Home

I'm enjoying my summer of denial.
I'm spending a fair amount of time denying that I'll be back at work full time rather soon.
I'm spending time denying that my boy will be packing up for his first year of college far, far away in a couple of weeks.
I'm also spending time denying that my garage needs a good clean out.

This means we've had days of indoor reorg, cooking, movies and walks with dogs and now, finally, some art.

I'm taking this super fun online class at CreativeBug with the quite wonderful Pam Garrison. A class on Creative Sketchbooking with the first exercises intended to help you free up art ideas. So up my alley.

Here's my first non-dominant hand ink and paint process.

My girlie was sitting along and drawing along with me and she urged me to try a bird like Pam's. I love birds (see blog title) and kinda laugh at the outcome. Fun. Fun. Fun.

I see a bit of influence from the art journal peops I tend to follow. And a lot of me. Leaves and hearts seem to show up quite a bit. And blueberries.

You should try this course! I don't know how I missed out on the VALUE of Creative Bug. Monthly price ($4.95?) and seemingly unlimited opportunities to learn and play
Even the amazing Yao Cheng teaches watercolor. Really how did I miss this?

Go! Find something and create.

Turkey Stock - after 2 days - the real nectar of the gods

Our family Thanksgiving is full of traditions. There is always a whole fresh pumpkin pie stashed in the fridge for the day after Thanksgiving. Breakfast and leftovers wouldn't be the same without them. We also save a bag of rolls for cold turkey sandwiches. And, about 4 years ago we inaugurated Friendsgiving at out house. All traditions, entrenched.

The tradition I look forward to for it's amazing fragrance over the Thanksgiving weekend, is the making of Turkey Stock on the stove. I gather the bones and cart them home when my sister has Thanksgiving. This year we combined friends and family and had the dinner party at our house. So just after the guests left and my Dear was on the 3rd load of dishes, the turkey popped into my La Creuset Doufeu, with yellow onions and carrots and just enough water to cover it. I had also reserved the turkey roasting pan drippings and side by side they spent the next day reducing into the most wonderful stocks. Of course the small version from the pan was done the first night. This morning I let the big pot finish and drained the nectar to these jars. (There are 3 of them.)

I'm quite happy to have this brilliant base for soup -- which we can use almost anytime -- and for sauces. Someone was suggesting a Turkey pot pie, too. And since I made the (amazing) Torrisi's Turkey Breast recipe I found at Food 52, (thank you!) we may have just enough turkey left for a pie. Turkey soup sounds good, but we're facing 75 degree weather right now. When the temperature changes, I'll pull the stock out of the freezer, hopefully in December, and make a beautiful pot with fat noodles.

I had a wonderful experience with Ina Garten's make ahead gravy this year. I had a jar of chicken stock for the base. The recipe calls for chopped red onion, butter and flour and seasoning. I added drippings and a crisp white wine when the turkey finished and it was so good. Next year, I may make a turkey around the beginning of fall and save that stock for the big day.

Thanksgiving with all its traditions is an evolving tableau. This year we added a wild rice dish and my son's new favorite, Mrs. Board's chopped sweet potatoes. (He fell in love with them, so those sweet potatoes in jackets just had to move over on the plate and give space to their bright orange goodness.)

Thanksgiving is such a creative and inspiring holiday for me. How about you?

Birds and Flowers

It might be time to step up and share the messing around. While studying, working, being a wife, mom, and GSD owner, keeps me busy and happy, so does cooking, writing and painting. For the last two or three years, the writing has been largely kept to the morning pages; three a day every morning in a spiral bound notebook. The cooking has been a bit on the fly and largely undocumented. And, this flirting with art has moved its way into my life. At first it was a gentle call, then tug, a pull, a shove. I feel like God is intervening for the sake of creating.

So it goes. I'm paying attention and taking a couple of online courses. Exciting! I love this one. And am fully dedicated to this one. Signed up for this one, too. Each of them offers a different focus and each is available for a full year or two so I can work as I go and take the space I need in my studio.

Which to many people looks like a kitchen.

I'm open. To being pushed. Pushing. Advancing this long awaited cause. I've collected art supplies and played around with paints, art journaling, etc. forever. So a big dollop of focus and a slug of intent gets poured into the cup and voila. Art. Emerging. Joy, too.

I'll gladly share that Janice MacLeod Lik and her wondrous book, (which you need to read) PARIS LETTERS, provided some pretty big inspiration. Her book seemed to ignite something; combining the lingering influence of a post college Paris trip and all those revisiting references in literature and culinary studies. Once I put the book down, the colors and brushes came out.

