Cabin Crafted

Author: Cabincrafted1

  • Preparedness- 10/22/2019

    One Fingerless Mitt was finished and the second is well underway. The decision to make them mitts not mittens was made.

    Last night, a new label was created for the soaps, generic so that I can write in the variety on the front, and the ingredients printed on the back. White Glassine bags were purchased for use when doing historical events. Clear cello bags are used at Holiday Markets.

    Today it was too wet to be outdoors, so a new yarn band was designed and printed on craft brown cardstock and the skeins were banded and priced for the first vending event.

    All of the knits and woven goods were checked and retagged if the tags were worn or folded and the prices checked to make sure they agree on my payment site. The knits and skeins then sealed in container to get them to the event.

    More knitting needs to be done, to finish the mitts and make at least a couple more pair in different sizes and colors.

    The weather is cooling into real autumn like weather and we have gotten some much needed rain. Still no frost has occurred and none is the forecast that I can see. The first historical event on my schedule is the Spirit Trail at Wilderness Road Regional Museum on Sunday, October 27, from 4 to 8 p.m. This is a fun event with a wagon ride through Newbern history. The next is the following Saturday, November 2, and I go from Revolutionary War to around Civil War era at the Harvest Time event at Booker T. Washington National Monument. This is a vending event as well as historical demonstration as a spinner and will be with a friend. It is supposed to be chilly that day and so I’m hoping to sell some of the hats, mitts, and scarves in my inventory. The weekend after that I return to Revolutionary War and will demonstrate fiber prep and spinning at the History Museum of Western Virginia in Roanoke, November 9 and 10.

    After that I have a weekend off before the winter craft events begin. On November 23, I will be at the Catawba Farmers Market at their annual Holiday Craft show, and the first 3 Saturdays of December, at the Blacksburg Farmers Market Holiday Markets. A busy time ahead.

  • Stiff – 10/20/2019

    Since my return last week from helping eldest and family finish moving their household, I have done almost no knitting and no spinning. The weather finally broke and has been much cooler and we have had some rain.

    The rain revealed that the vent through the metal roof that has been resealed twice since installation a dozen years ago is again leaking. The leak ruined the drywall soffit in the finished basement within a year or two if it being finished, and several years ago at Christmas, eldest tore down all the drywall and rebuilt that soffit using paneling that allows me to unscrew a few screws and lift out a piece of the panel to put a drip pan in the ceiling whilst awaiting another repair.

    The leaky vent is one of the two toward the left side top, I sure can’t get up there.

    The cool and the rain also bring in the winter stiffness in my hands and lower back that are caused by arthritis, thus the lack of knitting and spinning. The arthritis and trigger finger in 4 of my fingers is always worse in the winter.

    With the various historical demonstration and craft events looming, some knitting must be done. One of the projects that went with me and never left my bag is a triangular scarf. This morning I picked it back up to work on. It is about 1/3 done and is a smooth fine fingering weight merino.

    Another reason knitting isn’t happening much is that prior to my leaving, hubby gouged a good bit of flesh out of his back (I will spare you the gory pictures) and as I wasn’t here to keep it bandaged and antibiotic on it, it didn’t heal whilst I was away. If we keep antibiotic ointment and a thick pad over it and he doesn’t stretch or twist too much, he stays fairly comfortable, but he can’t reach the spot to care for it. Now that I am home, it is getting treated, covered, and I am doing all the driving so he can sit still. Riding passenger is always knitting time. The wound is healing now and hopefully will cease causing him discomfort soon.

    I have some worsted handspun yarn skeins that I would like to get knit up into fingerless mitts before the craft shows. I never know how much to price my handspun handknits for so I went on an etsy adventure looking them up. It was not helpful at all. The prices are all over the place, the styles equally scattered. I saw short “wristlets” for way more than my much longer mitts. Plain bulky weight ones for double my fingering weight cabled ones. But then I saw handspun handknit lace shawls priced so low that the cost would hardly cover the fiber, much less the time to spin and knit it. I have several hats, a couple of scarves or mini shawls, a couple of large shawls, 1 pair of fingerless mitts with gusseted thumb. There may not be a lot more to sell if I don’t get busy.

    I need to figure out how to raise this rack enough to use top 3 or 4 rungs without setting it on a table top. The rack is 5 feet high and at one of the events, I am limited to an 8 foot table they provide. Still pondering how to do this safely and securely.

    Well, back to knitting, or they surely won’t get done.

