Handy holder for thread

This silverware organizer was on a heap of stuff for Goodwill; I grabbed it just in time to keep threads for my current quilt in their color families. It works.

Fast & Delicious Chicken Parmesan

Buy two chicken breasts with bread crumbs and Parmesan already on them. (Earth Fare has them.)
Brown in olive oil. Pour this sauce over them. Gia something -- that's why I took the picture; get the jar that looks like this. It's called red wine cooking sauce. Oh, I just looked it up: Gia Russa Simmer Sauce.  Cook over low to medium heat until the pink center is gone -- I forgot how long! Should have written it down. But short -- 10 or 15 minutes. Make polenta according to directions on the box, except I add a little more water because I like it runny. Make sure you stir as you're adding the cornmeal to the boiling water, or else you'll get lumps. Add a little butter and Parmesan to the finished polenta. Serve chicken beside (on top of?) polenta. Spinach sautéed with garlic and olive oil would be good with this. Plus a simple salad. "Good enough for company," Clark said. Meaning it looks fancy.

Hand stitching

Clark's left-hand fingers were creaking, and he had surgery to fix it. I admire the needlework!

When Women Were Birds

When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice by Terry Tempest Williams
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I love her name: Tempest. It evokes wild nature, and that is her love, as a naturalist, teacher, poet and essayist.  When I checked this book out, the librarian gasped. She told me she is from Utah, as is Williams, and she'd participated in a writing workshop Williams led. TTW inspired her deeply. We wanted to go on talking, but  a line was waiting. This was the first time in a while that I'd talked books with a passionate librarian.

Williams is from a Mormon family and a (distant?) cousin of Mitt Romney, but her sensibility couldn't be more different.  In these 54 poetic reflections, Williams sometimes gets too gushy for me, but just as I'd start to close the book, I'd read an arresting thought or phrase. Like her, I have a bird and wing fixation. Maybe it is deep in every woman. (I once wrote a poem about a daughter Noah left behind so there'd be more room on the Ark. As the boat pulled away, Noah turned to see his daughter rise on wings.)

And like Williams, I chafe at my family religion. I am going to read more of her work.


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The Portrait of Dr. Gachet: The Story of a van Gogh Masterpiece by Cynthia Saltzman
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This starts where Smith and White's biography of VVGogh ends; it's the story of  van Gogh's portrait of his doctor, one of his final works. Saltzman tells how it grew in value, until it was sold for an astounding $82.5 million to a Japanese businessman who was planning a golf community named after van Gogh. Unfortunately, he was found guilty of bribery and died. At the end of the book the painting is wrapped and stored --the property of maybe his family or maybe his creditors. The book was published in 1998. My quick Google search did not reveal what happened after that.

Truthfully, I skipped the boring parts. This book did not speak to me deeply, but it does illuminate the relationship between finance and art, and it makes me wonder what happened to the value of all van Gogh's other work. There's something troubling in the whole thing.


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The law of slaw

A friend on chemotherapy told me that not much food appeals to her, but for some reason her eyes lit up when I said "coleslaw." I used The Zen of Slaw for starters, then improvised. Here's their guide for a pound of shredded cabbage and one carrot:

1 tablespoon distilled vinegar

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1 tablespoon white sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon celery seeds (not celery salt)

I had a whole cabbage, so I doubled this, using all the mayonnaise we had, without measuring. Then I added a cup of sour cream so I wouldn't have to go to the store for more mayo. 

If you like slaw without mayonnaise, try Mom's slaw. 

A better shot

Lake Jackson
applique
8" x 10"

Photos from my iPhone 3GS are snappy, but not always exact in either color or shape. I want to enter my art in shows, and I have to send pictures of my work.  So I've been learning -- slowly! -- how to take better photos. Shades of Dr. Peterson, my photojournalism professor at Ohio State! I still hear him insisting that pushing the button is NOT what taking photos is all about. It's the preparation. Background, distance, lighting ... Shoot That Quilt is a good introduction, and I'm taking photographing your quilts with Janice Baehr at Quilt University online at the end of September.

Gold Cone Flowerapplique
11" x 14"

Balance
collage
11" x 14"