Che Mondo Bello

iPhone Painting: Squash

2011-02-26T10:09:00.000-08:00

This painting was made with the Brushes app on an iPhone 4.

iPhone and iPad Paintings

2011-01-30T07:50:00.000-08:00

The last couple of months, I've been creating paintings using either an iPhone or an iPad, using the Brushes app. This painting of some baby bok choy was created on an iPad.

Working on a touchscreen is an interesting experience. I have used a stylus and tablet for years to make marks in Photoshop, Painter, and other applications. Working directly on the image with my fingers is very expressive.

Like all software applications, Brushes has a limited features set. One thing I'd like to see in future releases is the ability to blend colors. As the program exists now, I find that it works best to paint as if I'm using tempera or gouache, building layers from the back forward. I also find myself laying down color, then using another color to trim away or shape the first color. I'm sure my technique will continue to evolve.

Best of all, I can draw and paint while waiting to set up a studio space. Who knows, the solvents might remain packed for some time.

A New Garden Emerges

2010-07-27T17:31:00.001-07:00

One of the heartbreaking tasks we faced when moving from Vashon Island was what to do with the extensive gardens we had made there.

It was obvious that we would leave the majority of the plants in place, either because it wasn't practical to move them, or the plants were common enough that we knew we could find them again.

Some things, however, were unusual or beloved enough that we made the effort to dig them, pot them up, and move them to the new house. We ended up taking 71 different plants, and took multiples of some of them. The plants filled a 20-foot truck.

Once at the new house, we arranged all of the plants in the shade of a tulip magnolia. After a couple of weeks, we moved the sun-lovers out from under the tree canopy and soon realized that some things needed to be planted—soon.

We intend to extensively remake the yard and existing flower beds, and didn't want to just plant things wherever there was room without a plan. However, the needs of the plants soon won out, and we decided to start the gardening sooner than we had planned.

We started by planting some of the sun lovers, including Helianthus 'Lemon Queen,' Angelica gigas, Heliopsis 'Lorraine Sunshine,' and Dahlia 'Bishop of Llandaff' in sunny positions around the front yard. We will have to move these again once remake the front garden, but they are all much happier in the ground. The dahlia is blooming, and will soon be joined by the sunflower.

In the back yard, we build a raised berm that is half in sun for much of the day and half in shade, at least until late afternoon. We planted this with Hacquetia, Hellebores, Amsonia, Pittosporum, Actea, Brunnera, Philadelphus, Mahonia, Carex, Dichroa, Cardiocrinum giganteum, Chrinodendron, Billiardiera longifolia, Himalayan maidenhair fern, and Wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens). Under the shade of a flowering pear, we will plant giant red trilliums and a Royal fern.

The previous owners operated a day care center at this house, and much of the back area was set up as a play area, with a large wooden platform and lots and lots of play chips. We took the platform and arranged it in front of our new bed, then arranged some of the large pots we brought with us and filled them with more of the plants we moved: Paeonea 'Kopper Kettle,' Ozmanthus davidii, Eupatorium 'Chocolate,' Romneya coulteri, Phormium 'Apricot Queen,' another Dahlia 'Bishop of Llandaff,' and Penstemon 'Garnet.'

Because many of our plants were already larger than typical nursery stock, the beds and pots have an instant impact. Nice!

We still have a collection of shade-lovers under the magnolia tree. We're not sure where they're going to end up, as we don't have much shade in this yard. They might end up planted under the tree that is now sheltering them.

Meanwhile, we've taken extensive measurements of the yard and are working on a master drawing that we can use to plan the rest of the gardens. More to come!

On Leaving a Place We Love

2010-06-01T10:44:00.001-07:00

After four and a half years of living on Vashon Island, we have disembarked.

Once we found ourselves in a position to buy a house, it no longer made sense to live so far from work. We bought a nice place with lots of light, lots of room, and a great yard that we will remake into gardens over the coming year.

Departing was both exciting and terribly sad. We both loved many things about living on Vashon. It's very inaccessibility meant that it was less developed, more wild. The bird life there was fantastic—we encountered many species of birds that neither of us had experienced before after decades of living in the Seattle area. I used to love watching the Spotted Towhees, Black-Eyed Juncos, Varied Thrushes, Banded Doves, Pileated Woodpeckers, Red-Banded Flickers, Steller's Jays, Cedar Waxwings, and a wide assortment of wrens, finches, swallows, and song sparrows. Bald Eagles were a common site along the bluff across the road from our house, soaring on the thermals and emitting their ethereal cries.

So far, we've seen Flickers, Hummingbirds, Finches, and Wrens at the new house, as well as the ubiquitous urban residents American Robins, European Starlings, and Crows. Because there are mature trees and large shrubs, we are hopeful of attracting more species. Once we start work on the gardens, we will, as before, take creation of attractive habitat into consideration when designing and selecting plants.

One of the great things about living in a small community (or, it could be a not great thing if you feel differently about people) was having so many folks know us by name, at the grocery store, the coffee roasterie, the nurseries, the farmers' market. We were always running into people we know when running errands. Now we live in a densely populated suburban area, which is oddly impersonal. It's possible that places I frequent will come to know me, but I think the feeling of being part of a community will be more elusive.

The hardest part of leaving was moving away from the reasons we moved there in the first place: our friends and our godson. More effort will need to be made to stay in touch, and we will simply not be seeing them as often as before. In the end, having an extra 3+ hours a day not spent commuting in heavy traffic diminishes the sorrow of this, but it was the hardest part of our decision.

Now we're in a house of our own, where we hope to stay for many years, and we will make it as welcoming and warm as we know how. We will make return visits to Vashon, to see friends, say hello to people we know, buy eggs from our favorite farm.

Our godson, when told we were moving off the island, declared emphatically: "We go to Seattle all the time. It is not going to be a problem."

Kids are so smart.

Vashon Panorama

2010-05-03T09:46:00.001-07:00

This panorama is actually three photos stitched together. It was taken from the bluff across the road from our Vashon house and looks north-east over Puget Sound.

Downtown Seattle is lurking in the haze above the dark strip of land that is West Seattle. Nearby Blake Island is to the left of the Douglas Fir trunk. Puget Sound's iconic car ferries can be seen leaving Vashon Island for Fauntleroy (right) and Southworth, on the Kitsap Peninsula (left).

It is quite windy today, and the water is a little choppier than usual. I didn't spot a single pleasure craft. During the summer months, this scene would be dotted with dozens of sailboats and cabin cruisers and fishing boats.

Cooking: Green Papaya Salad with Mango

2010-03-21T16:34:00.001-07:00

Green papaya salad is a mainstay of Thai cuisine; in fact, some say it is the single most popular dish among Thai women. It's refreshing and assertively spicy.

Traditionally made with long beans or green beans, this salad is made in large mortars in Thailand, where the papaya and beans are pounded to soften them until they are wilted. Few American cooks will have a large mortar on hand, so this recipe uses a rolling pin instead.

I didn't have any beans, so I left them out. I added some mango in their place and substituted almonds for the more traditional peanuts. To make a nice lunch, I cooked some sweet short-grain brown rice with half water and half coconut milk. The rice made a nice, rich, counterpart to the spicy salad.

Look for green papayas in Asian markets. We found ours in Seattle at Uwajimaya.

Green Papaya Salad with Mango
serves 4

1 tablespoon coarsely chopped garlic
1 teaspoon coarsely chopped green chili, such as serrano or jalapeño
1 green papaya, peeled
1 ripe mango, peeled and cut into sticks
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice
2 teaspoons rapadura or turbinado sugar (use any unrefined or raw sugar)
10 grape tomatoes, halved
2 tablespoons chopped, toasted almonds
fresh cilantro

Combine the garlic and chilies in a mortar and pound to a paste; if you don't have a mortar and pestle, mince them very finely together. Set aside

Grate the peeled papaya with a box grater until you can see the immature, white seeds inside. Remove any seeds that get into your grated papaya. Spread the grated papaya on a large cutting board and use a heavy rolling pin to crush it, going over it repeatedly until the papaya shreds are softened and wilted. Have some fun with it.

Combine the wilted papaya and the garlic-chili paste in a bowl and mix well. You can use your hands to squeeze them together, working the seasonings in well. Add the fish sauce, lime juice, and sugar and mix well. Stir in the mango sticks and grape tomatoes.

Serve topped with toasted almonds and fresh cilantro leaves.

Excellent the next day, too.

Cooking: Dairy-Free, Sugar-Free Chocolate Custards

2010-01-31T15:14:00.000-08:00

My love affair with baked egg custard goes back a lo-o-ong way, to my childhood. My paternal grandmother, the one who lived on a farm her entire life, used to keep some in the refrigerator, which was the first place I'd head when we visited.

There's something so comforting in this easily-digested treat, made at its simplest with just eggs, milk, and sugar.

Now that I'm all grown up, I find myself still craving this childhood treat, but wondered if I could adapt it to be free of dairy and sugar. This led to some internet research, where I learned that egg custard can be made with coconut milk. I am fortunate to have inherited my grandmother's custard cups, and mixed the custard in my mother-in-law's old Pyrex glass mixing bowl (the kind that came in four colors in graduated sizes), which added a note of nostalgic satisfaction to the process.

For the first batch I made, last summer, I steeped crushed lemongrass in some warmed coconut milk, strained it out, then proceeded to add eggs, vanilla, and a pinch of salt. While not as creamy as a traditional custard, it was pretty tasty, especially paired with fresh berries.

I had been experimenting with combining unsweetened cocoa powder and mashed banana in things like muffins, and that became the base of this latest experiment. The addition of some extra-spicy Vietnamese cinnamon added a lot of flavor.

These custards have more the texture of a panna cotta than a traditional, gelatinous baked egg custard, but they satisfied my craving just fine.

Baked Chocolate Egg Custard
makes 6

5 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup well-mashed very ripe banana
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I used strong Vietnamese cinnamon)
1 cup coconut milk

Preheat oven to 325° F, with a rack in the center of the oven.

Combine banana, cocoa and cinnamon and mix well to blend. Set aside.

Beat eggs, vanilla, and a pinch of salt until slightly frothy. Whisk in the banana-cocoa mixture and mix well.

Divide custard between 6 custard cups or individual ramekins. Place in larger pan, then pour hot water into the larger pan until it is halfway up sides of custard cups.

Bake 30-45 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Be careful not to overbake. Remove custard cups from water bath; let cool 10 minutes, then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.

Cooking: Yukon Gold Gnocchi with Roasted Beets

2010-01-03T09:25:00.000-08:00

Most days, I aim to keep cooking simple. Once in a while, though, it's fun to try something more elaborate. This dish, Yukon Gold Gnocchi with Roasted Beets and Beet-Merlot Reduction, is certainly that.

Adapted from a recipe in The Artful Vegan, a cookbook from San Franciscso's Millennium Restaurant, this is one of those dishes that demands some prep, starting the day before with the making of a dark roasted vegetable stock, rich with red onions, mushrooms, herbs, and wine, carefully reduced and strained. It's the kind of thing that happens daily in restaurant kitchens, rarely in home ones, where what seems like an enormous amount of vegetables are converted to a couple of quarts of intensely flavored stock. When people ask me what one thing they can do to improve their home cooking, I often suggest making their own stocks. This is usually met with silence and stares, but unless you've done it, you don't know what depth of flavor you've been missing.

The day of serving started with baking Yukon Gold potatoes for the gnocchi and roasting red and Chioggia beets. Chioggia beets are perhaps the most beautiful of all the root vegetables, striped internally in red and white.

The recipe called for peeling the beets, which I suppose is de rigueur if you're a high-end restaurant, but at home I don't peel most vegetables. I simply want the vitamins that lay just beneath them, as well as the fiber. The beets got tossed with some vegetable stock, a tiny bit of oil, salt, allspice and cloves, then were roasted at 400°F until just tender, about one hour. They got set aside, and were re-warmed prior to plating the dish.

On to the gnocchi. The potatoes, baked at 400°F until just done, then cooled to room temperature, were peeled (the skin comes off with just a little help from a paring knife), then mashed. Flour and a little salt was added to make a soft dough. In hindsight, I could have added more flour, as my gnocchi teetered on the edge of falling apart when cooked, but they were very tender.

The dough was rolled into a rope about one inch in diameter, then sliced into 1/2 inch slices. They got pinched in the middle to make little bone shapes, then went onto a flour-dusted sheet and stuck in the freezer for at least an hour.

On to the reduction. This starts with lightly caramelizing halved shallots in some olive oil, then adding a quartered red beet, some rosemary, some thyme, and some dried porcini mushrooms. After a brief sauté, a couple cups each of the dark roasted vegetable stock and a good Merlot are added. After reducing by half, this mixture is strained, dried cherries are added, and the sauce reduced by another third. The smell was intoxicating.

Another of the garnishes suggested by the book is tarragon oil. This is made by blanching fresh tarragon, shocking it in ice water, drying it, then blending the leaves with oil. So green!

To finish the dish, the roasted beets were re-warmed in the oven and the gnocchi went into a large pot of boiling, salted water. When they floated to the surface, they got transferred to a plate with a little olive oil. Meanwhile, in a large skillet, more olive oil was heated with some minced garlic. The gnocchi went into the skillet to sizzle a while, until they just started to brown, then chopped parsley was added.

To plate, mound up some gnocchi in a soup plate. Arrange some roasted beets around it, then add 1/4 cup of the reduction sauce. Garnish with a few chopped walnuts, drizzle with some of the tarragon oil, and a final dusting of parsley.

This dish has an amazing depth of flavor, intense and rich, while containing very little oil or salt, and no black pepper or other strong seasonings. Not something I'll be making regularly, but good to have in the repertoire for special meals.

Plus, there is enough of everything left to have it for dinner again tonight. Happy New Year, indeed!

Cooking: Holiday Party Fare

2009-12-20T12:55:00.000-08:00

The biggest holiday of the year is upon us, with parties and dinners and generally lots of indulgences. So, what do my thoughts turn to? Kale…

No, seriously.

Knowing that we are likely to have at least a few sugary treats during the season, I'm trying to pack as many different tasty greens into our meals as possible. As fortune has it, there are some incredibly nutritious choices in good supply right now, including cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and various kinds of kale.

This salad uses lacinato kale, sometimes marketed as "dinosaur" kale because of its textured leaves. Whatever your greengrocer is calling it, it's a nutritional powerhouse, low in calories but high in vitamins A and C, a smattering of calcium and iron, loaded with Omega-3 fatty acids, and a rich source of soluble fiber. Good stuff.

Many people are put off by greens, perhaps because they've only had them cooked to death or smothered with strong flavors like vinegar. This salad uses raw kale that has been "massaged" with a little salt. The result is a wilted, tenderized green that hasn't been overcooked. Add in a few tasty additions and top with Spicy Beets, and the result is stellar. Black mustard seed is pretty important to this dish—look for it in ethnic markets, spice shops, or from online sources. It adds a pleasant, distinctive, almost nutty flavor that can't be duplicated with other spices.

A food processor fitted with a shredding disk makes quick work of grating the beets; or, use a box grater.

Deep Green Salad with Roasted Yams and Spicy Beets
serves 4

Make the Spicy Beets (can be made several days in advance)

3 T olive oil
1/2 teaspoon black mustard seed
2 large shallots, cut into fine slivers
1 green chili, thinly sliced (jalapeño or serrano)
1 lb trimmed but unpeeled beets, grated
1 teaspoon kosher salt (use less if using table or sea salt)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Heat oil over medium-high; when hot, add mustard seeds. As soon as the mustard seeds begin to pop, add shallots and chili. Fry for 30 seconds.

Add beets; cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add salt and 1/2 C water. Bring to a boil, cover, and lower heat. Cook gently for 10 minutes.

Uncover, turn heat to medium, and cook for 3 minutes; add lemon juice and stir to mix.

Cool completely before adding to the salad (the beets are delicious hot on their own, too).

Make the roasted yams

1 yam (unpeeled)
1 small red onion
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme

Preheat oven to 375°F with a rack in the middle. Trim stem end of yam, then cut in half lengthwise. Cut each half into 1/4 inch slices and place in a bowl. Cut red onion in half lengthwise, then into 1/4 inch slices; add to bowl. Add olive oil and balsamic vinegar and toss to coat. Spread out in single layer on rimmed baking sheet, then season lightly with salt and pepper to taste, plus the thyme. Roast for 30 minutes, or until the yam slices can easily be pierced with the tip of a knife. Remove and let cool.

Make the salad

1 large bunch kale, with ribs removed (lacinato kale seems to work best for this)
1 teaspoon kosher salt (use 1/2 teaspoon if using table salt)
1 ripe but not mushy pear
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon ginger juice (or, fresh ginger, minced or grated, then squeezed in the hand to extract the juice)
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Cut kale into 1/4 inch strips. Place in a large bowl and add 1 teaspoon kosher salt (see note in ingredient list above). Set a timer for 2 minutes, then “massage” the kale with your hands, squeezing and mixing as you go. The kale will start to wilt and turn a vibrant deep green. When the 2 minutes are up, add the cooled roasted vegetables to the kale.

To prepare the dressing, combine the pepper, ginger juice, mustard, and balsamic vinegar and blend. Whisk in the olive oil until combined, then pour over the salad. Toss until everything is well coated. Cut the pear in half, core, then cut into 1/2 inch cubes; add to salad and gently toss. Top with a large dollop of the Spicy Beets and serve.

Autumn Breakfast

2009-11-24T15:12:00.001-08:00

Fuyu persimmon and kiwi. So pretty!

Exotic Fruit

2009-11-08T20:09:00.001-08:00

Dragon fruit, or piyata, is the fruit of an epiphytic cactus vine native to Mexico, and Central and South America. Now widely cultivated in Southeast Asia and Hawaii as well.

Kiwi berries are delicious little bundles of Vitamin C, without the fuzz of their larger cousins. We found lots of these, grown organically, right here on Vashon this fall and have been enjoying them. Let them ripen at room temperature until they just start to wrinkle.

Here's the dragon fruit cut up and served in its own skin. The seeds are nutty and pleasantly crunchy, and the fruit is very delicate and refreshing.

Isn't that color combination surreal?

A Photo Excursion: Vashon-Maury Island

2009-10-20T15:46:00.001-07:00

Autumn Glory

2009-10-19T09:02:00.001-07:00

This Big Leaf Maple (Acer macrophyllum) near our house has the most amazing fall color thing happening. I can't wait to see how it develops over the next couple of weeks.

Ain't nature grand?

