Trees on my mind

Written last night: 

Dear Friends,

Today went quickly. I was preoccupied with Christmas trees. 

Love,

k

Lights are lit

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

I imagine some of you are also thinking: Christmas tree, lights, soon.

Today I didn’t think. But it happened anyway.

What a lovely, lousy-weather day! Perfect for lazing, the last of the holiday. 

Nevertheless, these lights got lit. Want to make the most of it.

Love,

k

I'm grateful for leftover pie

Dear Friends,

What Thanksgiving means to me:
Pie for breakfast on Friday

Shallow, maybe, but I do love that leftover pie, don't you?

I was going to draw it, but somebody ate it!
So here's the rest of my breakfast: a bowl of oranges and cranberries.

Love,
k

Mom cooked like this all the time

Dear Friends,

Yay! I consolidated all my Thanksgiving recipes! From Pinterest, Epicurious, New York Times -- and all are seasoned with memories of Mom. Her kitchen was in another era, and her recipes from a different cookbook, but she was one great cook! I can’t share a holiday meal like Thanksgiving without marveling at what Mom created every day. 

Hope you are relaxing thankfully!

Love,

k

Dry-Brined Turkey

Turkey Gravy

Gratin Dauphinois

Gratin Dauphinois

2 pounds potatoes (I used a bag of baking potatoes) to make 5 to 6 cups when sliced
1 large clove garlic, crushed
2 C. milk
1 1/2 C heavy cream
3/4 t. salt
1/2 t. pepper
1 T. butter (for buttering pan)
1/2 C. grated Swiss cheese (I use Gruyere)

Peel the potatoes, then wash and dry the whole potatoes thoroughly. Slice thin. Don't put them in water now because you need to conserve the potato starch. Combine potatoes with garlic, milk, cream, salt and pepper in a large heavy saucepan. Bring to a boil on medium, stirring to prevent scorching. I use the low-heat burner because I have burned them many times.

Bring to a boil, stirring, until mixture thickens slightly.

Butter a shallow (1 1/2 inch)  baking dish (I usually use the oval copper gratin pan; yesterday it was a 9" x 13" foil pan) and pour the potatoes in. Cover with grated cheese.  I usually put the pan on a cookie sheet to catch drips. Bake at 400° for an hour or until potatoes are soft and top is browned. These are even good cold.

Pie Crust

The Flakiest, Butteriest Crust

1 cup + 2 T. chilled unsalted butter
2 1/4 C. flour
1 T. sugar
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 T. apple cider vinegar
3 T. water

1. Cut butter into 1" pieces. Chill it while you measure the dry ingredients.
2. Mix the flour, sugar and salt together in a big bowl. I use that bowl you see in the photo above.
3. Add the butter and toss it until it's coated with flour. Then use your fingers and palms to work the butter into small, irregular pieces. This is fun. Stop before the butter gets warm. You should still see some pieces of butter.
4. Mix the vinegar with the ice water.
5. Drizzle the liquid over the flour-butter mixture. Mix it up quickly with your hands so the dough kind of sticks together. It will still seem pretty dry.
6. Turn the dough onto a piece of waxed paper (no extra flour needed) and knead it a few times. Don't let the butter get all mixed in. The idea is to keep some butter in discreet pieces.
7. Push the dough down and cut it in half. Press each half down to about an inch high, and wrap the two pieces in plastic wrap and chill in refrigerator 1 hour to 3 days. (OK, I'm doing a few more than three! Let's see -- Thanksgiving's four days from tomorrow. In a day or two I'll:
8. Roll it out and fit into pie pan.
9. Blind bake or fill and bake according to recipe.

Cinnamon Crumble Apple Pie

City Hall : impressively boring

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

Today I went to my second City Council meeting. So boring! So many citizen speakers before getting to the published agenda. In their two minutes at the podium, they spoke of Indigenous People’s Day, The God Particle, bathrooms for the homeless. Unrehearsed, unimpressive, perhaps. Yet I ended up impressed. It was people talking to their representatives. 

Then the council swiftly approved items 1 to 13, which included some licensing and zoning for cannabis. 

All passed as if routine. Which it is. There were several more cannabis-related items on the agenda, but I left before the council got to them. 

Now I feel at home. I know how to get to City Hall. I don’t need to go back soon. I think I went because it’s where Clark might be.

While the meeting wore on, I drew the people.

Love,

k

News break

Written Sunday night:

Dear Friends,

Do you believe your news sources?

Today I went to the library to hear experts* talk about "Fake News." I hate that term, because I think the President inserted it into the national conversation for his own benefit — but I guess we are stuck with it. They said the predictable: we might prefer news that confirms what we already believe, and we should question our biases as we gather news. I came away realizing that the media are not respected, and that we all need “media literacy.” I think that means be more active and questioning -- remembering that most media are also businesses out to capture viewers/readers, and they might skew their presentation to lure us in. 

