An Uneventful but Creative Spring Break

Most of my spring break was spent spring cleaning, sewing and hand building. I vacuumed my kitchen drawers and cleared my dining table of a few sewing projects by finishing one. I delivered the Bob + Lisa kimono quilt this past Friday, and they treated me to lunch at the Tadich Grill. There strangely was a bit of traffic in San Francisco, but oh! then I saw masked fans outside the Willie Mays Gate because of a ball game between the Giants and the Rockies at Oracle Park. Of course in this pandemic, I was able to find parking on the street close to the restaurant in the Financial District. I spent some time window shopping at the Goodwill and the SPCA/Human Society thrift stores. I did go back after my jaunt to the city and got that plate of the 18th century couple on which to adhere snarky text. I also found a darling porcelain tea cup and saucer earlier at the Goodwill. And I don't think I'll add any text to its bottom because it's so adorable. I instead want to build a little teapot to go with it with melon glaze and and gold luster. I don't know however if I could built it with frost porcelain. I might have to use Bmix stoneware for its clay body if I'm to make it as thin and delicate as I can. I know I'm going to make two slab bowls and then join them together into a sphere, cut a hole in the top half of the sphere to shape into a slightly domed lid and on which to adhere a knob and a flange and fashion a spout.

I also got curious about this little velvet suitcase...

...and oh! it's a cute record player.

Of course, I didn't buy it. I'm not about to start collecting vinyl for which I've neither the room, nor the patience. But if I were a record collector....

My meals lately have been my regular rotation of sandwiches and re-making leftovers like the Denver O'Brien potatoes with a fried egg and an English muffin that I served for dinner one night. Hubs surprisingly liked it.

And we are almost done harvesting our winter crops.

Hubs sautéed the purple cauliflower per usual and steamed that huge head of broccoli, the leftover of which I incorporated tonight into mac 'n cheese.

And I've got pots to deliver to the kiln:)

Here's my truth for how I've been processing my mental crises from two years ago.

This therapy admonition so resonated with me and is how I justify withdrawing from the world for the past couple years after my midlife existential angst.

Cooking: Posole

I stewed the pork on Sunday and spent the Monday finishing the posole for dinner. The boxed broth I used is very different in that I read it is all plant-based, made with seaweed and ancho chiles.

The soup was delicious, but still not a flavor I was used to in a posole. It's the last time I'll use a specific boxed broth for the dish and will return to just using a bone broth and adding ancho and New Mexican chiles to it. Posole is all about customization. I shared the soup with my neighbor along with the fixings for the salad to go on top in the proportions she'd or the hubs prefer: chopped green cabbage, Curtido, chopped cilantro, sliced radishes, sliced avocado, and lime wedges. And hot sauce. Gotta have hot sauce.

I also played with my new aperitifs and made a lemon lavender and orange soda spritzer.

Obviously I like a little soup with my salad or as much produce on top of my soup as there is soup. Still delicious even if the broth is strangely seaweed-based.

Easter Sunday : Cooking and Sewing

Like a lot of other families for Easter, I cooked pork. But instead of a ham (the leftovers of which I've still from Christmas in my freezer), I thawed a couple of bone-in pork shoulder shanks. Hubs, however, was still recovering from minor surgery and wasn't even able to visit his parents and siblings on the Sunday holiday. I also took out the frozen half turkey from Thanksgiving to perhaps cook for Easter, but nope. Instead I browned the pork shoulder and charred white onion, jalapeno peppers, and tomato slices, which I then pureed and added along with broths to the pork.

While the pork simmered, I sewed and enjoyed these pics of the grandnieces in the tent I sent them.

If I could I would make orange and pink pom poms to adorn the tent. Instead I stitched, and the heavy blanket upcycled from a silk kimono that I've dubbed the Bob & Lisa Quilt is done.

I almost gave up on this quilt. It must have languished at least a year and a half in my closet.

But much later, I came to appreciate the look of the hand stitching.