Tutorial: Circular Photo Frames in Photoshop

2009-09-28T08:49:00.000-07:00

There are several methods for creating a circular frame for a photo in Photoshop. You could, for instance, simply use the oval Marquis tool to make a circular selection of a photo, copy it, and paste it into another document, but that technique only copies the pixels inside the original circular selection. Here's one way to achieve the same thing, while giving you more options for resizing or repositioning the photo behind the frame.

(Click on any image to view a larger version; or, Control-click/right-click and open in another window or tab)

Start with a new document and fill it with whatever background color you wish. I've chosen this reddish orange.
Using the oval Marquis tool (it's the top left tool in the default Tools palette; click and hold on the tool to select the oval variant of the tool from the drop-down menu), make a circular selection (hold down Shift while dragging to constrain the selection to a perfect circle). With the Marquis tool still selected, you can click inside this selection and move it to wherever you want in the document. To resize the selection, go to Select>Transform Selection and use the corner controls to alter the size; click Return/Enter when done to accept the transformation.
Open the photo that you want to copy, and select all (Command/Control-A), then copy it (Command/Control-C). You can close the photo file. Go back to the document that has your circular selection in it. If you've left the photo file open, go to Window>new file name to make it the current window.

Now, go to Edit>Paste into and your photo will appear inside the circular selection that you made earlier. When you paste anything into a Photoshop file, Photoshop creates a new layer directly on top of the layer that was active when you initiated the Paste action. When you Paste Into a selection, Photoshop also automatically creates a Layer Mask in the shape of your selection. Of course, your selection can be any shape you want, and Photoshop will create a mask in that shape. Nifty, no?

If we look at the Layers palette (if it's not already open it, display it now by going to Window>Layers), we can see that our document now has two layers: the Background layer is our original colored layer, and the next layer up contains the photo, as well as the layer mask. The layer mask reveals or hides the contents of the upper layer depending on its shape (and opacity, which we won't be dealing with in this tutorial).

In the Layers palette, we now see a thumbnail for the photo, as well as a black and white thumbnail for the layer mask. Note that the entire photo is actually there, but the layer mask is only showing us the part that is revealed by the white area of the mask. We can now resize the image, or move it around behind the mask, which gives us much more flexibility than if we had simply copied a circular selection of pixels and pasted them in.

If we want to resize the image, first make sure that the layer that contains it is active (click on the photo thumbnail), then go to Edit>Free Transform (or, just press Command/Control-T). We now see the transformation box on the image, and we can click and drag the controls to resize the image, while leaving the circular mask the same.

Now, let's suppose we want to create a second circular image that's the same size as the first one. To do this, we need to copy the original circular selection that was used to create the original layer mask.

To do this, Control-click on the layer mask thumbnail in the Layers palette. This loads the mask as a selection. Using the Marquis tool (press M), we can now go back to our image and click inside the circular selection and drag it to a new location. By using the Marquis tool, we are assured of only moving the selection, and not the image inside the selection.

We can now paste a second image into this new selection (open a new photo, select all, copy, return to the destination image, paste into) and Photoshop will create another new layer, complete with a new layer mask. Easy!

To add a little dimension to your frames, you can add a Layer Style, which I've done on the left image. To add a Layer Style, click on the image thumbnail of the layer you want to style, then go to Layer>Layer Style and select Inner Shadow (or, click on the Layer Style button at the bottom of the Layers Palette). Adjust the settings to your liking, and press OK.

If you want to move your circular frames around, you need to lock the image and its corresponding layer mask. Do this by click the space between the image thumbnail and the layer mask thumbnail; a small chain link will appear, signifying that they are now locked. You can now use the Move tool (press V) to click and drag the circles around; both the image and the mask will move. When the image and its mask are locked, you can also resize both simultaneously (Command/Control-T). To unlock the image from its mask, just click on the little chain link and you can then transform them independent of one another.

Layer masks are powerful tools, and I've just scratched the surface of what you can do with them. They are an essential tool for compositing images, and well worth your time exploring. Have fun!

Early Fall at the Farmstands

2009-09-27T17:12:00.000-07:00

It's officially fall, and the items available in the island farm stands are reflecting the change in seasons.

Besides these gorgeous sweet peppers, we found garlic, storing onions, amazingly sweet green-striped tomatoes, Desirée potatoes, and purple kohlrabi.

We also found island-grown melons at the island organic grocery store.

I love harvest time!

September Riches

2009-09-11T09:18:00.001-07:00

Island-grown melon, raspberries from Burlington, Washington, organic kiwi fruit from Trader Joe's (god knows where they got them from).

Pretty tasty!

Tutorial: Resizing an Image in Photoshop

2009-08-27T19:21:00.000-07:00

If you're posting images online, and who isn't these days, it pays to know how to re-size images so they aren't bandwidth hogs. Photoshop makes this easy, but like all things related to Photoshop, there are a few subtleties that make big differences in the result. In this tutorial, I will re-size a photo, then save it as a JPEG for posting to a blog or website.

Before we get started, I want to say a couple of things about resolution. This subject is little understood outside the computer graphics and print worlds, but it's an important thing to understand.

An image that has a resolution of 300 pixels per inch (ppi), if it is 1 inch by 1 inch in dimensions, will contain 900 pixels. When printed on most printers, it will print at 1 inch by 1 inch. On screen, however, at 100% magnification, it will look much larger. That's because computer monitors (typically) have a resolution of between 72 and 96 pixels per inch. Therefore, our 300 pixel wide image at 300 ppi will appear to be more than 3 times as wide on screen as when it prints.

For print, you usually want the most pixels you can get. This means a large number of pixels both across and down in your image. The more pixels, the better continuous-tone images like photographs will print. But the large number of pixels has a price: the computer has to store data for each and every pixel in your photo, with multiple bits for the three color channels (red, green and blue), as well as information about luminance (the tonal range) and transparency (usually referred to alpha). Image files intended for print are usually quite large (in terms of file size), even if their printed size is small.

We don't need all of that weight for an online image, due to both storage issues (your uploaded photo is just a file on a server somewhere) and bandwidth (how much data needs to be transmitted to a computer to view an online image). Plus, the screen resolution of less than 100 ppi will display much smaller images at what appears to be "normal" size, although if you print that same image, it will be about 1/3 of the size it was on-screen.

Fortunately, the internet is utterly non-committal about the resolution of an image (the ppi). The internet only cares about pixel dimensions—how many pixels wide and how many pixels tall is the image?

So, now that I've diverted into the murky world of image resolution, let's forget about it and concentrate only on the pixel dimensions of our image.

I've opened the photo I'll be working with in Photoshop. I'm using Photoshop CS2 on a Mac, but the techniques are the same for Windows.

Because I shoot all my digital photos at the maximum size allowed by my camera (so I can print nice sharp versions at the largest possible size if I choose), I know that this image is going to be too large to display on-screen. If we go to Image>File Size…, we can examine the resulting dialog box.

The image's dimensions are shown in the top box, conveniently labeled "Pixel Dimensions," along with the size of the file (in this case, 9MB). I usually have my units of measure set to pixels in Photoshop, so that's what comes up here, but if you don't see "pixels" next to the width and height boxes, use the drop down buttons to change it.

I want people to be able to see the entire photo without scrolling in their browser window, so that gives me a guideline for the height. You can search the web for safe dimensions by browser, but I can't be bothered trying to accommodate the multitude of browsers now available, so I'm going to try 500 pixels for the height. People with small screens are used to scrolling, anyway, so they'll get the experience they're used to.

Before changing the height, make sure the "Constrain Proportions" box is checked. This will ensure that when we change the height, the width will adjust appropriately. We can completely ignore the second section of this dialog box, because we're not concerned with resolution or document size for this exercise, only the pixel dimensions.

Before clicking OK, we need to change one other setting, and that is the bottom control labeled "Resample Image." The default setting for this control, which determines how Photoshop decides which pixels to throw away while maintaining the visual integrity of your image, is Bicubic, and that is fine for a default. I get better results when shrinking an image, however, by selecting "Bicubic Sharper" from the dropdown. Conversely, when enlarging an image (more on this in a minute), I select "Bicubic Softer." I don't understand the technical reasons why this gives me better results, I just like the results I get. Now click OK.

OK, we've re-sized our photo to a web-friendly size. Now, we need it in a format that can be displayed on the web. For photographs, this usually means either JPEG or PNG (an open-source algorithm developed to replace JPEG, which is a patented process). These are both compression algorithms that are used to shrink file size (remember storage and bandwidth). Both are what are known as "lossy" algorithms, meaning they produce a smaller file size by throwing away data. We want to control this process to ensure the highest possible image quality at reasonable file sizes.

If we started with a JPEG (which is the most common format used by point-and-shoot digital cameras), it would be tempting to just hit File>Save now. We could also use File>Save As… and then choosing .jpg or .png in the file type drop-down, but neither of these methods gives us any control at all.

Instead, use File>Save for web…, which will then open some controls we can change. The Save for web… dialog box has several important features. In the upper left, we can select to display only the original image, only the compressed image (Photoshop calls the compressed image "Optimized"), or display them side by side. If you want to try out several different levels of compression, you can click the 4-Up tab, then set different levels of compression for each window. I usually find that the 2-Up configuration works fine. It lets me keep an eye on my original (left pane) as well as the compressed version (right pane). In the lower left corner, you can change the magnification of the previews in case you need to really see what's happening up close. I usually leave it at 100% because that's the size I'll be viewing it once it's online.

In the upper right, there is a dialog box with several controls. Select JPEG or PNG from the drop down (PNG-8 will result in smaller files than PNG-24, but will also throw out more data in order to achieve that small file size). For photos, these are really the only two options you should consider, and I won't discuss the other options in this tutorial.

I've selected JPEG, then played with the Quality setting. The information at the bottom of the right-hand image shows me what the resulting file size will be based on my settings. I usually look for a balance of image integrity and file size, remembering that many users won't often wait for a large image file to download to their screen, but will click away after just a few seconds. When I have the settings the way I want them, I click OK, then give the JPEG a file name.

That's it. My JPEG is now a svelte 40k in size and still looks good. I wouldn't print an image that small, but it's fine for viewing on a screen.

Images of the same pixel dimension can end up different sizes after saving as a JPEG. The "busier" the image, the larger the final file size. This is because the JPEG algorithm looks at the edges between things to determine what it can toss. The more edges (say, in a crowded street shot with lots of buildings, windows, and people), the larger the file size will be. The Save for web… dialog lets you see what your final image will both look like as well as how large it will be (file size), while letting you control both. It's a great tool.

Now, what about enlarging an image? Enlarging the pixel dimensions of an image is problematic to say the least. When you shrink an image, the computer is throwing away pixels; when you enlarge an image, the computer has to invent what it thinks the new pixels should look like. Enlarged images always—repeat, always—suffer a loss of sharpness. It rarely results in a quality image. There are third-party plug-ins and stand-alone programs that purport to do this with greater accuracy, but they are still inventing pixels based on what they start with. I don't recommend enlarging images if the end result is to be crisp and detailed. If your goal is to get something fuzzy or pixelated, and sometimes that's what I need for artistic reasons, then go for it.

So that's it. Have fun!

Cooking: Cabbage Koftas

2009-08-20T09:59:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite cooking web sites is Manjula's Kitchen. I especially love watching her knead doughs for rotis, parathas, and other Indian breads, using just her right hand. But what a hand! So expressive.

I've made several of her recipes, although I usually dial back the chilies to better suit our palates.

Recently, she posted a video about making Cabbage Koftas, fritters made from mostly cabbage, with some seasonings and a binder. Manjula serves her koftas in a spicy tomato gravy, but I wondered what they would be like in a mixed vegetable curry with coconut milk. Dinner with friends presented the perfect opportunity. I used garbanzo flour instead of gram flour (which is made from hulled black lentils) and a modified frying technique. Here's my revised recipe.

Cabbage Koftas
makes about 16 koftas

2 cups finely shredded cabbage (I used red cabbage)
1 hot chili, seeded and chopped (I used a Santa Fe chili; jalapeño or serrano would work well, too)
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
1 tablespoon chopped ginger
1 teaspoon whole cumin seed (or use 3/4 teaspoon ground cumin)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 cups garbanzo flour
oil for frying (I used sunflower oil; coconut oil would work beautifully, too)

Begin heating oil over medium-high heat in a cast-iron or stainless steel skillet. There should be 1/2 inch of oil in the pan.

Combine cabbage, chili, cilantro, ginger, cumin seed, salt and flour in a bowl and combine. Using your hand, press the mixture together, squeezing as you go, until the cabbage exudes enough moisture for the whole thing to hold together. Keep at it—this can take a few minutes.

Test the oil by dropping a small ball of the "dough" into it. The oil should start to bubble around it.

Form small ovals of the mixture by squeezing them and patting them into shape, then gently lay them in the hot oil. Continue with as many as will fit in the pan without them touching—if you crowd them, things will steam, not fry. Leave them alone, bubbling away, for a couple of minutes, then gently turn them. I just used a table fork for this. If you try to turn them before the bottom has crusted, they will break.

Continue cooking on the other side until it, too, is crisp and golden brown. Press the ovals lightly with the tines of the fork—when they feel solid, they're done. Remove to a plate lined with a paper towel, then continue cooking the remaining mixture until they're all fried.

These are utterly delicious to eat out of hand and would make a great appetizer or first course, served perhaps with a fresh chutney. Frankly, they were so good, I don't even think that is necessary.

I used them in a different fashion, however, placing four of them in the bottom of the dish before serving a luscious vegetable curry over and around them. The curry contained lots of onion, garlic, ginger, fresh turmeric, chopped chilies, carrots, yams, cauliflower and green beans, plus coconut milk. Seasoned liberally with home-made curry powder, it was sublime.

The delightfully chewy, rich-tasting koftas were like little bundles of treasure. I'll definitely be making these again, soon.

On Eating Roasted Melon Seeds

2009-08-19T06:22:00.000-07:00

While cleaning the seeds out of an orange-flesh honeydew melon recently, I found myself wondering if they could be roasted, like pumpkin seeds. After all, melons belong botanically to the same family (along with other squashes, cucumbers, and gourds), and roasted pumpkin seeds are delicious, so why not melon seeds?

It turns out that it's me that's behind the curve, because roasted melon seeds are consumed across much of the Middle East and Asia. I even found ready-to-eat, roasted, salted melon seeds available for on-line order.

The technique couldn't be simpler. Rinse away all of the pulp (that which is not seed, in other words), soak for awhile in heavily salted water, drain, and roast in a dry skillet until golden and puffed. Let cool.

Now comes the meditative part. These seeds are small, and they must be "shelled" to reveal the tiny, nutty germ inside. (I suspect that larger-seeded varieties provide the seeds for roasting in other countries.)

Holding a seed on edge, I bit down lightly on the pointy end until it popped open slightly, a surprisingly easy and, for some reason, delightfully sensual activity. Then, using my fingernails, I pried the seed apart to reveal…sometimes nothing, sometimes a tiny kernel, sometimes a surprisingly plump morsel nestled inside.

Eaten one at a time, the seeds had a delicious flavor, slightly salty and nutty. You could shell a cup of them and only end up with a tablespoon of edible bits.

So why bother?

I bothered (and I eventually ate every single seed) because I found the process quite meditative. I would sit at the table after dinner and go repetitively through the few steps required to open these diminutive seeds, an activity that coaxed me to draw my attention down from the sometimes hectic swirl that I whip up in my brain, to focus, with purpose, on gently opening a single seed. Sometimes there was a reward inside, and sometimes there was not. What a great lesson in attachment!

Eating melon seeds, I have decided, is not so much about the outcome (the kernels) as it is about the process, how we go about getting where we're going. And that's just as important as the finish line.

I told my sweetie I was getting in touch with my inner junco; he nodded gently in that way he has that means "How did I end up with someone this strange?"

Luckily for me, he likes juncos.

The Fifth Metatarsal

2009-08-18T11:12:00.000-07:00

This is a boot cast. It is on my right foot. It is on my right foot because I might have an Avulsion fracture of the fifth metatarsal. This does not make my foot happy.

Fractures of the fifth metatarsal, the long bone that runs along the outside of the foot, are evidently common. This bone is shaped differently than other metatarsals—it has a little protrusion that sticks out where the metatarsal meets the tarsal. An Avulsion fracture occurs right across this protrusion, as if the bone was trying to rid itself of this odd little bump.

Even though the X-rays didn't show a fracture, hairline cracks may have occurred. Time will tell. The boot cast, which will be my constant companion (except for sleeping and showering) for the next 7-10 days, is needed in case there is a crack. Not wearing it could lead to an actual fracture, and that means a much less comfortable cast.

Avulsion fractures apparently happen when the metatarsal is stressed, particularly when the foot is twisted inward. I stepped on a step wrong, and then the pain started.

Fortunately, there was Vicodin for sleeping last night, and today it's already better. The anti-inflammatory benefits of the way we've been eating have paid off in a big way—today, there is no swelling or redness at all. Hooray for anti-oxidents!

UPDATE 082509: Not broken, but possibly bruised. The boot cast will be coming off for longer periods of time over the next week. Best of all—no hard cast. Yay!

Cooking: Wheat-Free, Sugar-Free Muffins

2009-08-09T09:13:00.000-07:00

"What!!?"

Take a deep, cleansing breath or two. Better now?

I've posted previously about some of the dietary changes we've been making of late. Less a diet than an entirely different way of thinking about what we put in our bodies, it's had some remarkable effects already, particularly for me.

We kept hearing about this "anti-inflammation" diet craze that seemed to be sweeping the island. Hey, it's not that big an island; word travels fast. What was amazing was just how many people we knew or met who had taken the classes and experienced a wide range of relief from many common symptoms. Between my sweetie's arthritis and my chronic digestive and allergy problems, as well as being overweight, there were many compelling reasons to check it out.

In the course of taking the classes (if you live in the Seattle area you might want to check them out at this web site), one of the recipes that was provided was for Joanne's Muffins, made with no wheat and no sugar. Intrigued, I whipped up a batch and, somewhat surprised, we found we like them.

Being an inveterate tinkerer in the kitchen, however, I immediately began thinking of slight alterations. We really like this version, which omits the olive oil completely (because I forgot it, but it didn't affect the final outcome at all), and adds grated carrot, cooked quinoa, cinnamon, ginger, and both vanilla and almond extracts. Here's the revised recipe:

Joanne's Muffins, Amended
makes 12 muffins

1 cup cooked squash, pumpkin or sweet potato (I used canned organic pumpkin)
1 cup mashed ripe banana
1/2 large carrot, grated
1/2 cup cooked quinoa
1 cup chopped walnuts
4 eggs, lightly beaten until creamy
2 cups almond flour (usually sold as almond meal—keep this in the refrigerator or freezer)
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (use less if using table salt)
2 teaspoons aluminum-free baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon pure almond extract
pumpkin seeds

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare a 12-muffin pan with unbleached muffin papers and set aside.

