Shala loves making things

To Market To Market to buy a fat zucchini...

2009-07-20T02:12:46Z

We got some nice big zucchinis yesterday. I love it when they are in season here, because of the long summer hours, they are HUGE.
We also got soap. That was funny. I grabbed my essential shampoo bars, and some floral scented soaps for the luxury of it, and William just sniffed and couldn't decide what he wanted. So I said "You can get a bag of the moosetakes." which are the cute name that Gladheart Acres gives their end cuts and missed scent experiments. So he did that happily.
Actually, despite the way I was drooling over the art, we did just get food stuffs (and soap of course). One of the vendors was one Mike uses a lot, so if I like the stuff I bought tiny amounts of try from them, I'll be able to get larger amounts later.
A beekeeper had bees out to watch, and nice chunks of honey comb with raw honey. Yum yum! I loved honeycomb when I was a kid.

After we got home, I crocheted a couple new dishcloths.

Well.. off to make a nice vegetable minestrone for dinner.

Knives, photo boxes, and happiness

2009-07-18T21:32:48Z

Well.. yesterday, despite our grand plans, we decided to skip Thunderbird Falls until we get the starter replaced or some such. (I don't drive, cars are something I don't need to know at this point in my life)
A couple weeks ago when E and I went out thrift storing, we got some 10¢ books. They were priced low I think because they got damp and a little musty. The pages aren't stuck together or anything like that, just that damp mildew-y musty smell books sometimes get. I finally went through the bag to see what I got to fill out the dollar's worth of books in a selection that had a lot of romances and self help books.
One of the books was a hardcover copy of Ken Warner's Practical Book of Knives that came out in 1976. If you can find this, and have an interest in knives, it's a good book. Some of the things in it just make me giggle. Like talking about $4/ounce silver or $150/ounce gold. Those sorts of things always make me laugh. But the look at knives that weren't produced in low wage countries, and some of the gorgeous ones made back then just threw me back into remembering my first pen knife, and my Uncle Lamar patiently teaching me to sharpen a knife correctly. I remember him explaining why you shouldn't have your knives professionally sharpened if you could avoid it and how he corrected the angle I sharpened them at.
It goes into the differences in steel, and most of the information is still very current. There are some new alloys now. There is a chapter on how to get proficient at using a belt knife or a pocket folder for cutting things.
That chapter also threw me back into memory. See, everyone in my family carries knives. Mike didn't when we met, but I helped him pick out his first real folder. My dad works at an airport and is one of the very few people there generally allowed to carry a pocket knife.
I remember going out to eat lots of times with Dad and how the state of the restaurant silverware just drew a sneer, and like a medieval man of times long past, he pulled out his pocket knife and cut and ate using it. It would always shock other customers somewhat or impress them. It always seemed a very manly sort of thing to do. That lack of concern over what the servers or customers would think, and focus on being able to eat and cut his meat instead of tearing it to pieces with inadequate silverware.
Funny enough, on the subject of knives, I've never hesitated to pay a good price for a good folder. I'm the only person other then themselves that Lamar and Dad would trust to pick out a good knife for them, and while Dad's favorite is an old Buck he's had for something like forever, he also carries a couple I gave him sometimes. But it's hard for me to spend money on good kitchen knives. I have requisite two good parers, but I'd try to put edges on cheap steel too often. I'm not sure why for so long it was hard for me to spend money on my kitchen knives. I'm over that now. I think part of it is that Dad never interfered with Mom's kitchen knife purchases and she had a hard time spending money on tools to help herself out in the kitchen, which despite mom's membership in NOW and feminist streak was still very much her domain. But I do recall Dad carving many Thanksgiving turkeys with his pocket knife. I remember feeling a bit of guilt buying my first more then 20 dollar butcher knife, and Mike talking me through it. Reminding me that any knife I bought for the kitchen easily got used more than his folder which I didn't hesitate to spend the money on. Why do I undervalue my contributions? Cooking for my family isn't a small contribution. I should have the best tools we can afford for it.
I wandered off the book. But I am enjoying it.
I posted some boxes made with photos from the last couple of days to Don't Eat the Paste. There is a forget-me-not box, well, 2 actually, one is the box I came up for holding tea bags, the other is a standard gift box, and a gift box with a picture of a magpie on it.

This has been a great week. I'll miss all the time I've gotten to spend with Mike when he goes back.
Off to the Market to buy.. well.. something. Probably some soap for sure. Maybe.. we shall see.

Staycation in Alaska

2009-07-16T04:50:12Z

After a lot of thought about what we would do for a vacation, we decided to spend our money locally and get out to do a lot of Alaska type things we hadn't done before or in my case, hadn't done since LONG before my children were born, plus really enjoy some local events we do usually make it to, so far, the zoo, Bear Paw festival, and today..

Today, we went out goldpanning at Crow Creek Mine.
The drive out to Girdwood has always seemed magic to me, as a child who loved epic fantasy and had too early an exposure to Tolkien, it formed a lot of the movie in my mind of the stories. Passing through the mountains wrapped in clouds and set with streaks of white snow, purple fireweed and green trees always seemed like just through the next set of mountains, you'd find Middle Earth or a fairy land. It's still like that to me. It was hard to get any good pictures because the sun was so bright though, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Shown at 25%, contact me if you want the full size version
None of us found much gold, but it was a lot of fun. The sun was out. So were the big classic Alaska mosquitoes. I think I may have lost a couple lbs in blood loss. The creek was cold and we got to play in the mud. It's gorgeous out there. Leaving Anchorage, you pass by Indian Valley Mine to get to Girdwood where Crow Creek Mine is. Just keep going, pass it by. Because after a long drive down a very bumpy dirt road, you hit a slice of Alaskan heaven. Worth the blood price extorted by the mosquitoes. There are some structures that have been standing since the late 1800s, early 1900s. It's sort of like an amusement park, Alaska style. You can take the walking tour of the old structures, see the rusty implements used to plow, cook, etc. They are super friendly out there, and DO have a bottle of bug spray available if you didn't realize how bad it was going to be. You pay your 15 dollars, and learn how to pan gold, then they give you a gold pan, a bag of gravel seeded with specks of gold to practice with, a shovel to get your gravel and sand, and get told "Just walk down that trail to the creek." or you can use the panning shed if you just can't make the walk. The walk is not handicap friendly. I had some issues on it, but it's a gorgeous walk. Surrounded by forest walking a path edged with forget-me-nots and cow parsnip so tall that some stalks were literally curving over Mike's 6 feet plus height.