No one used the word lie when they said fake news. But that’s what it is. Depressing. 

I still love the news;  do you care about news?

Then, for relief, I went to the River City Quilt Show. . 

Love,

k

* ABC 10’s Lilia Luciano, Kim Nalder of the Project for an Informed Electorate, and Chris Nichols, Politifact Reporter for Capital Public Radio

River City Quilt Show

Dear Friends,

Yesterday I slipped into the River City Quilt Show an hour before it closed. Just made it! They didn't even charge me the $10 entry, and I got to see what the Sacramento quilt guild is up to. I'm sorry I don't have credits for that cityscape in the middle.

Love,

k

Strut Your Stuff
Phyllis L. McCalla
embroidery, beading
28" x 28"
(detail below)

Improvisational quilt with hand-dyed fabric

29" x 31"

Jan Soules

Backstage
Denise Schmidt

Jump dance and ukulele

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

This is that busy season when festivals abound. And I love it. 

This morning Zing and I went to the farmers market — bustling as ever. We bought apples for a Thanksgiving pie. Then I went to a basketweaving demonstration at the Indian Museum, a cave-like space full of visitors. Signs said don’t take photographs, but I was tempted! Instead, I sketched and copied facts from the information on the wall. I was peering and writing in my small notebook when a woman started talking to me, describing the Jump Dance ritual of the northern coastal Yurok tribe that so engrossed me. Men wear the feathers of sand crane hawks and woodpecker crests. They bend on one knee and then fling that leg out, dancing troubles away from the people. Behind them they have erected a wooden wall; the spirit ancestors reside behind it, separated from the living dancers, but listening. 

Then my stepson Keith invited me to an ukulele fest at the Buddhist Church (not temple — not sure of the difference), which is close to my condo. There was a community room full of people, members of groups that took turns on stage. It was not a public performance — simply a large get-together, with tables of food and an urn that said “Japanese tea.” It was people entertaining each other. One group wore pineapples on their heads. Keith’s group was more restrained!

Love,

k

Put it in your coffee

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

If you love spicy Christmas coffee like I do you’ll be interested to know that this morning I put a cinnamon stick in my coffee as it brewed. Yes, delicious. Tomorrow, cloves, and after Thanksgiving, maybe a chip off a peppermint stick. Really, try it. 

Later I faced the truth that I love to draw, but I hate to draw well. I’m going to draw more and not try so hard. I think you already knew that I am not Michelangelo.

Love,

k

Close your eyes and ...

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

I just came back from learning three ways to meditate. It was at the library in Davis, that little college town 20 minutes from here. I didn’t want to get into a religious thing, just to learn more about meditating. You know I’ve been meditating off and on since I was 17, so it’s a part of me. It’s one of those back burner things that I want to bring to the forefront of my life. 

There were eight of us sitting around a table in the dimly-lit library meeting room. With the lights on low it felt intimate. A woman and her husband (I’ve forgotten their names.) organized this. She gave a brief introduction of each method, and then led us in practicing it. We each had some wooden beads and a card with words on it -- each of them a Sanskrit way to say God. 

So, three ways to meditate:

1. Breathing 

You sit down and relax and then you say the word (Gauranga was ours) silently to yourself when you breathe in and then say it out loud when you breathe out.

2. Beads (also called Japa)

On each bead you say your mantra out loud. I lost count on the beads, but it doesn’t take long — maybe three minutes. *

3. Group meditation (Kirtan)

You sing or chant the mantra. First the leaders sing it, then the group sings it, over and over. This was beautiful. Her booklet says you can sing mantras to any tune you like, with or without musical instruments. Maybe I can work my ukulele in somehow … 

Love,

k

*I drew the beads on my new gold sketchbook (Thanks, Mary Kaye!), sharing space with today's other inspiration (Rosa Parks, Joan Didion, Gustav Klimt's The Kiss) and humdrum to-do lists:

Embroidered dresses, hand-woven dish towels

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

It’s the beginning of Christmas art fairs, and today I went to the Art to Wear market at a lovely nearby park. They sold everything from embroidered dresses to hand-woven dish towels. I bought some dangly green earrings and two small black bowls with golden-orange designs. The artist told me Matisse inspires her. Maybe tomorrow I’ll draw the bowls, so I can be inspired by Matisse too. Later, I tricked myself into cleaning up my studio space; the piled-up papers have been taunting me for more than a week. 

Weather here is beautiful, and the trees are turning colors.

