Working and Reading

Life has been busy these days. For the next month and a half, I am working 7 days a week. I have found out one of my so-called "stable jobs" is ending in April, 2012 and I am working my butt off to save money for the impending change. I have also been working on a contract too. Together, I have little choice and I am consigned to be a "slave to the man." Oh, and to add icing to the cake, I am on a board for an art gallery.

I also commute (god, could this blog entry get any more depressing) and I have been reading quite a bit.

I finished reading "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett. The book is quite popular at the moment because of the film and it was on the New York Times Bestsellers list. I often saw it in the bookstore but the cover never compelled me to pick it up. Birds on a wire. Blah. Had I known it was about black housemaids in the late fifties in the American South, not some dippy love story, I would have actually picked it up.

"The Help" is a wonderful book. Yes, it is light read. A pretty basic plot of black maids telling their housekeeping stories of the prejudice in their lives to a white author. The characters are terrific. The bad ones you hate, the good ones you applaud. It is a page turner with some funny parts too. What was my commuter book turned into my after dinner book, before bedtime book and lunch book. Highly recommend it.

Tomato Sauce: Part Two!

Of the baked tomato sauce that I created, I placed about half aside to make a roasted pepper sauce. Trick is, I don't have a bbq to roast my peppers. I have heard that you can roast them under a broiler or on the flame of your oven. I thought I would try this:

I placed a piece of foil on my coil burner and rested the pepper on top....

...slowly it began to cook and blister....

...and despite how sometimes the pepper would stick to the foil, the results we excellent!

I washed off the skin with water, chopped it into chunks, added it with my tomato sauce to my magic bullet and voila! a really, really awesome sauce. It is so yummy, if you made it in a large enough quantity you could serve it as an incredible soup. Yes, I licked the blades of the bender. No, you shouldn't do that.

Yum yum yum, roasted pepper sauce!!!

Tomato Time! Part One!

I have been fortunate to receive some tomatoes from my parents garden and have gathered some of these plump babies from the local farmers market. Here is a super easy recipe for tomato sauce which is great to freeze and enjoy in the cold winter months.

Quantities are not important here. You can make a large batch or small.

These are all the ingredients you need: tomatoes, garlic,
a good olive oil, basil and a little bit of salt and pepper.

First, peel your tomatoes by scoring their bottoms with a knife, making an x. Drop these into some boiling water for about 30 seconds, spoon out and the skins peel right off.

Next, cut the tomatoes into slices and lay in an oven proof glass pan. Julienne your basil, dice your garlic (however much you want, I used 3 large cloves) and cover the tomatoes with olive oil. Be generous with your oil, covering the bottom of the dish.

Cover your pan with foil, leaving two corners turned up so you let the moisture escape. Put into a 300 degree oven and let that sucker cook for a long time. About two hours, or more if you'd like. I would check it at hour two... the tomatoes may start to burn. Not all is lost at this point though. Those bits are super sweet and awesome in your pasta sauce.

Take your sauce and blender it (I use a magic bullet) or just leave be and you have your yummy sauce!

Frogging the Birds

Hmph. In a not-so-surprising turn of knitting, I was so close to the end of my sweater front (the pattern from the 50's that I have written about earlier in this blog).

Damn, the sweater was about 8 inches too long.

Gotta frog them birdies.

Next time I may add the beak colour of the birds...maybe...

On a related note, The Guardian has a mini-photo album of Kate Jenkin's work...she is quite famous overseas. Here are some pictures of her work....much more successful than mine!

They have a lot of canned hotdogs in the UK.
Heaven knows why.

The fishies are pretty.

Look at the detail in this one!!! She must have stitched
in the parliament after crocheting the bottle.

Makes me HaPpY!

This was sent to me by a friend. I LOVE the STUPID MUSIC....oh and the cake is pretty darn cool too.
From the site Cake Wrecks, which is a super blog that documents bad cake making.

If you don't have time to watch this video at work, then check out this little project using crayons:

One of the many things you can do with a heat gun.
Better than plastic-ing windows. See the project here.

Dye oh My!

Check out this dye job on How about Orange! I once took a class in cyanotype and this is basically the same dye: light sensitive, solid colour.

The product is called Inkodye. Hmm. Wonder if it is only available
in the States...can't imagine what duty would be on chemicals....

Reading....Walking the Dog by David Hughes

When I went to art school, I studied drawing. I still have a great soft spot for drawing.

I purchased this book in Brighton, England at a bookstore on the main road. It was a great store and I am sorry I can't remember the name because I would recommend it to you. As soon as I saw it, I recognized the great style of David Hughes and had to purchase it. "There is no damn way I can get this in Canada and it would be three times the price," I said to my friend.

(Later I would be overweight on my luggage for all the books I lugged back. Not including my cast iron penny bank either. Funny, I forgot you can order books online. Usually art books cost more, ignoring the fact I did pay in sterling. Christ I don't know why I bought it. Maybe cause I loved the drawings? It weighed a ton in my luggage.)

The story of "Walking the Dog" is very simple. Hughes is told to exercise, drink less, and eat less red meat. His family tells him to get a dog and they buy him one for his birthday, a wired hair fox terrier. He walks the dog, contemplates his mortality. Everyone he comes across says, "My _________ used to have a fox terrier but it died...." The poor dude is constantly reminded about death.

He begins to think of all the people he has known who have died. From his brother and father, to Marilyn Monroe and Elvis.

Can I mention the book is funny? Funny in a morbid way. And all his characters are so quintessentially British. Bad teeth, rosacea from drinking, tweed. And the poop bag! He captures the doggie poop walk perfectly. If you have a dog, you know this walk.

My Darling Dog Penny
(she hates this picture and this tiara)

I have a personal connection to this book. I started reading this book in Brighton and there is a moment where he visits Brighton in the book and draws the pier...

The Brighton Pier, roller-coasters and games galore.

And I missed my dog....

Dogs outside of my friend's flat...

And my Dad has been told to start exercising because of his own heart. Yes, this book speaks to me on so many levels. It's deep, man.

Check out the copyright page. This page alone is a reason to get this book. Oh and the portrait of his Mom when she is ironing.

If you want to read an actual review of this book, following this link. She says the book lacks a story however she also mentions she read the book drunk. As a book reviewer, should you mention you are reviewing a book in an alcohol haze? She says you can read this book in one sitting. I don't believe it. There is too much writing and detail. I have issues with the review as you can tell, but not with the book.