Shown at 100%, it's just cropped out of a larger image of lots more forget-me-nots
Before you leave the little Crow Creek settlement, you see a little pool of cold creek water off to one side filled with soda and a bucket that says 1.00 each. Honor system soda. Definitely not in the city now! The kids were charmed, and so was I, so I gave them a dollar each.
You get down to the creek, and there is a little pool of almost still water, and the rapidly running creek. Heaven. We did the practice stuff, and then got to getting spadefuls of dirt and panning. The sun was hot, the creek was cold, and somehow William kept his feet dry. The rest of us got soaked and dirty.

Paper clone me looking for a dry place to stand
It was a lot of fun. I'm talked to my dr. at my last check up to see how much of a danger melanomas were to me, and since it turns out "Not very." I skipped sunscreen and just soaked up the rays and the resulting freckles. I'm pretty sure I'll have a couple more after today.
After we decided my back just couldn't handle anymore and still make the walk back to the car, we left. We stopped in Girdwood proper for malted shakes and I picked up a hairfork made by a local artist and the kids got pretty fused glass stars to remember the day with. Then we started the drive back to town.

Shown at 25%, contact me if you want the full size version
X-posted at Don't Eat the Paste, if you want larger versions of the pictures and aren't a lj subscriber, you can email me at shala *at* donteatthepaste *dot* com.

She's 14 now

2009-07-14T23:36:00Z

For her b-day, well.. we forgot to give her half her presents. Whoops. We gave them to her today, but we gave her the big one. Her very own sonic screwdriver. Once the batteries were installed, it became her favorite thing ever. Seriously. I was napping, and apparently at one point she came to the living room where Mike was playing one of the hitman games, and she pointed it at the screen and announced she was fixing it for him.
She decided she wanted to go to the zoo. Yay. I love the zoo. So we went and walked and looked at animals. After that, we met Dad and William for dinner. William got her a Star Wars lego set. There was much rejoicing. Of a very geeky kind.
We made a chocolate coeur a la creme. Well.. dome de la creme. I don't have a heart mold because it's an item with too few uses.

Chocolate Dome a la Creme E's b-day variation
8 oz package of cream cheese, softened
1 T vanilla (okay.. one teaspoon for most people, we LOVE vanilla in this family)
1 T milk (not usually in a coeur a la creme recipe, but the cocoa powder needs a bit more wet)
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup sugar

Cream cheese, milk and vanilla together, add in sugar and cocoa a bit at a time until it's all incorporated.

1 c heavy cream
1 T. vanilla
2 T. sugar (this is for a teen, we made it a little sweeter then usual)
Whip cream, vanilla and sugar until stiff, fold into the cream cheese mixture.

Molding:
I used a mesh strainer. Rinse a piece of cheese cloth big enough to line the strainer with cold water, line the strainer and put the strainer over a bowl big enough for it. Put the cheese mixture into the strainer, and fold the top of the cheese cloth over the top of the cheese. Put in the fridge overnight.
Before you get ready to serve it, make up some strawberry puree or cut some fruit to serve with it.
This tastes amazing. E says it's like a chocolate cheesecake without the crust but better. It's very light and almost mousse-like, and very rich.
I think peaches and a bit of Grand Marnier would be perfect with this. You can do vanilla by omitting the milk and cocoa, and I'm pretty sure this would work fine with Splenda instead of sugar. I'll try that sometime soon for my Uncle Lamar.
Of course.. I'm sure there are lower fat options that can be used as well, but if the point is something decadent, we can go back to non fat yogurt and such tomorrow. It was her b-day, and she loved the treat.

Smoothie happiness

2009-07-12T09:59:21Z

As I've mentioned before, this summer has been the summer of smoothies. With the heat, I haven't felt much like cooking, and it's hard to get E to eat nearly enough fruit and veggies. So a lot of our fruit intake has been smoothies.
But recipes for smoothies sort of amuse me. I never use a recipe. I keep a big bag of frozen berries, mangoes (when they are just edging on too ripe) and other fruit in the freezer, oj, homemade yogurt or store bought kefir in the fridge and just grab and go.
I need to get some kefir cultures and make it from scratch at some point soon. But Helios Organic Vanilla Kefir is a favorite of mine. Straight from the bottle it's thick, like a not quite set right yogurt, and satisfies my sweet tooth nicely. Blended with frozen milk cubes it's sort of milkshake-y. I've heard you can culture kefir from coconut milk, and I'm curious about that for virgin pina coladas.
So.. this is probably the only time this will happen. I'm going to write down a recipe for a kefir version of a childhood favorite. I think I've mentioned before my mother was anti-sweets for my brother and I. Really not fair with a dad who thinks chocolate is a food group, but we got all those old health food store snacks. Yogurt covered raisins, rock hard candies made with sesame seeds and honey, carob (which I STILL hate).
But when my face still had all the stitches in it, I couldn't eat, so mom made me smoothies until I got the stitches out of my mouth. My favorite was her creamsicle smoothies that she made with honey, orange juice concentrate, ice cubes, vanilla and plain yogurt. Now occasionally I make them for my family.