I'm so glad it's done because I'm so eager to finish the mermaid quilt and then sew an Amy Butler designed purse called the Birdie with Kaffe Fassett fabrics that I feel like I've had for a decade now. And it was also a weekend to eat a Filipino breakfast of rice, tocino sausages, chopped tomatoes and hot vinegar with a fried egg every morning for 3 days.

This breakfast made me recall the morning meals I ate in Palawan on a winter break years ago with my brother and his wife and sister.

The Inertia and Excitement Before Spring Break

Hubs got so irrationally irritated when I bought another Chilean sea bass (there are now two in my freezer) and another pack of organic ground beef that I've been trying as always to shop my freezer and pantry. I boiled up the last of a bag of russet potatoes to make Ina Garten's smashed potatoes with chives and parmesan. 

The potatoes were lovely with the second package of no-labor sous vide steak and sautéed broccoli and purple cauliflower, the leftover vegetables which we ate again when I cooked halibut (I thought it was sea bass, and hubs said it was too firm a fish that needed to be in a smoky fish chowder instead of pan fried and sauced with lemon butter capers)that I served with garlic butter angel hair pasta. That's leftover too, which I'll probably serve with shrimp scampi.

We've started getting kids coming back to high school even in this week before spring break, and I'm noticing more restaurants and businesses opening up. And so yes, there's a mental weariness to this pandemic, but also a teeny bit of return of vigor in preparation for the traditional letting loose of spring break. I made my way to a chocolate shop called Preston's on an old main street called Broadway in Burlingame to create an Easter basket which coincidentally was next to my favorite charity shop. I saw what looked to be a charming and clean vintage cookbook from the Ole South, and typical of cuisine of Confederate states, an amusing but disgusting recipe called "Oriental Chicken" (canned tuna and chicken? yuck). Yeah no.

However, I almost bought this china plate.

I'd this idea of adhering text on it similar to that on these fine china tea cups on Etsy.

Only my thought is to decal the plate with "Go Away. I ain't no hollaback girl." I still might go back and get that plate and maybe a cup and saucer on which to decal, "You're my favorite bitch to bitch about bitches with." We had a spell of sunshine and warmer than warm temps before the break too that I had sunned myself with Sadie next to my favorite blooms. I love these Columbines I found at the Grocery Outlet.

And I especially love this girl.

Prior to the spring break, I also finally made it to a new bakery I had been meaning to visit, Backhaus. I finally got there before it closed at 4:00 and was able to snag two morning buns and a Kouign Amman.

I do like a Breton butter cake, but I find myself liking even more Backhaus's less sticky morning buns.

Hump Day or How I Turn Wait Time into Create Time

Yesterday I had to ferry hubs to and from the hospital for a minor procedure, and so while waiting for that call from a nurse, I got busy. First I re-potted and added pebbles to planters of succulents.

I've been foraging for succulents from my high school campus, and I especially like these Escheverias with their dark crimson leaves and green centers.

After dropping off the hubs, I made a leisurely lunch of a grilled corned beef and Swiss and Gruyere on rye with a side of coleslaw and pickles.

So here's the issue with grilled sandwiches on my cast iron--not burning the bread before the inside is hot and melty. And so I zap the sandwich in the microwave for 30 seconds and then toast on the cast iron. 

And I think I like the contrast between cool coleslaw and warm sandwich.

And then while waiting to go to a friend's to do clay, I went ahead and turned my kitchen counter into a ceramics studio and built a container for my paintbrushes.

Ooof did I make the wall of my paintbrush vessel thin in comparison to my containers for my writing implements and cutting tools.

I am drying all these frost porcelain clay pots very slowly under plastic.

Does it make a difference if I burnish porcelain? Is that clay body by nature smoother than others because of all the kaolin in it? I'm also planning to adhere iron oxide decals, and so I may have to glaze these pots anyway so that the decals have a smooth enough surface to stick to.

I so love these images! I was so into making the paintbrush jar that I didn't really have time to head over to my friend's to finish. It was already time to walk the dog.

Sadie had such a good time at the park. And so we didn't make it to Meral's because it was then time to pick up hubs from the hospital. Hoping to make the 3 other vessels this Saturday : DRAW. COLOR. MARK.