The Joy of Making Baby Clothes

A hint to begin here.  The joy is not in the accomplishment of making fine garments.  It comes from wrapping a loved one in things made with your hands.  And from your heart.
I am not a seamstress.  As you can see from the quilt in the background, I like to work in two dimensions.  So while I have little talent and almost no experience with making items for a three dimensional baby, I undertook a project to sew for my brand new granddaughter.
So, what I lacked in couture I made up for in my desire to make things that came from love for our newest family member.  I have a friend who once said that she didn't want t o sleep in a bed made by a person who was not happy.  She wanted a joyful bed made by a person she liked.  At the time I thought that was slightly nuts, and maybe a bit privileged.  But I have come to realize that there are some very important things about that sentiment that I share.  I want to transform my love into something that is palpable, and making baby clothes is a surprising result of that desire.

The Brioche by Édouard Manet (1870)

Manet transformed the art world by audaciously staging subjects from European old master painting in contemporary terms, using bold brushwork and color. This masterful still life exemplifies the artist's achievements in the genre that he once reportedly called "the touchstone of the painter." Still lifes were central to his creative practice, both as an independent subject and as a key element in the scenes of modern life that earned him fame.
Some French families top a brioche with a flower on Easter morning as a symbol of resurrection, but the presence of plums, peaches, and grapes in this canvas suggests that Manet painted it after Easter, during the summer of 1870. The composition and the soft color harmonies of the blossom and fruit pay homage to Jean Siméon Chardin's painting The Brioche (1763), which the Louvre acquired the previous year. Manet made the motif his own with dramatic tonal contrasts and self-assured, palpable brushwork, particularly evident in his handling of the white fringed napkin and the rose petals, set off against a dark backdrop.

OJ: Made in America (2016)

Still finishing up my quest to watch all of the 2016 movies that were nominated for Oscars.  This is one that I have been working on for awhile, and when all is said and done, I think 13th should have won.
That said, this is a must watch documentary.  It is an examination of race, domestic abuse, celebrity, civil rights, the LAPD, the legal process and murder over the last fifty years, using the OJ Simpson story as a way to refract society. Its length may seem daunting, weighing in at almost 8 hours in length, but it is well worth the time. It’s that good.
The story follows the rise and fall of OJ.  It is outstanding in construct from beginning up to the end, which is perhaps the weakest link in the whole story.  After being acquitted, OJ Simpson lost his exalted status. He was shunned everywhere he went, essentially descended into a life of drugs and violence, which would result in his conviction for armed robbery. But he was always obsessed with his image.   Whether he was running for a record, leaping through an airport for Hertz, making sure Nicole knew that she was his property or getting angry enough to kill, it was always about OJ and only OJ. To understand OJ, we have to understand how much his life was influenced by what he showed us and how we responded to it as a society.  Remarkable story.

Recapturing the Past

My children once memorably told me that houses are just buildings and that it is the people who live in them that are important.  At the time I was struggling with what I had seen as a difficult decision, but once that was on the table, the choice was clear.  They were right, no question about it.  But I still have a deep seated love of this particular building, a three story Victorian built in 1871 on the East Side of Providence, Rhode Island.
I lived here when I was in college and for the beginning of medical school with twenty other people.  There is so much about what happened in this house that I have carried forward into the rest of my life.  The first is that I learned to laugh at some of the foibles in myself.  I really have a propensity to stick my foot in where it doesn't necessarily belong, but I got a lot better at not doing that in this house.  I learned that you should always strive to do more than what you see as your share.  We tend to be generous with ourselves and hard on others, and so doing more that what you think you need to makes you a better housemate.
I found life long love in this house.  My spouse and I have over three decades together that started right here.  I have the lyrics in my head:
I have often walked
Down the street before,
But the pavement always
Stayed beneath my feet before.
All at once am I
Several stories high,
Knowing I'm on the street where you live.
I learned to cook in this house, a skill that has served me well and that I continue to learn and perfect.  I quilted my first quilt in this house--I had made a tied one before, but I made one that I machine quilted with a 1939 White that I got at a thrift shop in Providence in this house.  I continue to quilt, sometimes more, sometimes less, but the crafting part of me bloomed while I lived in this house.
 I love the part of me that grew up in this house, and so it holds a very special place in my heart.

Pineapple Sage Maritini

Yet another cocktail from the Nopi cookbook.  My spouse thought it was too much troube, but my son and I thought it was balanced, complicated, and herbal.