In a mixing bowl, combine all ingredients except pumpkin seeds. Mix well. Because there is no gluten, you cannot really overmix this batter.

Using a large spoon, fill the muffin cups to the top. Place a few pumpkin seeds on each muffin.

Bake for 25-35 minutes (check them at 20 minutes). Cool in the tin on a wire rack for 5 minutes, then remove from the pan.

When completely cool, wrap the muffins individually. Keep some in the refrigerator for immediate use, and freeze the remainder in a zipper bag. To serve, rewarm in a 300 degree toaster oven.

If you are used to eating a lot of sugar (as we were), these will not taste very sweet the first time you make them. If, however, you do not eat sugar, the subtle sweetness of the banana and pumpkin is quite delicious. We like these just as they are, with some fruit, for a satisfying breakfast. Add a cold-brewed iced coffee: oh la la!

You can also add blueberries to the batter, or substitute almonds or hazelnuts for the walnuts. Substitute sunflower or sesame seeds or poppy seeds for the quinoa. And if you are trying to consume more good-quality oil, add 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil to the batter.

Cooking: Cold-Brewed Coffee

2009-08-06T19:32:00.000-07:00

I like coffee. I like the way it tastes, I like the ritual of making it, I like the caffeine, I like the activity of drinking it.

This doesn't mean, however, that I drink a lot of coffee. I like to have three or four good coffee beverages a week, and that's it.

When I say coffee beverage, I'm not talking these days about elaborate concoctions with flavored syrups (really not much more than sugar), caramel (sugar), chocolate (more sugar) or even dairy.

Black. Straight espresso, drip or iced americano.

One thing I've learned is that when you drink coffee black, it needs to be really good coffee. That's not really a problem here in the Puget Sound region—good coffee roasters are everywhere. I'm also looking for organic, shade-grown, and "fair-trade," again, not a problem to find these days.

Recently, I've found my taste buds responding to different stimuli as a result of some major dietary changes we've made, and the double espresso I had been enjoying at the local coffee house just didn't sit well on my tongue. It suddenly seems too acidic, too tannic. What to do?

I haven't solved the problem of my weekly coffee house indulgence, but at home I've started cold-brewing coffee, and I'm really liking it.

Cold-brewing coffee couldn't be easier: simply combine ground coffee with cold water and let it sit awhile, then filter it. Here's the technique I've been using, which makes delicious coffee.

Cold-Brewed Coffee
makes enough for 2 cups of coffee or 2 iced coffees

1/3 cup medium grind coffee (caffeinated or decaf)
1 1/2 cups cold water (use filtered water for really good coffee)

Combine ground coffee and water in a jar with a lid. Give it a stir and let it sit at least three hours, and up to twelve. Strain through a coffee filter. Store the coffee extract in a glass jar or bottle in the refrigerator.

To use, mix half and half coffee extract and either hot water or cold water. This recipe is easily doubled or tripled.

Cold brewing coffee doesn't extract the acids from the coffee beans the way hot water does, so if you like the acidic bite of traditional coffee, you might not care for cold-brewed. If, however, you're looking for something with all the flavor but much more mellow, give cold-brewing a try.

By the way, if you garden, put the coffee grounds in your compost or simply bury them in the garden. They also make an excellent mulch for acid-loving plants like rhododendrons, Japanese maples, and blueberries. Studies have shown that coffee grounds may also reduce slugs, who can't handle the caffeine.

Cooking: Lamb with Green Beans, Artichokes, and Black Olives

2009-08-05T19:32:00.000-07:00

This is a rich and satisfying dish that borrows from Provençal traditions.

Lamb with Green Beans, Artichoke Hearts and Black Olives
serves 2, with leftovers

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1/2 pound lamb sirloin, trimmed of all fat and cut into 1 inch chunks
1 large onion, in 1 inch chunks
2 small shallots, chopped (or use one of the humongous ones that they sell in the grocery these days)
2 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
3/4 pound green beans, stem end trimmed, in 2 inch pieces
2 small red skinned potatoes, in 1/2 inch dice
1/2 cup pitted black olives, cut in half
1 cup canned artichoke hearts, cut in half
fresh marjoram
fresh thyme
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper

In a large sauté pan or medium-sized dutch oven over medium-high, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil until it is shimmering. Add the lamb and stir it about so it gets coated with the oil. Brown the lamb, stirring it occasionally, until it is nicely browned, about 5 minutes.

Add the remaining olive oil and the onions and shallots. Season with a sprinkle of salt and some black pepper. Continue cooking until onions are just starting to soften, then add garlic, green beans and potatoes. Give everything a stir and continue cooking for a few minutes.

Add the olives, artichoke hearts, leaves from 4-5 sprigs of marjoram, and leaves from 6-8 sprigs of thyme. Add 1 teaspoon kosher salt (use less if using table salt) and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper. Cover the pan, lower the heat to medium-low, and cook until the beans and potatoes are just tender. Give it a stir a couple of times during this process.

When the beans and potatoes are tender, taste and add more salt and pepper if needed.

This was absolutely delicious. To make the plate proportional, I also served a salad made from romaine, spring greens, quartered fresh figs, diced avocado and a handful of blueberries, dressed in a red wine vinaigrette.

A wedge of watermelon for dessert was just perfect.

Cooking: Mushroom Ragout

2009-08-05T13:00:00.001-07:00

Traditionally, a ragout is made from meat, usually with various vegetables as flavoring agents. Here's a meat-free version that tastes rich and satisfying. I served this tossed with brown rice pasta and fresh green beans, with simple herbed baked chicken and a spinach and blueberry salad.

Mushroom Ragout
serves 4

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, cut in half and thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
8 ounces button mushrooms, sliced
4 ounces oyster, white beech, chantrelle, or shiitake mushrooms, whole or sliced*
1 cup vegetable stock or water
fresh marjoram
fresh thyme
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper

In a large sauté pan, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. When it is shimmering, add the onions. Season with a little salt and pepper and cook, stirring, until onions are soft and starting to turn golden, about 10-12 minutes.

Trim and slice the button mushrooms. Trim the "exotic" mushrooms, and cut up if large.

Add the mushrooms and garlic to the onions and cook until the mushrooms have given off all their water and they start to turn a golden color, about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Strip the leaves from 2-3 sprigs of marjoram and 4-5 sprigs of thyme and add to the mixture, along with the vegetable stock or water. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the liquid has reduced by half.

Taste and adjust the salt and pepper as needed.

* I found organic white beech mushrooms at my local grocery. Look for them where Japanese produce is sold. Or, use the widely available shiitakes or other local wild mushrooms when you see them in the store or at the farmers' market. You could also substitute some reconstituted porcini mushrooms (or fresh ones, if you're lucky enough to find them).

Fragole di bosco

2009-07-27T19:42:00.001-07:00

Tiny alpine strawberries are ripening daily in the back yard. No, we are not so fortunate as to have these growing wild; we planted some in pots.

The plants, Fragaria vesca to be precise, stay evergreen through our winters here on Puget Sound, and start blooming as early as April.

There are both alpine and wild types of strawberries known in Italy and France. In Italy, you might see tiny fragole di bosco on offer in the Campo di Fiori as early as March. The French call them fraises des bois. They go by many other names depending on the region. By any name, they are tiny, just about the size of the tip of a little finger.

Not as sweet as their hybridized cousins, they pack an enormous amount of strawberry flavor in a miniscule package.

My favorite way to end dinner of late is to pick whatever of these are ripe (which might only be a few), add some red huckleberries, and finish off the handful with some delectable ripe native blackberries (these are the trailing kind, not the invasive Himalayan blackberry, which is just now setting fruit).

Unfortunately, the birds knew exactly when the huckleberries were at their peak and the bushes are stripped practically bare. Actually, I don't mind sharing them with the birds at all.

Cooking: Vegetable Sushi

2009-07-26T15:09:00.000-07:00

I had some leftover purple sticky rice from dinner a couple of nights ago, so I thought I would try making some sushi with it.

These rolls, which would technically be known as makizushi in Japan, are made with vegetables only. I would have added some avocado if I had a good one in the house.

Traditionally, sushi rice is seasoned with rice vinegar and sugar, and cooled by gently moving it about in a large wooden tub, all the while fanning it to dry it out. I didn't do that. Here's my simple recipe, which omits the sugar.

Vegetable Sushi

makes 3 rolls (18 pieces total)

1 cup cooked purple sticky rice (or use any leftover rice)

1 tablespoon rice vinegar

thin strips of carrot, cucumber, snap peas, avocado, or any other vegetable you like

3 sheets toasted nori

bowl of cold water (for dipping your fingers)

Put the rice in a bowl and fluff it gently with a fork. Sprinkle the vinegar over the rice and, again gently, fluff it around. The point is to season the rice without breaking it up.

Place 1 sheet of nori on a sushi mat (I used a Silpat, or just use a cloth napkin or lint-free towel). Spread 1/3 of the rice in a pile. Dip your fingers in the water, then use your fingertips to spread the rice out in an even layer. Leave a 1.5 inch strip across the top of the nori uncovered by rice.

Lay strips of vegetables near the edge closest to you. Don't overstuff—just a few strips will work. Using the mat (or napkin or whatever), lift the front edge and start rolling the sushi. Once you get it going, you probably won't need the mat. Keep rolling until you reach the edge where there is no rice. Using your fingertips, wet the exposed nori at the back edge, then firmly roll the whole shebang together. The water will help seal the roll.

Place the roll sean-side down in a dish and do the next one. Remember, this should be fun.

These can be served immediately, or refrigerated for up to 3 days in a covered container. To serve, run a sharp knife under cold water, then slice each roll into six pieces.

Serve with tamari with as much wasabi mixed in as you like.

These rolls are quite good, crunchy and cool. The rice is sumptious. The wasabi will wake up your sinuses. It's all good.

Cooking: Bulgar Patties

2009-07-24T19:31:00.000-07:00

We're testing wheat to see if either of us has an inflammatory response to it, so I thought I'd try making some bulgar patties.

Bulgar is made by soaking and cooking whole wheat, drying it and then stripping off part of the bran. The remaining kernel is then broken into small pieces.

Although it loses some fiber in the process, it still retains enough of the bran to qualify as a mostly whole grain. Because it has already been soaked and cooked, bulgar can be very quickly prepared. Traditional tabbouleh recipes often call for the bulgar to be covered with boiling water, then left to re-hydrate without actually cooking it again. While not as nutritious as whole wheat berries, it is nevertheless handy when you're short on time.

Bulgar Patties

serves 4

1 cup water

1/2 cup bulgar

1/2 cup chopped onion

1 clove garlic (or more), thinly sliced

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 teaspoon wheat-free tamari

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon non-aluminum baking powder

3/4 cup garbanzo flour mixed with 1/2 cup cold water

Bring 1 cup of water to a boil, then add bulgar, onions and garlic. Simmer, covered, until water is absorbed, about 5-10 minutes. The bulgar I used, from Bob's Red Mill, took about 15 minutes to fully absorb the water.

Add remaining ingredients and stir to combine.

Pop this mixture in the refrigerator to set up a little (I stuck mine in the freezer for 15 minutes). Heat 1/8 inch of olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. When it is just starting to shimmer, drop large spoonfuls of the batter into four mounds, flattening slightly with the back of the spoon.

Fry until set and golden on the bottom (the upper part will start to look dryer, too), then carefully turn them over and cook the other side.

I added about 1 teaspoon of curry powder to my mixture, which was very nice. They were satisfyingly crispy/chewy on the outside and moist on the inside. I served them with a simple sauce made by stirring together 1 tablespoon sugar-free mayonnaise (Trader Joe's makes an organic one), 1/2 teaspoon double-strength tomato paste (from a tube), plenty of freshly ground black pepper, and a few dashes of Tabasco. Very tasty.

The next time I make these, however, I think I will add some chopped parsley or other herbs, as well as some chopped sun-dried tomatoes. They would also be great with grated vegetables mixed in, like carrot or zucchini.

Wealth

2009-07-24T15:47:00.001-07:00

’Nuff said.

Cooking: Crisp Roast Kale

2009-07-19T19:09:00.001-07:00

Kale, round 2.

There are dozens of recipes for crispy roast kale floating around on the internet, but the basic premise is the same. Here's my take.

Crisp Roast Kale

serves 2

1/2 bunch kale

1 tablespoon olive oil

sea salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Wash the kale and shake it mostly dry. Using a sharp knife, trim out the tough stem. Finely shred and put in a large bowl. Add the olive oil and toss to thoroughly coat the kale. You can do this right on your baking sheet if you don't want to get a bowl dirty; just be aware that raw kale is springy and you may end up with it all over your counter, which you will also have to wash.

Spread the kale on a rimmed baking sheet and stick it on the middle rack of the preheated oven. Roast for 5 minutes, remove and turn things over with a spatula. Return to the oven and continue roasting another 6-7 minutes, or until the kale is crisp. Test it to see.

When it's done, remove from the oven and sprinkle with sea salt. I used Celtic gray salt (which I keep in a grinder) and it was great.

These are so light, crisp and delicious. We had them alongside some roasted carrots, yams, onions, and beets, and a meatless burger. It's impossible to eat these with a fork—pinch some between your fingers and have at it.

I'm thinking these would also be a fabulous garnish for puréed soups, or piled onto a salad or tostada.

Cooking: Sautéed Kale with Curry Pine Nuts

2009-07-19T16:36:00.000-07:00

Kale is in good supply at the farm stand and farmers' market, and we're increasing the amount of vegetables, especially dark green ones, in our diet.

However, we both have a bias against greens. Too tough. Too bitter. Too…green.

How to cook them so we actually eat them? Here's one option.

Sautéed Kale with Curry Pine Nuts

serves 2

1/2 bunch kale

1/2 sweet onion, such as Walla Walla or Vidalia, diced

2 cloves garlic, sliced *

olive oil

kosher salt

freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

1/2 lemon

Wash the kale and shake off most of the water. With a sharp knife, cut out the stem. Stack the leaves and very finely shred them. This works best with a sharp knife, as these greens are tough.

In a large sauté pan or wok, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add the onion. Sauté until onion becomes translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the sliced garlic (slicing the garlic keeps it from burning so readily) and cook for 1 minute. Add the shredded kale and toss it to coat in the oil. Season with kosher salt (greens benefit from salting both at the start of cooking and at the end).

Pop a lid on the pan for a few minutes, then stir everything again. Replace the lid for a few more minutes, or until the kale is nicely wilted. Watch it so it doesn't burn. Remove the lid and continue cooking, stirring often, until the kale is done to your liking. Season with a little more salt, ground pepper, and lemon zest.

Drizzle a little more olive oil over the greens, then squeeze the 1/2 lemon over it all. Serve topped with Curry Pine Nuts.

Curry Pine Nuts

1/2 cup raw pine nuts

1-2 teaspoons curry powder

Place the pine nuts in a small, dry skillet over medium-high heat and toast, stirring often, until they start to turn a nutty brown and they sweat a little oil. Stir in the curry powder and continue toasting just one more minute. Remove to a bowl to cool.

We had this with some red quinoa topped with toasted pumpkin seeds, and some fresh tomato.

* If you grow your own garlic or have access to a farmers' market, try using fresh garlic. Basically, fresh garlic hasn't finished forming the dry paper skins that separate the cloves. When really young, you can chop up the entire head; once the skins begin to form, just peel them. This garlic is delicious and mild.

Romneya coulteri

2009-07-16T20:21:00.000-07:00

Here are two newcomers to our garden this year, Romneya coulteri (Matilija Poppy) happily using the sturdy Lilium 'First Choice' and an Amsonia hubrichtii as a support.

We are pretty happy ourselves that their bloom times overlap.

Matilija Poppies can grow to eight feet high and will spread through underground runners where conditions are suitable. Huge swathes of them cover hillsides in Southern California, where it can become invasive in light, sandy soils. Here in the Pacific Northwest, with our clay soils, they are harder to establish, and tend to behave themselves a little better than their warm-climate cousins.

Here's another flower, on a stem that has flopped into a nearby Caryopteris x clandonensis 'Worcester Gold,' which is just starting to show its lovely blue flowers.

Romneyas tend to go dormant after flowering, usually dropping all their foliage, and you might be tempted to think it has croaked. More likely than not, it is just resting and will emerge healthy and robust the following spring.

Unless it dies, of course.

Cooking: Prawns with Corn and Fava Beans

2009-07-10T20:39:00.000-07:00

While at a farm stand this morning, we found bags of fresh fava beans, which we're seeing all over the island this year. Later, at a produce stand that sets up on Fridays and Saturdays, we found the first luscious, fresh sweet corn of the season. My old Ohio farm roots kicked in, and I thought "Succotash!"

Traditionally, succotash is a melange of corn and lima beans. Why not use the favas, though? Sure, they're a little work to prepare, because you first remove them from the pods, then blanch them, then slip off the tough outer skins to reveal the incredibly green goodness inside. These were so fresh that if I had been puréeing them (mixed with lemon juice, salt and pepper) I might have left the skins on.

We sat on the front porch, shelling the beans, something I did countless times with my grandmother when I was a child. In those days, it was first peas, then lima beans, then "shelly" beans, which were then dried for winter consumption. I have a lot of fond memories of sitting on the old glider liberating the legumes from their pods.

We don't have a glider, and we don't have a farm, and we didn't grow the beans ourselves, but it was still pretty satisfying to sit there with my sweetie, watching the birds and doing something productive.

The thing about fava beans is you need a lot of them to end up with anything. Five pounds of beans in the pod may only yield two pounds of shelled, peeled favas, which is why I usually pair them with other things when we buy them.

Prawns with Corn and Fava Bean Succotash

serves 2

olive oil

1 clove garlic, thinly sliced

1/2 small jalapeño pepper, minced

kosher salt

freshly ground black pepper

2 pounds fresh fava beans (unshelled weight)

4 small ears fresh corn, cut off the cobs

1/2 pound large prawns (about 8), peeled and deveined

1/2 teaspoon grated orange zest

1/2 ripe avocado, cubed

Prepare the fava beans by shelling them. Remove the nibs unless your beans are very small. Bring a pot of water to the boil, add a lot of salt, then dump in the beans. Bring back to the boil, then boil for 1 minute. Remove the beans to a bowl of water with some ice in it to stop the cooking. When cooled, remove the outer skins. Small, fresh beans may not need this step; eat one and see. To remove skins from larger beans, pinch a small hole in one end (the skin will have become slightly elastic), then squeeze the bright green bean out of the skin. Set aside.