Orange Vanilla Smoothie-
1 tray of ice cubes
3/4 cup frozen oj concentrate- undiluted
1 cup water
2 cups vanilla yogurt or vanilla kefir, for the yogurt, just add vanilla and sweetener to plain yogurt to taste. In my case, it's enough vanilla to tint my yogurt tan. I LOVE vanilla. (and the homemade vanilla in homemade yogurt.. YUM!)

Blend until smooth. Makes 3 servings.
Soft set yogurt rocks for smoothies, so if it didn't set up quite as thick as you like for yogurt, use it for smoothies.
If you mix prepared oj and vanilla yogurt half and half and pour it into an ice pop mold, you have homemade orange vanilla pops that are low-fat (if you used low-fat milk for your yogurt) and full of vitamin c and happy beneficial bacteria goodness.

But I do let my kids have chocolate and have never tried to convince them that carob was the same thing but better.

Saturday, the first day of Mike's vacation, we went to the Bear Paw Festival. I bought a bunch of ride tickets for the kids, gave them the tickets, then Mike and I went and found a nice patch of grass to sit in under a tree while they used up the tickets. They had a blast. I got seriously too warm. The first time we walked by the fire truck spraying water for the kids to play in, I didn't follow E in, I just held her purse for her. On the way back though.. I needed it too much. So I limped in with my cane and all the kids and just stood under the downpour of water while Mike held my purse and E's so we could do that. Thank goodness he had his hands too full to take a picture!

Very soothing

2009-07-10T14:18:24Z

A Tale of Two Snails with music by one of my daughter's favorite artists. This is notable because until she got hooked on Auriplane's music, mostly she just put up with my classical and instrumental.
Today is Mike's last day of work before his vacation starts. We plan to go gold panning next week for sure, and head out to Thunderbird Falls. The nice thing about living Alaska during the summer is that even though we really don't feel like messing up our savings by taking a "real" vacation, there is a lot to do here.

Kindles marked down!

2009-07-09T10:06:04Z

Kindle 2 for 299.00 Yes. This is an associate link. But that doesn't change how much I love love love my kindle. I currently have 75 books on it and another 30 archived, and the long battery life is no lie. I've had mine going for 10 hours without an issue. I haven't let it run down yet, but I think it would work well for a weekend camping trip without recharging.
I admit it, I could give up my phone easily enough, or even my television but my Kindle and iPod are my two most used toys. I actually wasn't sure how much I'd use my Kindle when I got it, but really.. my only complaint with it is that I can't take it into the bath with me. S'okay. I have a ton of dead tree books.
I think it might be the right time for me to get one for my dad and William. :) William will love all the classics available for free, and Dad will enjoy a newspaper he can increase the font on while reading it.

Currently reading- Genius Squad by Catherine Jinks. Fun fun books, the first is Evil Genius, which is about a boy named Cadel who is raised by a perfectly awful foster family and finds out he's the son of an evil mastermind who has created a school of world domination especially for him. It could be corny, but it does a good job of portraying a boy who is raised nearly morally bankrupt and socially estranged learning the difference between right and wrong and changing his life. There is a lot of violence, math and spy type action. For the 12-16 set I think. I know I'm encouraging E to read it just for the fun of it. It's a hefty 500 pages with enough action to keep a kid interested. If you or your kids liked Artemis Fowl, you'll probably like this as a step up. No fairies, but the same sort of character.

Currently working on- Nothing at all except staying cool. This is revenge time for all the people I mocked when they complained it was so cool at 40°F during the winter. You can all mock me now. It's been in the high 70s-mid 80s with a ton of haze from forest fires. So pretty much I've been sitting by a fan and reading, taking regular walks, and NOT COOKING. Nope. Uh uh. Not turning on the oven.

Peace symbols and air conditioning

2009-07-07T15:22:31Z

I posted a couple peace symbol stencils here if anyone is interested.

Yesterday was another 80 degree day, for a bunch of people who break out shorts at 50 (or 10C), 80 is just too warm. I whined considerably, but did manage to make it the gym. Where the air conditioning wasn't working properly. Gym with a swimming pool, so the whole building was damp and humid. Soo hard to work up any motivation that way.
There are forest fires near enough the sky is white with haze and has been for the last couple of days, and today I'm sniffly sneezy. *whine whine*

So if I don't post much this week, it's because with the heat, I'm not doing much. Just reading and whining.

Hummus is just fun to say

2009-07-06T07:53:21Z

Well.. another 80 degree day in Anchorage. Which is like 110 for anyone living down south. We were all pretty miserable. More so because I gave one of our fans to my dad so he could be less miserable with the heat yesterday. But we made it. Complaining the entire time in my case.
(what happened to the last fan I gave him? Easy. He lent it to Lamar last year and hasn't gotten it back. So as soon as summer is over and they hit rock bottom again, I'm buying a few for next year.)

Tonight for dinner, because I wasn't starting the oven for anything, we had a nice light meal of hummus wraps with tomatoes, cukes and feta. Yum yum. I made enough hummus I have extra for lunch tomorrow. I can dip carrot sticks into it.
After dinner, we had smoothies. So I'm all full of vitamin C.

As promised, here's the picture of my Uncle Lamar.

He's 66. I keep thinking, looking at him and dad.. 66 looks a lot different then it did when I was a kid. I don't think I knew any senior citizens who rode motorcycles. Now I know a bunch of them. His laugh sounds like he looks. It's a happy belly laugh that's completely infectious and not mocking or hurtful. Well.. that's pretty much him. He's so good. He doesn't really know how good he is which is a shame, but I love him so much. He's the biggest reason I work so hard on tasty sugar free treats like the chocolate cream pie with a cookie crust and the banana bread.
Today we did nothing. I had vague plans of walking up to the gym or just walking, but in the end, the heat and humidity beat me. Too Alaskan for our gorgeous summers I guess.

