Hot Tomato!

Get ready for a delicious and vibrant experience.  I love hot weather cooking and the bright colours of summer vegetables.  This is a Dukan adapted recipe for meat stuffed peppers.

First off, I made Marinara Sauce.  The recipe in my Italian cookbook, The Best of Italy, calls for ½ cup of olive oil! There’s really no need for such unctuousness.  BTW, this is easy to make and freezes well.  The flavour is pure and clean and it can be used on any number of pasta shapes or on pizza.

Salsa Marinara

• 1 onion diced
• 3-4 cloved garlic, minced
• A little olive oil
• 500g passata di pomodoro
• 150g tomato paste
• 4-6 fresh tomatoes, chopped (optional)
• Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Sweat the onion and garlic in a little bit of olive oil and some water.  Stir in the tomato products and season.

Simmer, covered, stirring occasionally for about 25 minutes.

Then, purée the mixture through the finest disc on a food mill.

Simmer for a further 15 minutes.  That’s it!

The stuffed peppers recipe is one of those eyeball recipes.  Allow one pepper per person and estimate the amount of ground meat you’ll need.  I use hamburger, but ground turkey, chicken or veal would work just as well.  These are great reheated after a couple of days, so I usually make several at a time.

Meat Stuffed Peppers

• Any number of bell peppers, halved, seeded and blanched for about 4 minutes
• 1-2  onions, diced
• 5-6 cloves garlic, minced
• Ground meat
• 1 egg
• 3-4 tablespoons of oat bran
• Dried herbs to taste, eg oregano, basil, herbes de provence
• Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
• Cherry tomatoes for garnish

Sweat the onions and garlic as before.  Mix these with all of the remaining ingredients and fill each blanched pepper half. Steve beautifully prepares the peppers, slicing through the middle of the stem.

Place in a lightly oiled baking dish.  Spoon marinara sauce liberally over the meat and garnish with a whole cherry tomato.  Bake at 350°F/170°C for about 45 minutes.

A Fashion Faux Pas in 3 Easy Steps

Some hardcore sartorialists still adhere to the (outmoded) maxim of ‘You can only wear white between Memorial Day and Labor Day’.

Where did this start anyhow?  According to Charlie Scheips, author of American Fashion, “All the magazines and tastemakers were centered in big cities, usually in northern climates that had seasons,” he notes. In the hot summer months, white clothing kept New York fashion editors cool. But facing, say, heavy fall rain, they might not have been inclined to risk sullying white ensembles with mud — and that sensibility was reflected in the glossy pages of Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue, which set the tone for the country.

Well, I say ‘Stuff that!’  I’ve recently purged my wardrobe of several 2 sizes too big, baggy pants (courtesy of the Dukan Diet).   I’ve really had to scrounge around for replacements.  I’m about a UK size 6 and lots of clothing shops stop at size 8.  But, I’ve persevered and found some great white Tommy Hilfiger Rome wide leg cotton/linen trousers at TK Maxx.  We had a heatwave end of last week, so I consulted my UK Fash-Guru, Kev Evans, on the matter of white trouser/footwear etiquette in Merrie Olde.  He advised, ‘Brits are only allowed a few days of sunshine per year, so make the most of it and wear whatever rocks your world’ and as an afterthought, ‘We must work in tones, not colours, sweetheart!’

Here’s how to do it (with the right accessories of course).

1) Dark sunglasses and a Badass Atttitude:

“3 days ’til Memorial Day?  Get a life, loser”

2) Don an insouciant hat:

“WTF? Isn’t Memorial Day in April??”

3) Distract ‘em with a bouquet:

Seriously, I love these pants.  Über-comfy and ultra stylish.  I usually don’t like back pocket flaps, but these work for me.  The belt is seriously long, but I quite like it tucked into one of the back loops.

I also teamed up some off-white pumps with Gas skinny jeans (got lucky again at TK Maxx) and a rose sleeveless knit Great Plains top I got for a fiver from Relevant, a vintage/used clothing shop in Exeter.  No website, I’m afraid, but you can find burlesque queen and clothier Lady Lace on Facebook.

“Bone is the new white”

Much to the chagrin of sartorial purists, skepticism of the Memorial to Labor Day law has seeped into mainstream America. From 1960s counterculture to the present day — when would-be fashionistas get as many ideas from blogs and friends as from magazines and Fashion Week — more people than ever are breaking the rule. Even the 2004 manners bible, Emily Post’s Etiquette, 17th Edition, gives the go-ahead for wearing white after Labor Day. Which may explain why some who abide by the custom themselves are now willing to compromise. Scheips, for one, “would never be caught dead wearing a white suit after Labor Day.” But neither does he completely write off those who do. “I’m sure the Queen of England at Christmastime puts on white ermine once in a while. So if it’s good enough for her, it’s good enough for everybody else, right?” he says. “You don’t have to be a fascist about it.”

Queen Elizabeth II by Cecil Beaton, 2 June 1953

Bragging Rights

I have a Facebook friend who updated her status with news that she was awarded a Quilter’s Guild commission to make a quilt for a forthcoming exhibition.  Another friend commented that she had entered the same competition and ‘failed’.  My friend responded that ‘You win some and lose some, don’t look on it as a failure’ and went on to say that she’s been lucky to have some good ‘acceptances’ lately, but doesn’t brag about her rejections.