In a 12 in non-stick skillet, heat about 1 tablespoon of olive oil over medium-high heat. While it's heating, pat the peeled shrimp dry with a paper towel and season with salt and pepper.

When the oil is hot, slide in the garlic and jalapeño and cook for 1/2 minute. Add the corn kernels, season with salt and pepper, and turn the corn so it gets coated with the oil and the garlic isn't all trapped on the bottom, where it can burn. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until the corn becomes less milky looking. You can cook the corn until it starts to caramelize, if you like, but for this dish I just wanted a fresh corn taste.

Gently stir in the peeled fava beans and mix them in. Cook for one minute more, or until the beans are tender (taste one). Push everything to one side of the pan.

Drizzle a little more olive oil in the empty part of the skillet, let it heat up, then lay in the prawns. Sprinkle them with the grated orange zest. Cook about 2-3 minutes, then turn them over. Continue cooking for just 1-2 minutes, or until they are opaque and firm. Turn off the heat.

Pile some of the succotash in the middle of a plate and top with the prawns. Garnish with avocado.

This was delicious as is. Add fresh herbs or a squeeze of fresh lime juice for another twist.

Gardening: Phlomis cashmerii

2009-07-08T14:52:00.000-07:00

Not nearly as well known as it's cousin, Phlomis russeliana, P. cashmerii is a smaller-stature plant with soft, lilac-pink flowers instead of yellow.

Forming a tidy basal rosette of felty, gray-green leaves, it sends up these lovely flower spikes with whorls of pink, fuzzy flowers. Very drought tolerant once established, it's a tough, pest-free performer in our garden.

In the photo above, you can see the rich maroon flowers of Clematis 'Niobe' growing on a nearby trellis, a fortuitous combination, indeed!

Like other species of phlomis, P. cashmerii is partially evergreen, meaning that it retains leaves through the winter, although these are always the worse for wear come spring. If you get around to it, cut all the old foliage down and it will push up new, fresh ones. Or, if you forget, the plant will still push new leaves up, which tend to push the old ones down and out of sight. We usually cut the old leaves off, though, to avoid a soggy, rot-inducing collar of old foliage around the base of the plant.

We usually let the seed heads remain on the plant, which add architectural interest in the late summer garden, at least until my sweetie gets tired of looking at them and chops them down.

Summer Bounty

2009-07-07T19:02:00.000-07:00

What a great pairing.

Luscious organic apricots from the Yakima, Washington area and local Puget Sound raspberries that are just perfect.

So simple, and so good.

It's really difficult to stop eating this combo…

Cooking: Scallops

2009-07-06T19:55:00.000-07:00

While at the grocery this morning, I noticed these succulent scallops, labeled "Wild - Chemical Free." Not sure how they know they're chemical free if they're wild, but they were irresistible. Into the cart they went.

We're changing the way we eat around here, eating less protein and grains and more vegetables and fruit. We're also avoiding dairy for the time being, so sautéing in butter, what I would usually do, was out.

Here's how I decided to do them (I made this up as I went along).

Pan-Seared Scallops

serves 2 (you might want more)

4 large scallops

1/2 Yukon gold potato, sliced 1/4 inch thick

kosher salt

freshly ground pepper (I used Mignonette pepper, a blend of black and white pepper with coriander seed)

1 teaspoon grated organic orange rind

1 teaspoon finely shredded fresh basil

coconut oil (or use olive oil)

In a non-stick skillet over medium-high heat, melt 1 teaspoon of coconut oil (it's usually solid at room temperature). When it's shimmering, lay the potato slices in a single layer. Push them around from time to time until golden, then season with salt and pepper and turn. Continue cooking until the tip of a paring knife just barely penetrates the center. Remove to a plate.

(At this point, I threw a bunch of wax beans, trimmed and cut in half, into the hot pan and cooked, shaking and flipping frequently until they started to brown in spots, then removed them and set aside.)

Add another teaspoon of coconut oil to the pan. While it's heating, dry the scallops thoroughly with paper towels. If you put them in wet, they will steam instead of browning. Season with salt and pepper, then place in the hot oil. Cook about 4-5 minutes, until bottoms are golden brown and slightly crusty, then flip them over and continue to cook another 4 minutes or so. Don't cook them until they're completely firm, or they will toughen.

A couple of minutes before the scallops are done, add the potato slices back into the pan to warm.

To plate, lay out two slices of potato and top with a scallop on each. Sprinkle with the grated orange zest and basil. Serve the remaining potatoes with the beans.

We had this with a salad made from sliced carrots, sliced snap peas, cubed avocado, and sliced orange. The orange juice, plus a small splash of walnut oil, salt and pepper makes a lovely bright-tasting dressing. Toss it all together and pile it on.

Dessert was fresh local raspberries and a Washington state apricot. So delicious.

Cooking: Curry Powder

2009-07-06T09:42:00.000-07:00

I love curry. My sweetie likes it, too, so we enjoy making both Indian and Thai curries at home. I have always just purchased curry powder, albeit good ones, like this one from Penzey's Spices, usually supplementing it with additional cumin and/or coriander. I also use Madras curry powder in the green tin, as well as Balti seasoning (also from Penzey's).

When planning a lamb and vegetable curry for my sweetie's birthday dinner, I decided to go the extra step and blend my own. Off we went to an island purveyor of herbs, spices, coffees, teas and other good things, where we bought whole cumin seed, whole coriander seed, white peppercorns, and black peppercorns (not for the curry, but hey, you have to have black peppercorns in your arsenal).

Back at home, I put 2 tablespoons of cumin seed, 3 tablespoons of coriander seed, 1/2 teaspoon of crushed red pepper (because this was to be a mild curry; increase for more heat), 2 teaspoons of black mustard seed, and about 10 white peppercorns in a small, dry skillet over medium heat. I kept a close eye (and nose) on the spices as they roasted in the pan. Every now and then, I gave the pan a swirl, to keep things toasting evenly, as well as to take in the luscious aroma (be careful sniffing it, though, if you have added a lot of hot pepper flakes, as the essential oils of the peppers are volatilized by heating). When the mixture was toasty brown, and the mustard seeds were just starting to pop, and the smell was heavenly, I poured it all into a bowl to cool.

When cooled, I put it all in my spice grinder (which is just a normal coffee grinder that we reserve for spices) and ground it to a medium-fine powder. After pouring it back into the bowl, I stirred in 1 tablespoon of ground termeric and a teaspoon of ground ginger.

The result was stunning. The curry powder has a wonderful, lively freshness to it, and is slightly nutty from the toasting. I used about 2/3 of it in all in making the curry, which had lamb, cauliflower, green and wax beans, carrots, cubed yam, lots of onion, ginger and garlic. Because we're not currently consuming dairy, I added coconut milk. The finished dish was so fresh and delicious, packed with vegetables and little bits of browned lamb sirloin, and redolent of exotic spices.

I was hoping for leftovers, but we ate every single bite.

A Stumpery

2009-06-30T21:04:00.000-07:00

The island we live on is home to the largest stumpery in the United States. What, you ask, is a stumpery? It is a type of garden first popularized in the Victorian era in England, when a romanticized interpretation of nature was in vogue. Simply put, a stumpery is constructed of tree stumps, uprooted to expose the roots, piled aesthetically, and planted with woodland plants, especially ferns, which the Victorians adored.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, we emerge from winter with a fair number of trees blown down, especially shallow-rooted Douglas firs, and soft-wood trees like Alders. Clearing for construction results in still more stumps. The makers of our local stumpery thought it would be a good way to recycle this material, rather than seeing them chipped or burned.

The gardeners have created a 9,000 square foot garden, filled with fantastical piles of gnarled roots, interplanted with magnificent Tasmanian tree ferns, thousands of ferns, hostas, trilliums, terrestrial orchids, and over 100 different epimediums. It's truly an otherworldly place, and will only grow more so over the years as things develop a coat of moss and lichen.

To see an article about this stumpery, including a photograph (it's the second of two photos), follow this link. To read about stumperies, including the one at Highgrove in England, check out this Wikipedia entry.

Touring Gardens

2009-06-27T16:49:00.000-07:00

This beauty is Lilium 'First Choice.' Ain't she grand?

Today, instead of working in our own garden (not that it doesn't need it), we decided to go on the island garden tour, an annual fundraiser for various arts programs. This year, the tour included six gardens ranging from an extravagantly planted garden surrounding a French provincial style house, complete with a stunning view of the largest harbor on the island, to a "stumpery," a more woodland garden that contains over one hundred large tree stumps salvaged from various sites and then underplanted with thousands of woodland plants. We visited three gardens today, and will see the other three tomorrow (including the stumpery, which we're intrigued by).

The gardens we visited today all had extensive hard-scaping in place, which certainly helps define a garden. If we actually owned the house we lived in, we'd be doing that, too. The first garden we visited was the densely planted one, where everyone seemed simply dazed by the sheer amount of plants present. It was quite impressive, especially in that most of the plants were not that unusual, and some were downright old-fashioned (Maltese cross, peonies, lilies, roses). Despite the sheer volume of plants, the garden is broken up into neatly defined zones that made it seem more intimate. My favorite plant was a primrose with a tall, fox-tail of a flower spike in pink, with a tuft of red a the top. Stunning.

The third garden we visited is located on a pretty steep site, which has been terraced, with lots of clever little paths stepping down here and there. Full of old-fashioned roses that smelled great, and little enclosed "rooms" with raised beds for growing vegetables, the most enchanting detail were the many places where small beach rocks had been set on their sides to form patterns. Lovely.

Tomorrow, the stumpery.

Meanwhile, here's a couple more shots from our garden. The first is Asarina scandens, sometimes called Trailing Gloxinia or Trailing Snapdragon. The last photo is Clematis 'Niobe,' one of the most beautiful large-flowered clematis, at least to our eye. This year we're getting quite a prolific number of blooms. This clematis continues blooming for us over a long period, making it a definite winner in our book.

A Perfect Summer Day

2009-06-13T20:08:00.000-07:00

Yep, we had one today.

We got out of the house at around 10:30 am and headed into town (or, at least, what passes for a town on the island) and found a great parking spot right in front of the Village Green, which on Saturdays is home to our local farmers' market. We ran into our landlady and chatted a bit, looked at the fresh salad greens, prepared foods, and crafts, all the while listening to some great bluegrass music being played by a duo on the lawn.

We bought some great bacon, made from Berkshire hogs that are grown on the Kitsap peninsula. Hey, they had free samples! Looking forward to breakfast tomorrow, for sure.

Looked at some really beautiful turned wood bowls and boxes. Gorgeous.

Bought a few organic yellow delicious and gala apples from east of the Cascades, then headed over to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription, then on to the produce stand at the main intersection for organic cherries, asparagus, strawberries, and young Walla Walla sweet onions. Ducked inside the restaurant at the same intersection and had some lunch, then took off for a couple of nurseries, where we bought some fantastic plants for an area under a large alder, including a loropetalum, several kinds of ferns, and a new hybrid alstromeria that has intense violet flowers flecked with white.

Traveling further south on the main drag, we went to the historic building that housed the original roasting plant for Seattle's Best Coffee, now home to a healthy grocery store and cafe. They have the only espresso machine on the island that still has the pump handles, and the espresso there is really good. Today we weren't in search of caffeine, though (strange, that), but were signing up for a series of classes on treating various inflammatory ailments through diet. These classes are all the rage on the island this summer, and we know many folks who told us they were worthwhile, so starting in July we'll be making some changes to the way we eat.

We cut west across the island, then up the west-side highway, one of the more scenic and picturesque routes on the island, all the way back to where it rejoins the main road, driving through its many curves and marveling at the lush ferns and other plant life along the way.

Once home, we planted everything we bought today (which almost never happens) and watered it in well. Sat for awhile in our little seating area, admiring the garden, drinking some water, listening to the birds. While working in the garden today, we saw the first zebra swallowtail of the season, so graphic against the dark violet Papaver sommniferum blooms. Lots and lots of bee activity, as well as hummingbird battles over the best blossoms.

We are seeing many more Anna's hummingbirds this year and boy, are they cute. Some are brilliantly colored. We see them feeding, but also perching on several of the trellises we have installed. We've only seen a couple of the larger rufous hummingbirds, though. The Anna's seem to especially love the red and yellow Aquilegia canadensis and the Billardiera longiflora, which has little one-inch tubular bell-shaped flowers, as well as the native Twinberry (Lonicera involucrata).

While the new plants were being irrigated, I made dinner: barbecued baby-back ribs on the grill, those young Walla Walla onions, split and grilled, and a green salad. We had some ginger syrup and Grenadine over ice with club soda, and it was pretty much perfect.

Much like the day itself.

Gardening: Rhododendron suaveolens

2009-06-05T07:53:00.001-07:00

The first bloom truss of the Rhododendron suaveolens has fully opened. These pure white, diminutive flowers pack a powerfully fragrant punch: sweet, floral, woodsy and tropical. Well worth the wait.

Gardening: Back Porch Beauties

2009-06-01T09:44:00.001-07:00

Wow.

This exotic beauty is Sprekelia formosissima, native to Mexico and a member of the Amaryllidaceae family. We planted a pot of ten of them on the back porch, where we can enjoy the blooms from our dining room.

This flower is about 7 inches tall and wide, borne on a short stem. It emerged from the bulb before any leaves; the remaining nine are sending up leaves but no flowers yet. We hope we get more than one bloom, but if that's it, then I will definitely be lifting these in the fall and overwintering them in the garage for next year. Those of you in USDA zones 8-10 might have luck leaving them in the ground, provided you mulch them well and they have excellent drainage. We are considered zone 8 here, but we do suffer some winter damage to plants that are marginal, so I think storage is the way to go.

Right next to the pot of Sprekelias we have a small pot with one of the tropical rhododendrons, Rhododendron suaveolens, a heavily perfumed member of the Vireya subgenus of rhododendrons. Vireyas, which number around 300, are generally found in tropical climates. This is the fourth year we've had ours, putting it outside each summer, and letting it overwinter in the house. This will be the first year it's bloomed.

The flower truss, once released from its cap, will spread out in a starburst of pure white, fragrant flowers. More pictures to come!

Cooking: Ginger Syrup

2009-05-30T17:49:00.001-07:00

Summer has arrived on the island, at least for this week, and my thoughts have turned to interesting, refreshing beverages to sip while we relax in the garden.

Ginger syrup, spicy, aromatic, and just a little hot, is a versatile thing to keep in the refrigerator. At its most basic, it is delicious mixed with club soda over ice, with or without a slice of lemon or lime. It's a great addition to any homemade lemonade recipe. How about sweet, iced tea with ginger syrup? Of course, when our weather turns cool and rainy again, which, this being the Northwest, it assuredly will between now and August, it's great in hot tea, too.

I'm also thinking of using it in sorbets, like blackberry or white peach. Adding it to the poaching liquid for pears...

Best of all, it's super-easy to make. Here's how.

Ginger Syrup

makes about 1 quart

4 Cups water

4 Cups sugar (use whatever sugar you like)

4 large "hands" of fresh ginger root (the ones I used were literally larger than my own hand)

In a non-reactive saucepan, combine the water and sugar and bring to a boil. Stir to make sure all the sugar is dissolved. Once it comes to a boil, reduce heat to medium and let it bubble for one minute.

While the syrup is bubbling, wash and slice the ginger into 1/4 inch slices. There's no need to peel it. After the syrup has boiled for one minute, add all the ginger (you should have at least 4 Cups of sliced ginger). Let the syrup simmer for 10 minutes, turn off the heat, and let it steep for another 15.

Strain the syrup through a fine sieve and discard the ginger (or add it to the compost). Let cool, then store in a glass jar in the refrigerator for up to a month.

We're going to have some with dinner to accompany BBQ ribs and homemade potato salad. I can't wait.

The Diablo Border Heats Up

2009-05-18T17:26:00.001-07:00

Here's a shot of the Diablo Border, so-named because of the "Diablo" ninebark that sits smack in the middle. We've worked carefully to make this, our sunniest border, also the spiciest. In order from left to right: hybrid hellebore, "Little Business" daylily (red flowers), Euphorbia griffithii 'Fireglow,' Papaver atlanticum, Libertia peregrins, Physocarpus opulifolius 'Diablo,' Sedum 'Angelina,' Uncinia unciniata 'Rubra,' gold and green oreganos, Anthriscus sylvestris 'Raven Wing,' Caryopteris x clandonensis 'Worcester Gold,' and orange Oriental poppies. Not yet blooming: a fringed red Oriental poppy. Just emerging: Dahlia 'Bishop of Landaff,' Melianthus major, Dahlia 'Robin Hood," and Lilium 'First Choice.'

It feels like summer already!

Taking Things in Stride

2009-05-18T05:26:00.000-07:00

So, we're sitting on our little front porch this past Saturday, as we like to do, looking at the garden and having some water in-between bouts of hard physical labor, when we hear voices on the other side of the screen of Western Red Cedars that separate our house from the road.

We live in a small neighborhood of mixed houses, near the intersection of two roads that run along the crest of steep cliffs, right out on the northwest point of the island. If, for some reason, the houses were to vanish tomorrow, it's not hard to imagine the landscape quickly reverting to alders, Douglas firs, cedars and hemlock (along with the ubiquitous Himalayan blackberry that has made itself so at home in the Pacific Northwest), populated with deer, raccoons, and dozens of bird species. In other words, it often seems like a Herculean effort to keep the yard from "reverting" to a wild state. Then again, that's the very definition of gardening (and agriculture).

Anyway, we were relaxing, looking at the first of the Himalayan blue poppies (Mecanopsis betanicifolica), when the voices became louder. Looking out toward the street along our short driveway, we saw three women walking west on the road. One of them was in a wedding dress, with white pumps and a bridal bouquet.

"I do believe that's the first time we've seen that since we lived here," I commented to my sweetie.

"Yup."

Not a total mystery. We knew a wedding was scheduled at a neighbor's house. We just didn't expect to see the bride strolling along the road.

Then we got back to work.