So worth the pain

2009-07-05T10:17:43Z

By which I mean, the quite real physical pain I'm in after entirely too much walking over the last couple of days.
Yesterday, Mike spontaneously decided we should go to the valley. It's a pretty drive, but unfortunately, no turnout spots where I could stop and get a picture. Lots of mountains.
We go out to Sarah's hometown of Wasilla and it sort of broke my heart. What was a charming community I occasionally thought about moving out to quite honestly looks like a California suburb now. It's developed with big box stores. Heck.. it has a Walgreens. ANCHORAGE doesn't have Walgreens. But there it is. The charm of this tiny town has been obliterated by turning into just another 'burb. I know it's not Sarah's fault, but.. well.. it's just too easy to blame her for everything. Some of my favorite stores were still there though, so we went to a thrift store I love out there. It's one of those quintessential type thrift stores, the sort you never know what you'll find there. I found a kit for making a lamp using a plastic doll for the base. I resisted the urge, but it was so hard. I want a tacky little goffy doll lamp and didn't know it until I saw the kit there. They had a rack of 10¢ "slightly blemished" clothes. E and I went through the rack and found her a bunch of shirts and one pair of men's pants that fit her. She was thrilled. William won my heart again by finding a Arthur Conan Doyle book and a collected works of Shakespeare he wanted. Yay!
We had lunch and wandered a bit more, then came back into town.
Today of course, Mike grilled. I made a bbq sauce tomato based with molasses for him to use on the chicken and ribs he made. Usually he doesn't do hunk of meat type grilling but this turned out wonderful. He also grilled asparagus, peppers, mushrooms and zucchini. All of that was amazing of course, and the asparagus was just flat out sinful. Yum yum! Wm and I walked up to get some ice cream, and at midnight we walked up to see the fireworks.
See, ours are always at midnight, after a double header baseball game. Which usually winds up going into extra innings so figure about 0015-0030 usually. It's never really dark then, just twilighty, but today was cloudy enough it was a decent show.
Too much walking for me though. Really.

One of the nicest parts of today was talking to Lamar. He stopped by on his motorcycle (yes, he was able to order the parts I tracked down for him) and he gushed some more about the sugar free chocolate banana bread I made him. He offered one of his new neighbors a slice and the neighbor loved it and asked where he got it. Lamar said "My daughter made it, but she's kind of funny. If I ask her to make it, she won't, so I have to enjoy this and wait for the next time she feels like it."
Two things. First, yes. I am actually that contrary with family too. Everyone got a good laugh off that, because it's completely true. If you ask me to make banana bread, I might make you a vegetarian lasagna instead. I probably won't make banana bread. But flattery will get you something sweet.
Second.. more importantly. He called me his daughter. See, I've NEVER doubted I was one of Lamar's kids, even if I don't call him Poppy like a lot of them do. He's been an active part of my life since I can remember and was the ONLY person outside of our immediate family allowed to punish me and my brother. That said, he's never called me daughter before. I felt so loved and appreciated. Special.
Oh, and I got a picture of him in his motorcycle leathers. I'll pull it off my camera later to show you all. It was cute. I was worried about my batteries, and he saw me messing with my camera and asked if I needed to advance the film. You can imagine the look on my face. Of course, it was a very retro-tech day in some ways. Dad's next door neighbor was listening to The Boss on an old suitcase style turntable. My mind broke a bit. Her gf brought the turntable over, and with her gf standing right there, she explained she always liked him and showed me the cover of the album, remember that album cover? Or bum cover? Yeah. She pointed out what a nice butt he had back in the 80s. Funny thing is.. Mike and I were talking about bums earlier and I told him I could appreciate them in some ways, but mostly.. I preferred hands. What was a guy's butt going to do for me? Hands though...
Lovely day.
I have a pattern to write up for the headband I made.

Signs of the Zodiac and the start of it all

2009-07-02T08:40:24Z

Today while I was at the supermarket, I decided to look for the recently released newest installment in Vicki Pettersson's Sign of the Zodiac series. If you haven't read it, it's a lot of fun. Ms. Pettersson creates a shadow world of superheroes and supervillains based on the signs of the zodiac and carrying the appropriate weaponry for each sign who are at war with each other in major US cities. Her story tracks the Sagittarius of the group in Las Vegas who is on the side of light, but who is born of both sides. It's a comic book world that would be neat to see in comic book format and one of my favorite guilty pleasures. However, for some odd reason, Amazon has the dead tree format for 7.99 and the Kindle version for 9.99. Not helpful.
So I checked the supermarket. They've had the other 3 and I was hopeful. I ran into a normal problem now looking for certain books.
Vampires have messed up the genres.
You see the equivalent of vampire bodice rippers in the fantasy section or horror section, Charlaine Harris seems to confuse everyone and I've seen her Southern Vampire books in horror, romance, fantasy and this week.. mystery. Some pretty good fantasy reads with hardly a wet kiss in them wind up next to Harlequin's newest, and while sometimes this is a good thing, I've found a lot of new books I'm interested in trying to figure out how things are categorized this time, it's still annoying. And all because of vampires.

But I did see one thing that made me laugh. A newly covered and released version of Anne Rice's Interview With A Vampire in the romance section with the words "The book that started it all" blazoned across the cover. Apparently, they are trying hard to find that one vampire fan out there who hasn't read Anne Rice's first three vampire books.
To be honest, my favorite books by her remain Cry to Heaven and Feast of All Saints with Belinda probably in third.
Anne Rice on her worst day though is better than an awful lot of the stuff out there now. The most recent Laurell K. Hamilton book made me nostalgic and wistful for Pandora.

They didn't have the Vicki Pettersson book. Well, tomorrow we are going out for pork schnitzel at Cafe Amsterdam which is a couple blocks from B&N. So I'll check there.

