchased more of the same yarn, Reliquary II,  in shades that will work for me with the intention of knitting another Ausma, one that will see plenty of wear.   I do not regret the purchase.  I do not regret the time spent knitting.    As I have been writing this post however, I have also realized that I feel no need to hold on to Ausma now that she has been finished.  It is time to release her into the world.    She has already been donated to a worthy cause, and hopefully she will make someone very happy.  That thought makes me very happy.

 

 

 

 

January in Review

I am a little late getting to this post, but I suppose a day late is better than not at all at this point.  Yesterday was a busy morning with outside obligations, and my higher priority, even higher than writing you, was to finish knitting Ausma and get it blocked.  I succeeded in meeting that goal, but not with enough time or mental acuity to write.  

 

The biggest event of January was the Martin Luther King Day snow.  I got 12 inches in my yard, give or take a fraction, and I think the official tally finally came in at 11 3/4 inches.  The particular combination of a large snowfall, followed by a week where the temperatures did not rise above freezing was a truly rare event for this city,  but I loved being home without interruption.  There is always more than enough that I can do, more than enough than I want to do.  In fact I don't really understand how people who don't read and/or have hobbies that keep them busy with their hands and minds function.  My street was finally plowed on January 22nd, by which time the temperature had risen above freezing, and if I hadn't needed coffee, I might not have gone out on the 23rd.    Of course I did have to go out after that, normal life resumed, but if anything I am reminded that for me it is the outside world that is the distraction and, often, the intrusion.  Something worth thinking about.

 

When the snow melted I saw that the winter garden had been perfectly comfortable under its winter blanket of snow.  The remains of the bok choy bed looked perfectly happy.  Of the two varieties of broccoli raab,  one looked a little worse for wear, but had survived, and the other appeared unscathed.  Haruki turnips, arugula, cabbage and various kales were fine.

I thought the purple kale and the cilantro looked perfectly lovely together.   I hadn't been certain about the parsley, but it was thriving and after 3 days had new green leaves.  Unfortunately some desperate critter dug it up after that and I salvaged the remnants.  Only the Mexican oregano died, but truthfully I had expected it to die months ago, so it was no real  loss.

 

I also kept the path to the studio open during the bad weather, and although I did not spend that week sewing, or at least not exclusively, I am happy that I got several things finished in January.  Life is not measured by our accomplishments, and yet, I am happy with those small things I did get done: 

            two baptismal towels

            two pairs of pants

            one evening skirt

 

 

You saw the first pair of pants in my blog post of January 23rd.  I made a second pair, with minor alterations, which I like even better than the first although I am wearing both pairs regularly.  I think black will become a usefull basic, but not a dominant player in my wardrobe, even if it is filling that role now as I am rebuilding.  Surprisingly, to me at least, I am currently wearing my black not only with muted plums, but also  with taupes and muted cool browns.  In fact taupe might well have been the color of January for me (and I love taupe).

 

The evening skirt was a simple thing, really a first iteration of a long out-of-print pattern by Neue Mode, a now defunct (?) German company.   The fabric is a synthetic suede-cloth embossed with silver.  I intend to make another view of the same skirt in silk.  But this version itself is useful and works with a number of things in my closet, including the above cardigan, which I named "New Orleans" and knit in 2022.   The pattern is below. This skirt is view A.

 

 

I knitted steadily through January but didn't actually finish my current project, the Ausma shawl, much as I wished to.  As noted above, I have finished it now and you will be seeing that soon. 

 

 

As a final note, when I came home on January 31st, I saw that the first of the iris histrioides had bloomed.  It was a welcome reminder that spring is just around the corner.  The irises don't mind the chill and neither should we, they just batten down then lift their blooms up bravely.  More irises are blooming now.   Winter is always hard.  Spring always arrives....