Tutorial: Illustrator Blends

2009-05-07T20:37:00.000-07:00

Illustrator is one of those programs that I find a little frustrating to use, because I am the type that wants to just start playing around, figuring out how to do things intuitively, and Illustrator doesn't always reward free play in that way. However, once you figure out certain ways that Illustrator works, it is very powerful, indeed. One of the feature that always puzzled me was Blends—until now. You see, I've been playing with blends (a lot) and now I'm going to pass on the basics so you, too, can play along at home.

I'm using Illustrator CS2 on a Mac for this tutorial, but the techniques should work with any version that supports blends.

Basically, a blend in Illustrator-language, is a relationship between two (or more, as we will see) objects. I'll be mostly working with objects with just a stroke (you might think of these as simple lines and curves) and no fill, although the program can also blend fills. For now, I just want come cool linear patterns I can use in my graphic design work, so I'll leave the fills off, with one exception we'll get to in awhile.

Here's how it works. Open a new document in Illustrator. In the Tools palette, set the fill to none (it should have a diagonal red line through it) and the stroke color to black. Draw a simple curve using the pen tool. My simple curve has only two points. Select the Selection tool (press v), click away from the curve, then click directly on it. You can also click and drag across the curve to select it.

Holding down the Option (Alt) key, drag the line to the right. By holding down the Option/Alt key, we are actually copying the curve. Now, double-click on the Blend Tool (in my version, it's the tenth tool down in the right column) to open the tool settings dialog. Change the Spacing to Specified Steps, then enter a number in the box to the right. This tells Illustrator how many copies to place between our two curves. Click OK.

With the Blend Tool still selected (or, press w to select it), move your cursor over the top point on the left curve. You will see the small circle fill with black when your cursor is over the point. Click on the point. Now, move the cursor to the top point on the right curve and click. Illustrator now draws the blend based on the settings we specified in the tool settings dialog.

This is pretty bland, so let's start to jazz it up a bit. Undo (Command-z/Control-z), or you can release the blend by pressing Shift-Option-Command-b (Shift-Alt-Control-b). Whew! Change back to the Selection tool (press v) and select just the right curve. Change the stroke weight to something heavier, like 6. Press w to get back to the Blend tool, and again click on the two top points. That's more interesting, isn't it?

Undo. Now let's change the width and height of the left curve by selecting it with the Selection tool (v) and dragging on the resize handles. Both our curves still have only two points, but now they have different weights and different shapes. Use the Blend tool and you can start to see how powerful blends can be.

Without undoing or releasing the blend, go to the Stroke palette and click the Dashed Line box. Play around with the settings for dashes and gaps, change the end cap shape to rounded, and see what happens.

Of course, we're not restricted to blending just two objects. Starting with three ovals, the outer two with a 1 pt stroke and the middle one with a 6 pt stroke. To blend these three, just use the Blend tool and click on the top points of all three ovals in sequence. Pretty neat. But wait, there's more! There's no reason we have to stick to using just the top points of our ovals! For the next example, click the points in the order shown for an even trippier result.

Now let's try blending something more complex, with thick and thin parts. I started by swapping the Stroke and Fill colors (so I ended up with a black fill and no stroke) and drew a series of overlapping circles with the Ellipse tool (hold down Shift while drawing to get a perfect circle). Using the Selection tool (v), I selected all of the circles. If it's not already open, open the Pathfinder palette (Window>Pathfinder) and click on the first icon (for Unite). Once you've clicked on Unite, click the Expand button (Illustrator by default remembers all the shapes that we started with, but by expanding the combined shape, it treats the united circles as a unique shape). With the Selection tool, hold down Option, click on the shape and move it a little to the left. If you press Shift while dragging, it will move it perfectly horizontally. We now have two shapes, one just slightly peeking out from under the other. Select both shapes with the Selection tool (here's a good time to just drag across both shapes—start away from the shapes and just drag a small rectangle over both to select them).

Back on the Pathfinder palette, click the second icon, Subtract, to subtract the left shape from the right shape. Click Expand. Now we have a shape with thick and thin arches. Let's blend it! For this example, I copied my shape (Option-drag with the Selection tool), then resized it slightly before blending the two shapes. Very nice. Undo, select the left shape and change its fill color to red, then reblend. Illustrator is now blending both the shapes and the colors.

As usual, this tutorial barely scratches the surface of what you can do with blends. Play around, try all sorts of things. Try blending different shapes (although Blends work most predictably when the objects being blended have the same number of anchor points). In closing, here's a Photoshop illustration using several of my blends in the background. Have fun.

Gardening: Erythronium revolutum

2009-04-26T10:29:00.000-07:00

Many gardeners I know, both past and present, abhor pink in the garden. I don't get it, myself, but as a garden is always a personal expression of its maker(s), I say "To each his or her own." Rarely as thrilling as a clear blue (say, Mecanopsis betonicifolia, or Chionodoxa forbesii), pink nonetheless enthralls our eye (our being me and my sweetie, who decided together what grows in our borders), harmonizing especially well with the soft greens of early spring and livening up dark corners. Later in the year, we love the vibrations set up from the juxtaposition of pink and orange (I sense shuddering among our gardening friends), a color combination exalted by the late Christopher Lloyd, whose advice on color always seems right to me.

Fifteen years ago, I stood in Mr. Lloyd's garden at Great Dixter, practically hypnotized by a brash combination of orange alstroemeria and pinkish-lavender Verbena bonariensis. Brazenly planted at the front of a large perennial border, too, not tucked into "cooling" neutrals like silver or purple, but up close, where it could shock the hordes of garden tourists who were nearby muttering about "bad taste." The one thing I have learned from Mr. Lloyd, whose books every gardener would find useful, is to not be afraid of color, and to seek out the best examples of particular colors. For example, he, like my sweetie, was not a fan of muddy pinks, nor pinks with any trace of brown. I'm a bit more forgiving, having rarely encountered a flower that I did not find fascinating.

The little treasure pictured with this post is Erythronium revolutum, a species Dog-Tooth Lily, so called because the bulbs look like large, elongated canines. We started with one little plant, purchased at the original Heronswood in 2006. It's first year, it produced a couple of beautifully mottled leaves, but no flowers. It didn't decide to bloom until 2008, by which time it had doubled into two plants. This spring, we have six plants, four of which bloomed. Interestingly, the flowers of each new clump differ slightly from the mother plant, with one duo's blooms being darker pink and the petals more recurved. The newest plant is blooming slightly paler than the mother, but with pronounced brownish patches at the base of the petals.

We grow the more vigorous erythonium hybrids like 'Pagoda' and 'Kondo,' both of which now form large clumps of vigorous foliage and dozens of pale yellow flowers, and they are spectacular, but there's something very special about these little pink beauties. We can't wait to see how many come up next year.

April Showers Bring…

2009-04-13T20:19:00.001-07:00

Well, actually, they bring April flowers, with a promise of more to come. It's amazing to see how things shoot out of the ground in the days following a nice rainfall. Of course, longer days and slowly warming air and soil contribute a lot. After our colder-than-usual winter, we are waiting somewhat anxiously for some marginally tender things to emerge, but are, on the whole, pretty patient.

These beauties belong to Mertensia virginica, the Virginia Bluebell, whose buds start out purple and pink before opening to a lovely clear blue. This one is still in its nursery pot waiting being planted at the feet of a white flowering currant. We are hoping that the combination of the drooping clusters of white flowers on the currant, which is now about seven feet tall and perhaps a little wider, and the blue of the bluebell will be a winning combination. Now, all we have to do is weed around the currant and plant these. It's on the rapidly growing list of chores that await us.

Here is a "Pacific Coast Hybrid" trillium, with its large, mottled leaves and luscious red flowers, some of which smell like bubble gum. We have some white versions elsewhere in the garden. These were hybridized and grown by Charles Price and Glenn Withey, renowned Northwest planstmen and garden designers, who are currently curators at Dunn Garden, a lovely old estate garden in Seattle. They are currently undertaking renovations of the huge border at the Bellevue Botanical Garden.

Abies pinsapo 'Glauca' (Blue Spanish Fir) is starting to display its amazingly raspberry-like cones, always a welcome sight in the spring. This fir has extremely stiff, somewhat prickly needles, except for new growth, which is soft and supple. This is definitely not a conifer you want to grab hold of! Fortunately for us, the deer leave it completely alone. A slow grower, we have it in a half-barrel with a cinnamon fern and, soon, a Clematis texensis 'Duchess of Albany,' which we will train up a trellis onto the back porch railing.

Finally, here is a double flower on a seedling of Helleborus x hybridus. Hybrid hellebores are interesting in that they often (but not always) produce seedlings, most of which may not resemble the parent plant when in bloom. Two of ours produce a healthy crop of seedlings, so we pot them up, keeping some for ourselves and giving the rest to friends. This double one is the offspring of a single-flowered dark red parent, so you just never know what you might get! It was grown by Peter Ray of Black Dog Plants on Vashon Island, a great source of cool and desirable plants. We usually see him at the Vashon Island Farmers Market, especially in the spring.

Fun in the Garden, Pt. 2

2009-04-05T19:17:00.000-07:00

Isn't this a beauty? This luscious flower is Helleborus x hybridus 'Ballard Strain,' which puts up a veritable fountain of blooms each spring. I always cut all of the old foliage off my hybrid hellebores when the flower stalks start to emerge—the old leaves are often lying on the ground, not looking their best after the winter, anyway. New foliage always emerges after they have been in flower for awhile, fresh and upright.

We have many seedlings around the feet of our hellebores, which I usually pot up and grow on until they are larger (or give away to friends). Because they do not come true from seed, you never know what magical color or bloom type you will get with a seedling, which adds to the fun. Hellebores provide large masses of flowers at a time when not much else is blooming at that scale, and the deer completely ignore them.

Another glorious day here along Puget Sound. As we were driving to the transfer station, we passed a property that had quite a lovely patch of Chionodoxa forbesii, whose common name is Glory-of-the-Snow. It is a small bulb with strappy leaves from which a flower spike bearing up to 10 intense blue star-like flowers with white centers (there are also white and pink cultivars) emerges. Now, just yesterday, we had spotted a bunch of these potted up at one of the island nurseries, but seeing them in the wild, so to speak, sealed the deal. After the transfer station, we headed straight for the nursery and bought nine pots of them, most containing four separate plants. They are now planted in and around the feet of Euphorbia griffithii 'Fireglow,' a Melianthus major, a red peony, and the red dahlias we planted yesterday. A relative of scilla, these will spread around a bit, which we don't mind as the color is so beautiful. By mid-June, they disappear, just in time for the other things planted near them to be taking off.

While we were at the nursery, we also bought nine pots of Muscari latifolium, a charming grape hyacinth that has only one or two broad leaves and flowers that are a rich, dark blue with white lips. They also sport little top-knots of flowers that are a lovely pale blue, creating a two-toned effect. We have some of these in another location, and they are increasing from seed. We planted the new ones among a bunch of Anemone ranunculoides, with its ferny foliage and bright yellow flowers, around the base of our snakebark maple (Acer davidii). The anemones will spread by underground rhizomes, so we are hoping for a spring carpet of yellow punctuated with the cheery spikes of the blue grape hyacinths.

Finally, here is a photo of the amazing emerging foliage of Rheum palmatum v. tanguticum, an ornamental rhubarb. Each of the alien-like red "eyes" will unfurl into a whorl of enormous leaves, each of which emerges dark red and folded up like origami. These will later grow to nearly three feet across, truly an impressive sight. Rheums like deep, rich soil in partial shade, with plenty of mulch at their feet to keep their roots cool in the summer. Ours is now three years old and has a lot of eyes—it's going to be a monster!

Fun in the Garden

2009-04-05T08:20:00.000-07:00

We're having a lovely weekend here in the Puget Sound region, and that seems to draw folks outdoors like nothing else. Why, it's even supposed to get above 60° today! For us (meaning my sweetie and me), it means digging in the dirt. It's a busy time in the garden, as we clean up damage from our harsher-than-usual winter, plant new things, and weed, weed, weed.

Yesterday, I dug up the Dahlia 'Bishop of Llandaff' which we planted several years ago, because its location near the Acer davidii meant that it was now in too much shade. We don't usually bother digging up dahlias for the winter, finding that if they have good drainage they usually survive our winters in the ground just fine. However, as this particular dahlia has been declining somewhat, we decided to move it to somewhere it will get more sun. I was pleased to find that the single tuber we planted three years ago had grown into a round mass of fat tubers larger than my head. Yes, there were a few rotting ones in there too, so I carefully broke the mass apart and removed any bits that were turning to science-fiction movie style goo, ending up with seven healthy chunks, some with multiple tubers, which I then planted at the back edge of our sunniest border. We are looking forward to quite a show of this beautiful dahlia mid-summer.

In another section of the same sunny border, I planted 12 Lilium 'First Crown,' an Asiatic-oriental hybrid lily that we hope will harmonize well will the Lilium 'Red Hot' we have elsewhere in the garden. Although often warned that the deer will like our lilies even more than we do, we have not had a problem with them, and two neighbors have likewise been spared. You never know with deer, however, and what they turned their noses up at last year might tempt them this time around, so we have taken to spraying the emerging lilies with deer repellent, and continue to occasionally spray them until the buds open.

I also planted five Cardiocrinum cordata v. glehnii, whose newly emerging foliage is super-shiny green with red veins. A close relative of the more imposing Cardiocrinum giganteum (which we also grow), this lily family member from Japan forms a basal whorl of shiny leaves the first several years. When it has reached sufficient size to bloom, the entire whorl gets raised off the ground by a stout stem, and a flower spike appears, eventually bearing multiple long trumpets of creamy white infused with green. Like it's larger cousin, C. cordata has a wonderful scent. They prefer shade or part-shade conditions and somewhat acidic soils, so they should do well for us. C. giganteum dies after blooming (it can take up to 7 years from seed to bloom), but almost always leaves behind a handful of "pups," smaller bulbs that form around the main one, so once you get them established, you generally have them as long as you want them (and who wouldn't want these towering beauties?). Cardiocrinum cordata, on the other hand, take fewer years to reach bloom size, may survive blooming, and will still produce new bulbs. Yay!

While working in the garden, we also enjoyed the beautiful emerging foliage of Spirea japonica 'Magic Carpet." This is (for us) a relatively small spirea that is really at it's most lovely right now, when its leaves emerge in lovely bronzy, chartreuse, red, and pink tones. Later it will sport frothy pink blooms. After it blooms, we usually prune it lightly to control its size and shape, and check for any branches that have layered (rooted themselves where they touch the ground). It brings a lovely mass of rich color to the spring garden.

We have developed somewhat of a passion for trilliums, including T. grandiflora, (photo above) with its graceful habit and pure white flowers that last a very long time. These are slowly increasing over the years, and each new plant is greeted with exclamations of delight. There is no sign of the T. luteum yet this year, though, and that has us gnashing our teeth. They may still emerge, though. Elsewhere we have white- and red-flowered hybrids of T. sessilifololium, with their large, mottled leaves, that are increasing at a satisfying rate. One bonus of the red-flowered form is that some of their flowers (the paler ones, actually) smell like bubble-gum!

Violets, Frogs and Woodpeckers

2009-03-30T19:20:00.000-07:00

Three thrilling harbingers of warmer days to come:

The swoon-worthy scent and luscious color of Viola odorata.

The sound of frogs from the woods.

The rat-a-tat-tat of woodpeckers and flickers echoing around in the neighborhood.

Bonus: the emergence of trilliums.

Could this horrible winter finally be behind us?

Cooking: Fig-Stuffed Roast Pork

2009-03-28T19:54:00.000-07:00

I recently saw a recipe for a fig-stuffed pork loin in The New York Times, so I thought I would have a go at it. Here's my modified recipe:

Fig-Stuffed Roast Loin of Pork

serves 6 or more

1 Cup dried black mission figs

Port (either tawny or ruby; I used Jonesy, a blended port from Trevor Jones of Australia)

1 boneless pork loin, 2 to 3 pounds

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

3 or 4 sprigs of fresh rosemary, minced (about 1–2 Tablespoons total)

Cut stem tips off of figs, then place the figs in a tall drinking glass. Cover with port and let sit for at least an hour.

Preheat the oven to 425°F.

Stick a long, thin knife through the center of the pork loin (go in at one flat end and come out the other; I used a boning knife for this). Take a wooden spoon and insert the handle into the cut you just made, wiggling it around a bit to enlarge the hole somewhat. Stuff the figs inside this cavity. If you can't get them all in, you can add them to the roasting pan or reserve them for when you make the sauce.

Tie the roast with thick, cotton butcher's twine. It should be nice and plump. Place the pork in a roasting pan, then pour about 1/2 Cup of the port used to soak the figs over the pork. Season the meat well with salt, pepper, and the minced rosemary.

Place the roast in the pre-heated oven and roast for 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 325° and baste the roast with either pan juices, or more of the fig-soaking port (do not let the pan dry completely—add water if you don't want to add more port). Continue to baste the roast every 15 minutes, until an instant read thermometer reads 145° or 150° when stuck into a think part of the roast (make sure it's not in the fruit stuffing, but actually in the roast). Remove the roast and tent with foil to keep warm.

Place the roasting pan on a burner and turn the heat to medium-high. If you have any fig-soaking port and/or figs left over, add to the pan. If there is no liquid in the pan, you can add fresh port or water, about 1/2 Cup. Scrape up any congealed meat juices and brown bits, and boil the sauce until reduced and slightly thickened.

Slice the pork to the desired thickness (it will be moist and pale pink), then drizzle with the sauce. Serve extra figs on the side.

I served this with spaghetti tossed with some butternut squash that I had cut into bite-sized pieces, then roasted with sweet onion, garlic, fresh sage, salt, pepper and a healthy drizzle of olive oil. I reserved about 1/2 Cup of the pasta water, adding it, along with about 1/2 Cup of freshly grated Parmiggiano-Reggiano cheese (this was for two servings). I meant to add a handful of chopped Italian parsley, but it got forgotten in the end.

The pork was extremely moist and succulent, the port adding a complex fruity sweetness that was nicely offset by the rosemary. We're looking forward to having leftovers in sandwiches tomorrow.

Macs and PCs

2009-03-27T07:08:00.000-07:00

There is nearly nothing as tiresome as the "debate" that rages online about the merits of Apple versus Microsoft (and vice-versa). Microsoft's latest ad salvo takes aim at the fact that if you have $1,000 to spend on a laptop computer, you have your choice of many Windows-loaded models (no mention of Linux here, natch), but Apple only sells one laptop in that price range. Fair enough: facts are facts. If your only criteria is price, you have more choices of Windows laptops than Apple offers. For some of us, though, price is not the only consideration.