• 1 bottle Tanqueray London dry gin
• 20 sage leaves
• 4 cardamom pods, roughly crushed by hand or in a mortar and pestle
• 1 large pineapple, unpeeled, leaves trimmed and discarded
• 3/4 ounce lemon juice
• 3/4 ounce clove syrup

1. Preheat the oven to  400F.
2. Wrap the pineapple in foil and roast in the oven for 3 hours. Remove and set aside to cool.
3. Peel the pineapple and cut it lengthwise into 4 wedges. Cut out and discard the core, then place the flesh in a blender. Blitz to form a purée and set aside.
4. Add the crushed cardamom pods and sage leaves to the bottle of gin and set aside for at least 3 hours, swirling the bottle from time to time.
5. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve, discard the cardamom and sage, and return the gin to the bottle.
6. Pour 3 1/2 ounces of infused gin into a shaker with 1 3/4 ounce of the pineapple purée, 3/4 ounce of lemon juice, and 2/3 ounce of the clove syrup.
7. Add ice, shake vigorously for 10 to 15 seconds, and strain into prechilled martini glasses.
8. Garnish each with a fresh sage leaf and serve at once.

Clove Syrup:
1 1/4 cups superfine sugar
4 whole cloves
Place the sugar in a medium saucepan with 1 cup of water. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to low. Add the cloves and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring from time to time. Lift out and discard the cloves, then set the syrup aside until completely cool.

Simcha: A Joyful Name

The concept of simcha in the Jewish tradition is one of joy and celebration.  It is very important.  Happiness makes us better people, better able to enjoy life and to serve God.  So while you might see that as quite an obligation to rest upon a baby as a name, in reality it is one of hopefulness.  The eye toward a future that is bright and beautiful and full of promise is something that I can get fully behind.  I have spent much of my time in preparation for becoming a grandmother making things for her, because I think that you can transmit some of the caring in your heart into things that you make with your hands, and that the act of making clothes for someone that you love is actually the act of wrapping them in your warmth. 
I love the concept of a God who prefers happy people.  That the world is a better place when we are contented.  That is not something that we as a country seem to be behind, and there are certainly people who have hate in their hearts for people based solely on their race or their religion.  So best to side with hope and work towards peace.  It is a godly pursuit.

Fare Thee Well

Several people made me Spotify lists when I was diagnosed with cancer a couple years ago and some of the songs contained there in hit just the right chord.  This is one such song, bringing back images of my youth, yet a song I learned later in life. 

If I had wings like Noah's dove
I'd fly up the river to the one I love
Fare thee well, my honey, fare thee well
If I met your man, who was long and tall
I'd hit his body like a cannon ball
Fare thee well, my honey, fare thee well
One of these days and it won't be long
Call my name and I'll be gone
Fare thee well, my honey, fare thee well
I remember one night, a drizzling rain
Round my heart I felt an achin' pain
Fare thee well, oh honey, fare thee well
When I wore my apron low
Couldn't keep you from my do'
Fare thee well, my honey, fare thee well
Now I wear my apron high
Scarcely ever see you passing by
Fare thee well, my honey, fare thee well
Now my apron's up to my chin
You pass my door and you won't come in
Fare thee well, oh honey, fare thee well
If I had listened to what my mama said
I'd be at home in my mama's bed
Fare thee well, oh honey, fare thee well

Corn, Peppers, and Carmelized Onions

I stumbled upon this combination, which is an old southern side dish, when I was at a very large gathering for the recent solar eclipse.
This is the way it came about.  I had a number of fresh onions in my refrigerator that were getting to the point where they absolutely had to be used, so while I was preparing other food for the big event I caramelized them, slowly cooking them down until they were sweet and brown and almost melted in your mouth.  I brought a shopping bag full of fresh peppers, a couple of them hot, or at least warm, and the rest all the colors of the rainbow because it is that time of year in Iowa.  Finally, we had corn on the cob one night, and took all of it off the ears and had quite a lot of it left.
These three ingredients, starting with sauteing the peppers in olive oil and butter until they were soft, then added some Roma tomatoes, and when they were completely broken down, added the left over corn and the caramelized onions and salt and pepper, and voila!  Delicious side dish, seasonally perfect, and highlighting the simple flavors of the vegetables.

Three Decades

Another thing that happened this week is that I crossed the 30 year mark in my marriage.
It is so hard for me to believe that I have been married for thirty years.  It isn't that I ever doubted that I wanted to live with the man I married, but rather that I grew up having absolutely no desire to get married.  My parents were just reminiscing that I had very little interest in playing with dolls.  My Barbie collection, which is quite vintage and includes a Barbie that has wigs, from before she had unchangeable hair.  I also had no desire to  incorporate Ken or anybody else into the equation.  I come from an intact family, and while I lost my brother at a very young age, this predates that trauma.  So it still surprises me deep inside that I am actually married, and I have been doing it more than half of my life. And this is the first anniversary that we are grandparents.  Something I am still adjusting to, but she is a beautiful baby, yet another thing I never thought I would see.

Tomato and Squash Gratin

Yet another way to enjoy the bounty of summer!

