Slow but steady progress

I spent some time with the birches quilt on Sunday afternoon.  It was a breezy day, I’d been for a long walk, and I was content to sit with a cup of tea and make tiny stitches and turns until every last tree and branch was in place.  My sewing machine and I, we had something of an argument on the way, but I prevailed.  The downside is that it clearly needs a tuneup, but I feel sort of weird letting my sewing machine out of my sight.  I never really thought about it, and I don’t sew every day, but …

I am sewing regularly on this quit now because I fear I am losing the impetus I originally felt to complete this, to create this picture that was in my head.  As time goes by, I lose the original inspiration and feeling of urgency that something has to somehow become real instead of a figment of my imagination.  It all has to do with time and place, and this is definitely a winter thing for me, and it is fast becoming spring here.  I wore shorts today. It’s hard to work on bare winter birch limbs in shorts.

So now the machine sewing is done, and I have gathered my threads for embroidery, and sandwiched felt between the top and bottom pieces of fabric. I am ready to forge into the next phase of the process.  This part is not mentioned in my original drawing, this is the portion of it that comes as I sew, however it wants.  It’s the most fun part.

I’m getting close to finishing so many big projects, but of course finishing will take enough tme of its own …

Museum Curiosities

I hope you enjoyed last week’s entry from my range of “stuff on the web that inspires me.”  This is another one of those.

Back when I was a wee graduate student, I spent an inordinate amount of time in the many libraries scattered about Columbia University.  Inordinate. I might possibly have almost lived in stacks of the main library, Butler, and one semester I spent about 20 hours a week in the library at the Union Theological Seminary library because I was studying a manuscript.  I miss those libraries.  I particularly miss the Rare Book and Manuscript Library.  My office these days is nowhere near as interesting, even on its best day.

So you can understand why I find the Room 26 Cabinet of Curiosities blog so delightful. The entries are “new acquisitions, unique documents, and visual and textual curiosities from the collections of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.”This is something ALL manuscript and rare book libraries should do.  It’s a library exhibition in the form of a blog, and this one never fails to deliver delightful and random pieces.

I am have been delighted to see manuscript pages from artists’ notebooks – I find handwritten notes and the handwriting itself to be fascinating, so I love seeing the pages of Walt Whitman, J. M. Barrie, Gertrude Stein and others.  I have no idea how Ezra Pound ever read his own writing, but James Weldon Johnson’s National Hymn writing is beautiful.

So far I’ve seen sketches, photographs, notebooks, print examples, marketing materials, lottery tickets and more, and I’m thrilled with each selection.  I also think it’s a brilliant way to broaden the reach of a library, particularly in the case of a collection of rare materials to which access is usually restricted.

I was particularly thrilled to see the printing examples that you see here in this post, re-posted from their blog.  Illustrations and borders from older printing presses make me slightly giddy with joy and rapture.  These are from Chicago’s P. C. Darrow Printing Company around the turn of the 20th century, approximately 1902, and I love that era of design.  Love!

Featured here:  print advertisement for the P.C. Darrow Printing Company, (c) 1902, Chicago, Illinois.  From the Beinecke Library General Modern Collection.  Posted under Fine Printing and Resolutions, January 4, 2009.

Kee-nwa Stuffed Peppers

Quinoa Stuffed Bell Peppers

Yeah, that’s quinoa to you. I’m lousy at pronouncing it, but I definitely like it.  Have you been introduced to it?  It’s South American in origin, a kind of grain that tastes kind of nutty and soaks up flavor really well.  It’s also very, very healthy, being a good source of things like protein/amino acids and fiber and things.  I have been replacing rice with it lately in things, with good effect.  For example, in stuffed peppers.

Quinoa-Stuffed Peppers: This is an easy recipe I made up the other night which turned out to be quite tasty.  I served it with some steamed brussels sprouts tossed with toasted almonds and a bit of butter.  I have to admit that I mostly buy brussels sprouts because they come on a stalk that amuses me and they look pretty while steaming.  Yes, I am simple.  It’s the little things in life … But I do like them, absolutely, but if their delivery method weren’t so appealing, I probably would just get broccoli.

So … the ingredients … this makes dinner for 2. Preparation time approx. 45 minutes, but it only takes about 15 minutes to throw the ingredients together, and then another 30 to bake.

1 cup quinoa
1/4 cup white wine
2 large red, yellow and/or orange bell peppers
1 tbsp olive oil
3 leeks, sliced
1/3 cup chopped roasted tomatoes in oil
1/3 cup chopped Mediterranean olives, pitted
1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese or feta (I like strong sharp cheese so I used blue, but I think feta works just as well.)
1-2 tsp coriander
1-2 tsp turmeric

Preheat oven to 350. Slice off the very top of two peppers and empty / de-seed. Mist outside with olive oil. Put them upside down on a baking sheet and let them roast in the oven for 10 minutes. Remove and let cool.

Cook quinoa according to directions – usually it’s one part quinoa (1 cup) and two parts (2 cups) liquid. Use 1 1/2 cups water and 1/4 cup white wine.

Meanwhile, saute sliced leeks in the olive oil until soft. You can also add a crushed garlic clove and saute until fragrant here. I did not because the tomatoes and olives I get already have garlic in their preserving liquid. Add the spices, tomatoes and olives and saute until warmed through. When cooked, move to a bowl and combine with the crumbled cheese. Mix in an equal amount of quinoa (i.e. the mixture is about 1 1/4 cups, so mix in 1 1/4 cups quinoa).

Stuff each pepper with the mixture and sprinkle with a bit more of the cheese. Put them in the oven to roast, uncovered, about 30 minutes, or until the peppers are tender but not mushy, a bit crisp.

If you try it, I hope you enjoy!!