Where it's 4:20 all the time

2009-07-01T06:58:08Z

Mike needed a pink shirt for work tomorrow. He's always been bothered by the amount of leeway women have in business dress but men don't have much at all, essentially the same outfit for a century for business dress. One day earlier this month, a woman he worked with made comments about how men shouldn't wear pink shirts. That just rubbed that annoyance all wrong. So tonight we went out looking for a pink shirt in his size. He and a few of his male co-workers are planning to wear pink shirts. Love that man. Not only did he decide then and there to get a pink shirt and wear it to work, but he convinced some of his co-workers to do the same.
After we went out to eat at Cafe Amsterdam. Cafe Amsterdam has decent food and truly impressive beer list with a lot of good local brews on tap. I had the same thing I usually have, an avocado melt, which is entirely too much of a very good thing. Mike had a salad. For an appetizer we had a really garlicky hummus served with pita triangles, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives and feta. Yum yum! I decided I was in the mood for beer, and look at their tap list (really, who would drink bottled when you're someplace that has tap at perfect drink temperature?) I opted for Midnight Sun Brewing Company's Fallen Angel. I admit it, I asked the waitress what kind of beer it was like it wasn't just the name that convinced me. She didn't know, and I ordered it anyway.
Oh my.. it was so good. Crisp and yeasty which usually don't go hand in hand in a beer. The bubbles were very fine and the head was dense and solid. The fruity flavors were reminiscent of some white wines I've had, but all backed with that nice yeasty bready flavor. I took a sip, and then a swallow and offered the glass to Mike. He asked "How is it?" and I said "I like it!". He took a sip and said "This is good!". Mike started drinking wines in Italy as a teenager, and at 18, he was in Germany. His palate for beers is pickier then mine. So it was nice to have my first taste validated. We shared the beer and got just a tiny bit buzzed since we don't really ever drink. Turns out that nice crisp flavor and mid-light amber color hid an 8% alcohol content. We are SO going to the brewery to pick some up. Yep yep. YUM! Plus, I've GOT to try baking with it.
Other then that, I spent the day restringing a pearl necklace, and working on a couple projects in between playing Mafia Wars on Facebook. So very E.H.'s fault. I was curious to see what she'd play and got hooked. If you play Mafia Wars on Facebook, please look me up and add me as a friend so I can increase my Mafia size!
After I finish knotting the pearl strand, I've got a couple book reviews to write, then I'm working on a printable box for cupcakes. Well.. it should all be done in the next few days, and I have a new bread recipe to finish up typing up. But Friday we are heading out to Eagle River to pick up some stuff Mike saw on Craigslist he wants. In theory, we will hit a couple shops out that way I love too.

Oh? The title? At Cafe Amsterdam, the clock on the wall is stopped at 4:20.

Food Links

2009-06-29T21:17:07Z

A few from Not Martha.
Homemade Maraschino Cherries, I must do this soon. Really soon. Yum yum!
3D Sheep Crackers at Design*Sponge
A No-Knead Bread Recipe at Kiss My Spatula that looks fantastic

A current favorite of mine:
Food for the Boiler: A Steampunk Cookbook

A couple mochi recipes
Welsh Cakes, perfect for the guy in your life who's decided he's Welsh and wants to replace your shed with a police call box. Unless of course that only happens to me.
You can also download a pdf scanned version of Brown Bag's new idea book with lots of recipes here, you'll want to go to view-rotate clockwise to read it.
On that note.. I really really want the British Isles shortbread pan

I have glitter everywhere

2009-06-29T08:39:58Z

Fairy wand project I was working on today, that's actually my second one.
Poor Mike. There is so much ambient glitter in the house it's pretty scary, but I can flit around the house and go abracadabra. Which was really the point.
Other then that, it was a nicely laid back weekend. The only semi-exciting thing there was.. we went to go see Transformers, which I loved. I'm easy. Effects, stuff goes boom, Shala is happy.

Plus Emily H. hooked me into Mafia Wars and recommended a couple authors to me which was wonderful too.

E needed button down shirts

2009-06-26T15:30:29Z

You see, since I got the bag of ties at the thrift store, she's been wearing them. With teeshirts, with turtle necks, not so much with button down shirts. So at some point I need to go through her brother's old shirts for her, but yesterday we bussed up to the thrift store to get her a couple shirts to wear with her ties. The SA right next to Value Village as usual had dress shirts terribly overpriced, but were having a 10 books for a 1 sale, any books. Hardcover whatever. Well, it was actually hard to find 10 books I wanted, but I did. One of them being a Dr. Who book for E which made her super happy.
We stopped by Terra Bella for a snack. Terra Bella has locally roasted organic coffee and organic treats. E had a green tea cupcake and I had pumpkin/chocolate chip bread. We decided we needed to come up with a pumpkin cupcake recipe soonish.
Mike came to get us and took us out to dinner where we discussed E's current wardrobe choices. See.. almost everything she wears these days is inspired by one doctor or another. She's a little obsessive about them.
Since her b-day is coming up, I ordered her a sonic screwdriver pen with a psychic paper wallet.
In other news, I'm starting to like Facebook more and more as I get back in touch with people I've missed. It's nice in a way talking to people I haven't seen in 15 or so years, but as close as I was to those people at that point in my life, it's really nice getting in touch with people I've "met" in the last 12 years on the net who have come to mean something to me, who have been inspirations to me in this part of my life, who have encourage me to grow as a person, and who are just amazing people themselves.
I tried to make a list of the people who have changed my life in a lot of ways since way back when.. I can't really, not and be really fair to each of them and the influence and encouragement they gave me. So I'm just going to say thank you.
And!! Miss Teri found me a pterodactyl for my Torchwood bag! Yay!!!
On the subject of yesterday's losses...
The first time I ever danced on a stage in front of an audience of hundreds, it was to Beat It. I remember my costume, I remember most of the choreography. It's a treasured memory because of the feeling of rightness, that was what all the training and practice was about, that moment on the stage. So yes, I had the Thriller album. I remember practicing for hours to make sure every move I made was on count. In the mid-80s, on some level, I realized the tragedy of his life, and after that, every time I saw him in a video or interview, it struck me again. That all those normal moments in my life that were set to a soundtrack that he was a part of, were things he'd never know. I felt sorry for him, and never quite got over that. Mike and I have talked about it a lot through the years and the scandals. A lot of celebrities made the choice at some point, I'm not sure he knew the choice was there to be made until he was far too famous to make it, to make a choice for a normal life. Rest in peace. You deserve some rest and peace.
Farrah wasn't a big thing in my life. I enjoyed Charlie's Angels, but I was just a kid and she wasn't my favorite Angel, but I do admire how she kept fighting, and my prayers are with her family and most especially with Ryan today. I may not have cared for her films, but love.. I do care about love and lovers, and he loved her so very much.