Janice once shared that she's beholden to art supplies. Read the post, she might say she's crazy when it comes to art supplies. Her words were like permission. (Hilariously truthful permission.) So, off I went to snag the supplies needed for the block class. I learned all about Dick Blick (who, if we ever really meet, will be my favorite man in the world for a while. Diamonds? No thanks, I'll take art supplies.) and Jerry's Art-A-Rama and finally, the capitol of the world of art stores, Art Supply Warehouse, right here eight short miles from my home. They have everything. Everything. From the right block of beginner watercolor paper to the fanciest single block pans. Every Copic marker color and the paper it won't run through. Everything.
Janice would have a field day.

So now, all seems to be right in the world. I find myself a much happier girl and each day I want to wake up a little earlier to get something on paper before the world calls me into my next steps. I'm learning from words I've said to my lovey kiddos from their first days with color and paper: Art is an exploration.

I'm up for the exploring.

Inspiration: a clove

After making breakfast, (a new take on scrambled eggs, low and slow with a spot of water and pepper), I found this bit of deliciousness sitting in my windowsill.

I immediately began the rumination on what it might become. Pesto? Scampi? I have basil. I have shrimp.

And then I started thinking about how much eating and drinking versatility comes with a little bud like this.

Since I moved into this adventures-of-cooking-life, I'm not sure much time has ever passed without the effect of garlic and its aromatic flavor in my cooking or dining. Garlic is transitive. It steps into your pan and changes everything around it, including the very air. What strength, what power and then, what joy.

It made me consider the short list:
Chicken, roasted, pan seared, baked or barbecued
A salad dressing
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Any pasta sauce
Any reduction, in fact
Rubbed on the steak
Stuck into the roast - the lamb, the beef
With every wine
With every citrus
In French, Italian, and Mexican styles

All good. Not so with oatmeal though. But then again, neither is cilantro.
I'll be happy to see where it goes today.

And I'll let you know. What is your favorite taste with garlic?

Joy at Christmas:: a birthday

I'm so happy to have the cake 

and the plate

 and the kiddo who wants to decorate

 even when she's called out of bed

as we celebrate 

one we love so very dearly

before and through the Christmas holiday

 

We continue to celebrate the day you were born my Dear.

Giving thanks - November 28:: a patch of dirt and a few seeds

There is much to be thankful for in a patch of dirt.
Inspiration.
Promise.
And in this case, Sweet Pea seeds.

A Thanksgiving weekend tradition celebrated at dark:30 on a Wednesday after morning.

Grace Coddington - The September Issue

I'm still thinking about the revelation of Grace Coddington in The September Issue - Anna Wintour & the Making of VOGUE. Without going back to the movie, I've been thinking about how real and fabulous and artistic Grace Coddington truly is.

I found this wonderful point of view about her. Though I don't agree at all with the take on Wintour. It's just too easy to disagree with her methods, and miss her dedication and eye.

I'm so interested to learn more about her work, seeing more, noticing more. I found her coffee table book online for $1395. I doubt I'll be picking it up. So now, I'm just looking, looking to take in her work, her view of things, her art.

I'm so inspired by who she appears to be. She's definitely not a Devil Wears Prada clacker, but an aging, been through it and ready for more, down-to-earth professional who understands the facets of the fashion world and has a brilliantly artistic eye and interpretation.  What I love about Grace Coddington is that we see, in the documentary a very real, creative genius who sees the art in fashion and provides us a view to see it too.

February 12 - I Love:: the Man Who Posted This

I really love the man and this post.

I'd marry him.

But I already did that.

Glad for it.

That's all I have to say.

And now for your summer listening pleasure...

How inspiring and arresting is beautiful music?

I have long loved Jake Shimabukuro. I bought his CD in, well, Hawaii of course.
This might change your mind about music from a certain island instrument.
Which brings me to Hawaiian slack key guitar.
Ozzie Kotani or Jeff Peterson.
So gentle and beautiful.
And then there's such beauty in classical guitar.
The Romeros were my introduction. Here's Angel.
And how about Bittersweet by musical angel, Sara Lindsay.
I like this band a lot too.

So there. What's your favorite?

A Peach Spot

This is where we sit at John and Mary's. In the front yard amidst the iceberg roses and peaches. A perfect spot for morning coffee, an afternoon's magazine perusal or dinner with the many or few.

This morning, some of those peaches made it into an Ohio Peach Pie. The recipe is Nora Ephron's, from her book HEARTBURN. The book is full of the story of her life with that Watergate reporter and chocked with cooking tales and excellent recipes. (My youngest would like you to know that Ms. Ephron uses inappropriate words in the book and your young children shouldn't be reading the page right next to this recipe. Negligent Mother's Club, here I come.) I've only ever made a version of her vinaigrette. I embraced and enhanced it in my early cooking days and don't intend to let it go. Ever.

