djinnaya

I have been reading The War of Art, which has been fascinating in its descriptions of Resistance and annoying it its ability to get me to procrastinate by reading a book about procrastination.

I have been struggling with getting things done this summer. I'm still getting things done, but it doesn't flow like it usually does. I'm not even depressed, just slow. I know this feeling and this place, and, as I mentioned to Hilary on Tuesday, it usually just means that it is time for me to make some real progress somewhere. So, I'm trying to make that progress.

( Read more... )

Last weekend, I had the privlidge to go to Dorie Greenspan's reading at Omnivore books in Noe. I have read her things before, and I like the things she says and the way she talks about food, so I knew I would have a good time. I had no idea exactly how charming I was going to find her to be. She is simply wonderful. One of those few people that just radiates good-heartedness. It was a delightful time.

I picked up my copy of her book, Around My French Table, which is her collection of recipes, mostly simple home-cooking type things, from herself, her friends and fellow food-people in France. For Baking, there was a group that cooked their way through her book every Tuesday on a blog called Tuesdays with Dorie. This is both cute and brilliant marketing - two things I admire.

The new group is French Fridays with Dorie, and I have joined and started my path to cook all the way through this book. I'm a few weeks behind, so I may just have to make fabulous french food twice a week for a couple weeks. Aw, shucks. While I'm only posting my photos to the flickr pool and not "blogging" my progress, I thought I'd post my results and stories here, if anyone is interested in them, and so that I can look back at the end of this in awe of all the new cooking tricks I learned.

( First Recipe! Gerard's Mustard Tart )

Here is a repost of my 2009 post about the importance of Evac Insurance. Read and pass on. Thank you!



A PSA from the Mom Stick

Insurance is good for you. As I slowly become a "real adult," I begin to internalize the fact that really bad shit just happens sometimes. It is better to be prepared for it. I'm not saying that we have to prepare for everything, but I am saying that if you *can* prepare for stuff, you should.

Along those lines, if you are skipping around the planet, especially to countries from which you might need to be extracted in case of medical emergency, please PLEASE get travel insurance that covers these things. Air fare is expensive; medical air fare is totally inaccessible; travel insurance, in comparison, is quite cheap. Some of it is a rip-off, but if you shop around, you'll find good plans.

Also, if you do a lot of backpacking or rock climbing or river kayaking, please get air lift insurance. Your medical insurance probably doesn't cover it. Certainly not in a way that you think it would. It's $55 a year for the insurance that covers the playa and most of the awesome back country hiking areas of California. That covers your whole household. In my case, that is about $14 per person per year.

Anyway, the mom stick says, "DON'T DO ANYTHING STUPID!" However, the mom stick realizes that this doesn't protect you from harm, so if you plan on going somewhere that might lead to a fundraiser in your honor, please poke around at what you can do to make it a "Welcome Home!" party instead.

It's that time of year when my thoughts turn to... vegetables.

Despite having started my garden early this year, it just never got really going. I was using stale seeds, and I was too busy to water well, so it's not all that surprising. My tall kale is doing well, but it not very tall. My lemon tree gave me a couple of lemons, but it has now had two green fruits on it for over a month. They keep trying to tell me that it is too cold to turn yellow.

So, today I took a moment and applied the EB Organics Citrus fertilizer to it and put some marigolds around it to act as slug detectors for me. I planted lettuce in my little window boxes along the walk, as I'm trying to create a little container garden version of an edible walk border. I had sort of given up on my beets, so I got an eggplant and a squash seedling. Of course, the day I went to put them in, my beet greens popped up. I planted anyway, and I'll just let the beets grow a little bit before I pull them out. I also planted some borage, which is not on the "do not plant" list of invasives for the Presidio. I'm still a little worried that they'll hop out into the grass, so I'll be super careful to harvest all the flowers for salads.

I love newly planted veggie pots. Even though I know that things don't grow well here, there is something about the freshly fed and watered seedlings that makes me believe in good things.

Also, I never plant all my seeds. If you want to grow some lovely purple beans, some chard, or some borage, hit me up for seeds.

We hung the Adv Ceramics student show today. I have serveral wall pieces and this standing piece. It is in Bldg B of Fort Mason through the later part of the month, if you'd like to check it out.

"High-class smobs fear the lower classes and use art to distance themselves. Low-class snobs fear good books, music and movies out of some irrational terror that they won't understand them or they might encounter some truth about themselves that they'd rather avoid. The truth is most of art that's considered great is great because of its fullness of emotion, and that emotion, which is the essential ingredient, is completely and immediately accessible. To everybody. Usually there's some small speed bump to get over - like reading subtitles or getting used to some earlier convention. But once you're past that, you encounter in almost all great art something raw and gut-level, something huge and emotional - precisely what people look for in mediocre art but rarely find."

~ Mick Lasalle, his Q&A column in the Chronicle

A Beggar's Ride


Cone 10 fired slip casting and hand-built soldate 60. Shino, purple temoku glazes, iron oxides and black engobe.

Bowl

The latest of my leaf bowls. This one from leaves brought to me by the very awesome and talented Shari Lambrinos.

Cone 10, soldate 60 with white slip. Y2K Clear on interior, and bronze on extreior, rutile stain on lip.

I think I'm about done with these. A number of people in the studio have started using the technique, which I in turn took from Ilana Crispi, and I'm thinking of letting it go soon. Still, I have a few more elements to master in it first... Maybe I'll do a few more.

With only moments to spare, I am a 2010 Knitting Olympics Gold Medalist!

I didn't really take any pictures from my Fall 2010 finished pieces. I really dislike photographing my work, but it has to be done. Meanwhile, here are some shots of a set of my Cave Flowers in place, a quickie vase that I threw for Jason, and the my current projects that I'm working on.

( pictures in here )

Scaffolding
by Seamus Heaney

Masons, when they start upon a building,
Are careful to test out the scaffolding;
Make sure that planks won’t slip at busy points,
Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.
And yet all this comes down when the job’s done
Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.
So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be
Old bridges breaking between you and me
Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall
Confident that we have built our wall.