Cheesy Cheesy!

2009-06-25T18:27:43Z

Yesterday, when I asked E what she wanted for dinner, she wasn't sure. So I gave her a list of options and she decided on homemade mac and cheese.
Now, here's the thing, like most kids, it used to be that anything other then the stuff that comes in boxes with either a packet of cheese powder or a foil packet of cheese paste was disgusting to her. I wanted to give her mac and cheese that actually.. you know, had cheese in it. So I found clone recipe for the boxed stuff with the cheese paste, and made that. Every time I make mac and cheese, I change one more thing until I can make mac and cheese like mom used to make, well.. sort of. In as much as I follow any recipe.
Last night was the first time I tried baking it so it go all nice and crusty on top. IIRC, mom used to use Ritz cracker crumbs and french fried onions on top. I used a mix of sharp cheddar and seasoned cereal crumbs. I use seasoned cereal crumbs instead of panko for most panko uses. They bake up nice and crispy, usually are fortified with vitamins that don't completely cook out, and they keep as long as need them once I crush up the cereal and season it.
I also let her try a piece of the turkey I was cutting up to mix into Mike's and my mac and cheese and asked if she wanted some. She said yes, so I mixed in some turkey. It was a hit. I'm getting closer step by step.
She still thinks cooked veggies are nasty, so I made two separate casserole dishes with mac and cheese in them. The bigger one for Mike and I had frozen peas in it, and she just ate raw carrots with hers.

I was talking to a friend about how to get kids to eat veggies recently. Her son dislikes them intensely. So I started thinking.. see.. getting my kids to eat veggies has never been a problem because it's never been optional. They have to at least try everything, but if they don't like it, I have raw alternatives on hand. This is because when I was a kid, my parents tried to force me to eat brussel sprouts. I *hate* brussel sprouts. I'd coat them with cheese, make loud gagging noises and complain bitterly up until the time I decided I just wasn't going to eat them. My parents told me I couldn't leave the table until I finished them. When mom woke me up at the table the next morning for school, she gave up and never tried to force me to eat something I hated again.
There it is.. my kids have always HAD to eat veggies, but I don't force feed them veggies they don't like. I give them alternatives. That helps somewhat. Another thing that helps since E has been old enough is making soups with her active participation from shopping for them on up. She will eat a lot of things she wouldn't usually if she chooses to put them in soups and she likes brightly colored soups. So it's one way to get her to eat things like tomatoes.
William loves food. He doesn't like some fermented foods, but other then that, I haven't found much he won't eat. So the veggie battle with him was convincing him "Yes, if you eat 2 lbs of carrots every day for as long as you like, you WILL turn orange so please don't."
I've camouflaged veggies for children I've babysat. Shredding spinach into meatloaf and that sort of thing, but I really prefer not to. It does work though. Spinach goes well into meatloaf and hamburgers and I still cook my pot roasts in vegetable juice. Veggie juice is one of the easiest ways I've ever found to get kids to eat their veggies. With the right seasoning, it makes a quick marinara like sauce for ramen noodles, a virgin mary made with vegetable juice and zapped for a minute makes a quick tomato soup to dunk cheese sandwiches in.
Another great way is gardening. Let kids grow their own veggies or take them to a U pick it farm and kids will generally eat stuff they harvest with pride and happiness.
A bag of frozen peas and carrots that's seasoned and then dehydrated enough to be crispy but not super hard makes a snack food that both my kids will eat happily. Get some sesame crackers and nuts and make your own trail mix with veggies mixed in.
Spaghetti squash is a LOT of fun for kids to shred, with E, she will happily eat spaghetti sauce on spaghetti squash if she got to shred it after I cooked it. I will never bake one again though. Mike wouldn't eat it baked. It got a bit slimy in parts. Piercing it and simmering it works best for us.
Mashed cauliflower instead of potatoes is pretty much the standard in my family now. I have a recipe for mashed cauliflower in free mini cookbook
I'm not really sure what do with a kid who's had the option not to eat veggies from the start. We aren't vegetarians because it's just easier to use to manage a balanced diet in our budget with meat, but we do eat a lot of veggies. So all my suggestions sort of count on a kid who grew up with vegetables in their meals.
Do you have any suggestions for getting kids to eat vegetables?

Well.. today I'm going to crochet myself a headband using some of Paton's silk/bamboo blend.
And try really hard to get rid of my current earworm. Mike's had What's New Pussycat? stuck in his head. I've had UFO Phil's Listening Coast to Coast and his Aliens Really Stink stuck in my head.

Cupcake decorated box

2009-06-24T05:08:05Z

Cupcake decorated box, this week I think I'll work on a box to hold cupcakes. Assuming I can find my cupcake tins. *grumbles a bit*

E is knitting..

2009-06-23T01:27:09Z

and I'm thinking about making a glittered fairy wand, because I think I need a glittered fairy wand.

Today I finally added a section to my A-store I meant to add for a while, a bunch of "If you like Harry Dresden you might like.." now I need to add reviews and such.

Nothing here fell or anything when the earthquake hit, we are all fine.

Gah. I'm moody. Rainy weather makes me ache, makes me cranky. I think I'm going to work on my knitting too. And watch sci-fi with Mike.