Oh, do see below.

Living your life.

First, a deep breath.
Then, a realization out of observation.
We really should be living our lives.

My friend Mary worked for years and years in her family's food supply business. She was the sales manager. The beautiful, interesting and highly competent daughter of the magnificent founder and owner.
As her neighbor, I spend a fair amount of time in and around her home. It's beautiful, too. The kitchen is cozy when we're chatting at the big old wooden kitchen table by the fire. You feel a sense of place and ever changing art-stuff throughout. Sitting areas are settings. Outdoors and in. It's peaceful. It's eclectically cluttered with big pieces of furniture and lights draped here and there, for the joy of effect.

Recently, the recession and credit crunch slowed the family business to a point where she and her siblings decided there was wisdom in closing. It was a horrendous time for all of them. They'd taken over and continued to grow this wonderful small business, honoring their dad and then the plug just seemed to be pulled.
Within a week or so, another friend of ours found himself in a bind. He owns a couple-story spec house at the beach and needed it completely furnished - beautifully. He hired Mary to do the work.

The final look, the touch, the setting in each room is magnificent.

She couldn't have done it if she were doing her old job.
She's supposed to be designing more.
And enjoying her home more.
Her garden more.
Somehow, this abrupt passage is allowing her to become more of who she is.
To live her life more fully.
And it makes me all the more interested, with my heart and ears open:

Am I living this life to the full?

All of this is the work of Mary Cecile Landis, for information about her Southern California based designs, contact me. She's busy on a project in Beverly Hills this week, though.

The Group Event & The Name is Mom

Ok then, it was a week ago that the Topanga, Westlake, West LA and LB moms and kids converged on the Broadway Deli. Traffic got to some of us and we ate in hilarious shifts. First Joan and L. Then my kiddos, Dad and me. In comes Jem with M and H and finally, Michelle and the boys arrived. We talked and walked and talked and walked along the Santa Monica Promenade until Joan made us stop for gelato.
I can't tell you how much I love these women. They are individual and familiar and beautiful and so magnificently magical. Joan with a bit of Ireland in her voice and lyrical laugh. Jemma with the outright guffaw,  and the zest to just keep going until we can't. And Michelle, who laughs with her (still short) men while she stares down life's dragons and offers them her happy flash of a smile.

I'll tell you more about these moms in a few days.

I'm inviting them and you to participate in a fun Blog Event for the month of May (or before, it's your pleasure) called:

The Name is Mom.

Share your stories of your walk in momhood. What do you love? What surprised you? Share the ups and the downs. Share a moment. Share many moments. Pose a question. Talk about your favorite mom. Your mom. Your grandma. Tell how a mom changed you or how being a mom changed you. We can likely fill a whole month with wonderful stories. Write once or write every day. It's up to you.

Mary has designed a beautiful button which I'll make available.
Email me if you're in and off we go!
We'd love to have you.
Happy Mom Musings to you.

Satisfaction Saturday ~ Seasons, Cycles, Renewal

This week has been filled to brim with lessons and underscoring of life's cycles, seasons and God's always-fulfilled promise of renewal.


This Redbud tree graces my backyard. Its called the Forest Pansy tree. We have two other Redbuds in the front yard, Western Redbuds. My friend, John Petach, a wonderful northern California artist, made a great argument for planting these about eight ago. They're slow growing and provide four seasons for we Californians who seem to have fewer. 

In spring the Redbud offers a showing of these profuse and beautiful, more-pink-than-red buds. The buds are followed by leaves. Green on the Western, deep red on the Forest Pansy. Both heartish shaped. These take us through summer when, the Western version adds magenta pods. Leaves and pods turn to brown in fall, and drop. Winter in both trees leave the leafless tree that speaks to the barren rest of winter, preparing, gestating to spring.

I love these trees and all the more as they progress through their cycle.


The pondering alongside, is the loss of a dear, dear, family matriarch, my Aunty Margie. The earthquake of my 7th year brought a baby sister, a departing father (and doggy) and new neighbors. The Foscos, Margie and Fred, moved in to the house next door and brought their three kids, Barbara, 16 and model beautiful, Nancy, 14 cute, darling, fun and the one I wanted to be just like when I grew up, and Freddy, 12, a lanky blond mystery called older boy.