  • Away and Back again, 10/15/2019

    Almost another week away helping family. Eldest son and his wife purchased their first home and it required some serious upgrades some of which needed to be done before they put anything in the house. The first two trips by me were to help out by getting their young teen to and/or from his new High School as the bus transportation for this school did not go to where they had been living for several years, and to help pack boxes of books, extra linens, and items they could do without for a few weeks. By the second trip, some items could be moved, but had to be secured in the largest bedroom with the door closed.

    This trip was to help finish moving the last of the household goods and items from the shed, get the move out house cleaned up, help start unpacking the books and kitchen items, and help them get floor leveling applied to two of the 4 rooms that needed it done in order to lay laminate flooring and ceramic tile. A couple of the days, I worked on house stuff while they were at work and school, over the weekend, I was working with them.

    Soon they will have their house in order. Now they can walk to local restaurants, the library, the parks, instead of a 15-20 minute drive, and they have plenty of space to have a separate library, music room, guest room and home office. On the flip side, they no longer are in the woods with a creek in their front yard.

    I took knitting and drop spindles with me and they never left my bag. I did read some, but was so tired by bedtime, that I didn’t even do much of that.

    My garden is a mess, idle beds are weedy, beds that had stuff still growing are dead or dying and the pumpkins are taking over. I can see a few in the bed, but still don’t know how many. I pulled a few weeds when I got home this morning, picked a few remaining peppers and beans. After a day or two of resting up, I will tackle the dead and dying plants, remove more weeds, continue my fight with Creeping Charlie and Mint, put more cardboard down and cover it and the idle beds with a thick layer of hay, and get the bed ready for garlic and potato onions to be planted in about a month. The forecast is for rain tomorrow. There is still no frost in the forecast for the next 2 weeks.

    For the rest of this day, I am going to sit, maybe nap, and fix dinner.

  • Crafty week – 10/8/2019

    The past few days have been busy with craftiness. Eleven batches of soap have been made, Woodlands, Peppermint/Cocoa, Lavender, Tea Tree, Vanilla, Pumice, and Calendula.

    Unless that guest room is needed in the next month, the soap will sit there and cure for hardness. It only takes 24 hours for it to go from caustic solution to saponify to soap. Once it is hard, another day or so will be used to package it for the various markets. The holiday shapes, you can’t see all of them because of the picture angle, but there are snowmen heads, trees, snowflakes, flowers, and sheep, will be bagged in glassine bags with tags for the holiday markets. Plain round, square, or rectangular ones for the Harvest Market at Booker T. Washington Park will be banded with craft paper bands.

    After long afternoons of 2 or 3 batches of soap being made, I have continued to knit on my Free your Fade shawl, a pattern by Andrea Mowry using Only the Finest yarn by Louise Nuttle. I really pushed the limits with some of the yarns.

    I am on the last color and there is plenty of it. I will decide how many color repeats of it I want as I finish each section. The picot bind off can be done after any 10 row garter section. It is warm, soft, and very generous in size.

    I continue knitting on the Hitchhiker scarf and have slightly more than half of the points done in it. It is small enough to carry around in my purse to knit on when a passenger or sitting in a waiting room.

  • Kitchen Magic – 10-6-2019

    Kitchen Magic – 10-6-2019

    Several years ago, maybe 5, I wanted to learn to make soap. I have a friend that I met through knitting, Cat, and she made soap and had for years. One day while I was in Michael’s Arts and Crafts, I saw soap base, molds, and fragrances and I bought some. The soap base was a melt and pour variety, the fragrances were strong and artificial, not what I wanted as soap.

    I guess I mentioned this at knitting, I don’t really remember, but Cat invited me over for a cup of tea and a soap making lesson. I was excited, but didn’t know what I was in for. When I arrived, her kitchen counters were covered with thick layers of newpaper, a big pot was out, more different oils than I knew existed, essential oils, molds of various kinds (though we stuck to silicone cake pans and loaf style molds that day), an immersion blender, and printed out copies of several of her favorite recipes and books to borrow. I had a total immersion lesson, making two different batches of soap with her standing at my side, guiding me, but letting me do the hands on part. She taught me that when a recipe says x ounces or grams, it is weighed measure, not liquid measure even with liquids. I came home with two pans of soap curing, part of each recipe made with safety tips, recipes, a thrift store pot and immersion blender, and books to borrow. I was hooked. She had previously given me a bar of her soap and it was so much nicer than anything I could buy in the store and certainly nicer than the melt and pour stuff I had tried.

    Only once, after that lesson, but after a bit since I had plenty of soap to use, I goofed and measured by volume, not weight. That batch was a failure, but a lesson learned. As I got better, I experimented with essential oils for scents and soon was making way more soap than hubby and I could use up. Fortunately, one of our children and his family like my homemade soap as much as I and some could go to their home. But still I had too much.