People buy and use products for a delightfully large and complex range of reasons. I have always been drawn to Macs because they have enabled me to do the work I use a computer for in a way that has suited me and my preferred way of working. Now, had the many Apple computers that I have used over the years not worked well or had been frustrating to use (and by this I mean for what I use a computer for, not necessarily what you use a computer for), I wouldn't have stuck with them. Could I have used a PC running Windows to accomplish everything I have done with my Macs? Absolutely. I just prefer the experience and stability of using a Mac. This doesn't make me an elitist, just a consumer with preferences. "Coolness" has nothing to do with it.

I don't care at all which computer people choose to use—they should use the hardware and software that best suits their needs, interests, temperaments, and budgets and we should all celebrate that there is at least some choice in this matter. Even if some consumers choose a product because of a perceived "cool" factor, so what? Let people decide for themselves. Some car buyers will choose a Kia, some a Ford, and some a BMW. Isn't it nice to have a choice?

What is tiresome about the new ad from Microsoft is 1) Microsoft already enjoys the largest share of the desktop OS market, and 2) the sneering implication that people who base consumer decisions on anything other than price are somehow elitist. Pretty ironic, coming from a company whose current and former executives are wealthy beyond understanding and often live like kings (unless you think that $147 million houses, mega-yachts, and space tourism are not, well, somewhat elitist themselves).

Microsoft, for all its strengths and weaknesses, seems unwilling to cede market share to anyone else. Their executives routinely spout the mantra of "Microsoft everywhere". This is the core of my long-standing distaste for them—they simply don't want to share. (To be fair, I have also long squirmed at Apple's "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" ads as being too smug.)

What puzzles me is when a company that already enjoys a dominant market share takes a swipe at the rest of us who choose something else. I say having choices is a good thing.

Cooking: Beef and Guinness Pie

2009-03-02T19:08:00.000-08:00

I was browsing through The New York Times last week and came across a recipe for a pub-style beef pie made with Guinness. Here is the recipe, with modifications noted.

Beef and Guinness Pie

Serves 6

4 Tablespoons unsalted butter

2 large red onions, chopped

4 gloves garlic, minced

2 carrots, chopped

2 ribs celery, chopped

10 mushrooms, trimmed and sliced thick (I used crimini mushrooms)

3 pounds beef brisket or stew meat, cut into bite-size pieces (I used grass-raised top round)

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

2 Tablespoons flour

1 sprig rosemary (I used a fairly large one cut from the plant in our garden)

About 4 Cups Guinness or other stout (I ended up using just one "1 pint 6 oz" bottle)

4 oz freshly grated cheddar cheese (I used a medium, raw-milk version)

Preheat oven to 375°.

In a large, ovenproof pan with a lid (I used an enameled cast-iron Dutch oven), heat 2 T of butter over medium-low heat. Add onions and garlic and cook, stirring frequently, until soft, about 10 minutes.

Add carrots, celery, mushrooms, and remaining 2 Tablespoons of butter and cook, stirring frequently, until mushrooms are dark in color and the moisture released by them has evaporated, about 15 minutes.

Season the beef pieces with salt and pepper. Add beef, flour, and rosemary to the pan, raise heat, and cook over high heat, stirring often, for about 5 minutes.

Add enough Guinness to just cover the beef. Put the lid on the pan and place in the oven for 1 1/2 hours. Remove from the oven and give it a stir. Return to the oven for 1 hour longer. If, after a total of 2 1/2 hours, the stew remains thin, set pan over medium-low heat, remove lid, and reduce the liquid. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

The stew would be delicious to eat just as is, but if you're going to go for the full pie experience, now is the time to fold in the cheese. (This creates a "mouth feel" that would traditionally be provided by using pig's feet or other collagen-rich meats.)

While the stew is cooking, prepare the pastry.

1 1/2 Cups all-purpose flour (or substitute whole wheat pastry flour)

2 1/4 teaspoons baking flour (I use aluminum-free)

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 Cup (1 stick) very cold, unsalted butter, cut into cubes

I put the flour, baking powder, and salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulsed it to combine, then added the butter and continued pulsing until the butter was cut into the size of small peas. I then added enough ice-cold water, pulsing after each addition, until the dough just started clumping. I ended up using a little over 1/4 Cup, but the quantity will depend on the aridity of your flour(s). The trick to making pie dough in a food processor is to not mix it until it forms a single mass. When it starts to just clump together, I always remove the lid and pinch some of the dough between my fingers. If it doesn't crumble, it's done, even though overall the dough might look quite crumbly. Put a sheet of plastic wrap on the counter and dump out the dough, gathering it together into a loose pile. Fold the plastic wrap somewhat loosely over the dough, then press the dough out into the plastic wrap to form a disk. Don't handle it too much, or the heat of your hands will melt the butter. Flaky dough comes from chunks of butter layered in the dough—you should be able to see distinct lumps of butter in your finished pastry.

Chill the pastry for at least an hour. When the stew is done, remove the rosemary twig (all of the leaves will have come off), then remove the dough from the refrigerator. Put the stew into an 8 inch baking dish (I used a medium-sized oval ceramic baker), then roll the pastry dough out between waxed paper or plastic wrap to the size of the baking dish. Place the dough on top of the stew. Do something decorative with the edges, if you like; just make sure the stew is pretty much completely covered. Beat an egg yolk and brush it all over the surface of the pie. Try not to think of Sweeney Todd. Cut some decorative vents through the crust, then place the baking dish on a rimmed baking sheet and bake it for 45 minutes, or until the crust is golden and slightly puffy.

The final verdict? Excellent. The stew was rich and well-flavored. The crust, which, due to the baking powder, is reminiscent of biscuits, offered a delicious counterpoint to the stew. I served it with roasted fingerling potatoes and a medley of green peas, snow peas, and suger-snap peas, instead of a more traditional "peas and mash."

Tutorial: Illustrator Radials

2009-02-20T18:16:00.000-08:00

One of the things that computers do that make life easier for illustrators is mathematical precision—when that is wanted, of course. Illustrator (from Adobe) is a vector-based drawing application that has sometimes baffled me, so I make a point of playing around in it a lot to see what I can learn. Recently, I wanted to create a simple illustration of some radiating rays, and along the way, I found I could make some pretty cool things. Let's get started!

For this tutorial, I am using Illustrator CS2 on a Mac, but the steps are the same for Windows. Keyboard shortcuts are shown for Macs first, and Windows second.

To begin, I set up my workspace by creating a new document, turning on Rulers (Command+R/Control+R). Turn on Smart Guides (View>Smart Guides). Click in the vertical ruler and drag a guide out to the middle of your workspace; do the same for the horizontal guide. (Remember, click on an image to see it larger)

I want to create a crescent shape to rotate to make my final design. Although I could try to draw this using the pen tool, it's much easier and faster to use the Oval tool. Select the Oval tool from the toolbar, hold down the Option/Alt key (this draws your shape from the center) and click and drag from some point on the vertical guide line. Once you start dragging, also press down the Shift key to create a perfect circle. Give this circle a color fill of your choice and no stroke. Position this circle so its lower anchor point rests on the intersection of the two guide lines.

With this circle still selected, choose the Rotate Tool from the toolbox (just press the R key). Hold down the Option/Alt key and click on the bottom anchor point of your circle. This sets the origin point for your rotation at this location. A dialog box will open. Check the box for Preview so you can see what you're doing, then enter a value in the Angle field. For this sample, I used 20°. Now click the Copy button to create a copy of your circle that has been rotated 20° on the bottom anchor point.

Choose the Selection tool (press V) and click and drag over both circles to select them both. If the Pathfinder palette is not open, open it by selecting Window>Pathfinder. Move your cursor over the icons and wait a second to see what they are; we want the one marked Subtract, second from the left. This will subtract the uppermost shape (the rotated circle) from the lower shape (our original circle), leaving a crescent. Click the Expand button on the Pathfinder palette to make the crescent its own shape (otherwise, it remains the result of the subtraction, while remembering both circles, which we don't need for this exercise).

You can now rotate copies of this crescent around any point you set with the Rotation Tool. I want something that creates a "hole" in the center, so I moved my crescent as shown in the screen shot. I also rotated my crescent just a little. Select the Rotation Tool (press R), hold down Option/Alt, and click where you want the rotation point to be. I clicked the intersection of the guidelines. In the dialog box, I again chose 20°, then pressed the Copy button. This will create a copy of the crescent, rotated 20° on the point you clicked with the Rotation Tool (you must hold down Option/Alt when clicking to get the dialog box). To create a regularly spaced ring, you must enter a number in the Angle box that is a factor of 360° (eg, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, etc.)

Now that you have created and rotated one copy of the crescent, simply hold down the Command/Control key and press D multiple times to copy the shape around the circle. This can be really fun to watch as your final design takes shape. If you don't like the way things are shaping up, just press Command-Z/Control-Z as many times as it takes to remove all but your original crescent.

In the example shown here, I set the blend mode of my original crescent to Multiply, so that where the crescents overlay each other they create a darker shape. Play with the different blend modes, as well as the transparency of the original shape to create some very cool effects. Also, play with the rotation and position of your shape—sometimes the results are startling (and sometimes they're…not).

Here are two more examples of other shapes rotated in this manner. Warning: this can be really addictive!

Fun With Illustrator

2009-02-16T19:05:00.001-08:00

(click image to view a larger version)

I've been playing with radial images in Illustrator lately. A lot.

These are so easy to do, and I'll be posting a how-to in the next couple of days. Some of the results (and I've made dozens and dozens of these) are just amazing.

In the interest of actually being able to go to sleep without rotating everything in my mind around a fixed point, however, I will step away from these for tonight.

Stay tuned!

Cooking: Lime Coconut Shrimp

2009-02-14T20:08:00.000-08:00

Here's a great, easy recipe to keep in mind when your local store has nice-looking shrimp for sale. I used "North Florida Hoppers," which were large shrimp in the shell. Any large shrimp will work for this recipe.

Lime Coconut Shrimp

serves 4

3 limes (best to use organic, as you'll be using the zest)

2 pounds raw shrimp, peeled and "de-veined"

14 oz. can full-fat coconut milk

1 tablespoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/3 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

Use a fine grater to remove the zest from one lime (I used a Microplane for this). Juice the limes (you need about 1/8 cup of juice).

Place the shrimp in a large sealable plastic bag (or put in a deep non-reactive bowl or other container). Add coconut milk and 3/4 of the lime juice and mix it all around. Refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, combine the lime zest, salt and black pepper in a small bowl and mix together.

In a small, dry skillet over medium-low heat, lightly toast the coconut, stirring. Watch it so it doesn't get too dark. When it's light brown, remove the coconut to a bowl and set aside.

You can cook the shrimp various ways. To grill, generously coat your grill grate with oil and preheat on medium-high. Alternatively, heat an oiled grill pan over medium-high heat. Or, as I did, preheat your broiler and adjust a rack about 5-6 inches away from the element.

Remove shrimp from marinade and discard marinade. Place shrimp on grill (or in grill pan or on a rimmed baking sheet under the broiler) and cook 1-2 minutes per side (under the broiler took a little longer, about 4 minutes total), until the exteriors are pink and the centers are opaque. While they are cooking, drizzle the remaining lime juice over them.

Sprinkle the cooked shrimp with the zest-salt mixture and some toasted coconut. Put the rest of the condiments on the table so people can add more if they like.

I served these with Thai red rice cooked with a little coconut milk and some salt, and some snap peas. They were really tasty as is (especially with a little extra of the toppings sprinkled on) and were also nice dipped in a little sweet chili sauce.

I think we'll be making this again when it's grilling season. I might thread them on skewers, which would make handling them on the grill a little easier.

Here We Go Again

2009-02-10T19:56:00.000-08:00

More snow. Huh.

This has certainly been one of the snowier winters that I can remember here in the Puget Sound region, but then, my memory might not be what it used to be!

As lovely as it is, it tends to throw the whole population into a panic.

At least today's snow is already melting, although with the temperature here at our house hovering just below freezing, tomorrow's morning drive might be a tad exciting.

Cooking: Paprika Chicken

2009-02-08T19:36:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about some variation on Chicken Paprikash for awhile now (heaven knows why) and then an adaptation of a James Beard recipe showed up in the morning newspaper. I trust James Beard. I like the simplicity of his recipes and the emphasis on clean flavors, so I decided to give it a try.

First, the recipe (with additional modifications by me):

Paprika Chicken

serves 4

1 cut-up frying chicken (I used a free-range one; total weight 2.75 pounds)

1 3/4 teaspoons kosher salt (if using table or sea salt, use 1 1/4 teaspoons)

2 Tablespoons butter

2 Tablespoons canola or other mild vegetable oil

2 Tablespoons sweet paprika (I used half regular sweet and half smoked sweet)

2 medium onions, chopped (I used sweet onions; use whatever kind you like)

scant 1/2 Cup tomato juice, or 2 Tablespoons tomato paste mixed with 1/4 Cup water

2/3 Cup sour cream (I used crème fraîche)

2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour

Pat the chicken dry, then season with the salt. It might seem like a lot, but you don't add any other salt to the dish, so it's important.

In a large sauté pan with a lid, combine butter and oil over medium heat. While it's heating up, measure out the paprika into a small bowl so you can dump it all in at once. When the butter/oil is hot, pour in the paprika and stir constantly for 1 minute.

Place the chicken pieces in a single layer, skin side down, in the pan and brown for 4 minutes. Turn the chicken over and brown the other side for 4 minutes. It should be a beautiful golden mahogany brown. Transfer the chicken to a plate and set aside.

Add the chopped onions and sauté until softened, about 4 minutes. Stir in the tomato juice, then lay the chicken pieces on top, skin side up. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer until chicken is cooked through, about 40 to 50 minutes.

Transfer the chicken to a serving platter and cover with foil to keep warm.

In a small bowl, mix together the sour cream and flour, then add the mixture to the liquid in the pan. Cook, stirring constantly, until the sauce thickens slightly, about 5 minutes. Spoon the sauce over the chicken and serve.

I served the chicken with egg noodles tossed with a little butter, caraway seeds, and black pepper. Put a little pile of peas on the plate as well.

Verdict: quite good and satisfying. There is a definite richness even before the sour cream, perhaps from the paprika itself, without any one flavor being too dominant. The preparation also did not overwhelm the flavor of the chicken itself, which was nice. I will definitely make this again. There was enough sauce that it could have been served on the noodles as well, and some of it did manage to get mixed up with them on my plate. How did that happen?

Harbingers of Spring

2009-02-08T14:48:00.000-08:00

Okay, I know that winter is not over, not by a long shot. That doesn't mean I can't grasp tightly any little sign that it's on the way, though.

Such signs are increasingly evident in the garden. As we work cleaning up the beds, removing the last of the fallen alder leaves, cutting down things that are falling over anyway and pulling about a ton of shotweed (grrr...), we are heartened by the first of the early crocuses, in this case, Crocus chrysantha 'Bluebird,' Iris reticulata 'Harmony,' whose clear, rich blue carries a long way, and an assortment of hellebores in varied shades. Many of the shrubs and trees are in bud (the Indian Plum is blooming) and many perennials are pushing their way out of the ground.

While on my hands and knees working in the Bird Bath Bed, I came across the Giger-esque eruption that will become one of the loveliest and hardest working flowers in the spring garden, Amenone blanda 'Blue Star,' with its lovely clear violet-blue daisy like flowers and ferny-textured leaves. We plant more of them every year.

It is not unlikely that we will have more snow, and will most likely have some nights in the 20s, but each day brings us that much closer to the whole spring show. It's perhaps my favorite season in the garden.

A New Orchid to Brighten Winter's Gloom

2009-02-07T12:41:00.001-08:00

(Click image to see it larger)

Orchids seem to have really come down in price in the last 10 years, with many interesting flower shapes and colors to choose from.

Our house is not great for keeping orchids around after they finish blooming—we don't have the deep windowsills of our last apartment and the light in the winter is not great.

So we have decided to treat them as if they are long-lasting bouquets, keeping them around while in bloom, then adding them to the compost pile.

While they are blooming, though, they get pampered. To water, I put the pot in the sink and run lukewarm water through the potting medium (so it runs freely out the bottom) and give the entire plant a heavy misting with room-temperature water, then let it drain for awhile before putting it back into its decorative pot on the coffee table.

This particular orchid is like a chain-reaction of star-like explosions along its long flower spike. So interesting, and so beautiful.

Cooking: Ersatz Fougasse

2009-02-01T18:31:00.000-08:00

Don't you just love the word "ersatz?" I've used it in this instance because this fougasse is not traditional; it isn't even made with bread dough, but with left-over dough for pizza crust. I got the idea of using this dough because I often make a pizza bianca with olives and herbs and olive oil, and that got me thinking about savory fougasse. There also seems to be a lot of recipes out there for sweetened fougasse, but I've only ever had one made with olives.

Here's the recipe for the dough I used (I used half of this recipe for a pizza last night).

Pizza Dough

1 Cup warm water (between 85-115°)

2 Tablespoons honey

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 Tablespoons dry active yeast

3 1/2 Cups flour (I use a combination of unbleached and whole wheat pastry flours)

1/4 Cup olive oil

Pour the warm water into a mixer bowl (I use a stand mixer with the paddle attachment) and add the honey and salt. Mix on low for about 20 seconds, then add the yeast and mix for another 5 seconds or so. Add 1 Cup of the flour and mix on low for 10 seconds. Add the olive oil and mix until blended well, about 20 seconds. Add the rest of the flour a half cup at a time until the dough holds together and forms a ball.

Switch to the dough hook (or start kneading by hand) and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. If you are still using the mixer, remove the dough from the bowl, then lightly oil the bowl with a little olive oil. Put the dough back in, turning it once to coat with a little oil. Cover and place in a warm spot to rise (I use the top of the refrigerator).

After about 45 minutes, the dough should have about doubled in size. Punch down, then let rise for an additional hour and a half. The dough is now ready to use. (I put the dough I was using for the fougasse in a sealable plastic bag and put it in the refrigerator overnight; the next day, I let it rise again until doubled, about two hours, before using.)

For the variation that I wanted to make, I chopped enough rosemary leaves to make about 2-3 Tablespoons. I had purchased pitted Niçoise olives and herb-brined pitted green olives (combined, about 2/3 Cup) from the olive bar at our local grocery. I drained them and put them on a paper towel to soak up some of the brine and oil, then cut the larger green olives in half. I dumped the rosemary and the olives on top of the dough, then started working it all in with my hands.