I want to...

2009-06-22T21:27:46Z

Make vinegar from homemade wine. I should probably start with a bottle of store bought wine though first.

Bead these patterns

Write a song about glitter. Because I love glitter so much.

What I'll probably do today? Read. I have a couple books I want to get finished before new books come out tomorrow.

Pattern submissions

2009-06-22T14:59:13Z

2 new pattern submissions, you can use your Threadless login to score them if you'd like.

Yesterday we did nothing much at all. I baked some bread, and thought about what I wanted to crochet. Nice laid back father's day. Mike just relaxed so much at one point he was snoring.
I did graph some bead patterns I'll post later.

Lots of fun

2009-06-21T03:00:32Z

Today was the Pride parade and festival. It was a record breaking year for it as far as number of participants in the parade and number of vendors at the festival.
The kids had a blast. E waved her rainbow flag and wore a button promoting gay rights. William, being William, was more interested the food and music.
At one point during the parade, I started crying a little bit. It just suddenly struck me how very sad it is that at this point, the feminists, PFLAG, the ACLU, AK Democrats and all of them still have to come together and have a parade that's just as much protest as celebration. That at this point, we haven't progressed further then we have. That all the work that so many people have done has made so little difference so far towards equality and liberty.
Plus, I always miss my mom during things like this. Mom made a point of taking me to Juneteenth celebrations, to women's rallies and to all sorts of cultural and political events. She made sure were were there representing, and that I understood why. I felt like she was there with me, there making the point of being an ally to a group that shouldn't be oppressed.

The other day, Mike was watching something on PBS about homosexuality in the military. Now, I've mentioned before, Mike's a veteran, honorably discharged, served his country for more than 4 years. He went to Special Forces school and decided it was entirely too hard, and wound up as an MP on super secret base, after that, he served in corrections. He's got very strong feelings about everything that went on during the Bush administration because he feels like it directly reflects on what his MOS was. The show just made him angry. At one point, it listed all the countries who lifted the ban on homosexuals serving in the military and he just started snarling. See.. he thinks, he believes so much he spent 6 years of his life to prove it, that we are better then we are, that we can be a shining example of democracy, freedom, equality and civil rights, seeing us left behind by the rest of the world pisses him off. That we aren't even coming close to accomplishing and being what we can be as a country. He believes in the Constitution and keeps a copy in his briefcase. He's a member in good standing at our local American Legion, he's a veteran, he's heterosexual, he's a Christian, and he believes it's way past time for us to show the world what a country that offers equality and civil liberties to it's citizens can do.
I guess that's why I cried. I kind of think we are better than we are too, and seeing that we aren't there yet, I'm not disheartened really, but it's frustrating. That there is so much left to do.
After the parade, we went to PrideFest, and picked up swag including the obligatory condoms in great measure. A guy poured a bunch in my hands while his partner said "Oh honey, she doesn't need them, she kissed a girl and liked it." We laughed and visited with people we know. We enjoyed ginger-limeade, and danced and ate. We had so much fun. I grabbed a necklace for Mike that had a pouch for a condom that said "If you think I look good now, you should see how I look in a condom." to the absolute mortification of my children. Supporting the GLBT community is okay.. but mom and dad as people.. not so much!

After that, we went to Bosco's because today was free RPG day. Like free comic book day, it's a day for RPG makers to offer freebies. And there was much rejoicing.

Well.. Mike keeps asking "What do you want to do for dinner?" then a few minutes later "Have you figured out dinner yet?" so I'd better decide if I want to cook or go out or what I want I want to do for dinner. Which.. sounds kind of sexist, but it's not. Mike is pretty happy with whatever I pick, but on days my pain levels are really high, my tummy gets upset and there are a lot of things I can't eat.

Ethical consumption and things I saw today..

2009-06-20T07:09:03Z

I've been using my Captain Hammer bag forever, and today was the first day people recognized the logo. Ironically, today was also the day I finally found a purse that fit my needs. Big enough for the electronics I carry regularly and my glasses case for my sunglasses, made in the USA, and made out of post consumer waste. It's made out of truck tire inner tubes, reclaimed water hose, and reclaimed wood. It's even fairly grown up looking. I have a grown up purse! I told Mike grown up shoes are next.

E and I took the bus to William's and then the three of us walked downtown together. On the way, we ran across a bunch of people carrying signs that said "Honk for Peace" and "Impeach Palin" so when we passed them on the corner, I said "Honk Honk." and they all smiled. Then we stopped in a local eco-consumer type store that had the purse. I drooled, I lusted. I didn't buy because we had plans.
We got to the fair, a lot of my favorite vendors weren't there unfortunately, we had lunch and looked around some. I donated some money to the abused women's shelter, and E bought a logo'd umbrella from them. I also grabbed a couple bumper stickers.
We walked around some doing the tourist thing well enough people gave us helpful suggestions, and we stopped by a place that sold locally made ice cream. I got the kids each a scoop. E's was ginger, cinnamon and a few other spices, William's was coconut.
While we were walking, we ran across the first ever street buskers I've seen in Anchorage. Shame they were .. well.. bad. Really bad. You kind of got the feeling they were a couple skate rats who heard about the concept somewhere and said "Oh hey, I have a guitar!" In their defense though, maybe they just weren't warmed up.
We walked down to Resolution Park and the kids nibbled on the cheese bread we packed and looked at the graffiti making up stories about the people who wrote it. I watched the seagulls. Then we headed back to the fair. We talked to a lady who was working the table for a local child advocacy group, and stopped by the Planned Parenthood table where I found some condom bumper stickers that said "Just Wear It" oh yeah.. one of those is so going on my Captain Hammer bag. Which I'll still carry occasionally. After all.. the hammer is my.. well.. you know the rest.
At that point, it was almost time to meet Mike, so we went to have a cup of coffee and a treat even though the day was pretty treatastic, I didn't have ice cream and stuff with the kids. If I sin calorically, I prefer to do it in a way that makes it worthwhile. Rich dark chocolate pudding layered cake is a good way.
After that, we met Mike getting off work. While we were walking back up to the car, we passed the store with the perfect purse, and I mentioned the perfect purse to Mike. He asked why I didn't buy it,and I explained that we just didn't have the money with the other stuff we did today. He gave me what I needed, and now I'm the proud owner of a pretty new purse that.. well.. cost more than most of my outfits. I feel all grown up now. It's not that it was terribly expensive, just more then I've ever spent on a purse before.
Oh! I forgot the street preachers! I saw some of those too. They were loud and trying very hard to ruin the Solstice event. It didn't work out well for them, people ignored them. I think they were hoping to be laughed at because the senior seeming one had a sermon all prepared about mockery. Poor street preachers. Trying to shame the women at the solstice event and just not managing to do it. They gave William a chick track, and he said "Oh thanks! My mom collects these."

