Olio – 9/28/2019

Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things.

About mid week, I realized that one of my interchangeable needle tips being used to knit the Hitchhiker scarf, my car project, not only wouldn’t stay tightened, but when an attempt to tighten was made it would just keep turning. I switched the tip from the other end to see if it was the cable which would have been an easy fix as there are extras, but no, the tip itself was stripped. I felt like something was wrong when I first started using it, but went into denial mode until it became a problem. My supplier for the Knitter’s Pride Karbonz needles is a small online shop out of Burlington, NC, Knit Bin. She is quick in processing orders and answering questions. I contacted her, reminded her that I had just purchased them in May and ask about Knitter’s Pride warranty. She contacted them, they didn’t want the flawed one back, she mailed me a new tip on Thursday and I got it on Friday. Such great service, so that project is back in my bag when I am the passenger in the car.

Because that project was stalled, I worked on the Free Your Fade from Andrea Mowry that I started with the Only the Finest yarn I bought at Black Mountain in late August.

It is the 4 mini skeins and the full skein wound in the center of this photo. I began it with the gray, moved to the darker blue gray, and I’m now on the variegated one tucked under the reddish roving on the right. Next will be the lavender, and finally the Merlot color to end the knit. You can see the gray, the blue gray, and the start of the fade into the variegated in the picture below. This is going to be a very generous shawl/scarf just for me this time.

There has been little spinning done this week, a bit of white Cormo on a Turkish spindle, but nothing to show off.

It has been hot and extremely dry this week. We have walked our usual 2.25 to 2.5 miles almost every day, usually after dinner as the sun is low and the temperature falling. Today they called for 40% scattered showers and for a change, we were in the path. We had a light shower followed a couple hours later by a good hard rain that lasted maybe half an hour. It won’t break the drought, but it did cool off the day from near 90 to 79 and settled the dust, maybe reduced the fire risk a little.

I have been an avid reader all my life. Hubby is too, as are two of our children, and all of the reading age grandchildren. Being a reader is relaxing and can take you to places you’ve never been. Years ago, someone from the knit group or spinning group mentioned the Louise Penney series set is a small (not real) village in Quebec with the main character holding various roles during the series, mostly as an officer of some level in the provincial police. I tired of the series and quit reading them for a couple of years, then picked up another more recent one where he was in charge of a school. A good friend is a fan of the books and suggested I read the two that follow that one. Being out of anything at home, I looked at the electronic selection from our library and found the next in the series. The author is excellent in descriptions.

I grew up being served “Shepherd’s Pie” and later preparing the same for my family. The version didn’t differ much from Girl Scout Stew, a mix of ground beef, canned or frozen mixed vegetables, but the pie topped with a ring of mashed potatoes (they were usually instant when I was a kid.)

Bear with me, here. In the book above, the Bistro in the village was preparing “Shepherd’s Pie,” the description different from what I grew up with, but described so vividly that I could practically smell and taste it. The one in the book was savory with ground beef, onions, garlic, mushrooms, and herbed gravy, topped with mashed potatoes in which Gruyere cheese had been melted. I had decided that it was too tempting not to try. I envisioned aromatic herbs such as Rosemary and Thyme. This morning I thawed a pound of ground beef from the Farmers Market and purchased Yukon gold potatoes and mushrooms while there today. I had what I needed to make it. Then I read a blog post on corn bread, Northern vs Southern style, why sugar was added to the recipe; with and without flour in the batter. I make excellent corn bread, it has to be made in the 8″ cast iron skillet. Well, now I wanted corn bread too. Mind you, there are only two of us in this household at this point, but left over pan toasted cornbread is delicious. For dinner tonight, I made the Shepherd’s Pie per the book description, ground beef with onions and garlic, gravy rich with rosemary and thyme, Yukon gold mashed potatoes, but I didn’t have Gruyere, however I did have a delicious cheese from the Farmers Market, so I added chunks of it to the hot potatoes and mashed it in with the butter and milk, topped the casserole and baked. Of course I mixed up corn bread while it was baking and upped the oven temperature, added the hot skillet of batter and finished baking them both.

Peas cooked as a vegetable and oh boy am I full. I will never make Shepherd’s Pie the “old” way again. This is savory and delicious. Reading can be dangerous and delicious.

Now we need to go walk it off before it gets dark.

