Imagine orange

Written last night: 

Dear Friends,

Halloween is not supposed to be relaxing, but mine was. 

🎃Take Zing! to Tony

🎃Walk the mile across I Street Bridge to Burgers & Brew in West Sacramento (West Sac is a separate city just across the bridge.) 

🎃Relaxing lunch there with Patrick & Steph. I like the way people at tables around us are laughing and relaxed at lunchtime. We laugh too.

🎃All at once I realize it’s autumn. I decide to spend an hour cooking. That’s just enough to get lentil soup bubbling and make some gingerbread. 

🎃I am willing to share some of this with my neighbor Sandy, but she declines. She doesn’t like lentils. 

🎃She comes over with a sandwich, and helps me try some pinot noir that might be good for Thanksgiving. 

🎃She loves the gingerbread. I didn’t have time to make applesauce to go with it, but vanilla ice cream was fine. 

🎃I draw these marigolds. Imagine they are orange. Orange marigolds are the flower of Día de los Muertos, November 2. 

Happy Halloween!

Love, 

k

Must Valentines be red?

Written last night:
Dear Friends,

I’m sitting in the easy chair in the kitchen — one of my favorite spaces. It’s cold (51°) and slightly windy here, but probably colder and windier where you are.  Siri says Columbus, Ohio, will get a high of 53° on Tuesday, dipping soon after to a low of 19°. 

It was a peaceful day — All I did (mostly) was make hearts — not exactly Valentines, but kind of. I painted gold and turquoise and even black, and I love them all, but it made me realize that Valentines are red and white, just like Christmas is red and green. Can’t mess with it, but I tried. Here are some. They are postcard size, 4” x 6”.

Love,

k

Sauerkraut for luck

Dear Friends,
Happy New Year!
When I was in Miami last week a woman from Peru said her people wear special colors of underwear for good luck on New Year's Day: red for love and yellow for wealth. She said she will wear both colors.

In our house growing up we ate sauerkraut on Jan. 1 for good luck, and I have always made it as an adult too. It's simmering now. Here's the recipe, simplified from my old Perla Meyers' From Market to Kitchen Cookbook:

2 T. butter
1 T. vegetable oil (I used olive oil)
1 C. finely minced onions (I chopped up one big onion -- more than a cup -- into kind of big pieces.)
3 T. brown sugar
1 C chopped tomatoes
2 pounds sauerkraut (I used less -- a package from the food cooperative here.)
salt (I haven't used any yet -- the sauerkraut is salty enough.)
5 peppercorns
2 tsp. caraway seeds
thyme
bay leaf or two
2 C. chicken stock

Heat the butter and oil in a heavy casserole. Add the onions and cook over low heat until light brown. Add the brown sugar and cook for a minute or two.  Alternatively, skip the sugar, or stir it in later if you find the sauerkraut too sour.
Add all the rest of the ingredients. Boil, reduce heat to simmer and cook for two hours (I put the lid on). Stir every 20 minutes.

My recipe goes on to tell how to cook ducks to go with this, but I"m going to brown a sausage and boil a potato and serve it all with mustard.

Mom would fry leftover sauerkraut with mashed potato patties the next day and it was delicious.

Good luck!
Love,
k

Love and cookies

Written last night:
Dear Friends,

Today was Clark’s birthday, and I felt happy. For starters, last night his special little U-M Ibis mascot jumped off the shelf, hit the floor hard and began singing a fight song. I think it came from the Seminoles football it was holding. Clark loved it, which is why I keep it. The thing never left its perch before. It made me laugh and  cry at the same time. Wherever Clark is, he’s having fun. 

At the end of the day I made Valentine cookies. 

Love,

k

Jerry, light the Christmas tree!

Written last night:
Dear Friends,

This afternoon Zing and I walked to the Capitol to see the big Christmas tree. Although it was only 4:45 p.m., it was getting dark. (In winter it gets dark early here.) But the tree wasn’t lit! I asked two women who were taking pictures of each other in front of the tree if the state was saving power. No, they said; it should be lit. “We’ll go tell Jerry to light the tree!” one woman joked. “Yeah, you go do that!” challenged her friend. I gathered they work at the Capitol and everybody there slyly calls Governor Brown by his first name when he's not listening. I turned my back to pick something up off the grass (Thanks, Zing!), and when I turned around again the tree was lit. Soon there were lots more people gathering to take photos of themselves and our big California Christmas tree.

Love,

k

Filling the dome with music

Written last night:
Dear Friends,

I just came back from Chanticleer Christmas concert at the Cathedral, which is nearby — a block from the Capitol. The ticket says Chanticleer is “an orchestra of voices” -- 12 men singing a cappella. Clark loved to both listen and sing like this. I love it too, and this night was heavenly, a medieval oasis where troubles near and far just disappeared. 