When the additions were nicely distributed in the dough, I rolled it out with a rolling pin to an oval about 14 inches long by 10 inches wide. I set it on some cornmeal on a baking sheet, then used a pizza cutter to cut some slashes in the dough (any pattern will do). Using my fingertips, I pulled the edges of the slashes apart to create gaps—I wanted lots of crust. I let it rise again for about an hour, then brushed the top with olive oil and sprinkled on some grey Celtic sea salt (just a little).

Baked it at 375° for about 20 minutes, then let it cool on a rack.

Next time, I will skip the cornmeal as it was too crunchy and I don't think the bread would stick with all of that olive oil. I would also skip the salt; the olives were plenty salty as it were. And, finally, I would bake it at a higher temperature (perhaps as high as 450°) for a shorter amount of time. And using a combination of regular whole wheat flour and bread flour might make for a chewier bread.

How does it taste? Good, if slightly salty. Needs improvement. On the other hand, it was delicious served with some beef and onions braised in beer that we had for dinner, so...

20 Years

2009-01-30T18:23:00.000-08:00

Today's my 20-year anniversary of being clean and sober. Happy Birthday to me!

Sick. Tired. Bored.

2009-01-24T19:12:00.000-08:00

So, not one of my better days. Sigh.

Still, one must eat, if only to keep one's spirits afloat and the body nourished. No pictures tonight, though; it just seemed like too much work.

I started by trimming a pork tenderloin of all silverskin and excess fat, then seasoned it liberally with kosher salt, ground cumin, ground cinnamon, and mignonette pepper (a blend of black and white pepper plus coriander seed). Into a little oil in a hot sauté pan for about 1-2 minutes on each side, then into a preheated 375° oven for about 10 minutes, until an instant-read thermometer showed 130° (inserted in the thickest section). Out it came to rest on the stove top (the temperature rose to about 142°).

Meanwhile, in a second skillet, I started caramelizing half a sweet onion, chopped, in a little butter, along with a small winter squash, seeded, peeled and cut into about 3/4 inch cubes. I seasoned all that with kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper, ground cinnamon, and about 1/8 teaspoon of ground dried chipotle pepper. I covered the pan for about 5 minutes, then continued cooking it with the lid off until everything was nicely caramelized.

I took four small flour tortillas and arranged them on a rimmed baking dish, then scattered some squash/onion medley over each. I sliced the pork into 1/4 inch slices and arranged four slices on each tortilla. I spooned a little mango-peach salsa on, then a little shredded cheese (a mix of medium cheddar and monterey jack--not too much). I popped the baking sheet into the oven, still at 375°, for about 7 minutes, until the cheese was melted and bubbling.

Served them topped with left-over guacamole, made with lots of lime juice and cilantro, and shredded lettuce. We ate them with a knife and fork, but you could pick them up if you're adventurous.

Pretty tasty. A nice melange of flavors and textures. All that's left is the dishes. Sigh.

I Knew It!!

2009-01-19T13:56:00.001-08:00

But why is Santa so short??

Cooking: Thai Red Curry Spareribs

2009-01-18T18:56:00.000-08:00

Let me just say: wow.

I came across this recipe in the morning newspaper, and it sounded interesting, so off to the store to get some ribs.

Of course, I made a couple of modifications (which I will note in the recipe).

I left out the dried chilies, mainly because I and the Other One are wusses when it comes to heat. Next time, though, I'd probably add a little, although these turned out scrumptious without them (and red curry paste, after all, is made with chilies).

Thai Red Curry Spareribs

serves 2—3

3 tablespoons red curry paste*

2 tablespoons tamarind paste**

3 tablespoons canola oil

2 tablespoons fish sauce***

2 tablespoons organic sugar of your choosing

2 to 4 dried red chilies, chopped

pinch of salt

1 14oz can of coconut milk

1 rack baby back pork ribs (about 2–3 pounds)

In a blender or food processor, combine the curry paste, tamarind, oil, fish sauce, sugar, chilies (if using), salt and coconut milk. Purée until smooth; set aside.

Cut the ribs into 3- to 4-rib sections, then arrange them in a large non-reactive bowl (I used a gallon ziploc bag). Pour the curry paste mixture over the ribs, then mush them around to make sure they're well coated (if you use a bag, you don't get your hands all messy). Cover (or close bag securely) and refrigerate 1 hour.

Heat the oven to 350°. Transfer the ribs to a roasting pan or large baking dish, spreading over them any marinade left over. (I also scattered 1 large onion, cut into thin wedges, over everything, tucking them down between the rib hunks.)

Bake about 1 hour, until meat is tender when pierced with a fork. (Mine took about 1 hour and 20 minutes; for the last 20 minutes, I turned them over in the sauce to coat the tops, then turned them back to their original position.)

Notes on ingredients

* Red curry paste can be found in most large supermarkets in the Asian food section. If you are lucky enough to have a vibrant Asian neighborhood where you live, you can find many different kinds at Asian grocers.

** Tamarind paste is made, oddly enough, from tamarind. I found it in the Mexican section of my local supermarket. It is tangy and fruity.

*** Fish sauce can also be found in the Asian section of most supermarkets, or at Asian grocers. Despite its name, it doesn't actually taste particularly fishy, and is crucial to the cuisine of Southeast Asia, where it is often used in conjunction with a little sugar.

Here's what they looked like when they came out of the oven. Did I mention that the entire house smelled heavenly the entire time they were in the oven?

I cut the ribs apart, added some of the onion wedges, drizzled some of the pan sauce over, then dusted them with shredded Thai basil. On the side: black rice cooked with a chunk of ginger, and snap peas with carrots.

At first bite, I was underwhelmed, but then the complex flavors began to play on my tongue and soon I was loving them. I had placed a bottle of Sweet Chili Sauce on the table just in case, but we ended up ignoring it. These babies are tasty!

Date from il Mercato Centrale

2009-01-18T16:45:00.000-08:00

Twenty-four years ago, I was in Florence.

I was in the last month of a lengthy trip that had taken me from Seattle to London, Oxford, Edinburgh, York, Paris, and Milan, where I spent New Year's Eve watching fireworks from my pensione room window, as it was way too cold be be outside.

I had planned on spending three weeks in Florence, and when I arrived it had warmed up a bit. This warmth, however, was not to last, and a couple of days into my stay it snowed heavily and then everything froze. I was staying in a small hotel just a block from the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, in a tiny room that reminded me of a monk's cell at San Marco (except, of course, that I had a bed, a desk, and a sink in my room). Since I had nearly three weeks to spend, I didn't worry too much that the trains had stopped running (some of them actually froze to the tracks) and hoped that things would be moving again by the time I headed for Rome.

I was on a pretty tight budget that trip, and that meant that I could only afford to eat one meal a day in a restaurant. Fortunately, I found lots of cheap and tasty things to eat (like pizza and schiacciata, studded with olives and sprinkled with salt) and learned to take breakfast (a cappuccino and "brioche," which was usually actually more of a croissant) standing up in the coffee bar downstairs from my hotel room. I also discovered il Mercato Centrale, the large, covered food market that was blessedly close by. By shopping judiciously, I was able to keep my room stocked with fresh fruit, olives, cheese and nuts. Delicious bread was available at a nearby bakery, always chaotic and fun once I got the hang of how to go about getting served.

Because it was so bitterly cold, during the afternoon closings, when nearly everything shuts down for several hours, I would return to my room to thaw out, wash clothes in the sink, write in my travel journal, and paint. I had with me a cheap, metal watercolor set made by Prang that had eight colors, supplemented with a tube of white gouache. I had purchased a small block of watercolor paper at an art supply store that I encountered while wandering around shivering, and a small roll of artist's masking tape, which doesn't tear paper when you pull it up. I started painting what turned into an entire series of images based in part on what I had seen that day (lots of saints, Madonnas, and patterns everywhere), as well as what I had sitting on my desk: pears, postcards of famous paintings or mosaics, and some luscious dates.

Most of these paintings were extremely small (the one shown here is about 1.5 inches across), but pretty detailed. They have, over the years, been a wonderful souvenir of that trip, and I have not travelled since that I did not take painting supplies with me. Now, all I have to do is look at one of these tiny paintings and I'm right back in Florence for the first time.

There was something about toiling away at these tiny paintings in my monk's cell of a room after a day of seeing staggeringly amazing things, and they remain some of my favorites.

So, how cold was it? Here's a photo of Ammanati's Neptune Fountain encased in ice. Pretty cold.

Playing at Mt. Rainier

2009-01-17T11:04:00.000-08:00

We spent Christmas with our friends Holly and Eric and William (our godson) at some cabins just outside Mt. Rainier National Park. There was a lot of snow this year, and although that resulted in frequent power outages, we had a lot of fun.

Here's a photo taken from the deck on the back of our cabin. This is pretty much the view one sees while soaking in the luxuriously large bathtub, as well.

There were some great icicles hanging off the side of our cabin.

These folks seem to be having fun!

And here is Jack holding William after their sledding run.

It was a good day.

Cooking: Greek Delights

2009-01-15T20:57:00.000-08:00

During these difficult times, a reasonable person's thoughts might turn to comfort food.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that reason and I have a somewhat love/hate relationship, but, hey.

For some reason, I've been thinking lately of galatoboureko, a Greek dessert that I used to make long ago when I worked in the kitchen of a faux-Mediterranean restaurant. The dish, as most folks agree, is a type of custard made with semolina, mixed with eggs, and baked in phyllo pastry, then drenched in a syrup of some kind (think baklava). I decided to make some.

As long as I was going to make a Greek dessert, I thought, why not make a Greek main dish as well? I decided on pastitsio, mainly because I love it, but also because I wanted leftovers that might actually taste better the second night. My research revealed that there seems to be as many versions of this dish as there are Greek cooks, but they all pretty much involve ground meat cooked with onions, spices, and tomato, sometimes mixed with pasta and sometimes layered with it, with the whole thing topped with bechamel sauce before baking. I wanted to use lamb, so I looked for a recipe that called for that and sounded like something that would be tasty to eat.

First, the galatoboureko, though, because it needed to bake and cool before dinner. Here's the recipe I used.

Galatoboureko

serves 12

4 cups whole milk

3/4 cup organic raw sugar (use whatever granulated sugar you prefer)

3/4 cup semolina flour (fine ground)

1/4 cup unsalted butter

grated zest of 1/2 organic lemon

1 cinnamon stick

pinch of salt

5 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

10-12 phyllo pastry sheets (I used organic whole wheat ones)

3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted

Mix the milk, 3/4 cup sugar, semolina, 1/4 butter, lemon zest, cinnamon stick and salt in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and heat until thickened, stirring constantly. This will take a little while, but once the mixture approaches a boil, it will thicken quickly. Reduce heat and let mixture bubble gently for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and take out the cinnamon stick. Cover surface with a piece of parchment paper to prevent a skin from forming and let cool. When cool, blend in eggs and vanilla; set aside.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter a 13 x 9in baking dish. Place half of the phyllo sheets in the dish, one at a time, brushing generously with the melted butter. Pour in custard and smooth out. Top with remaining phyllo sheets, again brushing each with melted butter. You will need all of the melted butter if you are brushing enough on. Trim overhanging edges of phyllo sheets with scissors; this will make a big mess. Deal with it.

Score the top layers of phyllo with a sharp knife, dividing the pan into 12 portions. Bake for about 45 minutes, until pastry is golden brown and the custard is set when tested with a knife.

Remove from oven and let cool in the pan. Meanwhile, make the syrup.

1 cup organic raw sugar

3/4 cup water

1 cinnamon stick

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

Combine the sugar and water and stir to dissolve. Bring to a boil, then add cinnamon stick and lemon juice; boil for 10 minutes. Cool syrup to lukewarm before straining it.

When the galatoboureko has cooled, pour all of the syrup over the top. Refrigerate for at least an hour to allow the syrup to be absorbed.

Pastitsio

serves 5—6

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, cut into 1/4in dice

1 pound ground lamb

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 cup dry red wine (I used white because that's what I had)

1/2 a 6oz can of tomato paste

1 dried bay leaf

1 cup water

In a large deep skillet or sauté pan, heat oil over medium heat. Add onions, and cook about 3 minutes. Add lamb, salt, cinnamon, pepper and nutmeg. Cook, breaking up lamb, until it is no longer pink. Add wine and cook until liquid almost evaporates, then stir in tomato paste, bay leaf and water. Cover, lower heat, and let simmer about 30 minutes, skimming fat from time to time if it forms. Remove from heat and set aside.

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 1/2 cups whole milk

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper (I used white)

1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1 small pinch cayenne pepper

In a medium saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. When it bubbles, whisk in the flour and baking powder. Cook, whisking constantly, for 1 minute, then pour in milk while continuing to whisk. Continue cooking and whisking until the mixture bubbles and becomes thick. Remove pan from heat and whisk in the Parmesan, salt, pepper, nutmeg and cayenne. Set aside while the pasta cooks.

Unsalted butter, for baking dish

1/2 pound pasta (I used organic Italian conchiglie; penne works well also)

Preheat oven to 375°F. Butter a medium-sized oval baking dish (or whatever shape you have—if you double this recipe, it fits into a 13 x 9in baker). Bring a large pot of water to boil, then add some salt. Add pasta and cook for 2-3 minutes less than the package directions indicate. It should be very al dente, because it's going to continue to cook in the oven. Drain the pasta and add it to the lamb mixture in the skillet; stir to combine, then pour into prepared baking dish.

Give the bechamel sauce a final stir, then pour it over the top. Bake until top is set and golden brown, about 30-40 minutes (watch it after 25 so it doesn't get too brown). I found I needed a rimmed baking sheet on the rack underneath because the bechamel became exuberant in the oven. Let the pastitsio rest for 1o minutes before serving.

Final scorecard: The pastitsio was delicious, with slightly exotic flavors coming from the cinnamon and nutmeg and a perfect meat/pasta ratio. The bechamel, as I knew because I took a rubber scraper to the pan before washing it, licking up each and every bit, was heavenly and added just enough creamy richness.

The galatoboureko was also fantastic, with hints of cinnamon and lemon and was eggy without being heavy. We had it with some fresh raspberries, which elevated the entire thing to sublime.

Best of all: leftovers!

Tutorial: Histograms!

2009-01-11T09:54:00.000-08:00

I was all set to do a little exploration of some of the ways to make a selection in Photoshop, when a tiny voice popped up in the back of my head that whispered 'What about histograms?" Yeah, I hate when that happens, but the more I thought about it, the larger the idea became, until I found myself prepping sample images and taking screen shots.

Many image processing applications have them, and they tend to scare the bejeezus out of people. Let's take a look, and perhaps you will find out how useful they are. Personally, I consider them absolutely necessary, but then I've been told I'm weird.

This examination will be done using Photoshop CS2, but you might see histograms in other programs like Apple's Aperture or Adobe's Lightroom. In Photoshop, make sure the Histogram window is showing (Window>Histogram). I usually have it docked in a palette with the Navigator, so for now, I've just grabbed the window by its name and dragged it out of the palette so I can position it right next to my images.

I am going to be working with RGB images, which are comprised of three color channels (Red, Greed, and Blue) representing the three primaries of additive color, in which equal amounts of red, blue, and green light combine to form pure white. This is different from the primary colors a traditional artist is concerned with, which is known as subtractive color, where the three primaries are red, blue, and yellow.

In Photoshop, you can see the separate channels by opening the Channels window (Window>Channels). For an RGB image, you will see four default channels: the combined image (RGB), the Red channel, the Blue channel, and the Green Channel. If you click on the individual channels of an image that you have opened in Photoshop, you can see the differences between the channels.

By default, Photoshop shows these channels as gray-scale images, which might be confusing at first. Also by default, each channel has a "bit depth" of 8, which means that each channel can contain a possible 256 shades of gray, from pure black to pure white. When the three channels are combined, the result is said to have a bit depth of 24, meaning that the image can contain over 16 million distinct colors. Whew!

A histogram is merely a distribution graph of all of the pixels in an image, based on their relative luminance, plotted horizontally from black (left side) to white (right side), with 256 possible positions along the horizonal axis.

To make this easier to understand, let's start with a simple image of a black-to-white gradient. This image should have pixels representing all 256 levels on the black-to-white scale, and if we look at the histogram for this image, we see that is true. We can see that there is a curve that runs continuously from left to right. The darkest pixels fall to the left of center and the lightest pixels fall to the right.

Let's look at a black and white photo and its histogram. This image also has pixels that range from pure black to pure white, but the curve shows us that overall, there are more darker pixels than light (more of the curve falls to the left of the center line). The curve is no longer smooth because our image is more tonally complex, with uneven numbers of pixels at any given point on the horizontal axis.

And here's an image with minimal color that shows more of a predominance of light pixels than dark, although, once again the entire range from black to right is represented in the histogram.

Why should you care, you ask? Because you can use the information in the histogram to guide you when making tonal corrections to your images. Even if you don't want a full range of tones in your images (for whatever artistic reason), the histogram can show you exactly where the pixels that make up your image land on the dark-light continuum, and knowledge, as they say, is power.

Let's play around a little. Here's another image and its histogram. The histogram looks a bit odd, doesn't it? If you look closely (click on the image to display it larger, then hit your Back button to return) you will see that there is a line at the far left (dark) that goes all the way up (lots of pixels are black), a line at the far right (light) that goes all the way up (lots of pixels are white), and a bunch of little stubby lines spread out along the X axis. These represent what is known as anti-aliasing on a computer, where the boundaries between the black and white bars are not as crisp as they may appear, but have a slight blur to them, resulting in a few gray pixels of various luminance in the image.

If we actually apply a blur to the image (Filters>Gaussian Blur) and look at the resulting histogram, now we see more of a distribution of pixels along the X axis.

How is this of use? Let's look at one of the more commonly used tools for tonal correction, Levels (Image>Adjustments>Levels, or, preferably, add a Levels Adjustment Layer—Layers>New Adjustment Layer>Levels). What do we see in the Levels dialog box? It's our friend the histogram, looking identical to the one in the Histogram window, but this one has some sliding controls under it. Hmmm...

By default, these sliders are positioned at the far left, the far right, and right in the middle. If we drag the middle slider to the right, we will shift more of the image's pixels into the dark, as shown in the preview window. Look at the curve in the histogram window—it no longer matches that in the Levels dialog box, but rather shows that we have shifted pixels toward the dark.

Hold down the Option key (Windows: Alt key) and the "Cancel" button changes to "Reset." Click that and the levels dialog box returns to its default settings. Now drag the middle slider to the left and watch how the image turns lighter as we move more pixels towards white. The histogram window shows this clearly as well.