    Along the path, a couple friends asked me to teach them and believing in the each one teach one ideal, I had a similar lesson session in my kitchen with each of the ladies making a batch to take home along with a mold, instructions, and some supplies.

    I was already environmentally aware, recycling, reusing, making food from scratch, shopping at the Farmers Market, but I wanted more. I wanted to not have unpronounceables in my body products and cleaning supplies and I started making lotion bars and salves, then beard oils, my own cleaning supplies, and laundry soap (after another failed batch that was too caustic due to forgetting an oil). I learned that you could use bar soap as shampoo, with the right lather it can be used as shaving soap as well, and then there was too much of all of it, and Cabin Crafted was born.

    I opened an Etsy shop, there is a link at the top of the blog and started doing some smaller local craft shows. This December will mark the 4th year I have set up at the Farmers Market that I frequent on Saturday mornings, for three weekends of Holiday Markets. I have some soaps and salves at a local museum. I will be at Booker T. Washington Park in early November in costume demonstrating fiber prep and spinning and vending my yarn, soap, and salves there. There is one other craft event that I am awaiting a decision on whether I will be allowed to participate. A few others have been tried and not repeated as they were not worth my time and effort. To guarantee that there will be enough supplies for the potentially 5 markets, I embarked on a holiday soap making a couple days ago. Friend, Cat, loaned me some of her holiday shaped molds, I had purchased a couple of my own, and for the past two days, the kitchen has been dominated by soap making.

    Once cured, it will be packaged, crated, and ready for the events. There are a couple more days of soap making to be done, I still need to make Lavender scented and a few batches of non holiday shapes.

    It is magic to watch the warm oils and butters, the caustic sodium hydroxide (Lye) dissolved in water, tea, milk, or coffee, transform into a solid that was molded or cut into bars from a loaf. Once cured and hard, a rich lathering bar of soap with many purposes.

  • Autumn at last? – 10/4/2019

    The fourth day of October and the first day in forever that it will finally be less than 90f (32+c) during the heat of the day. The last time this area hit 90 on October 1 was the October before Pearl Harbor. And though we have had two brief showers this week, it is still bone dry with full outdoor burn bans in effect. It has been hot, dry, and brittle here while other parts of our country have experienced record rain falls and flooding, and a record snowfall.

    Our average first frost date is October 10. It has happened only once that early since I have lived here and I am certain it is going to be well after that this year. It has been too hot to put the garden to bed for the winter and too early to plant the garlic and potato onions that need to wait for much cooler weather.

    Like in past years, I had put a Jade plant, a Dracena, and a hanging spider plant on the front, north facing porch for the summer.

    The back of the house faces south so the kitchen and both baths have south facing windows that hold 2 small philodendron, three holiday cacti, an aloe, and a ponytail palm cluster.

    Last winter, I bought the tiny succulent in the nobby glass candle holder in the above picture and this spring, I divided the aloe. Then fell prey to the outdoor display at the grocer of a concrete looking pot of succulents, realized that two tiny hen and chicks had survived the winter outdoors, was gifted a most gorgeous succulent dish garden in a hand thrown bowl, and bought a yellow flowering Kalanchoe. The second aloe pot was moved to the porch, the purchased and gifted succulents added to the same table, though the Kalanchoe was re-potted from the tacky plastic pot it came in to a ceramic one and a matching pot purchased to plant the hen and chicks.

    The spider plant “babies” were potted in a second hanging pot and hung on the opposite side of the entry way and then a friend gifted me a different variety of already rooted “babies” so I added them to the new pot. Now I have two spider plants that will need to come inside when frost threatens. The jade plant and the Dracena have places that they overwinter indoors, but now there are succulents to bring in as well.

    The area in front of the south facing doors to the back deck is where the big guy follows the sun on cool days. He has already taken to lying there for short periods of time now that the sun is beginning to move to the south of the house during the day and casting light in his spot. It gets too hot now and he doesn’t stay there long, but that is his spot.

    The corner in front of the hutch, in “his spot” is where the jade usually goes, but that is the door that opens onto the deck that wasn’t usable for two years until this spring, so I can’t put the succulents there.

    A some shuffling in my craft area, along with a bit of decluttering this summer cleared a small folding bookshelf that is about the same width as the kitchen cabinets on the opposite side of the french doors, so it was placed against the cabinet in front of the semi-fixed side of the doors. Though there is no frost in our near future, it is supposed to dip into the lower 40’s f (5 to 6c) at night later this week. The spider plants can withstand that, but I didn’t want to risk the succulents and Dracena, all tropical plants, so each pot was brought in, sprayed down with a water spray to rid them of stink bugs and spiders, thoroughly watered and put in their over winter spots.