Margie saw the effects of loss in our house and quickly enfolded Mom and we girls. We were granted side door access and spent our days running in and out of the Fosco house. We attended graduations, had the best baby-sitters in the world (Nancy did my hair and make-up, taught me how to eat bags of sunflower seeds and could read a Nancy Drew book in one night), ate bowls of Mostaccioli at every family gathering, watched TV, played cards and every Christmas Eve after going to church, went directly through the kitchen door to one of our best Christmas traditions, time with the Fosco family. We held conversations across our two facing kitchen windows and often just saw the beckoning arm -  come over. The family had big borders too. Auntie Margie's parents, her brother and sister and their families were all part of the celebration and Uncle Freddie's family would visit from Chicago. There was always a recognition that we were in the midst of comfort and joy. My sister and I received love and correction and laughed loads within this family. It was all our normal daily fare. Uncle Freddie would tease me about my love of those Bums - the Dodgers (it was his team too unless the Cubs were in town). My sister was teased about how she drove her VW into the driveway, stopping an inch before the front porch. On a dime. Margie allowed the escaping into her house in my teen years when being at home wasn't always my very first choice. We shared weddings and births and were connected in a simple, expected way, the way neighbors can be.


At 89, Auntie Margie passed on and we all gathered again to celebrate her going on to Glory. Freddie's son, Nick created a beautiful slide show of his "Gigi's" life. I absorbed every picture. I learned bits of the life before ours. I never knew she was born in Texas. What I knew and what I experienced all over again as we gathered and ate and talked is this: She was filled with a very happy love. She met the perfect man, Fred Fosco, and grew this family with joy and laughter, leaving all kinds of marks in all kinds of lives. 


The renewal here, is in the gathering. In the connected lives, who love each other because she, when her beloved and both of her siblings were gone, when loads of grandchildren and great-grandchildren were born, just kept enfolding every one as if they were maternally hers. 


In this loss, I see the cycle. There will be, I suppose, some dormant time, but I see the promise of this spring too. Barbara and Nancy are grandmas now. As I sat with and watched two of their beautiful daughters loving their babies, I saw Margie's love all over. 


There is so much satisfaction, and I am blessed, in the confidence of Love and Renewal. 
I love you Fosco family. Good bye Auntie Margie, may you rejoice in the arms of the others who love you too.

A gentle turning ~ Russelina ~ Day 5

This morning I note the gentle turning.
A hint of browning.
All the more lovely.

Several years ago, when my darling cousin, Wendy, was wildly in love with a German artist and Fulbright Scholar, we all had dinner in my little apartment near the beach. While I was busy preparing, Wolfgang was chatting me up on many important visual ideas. We immediately agreed on this: the spending of a flower is worth as much as the budding. He was commenting on some tulips that were turning and dropping on my kitchen counter. I thought they were wondrous and worthy. And so did Wolf.
This affection doesn't always work for me, when I'm the attentive gardener. When I'm the attentive gardener. Flowers spent need to go. As I understand it, they extract energy from the plant needed to form new buds-to-flowers-to-groundward-petals. I become conflicted. I want the new and I love the early turn.
So here we are and here we will be. Observing the turning of Russelina at the expense of that which will follow.

The last of the hardy, fragrant, Freesia.







Tomorrow? Shall we turn to the glorious creation called the Redbud Tree?

In Search of Spring ~ A rose by any other name

Tomorrow will be the first day of spring. This year because of Mary @ the Yellow Door Paperie, I've noticed it advancing. For these last two weeks my eyes and ears have been open to the sights and sounds of spring. The Western Redbuds budding out front, The Forest Pansy Redbud in profuse budding in the backyard, outdoor music on the campus, dogs outside barking a greeting and a generally lighter tone in the neighborhood. Thank you Mary! I'm completely satisfied with this awakened adventure toward spring.

The big gift is this lovely rose. I live in Southern California and love the garden. I've learned lots of garden lessons - especially, "if you're not killing plants your not really gardening." I don't suppose I completely understand this idea, but I take it to mean that as a gardener I want to stretch and try new things. I've killed plenty on my road so, I guess I'm gardening. 
In the last few years I've fallen in love with Annie's Annuals, a catalog, a webstore, a nursery in Northern California. Almost everything I've purchased from Annie's has come in a 4" pot and has done really well in my garden. And by this I mean, better than things I've purchased from most local nurseries (except my VERY favorite, Brita's Old Town Garden in Seal Beach, but that's a whole other story). Annie's collections are varied and wild, beautiful and unexpected. 
This rose is one of two (I admit, I've forgotten which one) I bought mid-summer. It's either Rosa Russelina or Grandmother's Hat. I believe it to be the former. We'll see as it grows. In either case, these babies bloom early. Russel's Cottage Rose was found growing on Alcatraz. It's cold on Alcatraz. So my coastal weather and clay (though amended) soil didn't hamper this charmer a bit. And Grandmother's Hat is a noted February bloomer. I'll update when I have a better idea and when she blooms.
But there you are. A rose in winter, blooming into spring, by a name known today only as rose.