At the bottom of the Levels dialog box, there is a black-to-white bar gradient with two more sliders, one at each end. Click the right slider (white) and drag it to the left. We have just darkened the entire image. Notice that the histogram window shows our curve now squeezed to the left (darker). Move the slider back and try the other one; the image gets lighter.

Generally, when I adjust the tonal range of a photograph, I leave these bottom sliders alone because I want a full tonal range. I do, however, use them when working with drawings or illustrations or where I want a specific, lower-contrast effect.

Lets see how we might use the histogram with another tonal adjustment tool, the Curves adjustment tool. Many people are confused by this tool, but it is much more powerful than Levels for adjusting tonal problems. One reason for this is that you are not limited to sliders on one axis, but can create as complex a curve as you need to get the job done.

Remember that I am using Photoshop CS2. Starting with version CS3, the Curves dialog places a histogram behind the grid, a useful thing indeed. We will have to keep an eye on our histogram window instead.

The grid in Curves is another representation of the distribution of pixels in your image. By default, it opens with a straight line running from lower left to upper right. This line is defined by two points, one at lower left, the other at upper right. The lower left point in our example represents the darkest pixel in our image. That pixel might not actually be black, but by looking at the histogram window, we can see that our image does contain pixels near or equal to black. The upper right point represents the lightest pixel in our image.

The steeper the line between these two end points, the more "contrasty" the image. If we drag the top point to the left, we are telling Photoshop to convert more light colored pixels toward the lightest value in the image. Conversely, if we drag the bottom point to the right, we are shifting pixels to the darkest value in our image. Watch what happens to the histogram when we do this and you can see the pixels being shifted either left or right.

Now, let's add another point to our line. I've placed this point (just click on the spot where you want a new point) right in the middle, which should represent the pixels exactly half-way between the brightest and the darkest pixels. If our brightest pixel is pure white (R255 G255 B255) and our darkest pixel is pure black (R0 G0 B0), this new point will be close to a 50% gray (R128 B128 G128).

Click this new point and drag it slightly towards the bottom right corner. Without changing the darkest or lightest pixels, we have shifted the pixels in between towards the dark end, as shown in the histogram. If we drag this point up towards the upper left corner, we will shift these pixels toward the light. This is just like dragging the middle slider in the Levels adjustment tool, so why use Curves?

Because we can add as many points to the line as we want!

Back to our rocks. This image has pixels at both ends of the luminance scale, as shown by the histogram, so we won't change either of the two original points in Curves. Our histogram shows more pixels tend to dark than light, and the image has fairly high contrast. We can lessen the contrast with a great deal of control by adding two points to our curve near the existing points, drawing the top one down slightly and drawing the bottom one up slightly. This results in a lower contrast image. Our histogram now shows more pixels grouped in the middle.

To increase the contrast, we add two points in the same positions, but draw the upper one slightly up and the lower one slightly down. The histogram now shows more pixels at the ends of the scale and increased contrast.

Now, what if I want to lighten just some of the darker areas, while leaving the lighter areas completely untouched? First, place a new point in the upper right quadrant. By leaving the curve straight between this point and the upper right corner, all of the light pixels represented by this section of the curve will remain unchanged. Now, I can add a point halfway between point #1 and the bottom left and drag slightly up. I have just lightened the darker areas of my image without affecting the lightest areas. You can put many, many points on this line and fine-tune your tonal adjustment if you need to. To remove a point, drag it off the grid on any side and it will disappear.

I'll do a more detailed post on the Curves adjustment tool soon, because there are many other useful features that I haven't touched on here.

If you've read this far, congratulations! I hope this little exploration has been useful and that you will start looking at the histograms of your images as you process them in the image manipulation application of your choice. In a future post, I will delve deeper into the histogram window, because, like most things in Photoshop, there's more useful features buried within.

Cooking: Rack of Lamb with Moroccan Spices

2009-01-07T19:52:00.000-08:00

Our local grocery had a special on these little "half-racks" of lamb, so I grabbed one for dinner this evening. Usually, I just season rack of lamb with salt, pepper and a little thyme, but I felt like something different. Having read a recipe for home-prepared preserved lemons, a staple of Moroccan cooking, in this morning's newspaper, an idea formed. Having a preserved lemon in the refrigerator sealed the deal.

I prepared the roast the way I always do, removing all the silverskin, then tying the roast between the ribs. Removing the silverskin gives your diners a more pleasant experience at the table, as they don't end up with something in their mouth they can't possible chew. Tying the roast results in a lovely plump chop when the roast is carved.

I peeled several cloves of garlic and put them on my cutting board with a healthy pinch of kosher salt, about 1 1/2 teaspoons of cumin seed, and a generous grinding of Mignonette pepper, which is a blend of black pepper, white pepper, and coriander seed. I minced that until it was pretty fine. It smelled heavenly.

Next, I removed and discarded the inside flesh from half a preserved lemon, then rinsed the rind in cold water. I chopped the rind into small dice, then mixed it with the herb/garlic mixture. The smell got even better.

I brushed the roast with a little olive oil, then packed the spice/lemon melange all over the top.

Into a preheated 450° oven on a rack set in the middle of the oven, for about 25 minutes, until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part read 130°. Out it came to rest, covered with foil, for at least 10 minutes. I actually ended up letting it rest longer, as it took my sweetie longer to get home from work than I had planned for, but I just put it back in the oven (now turned off) for about 5 minutes prior to carving.

I removed the strings, carved, and plated it up. The longer-than-usual resting period resulted in a lovely uniform pink throughout the entire chop.

And the final verdict? Delicious, although I liked it better than my companion, who liked the flavor but didn't like eating the lemon/herb crust so much. I, on the other hand, scraped every last bit of it up and slathered it on each and every forkful. We had the chops with a baked garnet yam and a green salad, which were lovely accompaniments.

I probably won't make this on a regular basis (my sweetie prefers my usual preparation) but might make it again some time if I find myself with an extra preserved lemon.

A Reverence of Convenience, Apparently

2009-01-05T19:36:00.000-08:00

One of the best things about living on an island in Puget Sound is the trees that surround us.

Until they fall down and take the power out.

The power went off last night around 9pm, came on this morning just long enough to for us to reset the cable modem, fire up the computers, and reset the clocks. Then it went out again. The house was a brisk 60° and the cats were not happy.

Now, I absolutely love trees. I love to look at them, draw them, paint them. I don't even mind raking leaves all that much. I love the shade they cast in the summer, the shapes they form in the winter, the beautiful dappled light they filter, the homes they provide for birds and squirrels and the occasional raccoon. The thrill of hearing bald eagles cry from their perch high atop the Douglas Fir in the backyard gives me a thrill every single time.

In addition to Douglas Firs, we have Western Red Cedars and Red Alders in our yard. It's hard to love the Alders for many reasons—they seem to be dropping things onto the yard and garden during each season, be it catkins, leaves, branches, their little cones or the copious leaves that refuse to fall all at once, guaranteeing many sessions with the rake.

I don't particularly like pulling the hundreds of seedlings out of the garden beds, from the gutters, even from crevices on my car, but they do pull up easily. The fallen leaves get raked into piles and left to decompose or added to the compost pile. Robins and Varied Thrushes love rooting around in them, looking for unwitting earthworms. We pile the fallen branches up in brush piles, which provides shelter for all sorts of little birds, and perches for the Dark-Eyed Juncos and various Wrens.

Still, it seems that if you look sidewise at an Alder, something breaks off and crashes to the ground. Even a mild wind sends them tilting and crashing into their neighbors. And a little snow followed by wind, which we had last night, sends them toppling into the power lines, plunging whole swathes of the island into darkness and cold. Douglas Firs, notoriously shallow-rooted, also seem prone to falling over in wind, and frequently send large broken branches crashing to the ground.

At 2pm today, the inside temperature in the house was a toasty 52° and I was lying on the couch, one cat under the comforter I had draped over me, the other one lying on my chest, trying his best to smother me. There's nothing quite like having a cat's whiskers thrust unceremoniously up your nostril to rouse you from a nice nap. As I was lying there trying to re-position the cat so I could breath, I found myself railing in my thoughts against the power company, whose recorded message had informed me that our outage was caused by "a tree falling into power lines" and than an "investigator" had been sent to assess the damage. It was the same message all day long, and I wanted suddenly to get an axe or a chainsaw and go find this tree that was the source of all my suffering and deal with it.

As it grew darker and darker, I sighed and set about relighting candles, then prepped some food by lantern light so we could eat supper in our cold house. I got out the butane burner that we keep for just such times and got everything ready to go, then sat down with a flashlight and a book to read—and found myself brooding. I got about two pages read when the lights came back on.

Suddenly, all thoughts of tree murder fled from my mind, and I had to laugh at myself for my "reverence of convenience." I happily set about turning the heat up, reset the cable modem, went from dark room to dark room turning on a few lights, just because I could.

Now I'm left pondering my dependence on all the mod cons, as the British would say, and thinking about things I can do to make the next power outage (and there will be more) more manageable. Something well short of cutting down all the trees seems appropriate.

Tutorial: Basic Photo Enhancement

2009-01-04T10:05:00.000-08:00

I am one of those people who loves Photoshop and have used it since it was first released. Despite my years of experience with the program, however, I make no claims as to being a bona fide expert. Somewhat of a mid-level expert, perhaps, but Photoshop's features and tools are so broad that I think one could make a life's work out of studying the program and still never learn all of its secrets.

Having said that, I can't imagine my digital life without it. I use it nearly every day, sometimes just to play around, but most often to accomplish some specific task. In the last few years, I have been using Photoshop more and more for what it was originally designed to emulate: the tools a photographer might use to produce good-quality photographs.

This little tutorial outlines some of the basic steps I go through to improve my digital photos. I am using Photoshop CS2 on a Mac, but the techniques are the same for Windows.

First, let's take a look at the image as imported by Photoshop's Camera Raw plug-in. (Click on the image to see it larger.)

In the Camera Raw plug-in, I made sure that none of my whites were blown out (they show up red if they are) and none of the shadows are too dark (they show up blue). I did this by using the Curve feature of the plug-in, but I will write about that in another tutorial. Basically, I wanted the image to have a full range of lights and darks, and will further enhance the tonal balance now that the image is open in Photoshop.

By the way, I shoot all my photos in RAW format as it allows me to control how I correct any problems with the image capture. If you shoot in JPG format, your camera is making those choices for you. Most modern cameras do a good job with this, but I like the control.

I next create a new Curves Adjustment Layer on top of the original layer (Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Curves, or use the drop-down menu at the bottom of the Layers Palette). You do have the Layers Palette open, don't you?

I added two points to the line in the Curves box, one near the top right and one near the bottom left. I dragged the top right point up slightly to increase the brightness of the lighter tones (without affecting the very lightest tones, which are controlled by the point in the top left corner); I then dragged the point I added bottom left down a little to darken the dark tones (again, leaving the darkest tones untouched). This gentle S-curve is a great way to both increase the contrast of your image slightly, while also slightly saturating the color of your photo. If you end up with points that you don't want, just drag them off the grid and they will disappear. If you want to reset the entire thing and start over, just hold down the Option key (Windows: Alt) and the "Cancel" button will change to "Reset." A handy little trick! When you're done adjusting the tonal range of your image, click "OK."

You can also make this adjustment by just using Image>Adjustments>Curves, but then you actually alter your image's pixels. By using an Adjustment Layer, you leave the original pixels untouched.

Next, I want to copy the accumulative image (the original pixels + the Adjustment Level combined) to a new layer on top of the other layers. As with many things in Photoshop, there are several ways to do this.

The way I use most often, because I love keyboard shortcuts, is to hold down the Shift-Option-Command (Windows: Shift-Alt-Control) keys, then press N, then E. This unlikely key combination copies the image of the combined layers, creates a new layer, then "stamps" the combined image onto the new layer. Pretty nifty, eh?

The second method is to press Command+a (Control+a) to select all, then press Shift-Command+c (Shift-Control+c) to copy the combined image, then press Command+v (Control+v) to paste it into a new layer. You have to use the Shift key in this combination, otherwise you will only copy the Curves Adjustment Layer, not the combined image.

The third method is hidden in the drop down menu under the little triangle at the top of the Layers Palette. Hold down the Option (Alt) key, then click the triangle and select Merge Visible from the drop-down menu. This will create a new layer with the merged contents of all the layers below it. Neat.

Whichever method you used, you now have a new layer in the Layers Palette that combines the original layer + the Curves Adjustment Layer. Note that we still haven't touched the original image pixels, which are happily sitting on the bottom layer.

I usually do some image sharpening at this point, because I find digital photos usually need a little. The problem is that most sharpening techniques sharpen everything, including any color noise in your image.

If, however, we can manage to just sharpen the edges of elements in our photo, the eye is tricked into thinking it is in sharper focus, without resulting in grainier photos. Again, there are many ways to do this, but I usually start with this one and see how things look.

If you analyze the image, you will usually find that the eye wants areas with more contrast, ie, greater differences in light and dark, to be sharper in order for the mind to "see" the image as a whole as sharper. This is sometimes difficult to visualize, but bear with me.

The quick and dirty method I use is pretty easy. First, load the image's luminance as a selection by pressing Option-Command+~ (Alt-Control+~). Note the resulting "marching ants" on your image. What we have done is to make a selection based on the luminance of the image. Luminance is only concerned with tonal value and ignores color information. Because we are basing our selection on luminance, areas that are more "contrasty" are selected with a harder edge (less feathering) than areas that have less contrast. To see this, just press the Q key to switch into Quick Mask mode and note that the selection itself has a nice range of values (more on Quick Mask mode in a future tutorial). Press Q again to return to our image.

Next, invert the selection by pressing Shift-Command+i (Shift-Control+i). To copy the newly selected pixels to a new layer, press Command+j (Control+j). If you isolate this new top layer, it will look strange (press the eye icon next to the layer while holding down the Option (Alt) key to show only that layer; repeat to turn on all layers) but hold on.

We're going to use one of the more arcane filters that Photoshop has to offer. Most people, when they are playing around with filters, might have dismissed the High Pass filter without realizing what it can do. Not us!

Go to Filter>Other>High Pass and play with the slider to increase or decrease the effect of the filter. If the Preview button is unchecked, check it to see the effect in real time.

Depending on the original resolution of your image and the sharpness of the original capture, you will need a higher or lower value for the radius. In general, the higher resolution the image (the more pixels), the higher the value, but again, use the preview. You can click and drag in the preview window to see other areas of your image, or change the magnification.

What I look for is emphasized edges. As you drag the slider to the right, you will see the edges bulking up, somewhat like a bad photocopy. Don't worry about the gray tone. When it's where you think it should be, click OK.

Now, change the Blend Mode of your top layer to Soft Light. Areas that were 50% gray do not affect the underlying image. Toggle on the layer's visibility by clicking the eye icon for the layer while holding down the Option (Alt) key to see the result, which can be subtle but noticeable.

By the way, you can change the Blend Mode of a layer by another method (of course). Double click to the right of the layer's name (in our case, Layer 2) and a dialog box will open with all sorts of options for that layer. The Blend Mode drop down is near the top of that dialog box.

At this point I sometimes add a second Curves or Levels Adjustment Level on top of everything if I think it's needed.

If you're happy with your result, save your image.

That's it for this one. I'm sure there are a thousand and one other ways to accomplish what I did here, and I will also post a quick tutorial for a second method for sharpening images that has worked well for me.

Here's my finished photo. It has a better tonal range and is crisper where it counts.

Happy mousing!

Cooking: Apple Cake

2009-01-03T20:18:00.000-08:00

What to do when you have a crisper drawer full of apples of an unknown provenance? The first thing that came to my mind was "Apple Cake."

I wanted a cake that was mostly apples held together by a matrix of cake, so I started consulting my various cookbooks. After striking out with many, I remembered Richard Sax's book Classic Home Desserts and, voilà, there were three recipes.

I chose the one named "Margaret's Apple Cake," although my friend of the same name would undoubtedly shudder at the use of white sugar and unbleached flour. I share life with someone who likes white sugar and flour, so I buy the best quality organic sugar and flour I can find and try to substitute healthier ingredients when I think I can get away with it. This didn't seem like one of those times.

The cake came out great, moist and flavorful, and was even better with some vanilla ice cream.

Cooking: Spicy Almonds

2009-01-03T18:52:00.000-08:00

Our friend Holly brought these terrific spicy almonds to our Christmas sojourn at Mt. Rainier this year, so I thought I'd try a batch myself.

The original recipe appeared in the December 2008 issue of Bon Appétit magazine. As usual with recipes, I tried a couple of things different. Here's my revised recipe:

Spicy Almonds

2 Tblsp peanut or canola oil

3/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1 lb skin-on almonds (about 3+ cups)

Heat the oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat.

Add crushed red pepper, black pepper, and cumin. Swirl the pan to distribute the spices. Maybe turn on your vent fan, if you have one, because the aroma is pretty intense.

Add the almonds and cook, stirring frequently, until they are aromatic and slightly darker, about 8 minutes. They will sizzle and crack and smell heavenly.

Turn the almonds out onto a rimmed baking sheet and sprinkle with coarse salt. I used kosher salt, but any good sea salt would be great. Kitchen rant: I detest the taste of table salt (you know, the iodized kind) and certainly never use it for a finishing salt. Rant over.

Let them cool, then store in an airtight container so they stay crisp.

These are delicious with your favorite beverage. I think I will try them with a small wedge of stilton cheese and some juicy Fuji apple slices for my lunch on Monday.

So looking forward to that!

Already Tinkering

2009-01-03T14:55:00.000-08:00

This baby is hardly an hour old and I've already replaced the header in the template with one of my own design. This will come as no surprise to those who know me…

You might well expect further tweaks to the template as I delve into the HTML, but I think I'll leave things be for the time being.

It's a Beautiful World, After All

2009-01-03T14:11:00.000-08:00

I have a problem, which is also somewhat of a blessing.

I am interested in many, many different things (except, notably, cleaning the house). It's always been that way and isn't likely to change now. The thing is, I find the world fascinating. I like to look at things, learn how things work, make things, talk about things, but above all I love the amazing beauty of this world. Hence Che Mondo Bello, which roughly translates as "What a beautiful world." Seems to sum it up nicely.

Anyway, I'll be posting about all sorts of things that interest me, including music, art, photography, cooking, gardening, and whatever else strikes my fancy.

By the way, this blog is inspired by my friend Margaret. The blame, however (if any), is entirely mine!