2 pounds tomatoes

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 large garlic cloves, minced

½ medium or 1 small onion

½ pound summer squash (1 good-size zucchini, for example), cut in 1/2-inch dice

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves, or 1 teaspoon crumbled dried thyme

1 cup cooked rice, farro or barley

3 eggs

2 ounces Gruyère cheese, grated (1/2 cup)

1 to 2 tablespoons slivered or chopped fresh basil leaves              

1. Peel and seed half the tomatoes, and chop fine. Slice the rest and set aside. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Oil a 2-quart gratin or baking dish.
2. Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a large, heavy nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring often, until it is translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, stir together for about 30 seconds, until it begins to smell fragrant, and stir in the squash. Cook, stirring often, until the squash is translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the chopped tomatoes and the thyme, season with salt and pepper, raise the heat slightly and cook, stirring often, until the tomatoes have cooked down and smell fragrant, 10 to 15 minutes. Stir in the rice or other grains and remove from the heat.
3. Beat the eggs in a large bowl. Stir in the cooked vegetables, salt and pepper to taste, and the cheese and combine well. Scrape into the gratin dish.
4. Slice the remaining tomatoes and cover the top of the gratin in one layer. Drizzle on the remaining tablespoon of olive oil. Bake 45 minutes, or until the top is browned and the gratin is sizzling. Remove from the heat and allow to sit for at least 10 minutes before serving. Sprinkle the basil over the top. Serve hot, warm or at room temperature. 

Total Eclipse, Baby

We all went to a place that we know and love that was also in the path of totality for the solar eclipse.  Those who had done so in the past waxed eloquently on how surreal the phenomena is.  The sky darkens from all directions, a 360 degree sunset.  Wild life is confused.  The temperature plummets for a few minutes and there is an eeriness that is indescribable.  And they were completely dead on right.  What I couldn't picture is how it is different from night, other than the timing, and that is what you had to be there to experience.  The other things, like the birds being completely frantic and confused, the cicadas revving up in the middle of the day, the coyotes howling, all of that was odd but not exactly life changing.  The strangeness of the light, how it disappeared and reappeared, that is what is hard to describe and ever so memorable.  Hope we can have a do over in 2024.

Stuart Davis Exhibit, SFMOMA, San Francisco

This was a very fun exhibit of a pioneer of pop art.  As you move through the show, you’re moving through time. And change, over time, becomes one of the exhibition’s main themes.

It starts with Davis the fresh-minted Modernist, painting meticulous, trompe-l’oeil versions of Cubist collages that have local materials — Lucky Strike tobacco packaging, comic strips — as content. In these tiny pictures from the early 1920s, he defines the lasting tension in his art between American-derived realism and European-derived abstraction, between populism and classicism.

There is a lot about his work that echoes Matisse before him, and he certainly started the trends that other modernists followed.
What Davis got right was belief: the belief that he was doing the one sure, positive thing he could do, and that he would keep doing it, no matter what, in failure or success, sickness or health. That’s the lesson young artists can take away from his show, along with an experience of painting that’s conceptually razor-sharp and completely worked through, with all fat trimmed off, all air squeezed out: an art of truly honest weight.

Rum Sidecar

I do not usually do much for Father's Day but this year I gave my spouse, who is really a top notch Dad, a set of really nice cocktail glasses, and between that, and a nice exposure to an interesting range of cocktails on our summer vacations this year, has led to an explosion of new and interesting cocktails, some of them complicated and some of them very simple, like this one.  Which is delicious.

• 1 1/2 ounces golden rum
• 3/4 ounce Cointreau or other triple sec
• 3/4 ounce fresh-squeezed lemon juice

In a cocktail shaker combine the ingredients with cracked ice and shake vigorously, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass with its rim rubbed with lemon lemon juice then dipped into sugar.

Walking in the Mission

On a recent trip to San Francisco we stayed at this wonderful bead and breakfast in the Mission.  Breakfast is not a great meal to have included for us, so we skipped that part two out of three days, but the location was terrific.  There are so many beautiful pre-1906 Earthquake houses that still stand, in various states of repair, throughout the neighborhood.
There are several reasons to stay a bit more off the beaten track if you don't need to get to the Convention Center every day.  The first for me is that there are great restaurants in the neighborhood.  I don't mind walking during the day to get where I want to be,but I prefer to eat nearby.  There are a couple of BART stops, so it is as easy to get around as from other locations from that point of view. The Mission is also just funkier.  If you prefer corporate, this is not the place for you.  But if you like a dive burrito place and an independent art gallery on your block, the Mission is perfect.  It is also relatively flat (for San Francisco), so you don't have to strategize your hills when on foot.  It is also just plain fun in a great city full of fun neighborhoods.