Love,

k

Something is stirring again

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

Something is happening to me. I am becoming confident. Clark always told me I have substance, and I tried to believe him, but it all melted away when he died. Now it’s coming back, and I’m sure he’d approve.

Like this morning: yesterday I ran into the question on the Sacramento Utility site asking the square footage of my home. I felt stupid not knowing. I thought about 1,200 square feet, but I wanted to be sure. Today I called the Homeowners Association, and they acted all, “Now, now, lady, you know we’d have to come in and measure your walls, don’t you? We can’t know every unit’s area.” I didn’t get wimpy and weepy. I kindly (I hope) noted that in the entire building there are three floor plans, three square footages, and furthermore, shouldn’t they know this as our representatives? They admitted they should. Then, with a quick Google search I found the answer. (Mine is 1,261 square feet — and the others are 845 and 1,683.) When I told her she apologized. I  know this was just routine household business, but I felt my spirit stirring again, and I can hear Clark saying, "It's about time!"

Luckily, the end of the day was softer: Judy, Keith and I celebrated all our birthdays at Thai Basil  a midtown restaurant that is relaxed and busy — and delicious. I love getting together with them.

Love,

k

Apple Hill, Apple Heaven

Written last night:

Dear Friends, 

Just beyond Placerville there’s a place called Apple Hill — it’s like wine country but with apples. Apple Hill Growers is an association of 50-plus “ranches” — they call them that, rather than orchards. Anyway, lots of farmers grow apples there, and every fall they sell all things apple-related from barns and shops on their property. Today I went with my friends Mary Kaye and Leigh. We meandered up and down the rolling country, stopping at several farms. They said the roads can be packed on autumn weekends, but today was a relaxed drive. In Ohio we were proud that Johnny Appleseed tromped over our southern hills, and Jackson, Ohio, probably still has a water tower shaped like an apple,* but it’s nothing like Apple Hill in scope and energy. I asked a couple of people who live here if they’d like me to bring them back some apples, and they said, “Forget the apples! I want pie!” So I brought back a grocery cart full of frozen apple pies. I’m not exaggerating! I’m sure they’re great, but they can’t be better than Mom’s Apple Pie recipe, so I just got some cider for myself. It is perfect.

Love,

k

*It does; I just checked. https://www.timesjournal.com/news/image_0c2434e7-4aa7-5121-b352-866776b4dc12.html

Slow mail sends a message

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

Did you ever hear of “mail art”? 

Really, now, do you even use mail much? 

You know I love speedy tech communication, but I also love to send postcards that I’ve designed, maybe even sewn, to friends and family. It takes time, but it’s fun for me, and I get to think of the recipient all the while.

Yesterday the Crocker Museum had a class in mail art, and I took it. Here’s a postcard I made, using papers and letters cut from magazines. It was fun.

Love,

k

Quiet fun

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

I relaxed and had fun yesterday and today too. Here is an idea of what has been happening:

Love,

k

Love this message!

At the rail crossing Sunday

(on my way to buy coffee)

Friends put this flower-y greeting

on my door Saturday. It was great to find it when I got home!

I hated drawing this. Turn it upside down. That's what I drew, copying the lines 

of this famous Picasso portrait of composer Igor Stravinsky

I thought I probably wouldn't even recognize my guy, because I had such a bitter approach --

I'm forcing myself to go through Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.

(This exercise is from p. 55)

Rain? Shine? Who knows?

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

It was a gloomy day until this evening, when we could see the beautiful moon. I thought I would be getting the rhythm of Sacramento seasons by now, but nobody can tell me what to expect. When I ask people if the gray sky means the start of fall — rain and chill — they shrug and say, “Who knows? The weather is crazy, unpredictable, not like normal.”

Here is a photo from the twelfth floor outside stairway this morning. It was chilly, but probably not as chilly as where many of you are!

Love,

k

Deer surprise

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

I know deer eat gardens, but in the park by the American River they were a beautiful surprise when Zing and I came upon them. (Zing kept a respectful distance, and so did I.)

Love,

k

Clanking our democracy machine

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

I know it’s crazy, but I feel more at home tonight, now that I have been to a City Council meeting. I just got back. There’s something about seeing my city council members in person, with their name tags and high-up chairs under the city seal, that makes living here official to me. Not that I love meetings — they are tedious, boring, eye-rollingly ceremonial … but … now I’ve witnessed my new city clanking its democracy machine, and I feel better. I arrived a little late and left just before the end, and I chose tonight figuring the Halloween meeting would be brief. (It was.) Councilors discussed homelessness, public art, and the budget. They were attentive and courteous to citizens who spoke, including the rambling and the disheveled. In the lobby I ran into my neighbor Chad, who represents the fire department at these meetings, and he made me feel welcome too.

I was drawing as I watched.

Love,

k