I drew the cathedral dome while waiting for the concert to begin. It does no justice to the soaring sound that soon filled this space.

Hope you have Christmas music of your own!

Love,

k

Christmas juggling act

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

I’m not good at organizing. This time of year I juggle airplane trips and party dates and Zing care and getting to the post office … It might seem easy to you, but I’m swamped!

Luckily, each day I find a person who inspires me. Saturday at the post office on Alhambra it was the postal worker who maintained his cool, even as as the line got longer and people were pressing at his counter and it was closing time. “How do you do it?” I asked him. “I pray a lot,” he said. 

And my neighbor, who spoke to the City Council last week, calm and composed, while he is usually electric with energy. "How does he do it?” I asked his wife. “Practice,” she said.

And this evening at the CVS Zing and I ran into a woman and her small dog. The woman was 101% gracious, talking kindly as our dogs collided. She did not ooze; she was just naturally fine. “Have a wonderful holiday!” is the last thing she said to me.

Who knows who I’ll meet tomorrow?!

Here’s the home where I went to the poetry party last week. 

Love,

k

Christmas in the kitchen

Written last night:

Dear Friends

And today — 

I hung ornaments over the sink. 

Love,

k

Christmas party

Written last night:
Dear Friends,

We’re deep in Christmas preparations. At the end of a busy day there was tonight's HOA holiday party.

Love,

k

Christmas oranges

Ukulele Holiday

Dear Friends,

It would have been so easy to skip the ukulele lesson tonight …  Christmas traffic and everything … But I went and I loved it. Wish you could hear Mele Kalikimaka, a Hawai’ian Christmas song. I’ll play it for you … next year. 

Until then, I want to draw something every day, or mostly, and now it’s all about Christmas.

Love,

k

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

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

Mind Your Head!

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

Drawing class at the Crocker today means more drawings tonight -- plus a final photo with advice on a sign from an antique/junk store nearby; the proprietor has an English accent, and so does the sign.

Love,

k

Pumpkin on my table

Wing, above, and darling left foot, below,
belong to a cherub in a much bigger painting by Thomas Willeboirts at the Crocker

Free to celebrate the small things

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

Nothing happened today. Our neighborhood was still. Until now, that is — it’s dark now --  fireworks time, and there are rumblings from somewhere near the bridge, where Zing and I last saw them New Year’s Eve. That’s when Zing reminded me Dogs Do Not Like Fireworks. So tonight he’s wearing his Thundershirt (a snug wrap that’s supposed to feel like a hug to take a dog’s mind off his problems).  In a minute I’m going to sneak onto the balcony to see the show. 

This afternoon, walking around Capitol Park, we said hi to a young man and his mom. When the guy bent to pat Zing I noticed he had a musical instrument in a case on his back. “Is that a ukulele?” I asked. I think I kind of pounced. “It’s part ukulele,” he said. Delighted that someone cared, he took it out of the case and showed me. It had six strings, not four. He played me a little bit, and said he’s just learning. He likes the ukulele size because he travels a lot, but he wants the six-string sound. Perfect. 

On Independence Day, don’t forget Abraham Clark, our — or your, some of you — ancestor who signed the Declaration of Independence. I took out a $2 bill and said hi to him, there on the back with the other signers. He makes this day even more special. 

Happy Fourth!

Love,

k

Woman with turquoise umbrella in the rose garden

Abraham Clark: from biographies of the signers

The breath of life

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

Happy Easter!

Plans changed and I spent the holiday alone, which isn’t as desolate as it sounds. Clark doesn’t come to me often in dreams, but last night he was there with his arm around me for a long time. With reassurance like that I didn’t feel lonely. You know I love a “do-nothing” Sunday, and it’s easy when it’s gray like today.  I addressed the tax envelopes, first signing in all the right places. After that — nothing! I puttered and then I drew a basket of eggs. At the farmers market yesterday I bought those beautiful blue eggs from the special chickens, but painted these brownish anyway. 

Love,

k

... and here's an Easter-y poem I love:

The breath of life,

The spirit of life,

The word of life,

It flies to you and you and you,

Always the word.

         --Maori, New Zealand

inspired by a Cedric Morris oil

Much love for Valentine's Day

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

Sacramento's in the news — the river and the flooding. No surges downtown, around the Capitol. Trouble happened north of here; you’ve seen the reports. I want to check out the river again tomorrow. How intimately we connect with water out here! It’s livelihood, the future, and life. 

Speaking of nature, this morning I filled up three small spray bottles with bitter liquid for when Zing barks. I’m supposed to spray it into his mouth and say, “Quiet!” Guess how many times he barked today. Right. None. So much for training Zing. Maybe he senses something.

Much love for Valentine’s Day!

k

The RiverWalk along the Sacramento River about 1 p.m., Valentine's Day