And the day ended with herring. It was really kind of a perfect day even if my pain levels were really high for most of it.

Tiny beaded rose

2009-06-19T16:43:24Z

A tiny beaded rose made out of size 15/0 seed beads

Solstice fair today. Yay!!

I need a cheese or yogurt icon.

2009-06-19T00:48:16Z

Well, it's been about 8 hours. The package said it would be set in 4, but I had my doubts and it wasn't. That's fine, generally working from plain yogurt for the culturing it can take 8-12 hours to set.
It's set up nicely, and it smells wonderful. I didn't follow the package instructions exactly because well.. generally I won't. So here's how I did it. (my notes follow, part of this is going up as a review)

Yogurt using Yo'gourmet Freeze Dried Starter
7-8 cups of 1% milk
1/2 cup instant powdered milk
2 5 gm packets of the starter

Dissolve the powdered milk into the milk, and bring to a light boil, turn down heat and keep at a simmer for 10 minutes. Let cool to lukewarm. Pour a little bit of the lukewarm milk into a non-reactive container (glass or ceramic), I use a white ceramic casserole pan I can cover with a plate. Mix the starter into it and stir to get the lumps out and make sure it's dissolved. Pour in the rest of the milk and stir it up well.
While you're doing that, stop your sink and run very warm water in it. Just about "Nice hot shower" temp does nicely. When it's about 2 inches deep, turn off the water and put the yogurt container into it covered with a plate or lid if your container as a lid. Every so often during the day, stop and check your water temperature, if it's cool, take out the yogurt container without peeking or stirring, and refill the sink up to 2 inches with more warm water,then replace the yogurt container. After about 8 hours, check it by tilting the dish and seeing if it's runny or firm set. Firm set, it won't move but may have some whey on top. That can be poured off or stirred back in. Put it in the fridge.

Okay, done with the part I'm posting as a review. I'm actually not sure how much milk I used. I just saw how much was left in the gallon in the fridge, and asked E if I should just use the rest. I used a measuring cup after to measure how much water to make it up to the milk line in the pan. 7 cups is a safe bet, it may be 8. I've used organic milk in the past, but it's one of those choice things, you know, those awful choices that people trying to buy ethically have to make? The local dairy gets most of their milk from local farmers, farmers who were about to go out of business when the last dairy closed. They are making a conscious effort to use a much higher amount of local milk then the last company did. Some of those farmers are certainly organic, some aren't. The focus they make is *local* and with our population base, there just isn't enough demand for a local produced organic milk for it to pay the farmers to switch. So.. we had to choose. Organic milk shipped in across nearly a country and a half or locally produced milk that wasn't completely organic and comes in plastic containers. We decided on supporting our local farmers. Which is more information then you needed, but there it is.
The freeze dried starter isn't pure cultures, it's cultures, vitamin C, skim milk powder and sucrose which is a simple sugar.
Going off the nutritional information on the packages and guesstimating because I didn't measure stuff out, you're looking at probably about 2 gms of sugar per 1 cup serving and somewhere around 125 calories. Which makes it a really healthy food since it will have calcium, vitamin D, C and A. If you use non-fat milk, it will have 20 calories less per serving.
We are going to flavor some chocolate and mix it with a blackberry puree and put it in ice pop molds as a summer treat for the kids. Some will wind up in smoothies which is the big reason I have to make a lot of yogurt, and I'm going to mix some with butter and see if I can come up with a buttery spread that will come out of the fridge soft enough to spread but have less fat and still taste good to my family.
All in all, I'm pretty happy with the freeze dried culture, and it's minimal packaging. I do recommend getting it from the net though for the best pricing.

yogurt and other things

2009-06-18T21:08:32Z

I started my yogurt. I'm using a freeze dried starter this time.Instead of keeping it at a level temp in my gas oven, I'm using a water bath in my kitchen sink. If it works out well, I'll post the results and the how for all of you who might not have old gas ovens with pilot lights.
Let's see.. other than that? I made a pattern this morning I still need to get posted, worked on a ring some.
E told me just to use the rest of the milk for the yogurt. A couple hours later she went to get herself a bowl of cereal and I said "Um.. all the milk is yogurting." (we make up words pretty regularly in my family) and she said "OH! D'OH!" I did not reply yo go. I thought it though.
oh,d'oh,yo, go, though. I'm so easily verbally amused.
So we got dressed to head up to the convenience store. She wore a yellow teeshirt, purple pants, a necktie and a blue vest. (and her red Whoian converse sneaks of course) While we were walking back, Amber (a girl about her age in the neighborhood) stopped to say hi and told her she looked cute. E said thanks, then asked me "I look cute?" It completely baffled her. I guess she didn't want to look cute, but she really did.

Tomorrow is the Solstice fair, Saturday is the pride parade and fair, and it's rainy. Really damp. I'll have to cane it tomorrow. Hopefully Saturday is better.