I can relate to that.  It certainly feels different to share when my work has been ‘accepted’.  But, it feels important to share about the rejections also.  I know that when I look at other artist’s websites and blogs, I can start to feel ‘less than’ when I read a whole list of juried exhibitions and awards.  I can further feel that for those artists that it’s an easy road  to having their work recognised by their peers and that perhaps mine isn’t up to snuff.  That’s on a bad day though!

It’s one thing to be an artist-maker and put the time and expertise and creativity into making.  Another facet is to have one’s work exhibited.  Some shows are a shoo-in, where all you do is enter a piece; while other shows are juried, wherein the works are selected by a panel of artists.  My piece ‘Winter Trees Wept’ was selected into Sacred Threads in 2011, which was a huge honour.  I decided that each year I’d enter at least one juried show, just to stretch myself and put my work out there in a different way.

When I started to work on Suncast Shadows late last year, I heard about a juried textile art show in Germany with an entry deadline in February.  I chose that as my goal -  to have the quilt finished, photographed and entered by the end of that month.

Suncast Shadows, 2012, 38.5″ x 51″

I met my goal and put in a very good application with an A4 photograph, a digital image on CD and a small sample of my work.

I also had the opportunity to calibrate my printer to my laptop.   I don’t print many photos and was surprised to see how ‘out’ my calibration was.  So that was a good thing.

After and before calibration

Long story short, my piece wasn’t accepted.  I felt disappointed and told a couple of very supportive people at first (who could soothe my ruffled ego and point out that the selection panel must be sight-impaired)!  I had some initial feelings and thoughts along the line of ‘It wasn’t as good as the others (which obviously were chosen)’.  But then I thought about other places I can enter ‘Suncast Shadows’ and how much I enjoyed making so large a piece with new materials and techniques for me.

It brought back to me once again, that the whole point is whether or not I’m happy with my work.  It’s great when it’s accepted and it can feel like a bummer when it’s not, but at the end of the day it doesn’t change the work itself.  As one of my Muses, Diane Arbus, said to her photography students (and here I paraphrase):  “Don’t expect other people to love your work as much as you do”.

Double Wedding Anniversary Celebrations

When Steve and I got married two years ago we had two weddings.  This wasn’t necessarily our choice, but we started with a civil ceremony at the Registry Office in Exeter to sign on the dotted line and satisfy the authorities.

Signing the wedding registry

It was a nice ceremony.  We had some close family and friends in attendance and I surprised myself by crying while I was reciting my vows.  I somehow didn’t think it would be as moving as it was.

We celebrated our 2nd first wedding anniversary on Monday night with a Pure Protein meal of meat hors d’oeuvres followed with Hot Pink Turkey Pie a la Dukan.

Smoked salmon, roast beef and bresaola hors d’oeuvres

Then we watched Mousehunt and ate popcorn on our sofa.

Our second nuptial celebration was a Soul Wedding Ceremony conducted by a Humanist celebrant.  We had our ceremony followed by a fansastic meal and afternoon party at The Horse pub in Moretonhampstead.  They aren’t licensed, hence the civil ceremony the day before.

This ceremony included a handfasting and our celebrant Alison Orchard wrote our vows.  Beautiful words based on our love story and hopes for our marriage.

At the altar of our Soul Wedding

Tying the knot

Iintroducing the Schwakhofer-Coxon’s of Moretonhampstead

So last night, Steve and I went across the street to The Horse for our 2nd second wedding anniversary celebration meal.  And what a celebration it was, because Steve has reached his ‘target weight’ on the Dukan Diet.  We shared a bottle of Prosecco and feasted on a Char-grilled Beef Salad w/ Dolcelatte and Roasted Pears, followed by John Dory & Scallops sauced with cream.  A fabulous meal to celebrate our fabulous marriage.

On our way out to dinner

Wedding photography by Emma Solley

Splendid Summer Bunting

I am so enjoying getting up and NOT putting my painting clothes on!  We’ve finally finished, although I will be painting my studio pretty soon.

This weekend, I put the non-orange portion of the kitchen back together, after having finished painting it on Friday, and gave everything a jolly good scrub, eg, floor, top of fridge, toaster, in the process.

Today, I brought my sewing machine into the kitchen and spent the morning making bunting guided by a super-easy bunting tutorial from Josie at Homemade & Happy.

I used some of my hand-dyed (by me!) and batik (store-bought) turquoise fabrics to bring a splash of blue into the kitchen and to add to this Summer’s festivities.

We’re having houseguests this weekend and a bunch of our friends over on Sunday for an Innaugural Brunch to celebrate our newly decorated flat, the Queen’s Jubilee, our 2nd wedding anniversary and just about everything else.

Let the festivities begin!

It’s so lovely in here.  Sunny outside and warm enough to have the windows open.  I’m going to switch sewing machines and do some mending that’s been piling up, while enjoying the birdsong streaming in.

Vigil

vigil, n., a purposeful watch maintained, especially at night to observe or pray.

Steve and I went to visit our friend who has recently moved to a new home near the River Exe.  We went for a walk after dinner, down to the river. The air was moist and heavy and the trees were summerlush.

Looking towards Exeter

The river ran calm and wide, before flowing into turbulence over the weir.

Philippa told us that during the heavy rains a few weeks ago, the river burst it’s banks and several waterbird’s nests were swept away.

This swan was poised on the edge of the coming night, waiting and watching and holding the balance between the dark and the light.