    In that spot, they will be warm, get sun for about half the day, and be where I can monitor the plants for mites and scale, a problem that the spider plants and aloe seem to suffer in the winter indoors. There are hanging hooks in the utility room window that will get the spider plants later. I will trim back any damaged foliage, most of the longer “babies,” spray them with a very strong stream of water outdoors before they are brought in and hung in the windows. I love my houseplants as much as my gardens.

    Maybe with the cooler days, the spent plants in the garden can be trimmed back or pulled, the asparagus tops cut to the ground and mulched, and the bed for the garlic and onions prepared for planting in late November. I will continue to harvest peppers and beans as long as they provide and will bring in the pumpkins once I can find them in the vines, probably not until a frost kills back the growth.

  • Challenges – 10/3/2019

    But these are the fun kind of challenges. Maybe still a bit stressful when you realize that if you fail, there is a lot of unknitting (tinking) to be done. I’m not a good enough knitter to bravely pull the needle out and unravel and then just pick up the live stitches again where you should have quit or not made the mistake, unless it is plain stockinette stitch. I never have gotten good at using lifelines to hold a row of stitches before a lace pattern.

    My main current knit is Free Your Fade, a long basically triangular shawl by Andrea Mowry. The pattern comes in two yarn sizes, DK and Fingering. As I mentioned before, I purchased a lovely 788 yard skein of 97% Alpaca, 3% Blue Faced Leicester from Only the Finest fingering weight yarn at the Knotty Ladies Retreat in Black Mountain in August. The skein was actually 4 two ounce coordinating skeins and I had a pattern in mind which would have required more yarn, so I purchased a 4 ounce skein of a 5th coordinating color. The planned pattern called for worsted weight and made a wide generous trapezoid basically of triangles joined. I thought if I did it in fingering, I could create the same effect in a scarf. I started it, and didn’t like it. First challenge. I was probably only 70% through the first color, so off the needles and simple rewind the yarn. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the nearly $100 worth of soft loveliness then. A few days later, whilst I was reading a friend’s knitting blog, I noticed the photo in her header and it was gorgeous, but everything she knits is gorgeous. A few message exchanges and I purchased the pattern from the designer, it looked like the perfect solution for the lovely yarn.

    Challenge 2: The pattern uses a 200 yard skein and two 400 yard skeins, I had plenty of yarn, but because mine was in four almost 200 yard skeins plus one almost 400 yard skein, it meant that the fade patterns from one color to the next would have to happen more frequently and not in the same place in the pattern after the first one. OK, that isn’t a big deal, she says in the intro that you can fade on any of the 20 row garter sections. The pattern forms the triangle by increasing 1 stitch every other row, so 10 stitches over 20 rows, followed by a 2 row eyelet lace with 1 more stitch increase. But each increase row started with a decrease and ends with a stitch that makes 2 new stitches, thus the 1 stitch increase and the triangle gets wider and wider. There was more than enough of the first color to follow the pattern and do the written fade into the second color.

    Challenge 3: The second color in the pattern is a 400 yards skein which meant that I was going to have to use 2 of the 2 ounce skeins to achieve that part of the pattern and an extra fade. Remember, the fades have to be done on a 20 row garter section and I didn’t want to waste any of this precious yarn so I played chicken and continued knitting, hoping to have enough to finish the second fade, three garter stitch sections and another fade with the eyelet rows included. Well I finished with about 80 inches (200 cm) of that color as I started on the next color.

    And then on to the variegated skein. Now the triangle is getting wider and there will certainly not be enough to do three garter stitch sections with two fades and eyelets so I shot for only two garter stitch sections with two fades and eyelets.

    As you can see from the middle remnant, I played chicken again, though not quite as close, I had about 120 inches (300 cm) left and on to the last 2 ounce color. I guess there will only be enough for a fade, 1 garter stitch section, and a fade with leftovers, but I still have the last 4 ounce (almost 400 yard) darker Merlot color left to finish without worrying about running out. This shawl is going to be very long.

    I have 181 stitches on the needles now and the pattern ends with 215 stitches when you start the picot bind off. Her general instructions say to can make it bigger if you wish by adding more sections. I doubt that I will, I will probably use the left over Merlot, lavender, gray (there was a bit of it left), and the remnants to make a matching hat or mitts. I have some lovely Romeldale CVM fiber I am spinning that would coordinate nicely with this for a hat or mitts and I will have a new ensemble to keep me warm and cozy this winter, if it ever drops below 90 degrees here. But there is no climate change, the deniers say so.