Knit for me – 9/24/2019

I recently sent off applications for 4 craft events, one just before Thanksgiving and 3 Holiday Markets, the first 3 Saturdays in December. Today, I was notified that the Holiday Market one was approved. At hubby’s suggestion, I ordered some soap molds in holiday shapes and will make some soaps for those events.

I always have something on the needles for these events, in this case, I have a scarf/mini shawl. Some handspun worsted weights that will become fingerless mitts or mittens in various sizes sitting in the wings.

But also on the needles is Free Your Fade Shawl by Andrea Mowry. When I was at Black Mountain at the Knotty Ladies retreat last month, I purchased Only the Finest yarn, a 788 yard (8 oz) multi skein of 4 two ounce skeins of coordinated fingering weight yarn that is 97% Alpaca and 3% Blue Faced Leicester. Also a full skein, 395 yards (4 oz) of a 5th color. The yarn is delightfully soft and the colors very much my fall/winter colors.

The colors left to right are the order I will use. I have used the first two ounces and faded to the second color. The fades will be narrower than the pattern as it uses only 2 fades of 3 colors, but the Merlot wine color will be the widest and will be at the edge against my face. The total yardage of the yarn I purchased is slightly more than needed, but I’m sure the remnants can be used in a hat. It is rare for me to knit for myself, but between the cost of the yarn and the time it will take to knit 1000 yards, I couldn’t ask enough to sell it, not that I would want to.

Waste Not …-9/21/2019

I am certain that my Great Grandmother who grew up in eastern rural North Carolina in a large family was raised with a huge garden, yard chickens, and the knowledge to can and otherwise preserve what could not be eaten right away to have for the non productive winter months. They probably could grow collards or kale well into the winter, likely made kraut and pickles in large crocks to be dipped into all winter, cold stored apples and pumpkins.

My Grandmother was born in the same environment, but moved to the city as a young woman and I am unaware whether she canned, but I know she didn’t after I was born, she was working outside the home at a bank by then. My mother made a few attempts when I was a young teen, but I remember jars of foods she had prepared, bursting on the shelves in the room off the garage.

Though I had a garden of some size through most of my adult life in nearly every home and making Pomegranate jelly with my Dad most autumns, I really didn’t get into canning until we retired and bought our farm. I keep a decent sized garden, have a small orchard, and many wild berries. This area has a strong ethic of buy local and eat local and the environmental impact of doing so spoke loudly to me. I knew that I wanted to raise chickens for eggs and grow much of our food. That which I can’t or don’t grow, I try to purchase from the Farmers’ Market, both meat and produce. Though I don’t buy produce to can, I do try to save as much of what we grow as I possible by freezing, fermenting, or canning.

The Asian Pear trees produce much more than fruit than we can consume. Last year, we gathered the apples and pears and took them to Wilderness Road Regional Museum and pressed them into a delicious fruit cider. Some of the pears were made into marmalade and jam. This year I was away from about the time the fruit was ripening until the middle of last week. The deer got a lot of it, but enough remained to make 7 pints of applesauce, 3 pints of pear sauce, more than 5 half pints of Pear Marmalade. And a enough of the undamaged ones to enjoy fresh and to barter for some hot peppers in two varieties that I don’t grow.

After a decade of trying to water bath can in an 8 quart stock pot, constantly looking for a shallow “rack” to put under the jars, I purchased a real water bath canner, a 21.5 quart one with a real rack.

Though the tomatoes didn’t do well this year, there are jars of tomato sauce, pizza sauce, and salsa. The cucumbers thrived and many jars of pickles were canned, other varieties fermented and stored in the refrigerator. The hot peppers are still producing and 5 quarts are pickled in the refrigerator, the rest to be shelf stable canned, or being turned into fermented hot sauces in the style of Sriracha or dried.

There are just the two of us with occasional visits from grown children, some of the pickles and sauces will be shared, but we should eat well. The garden is still producing green beans to be enjoyed and frozen, hot peppers to be canned, and pumpkins that won’t be revealed until the leaves die back or we get a frost.

Each year I look at the shelves and wonder if we will eat it all, each spring I anxiously await fresh foods from the Farmers’ Market and early garden as the shelves empty of preserved garden goodness and fill with empty jars awaiting a new season of canning. The canner won’t be put away until the last pepper is picked and the excess pumpkin canned for holiday pies, then the canning tools and food mill will be packed in the big pot and stored away for another year. Waste not, want not.