  • Big Brother is Watching – 10/2/2019

    I think I have blogged on this topic in the past, but this week has been extremely irritating with “Big Brother.” We have two very old, high mileage cars that we are struggling to keep on the road, but fearing that another major repair bill might be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back, so we have both been looking at reviews and stats on various options for replacement, hoping we won’t need one. At the same time, it is approaching time for us to have a vacation, so we started looking at winter cruises and other options. It took Facebook no time to start tossing up ads for new cars and cruise lines. We didn’t use Facebook to do the searches, but they obviously are watching our online activity, hopefully can’t see our online bill paying and banking.

    To add to this irritant, I had a medical appointment and an audiology test last week. The Doctor and the Hearing Clinic are separate but joined at the hip so to speak. I had hardly gotten in the car to come home until I received a text message asking for me to rate my visit. This was followed by an email asking for my opinion and when I didn’t offer it, I have been emailed two more times. Both from the doctor’s office and from the Hearing Clinic. Monday we had our HVAC system twice yearly servicing done and the technician did the invoice on a tablet. His truck wasn’t even turned around in our driveway before I got a text asking to rate his visit. Yesterday was errand day and a couple purchases were done with the debit card, and you guessed it. Emails asking how my visit with their establishment went.

    On the other hand, we visited a chain Asian fast food place for lunch yesterday and as seems to be the case more often than not, they lacked the entree I wanted and haven’t had black tea brewed or bottled but once in the past year. We didn’t even get a paper receipt so I could tell them what I think of their restaurant.

    I guess the only way to have privacy is to use cash and stay off the internet, but this morning’s news had an article that ATM usage fees may rise to $4 a transaction and it had become difficult to deposit cash, so I guess “they” don’t want a cash society.

  • Slow knitter – 9/30/2019

    My knitting adventure like most of my other crafts is mostly self taught. I tried to take up knitting as a teen as I watched the women in the back of the gift/knit shop. They, in my young eyes, were “old ladies” but the process was fascinating. I am left handed, pretty dominantly left handed, and though they were eager to sell me a sweater’s worth of yarn, a pattern, and demonstrate the basics, I was pretty much on my own. The sweater ended up a disaster. Teaching a lefty when you are right handed, or vice versa can be tricky, and allowing a brand new knitter to start with a sweater is just not fair. This was many, many years ago. I had an adult friend that had already taught me to crochet with very fine cotton and tiny hooks, and I did some basic crewel work (mostly hand monogramming) so I should have been able to learn knitting. I gave up and returned to crochet, making many afghans, a couple of vest type tops, a pillow or two, and a couple of baby blankets. Then my interest changed to counted cross stitch and making split reed baskets, learning smocking and french hand sewing, and calligraphy.

    None of these crafts required a lot of equipment, all self taught except for the smocking, hand sewing, and calligraphy. About a decade and a half ago, I found out I was going to become a grandmom and I wanted to make baby things, lots and lots of baby things from organic cotton, soft undyed wool. Shirts, soakers, socks, sweaters, knitted long pants and so I started over with knitting needles, a paperback booklet of basic stitches, wool and cotton bought over the internet, and making more and more baby clothes.

    After moving to our mountain area from the coast, working a few more years while our retirement home was completed and waiting to turn old enough for social security benefits, I joined a knitting group and even worked part time after retirement at a local yarn shop for a short time. The ladies there were so much more knowledgeable about knitting and I could ask questions, be taught (patiently) by them and improved my skills. One of the women remarked how slowly I knitted. This woman used mostly heavier weight yarns and larger needles while I was using smaller needles and smaller than worsted yarn for the most part. Her comment stung for some reason, though she was at least a couple decades younger than I, and by then I had already developed arthritis in one hand that required surgery and a cast for 5 weeks.

    I learned to change my knitting style to take some of the strain off of that hand and it did speed up my knitting some, but I’m not in competition, I am not a production knitter, I don’t have to be a speed knitter. I knit for the joy and relaxation that it brings me. I have friends that finish large shawls and sweaters in days, it takes me weeks. Knitters who can knock out a pair of socks in a day or two, it takes me ten times longer, but I doubt they enjoy what they make any more than I do what I make.

    It is a process, not a contest. And I am grateful to those who were willing to teach me, not critique, I can read a pattern, a knitting chart, design a pattern, adjust one to make it fit me or the person for whom it is being made. So I am a slow knitter, so what!

  • 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.