Chennai, India--The Home of Madras Fabric

Chennai is the capital of Tamil Nadu state, located on the Coromandel Coast of the beautiful Bay of Bengal, is known as the “Gateway to South India.” Yes, India is a country where vibrant colors abound, but Chennai, formerly known as Madras, is the origin of Madras fabric. The quilter in me needs to point this out. In the 17th century, British traders of the East India Company established a presence in Madras, where they encountered the local handwoven cotton textiles. Enthralled by the fabric's lightweight and breathable qualities, they began exporting it to Europe. Traditionally, Madras fabric was meticulously handwoven by skilled artisans in India. The cotton yarns were dyed using natural vegetable dyes, resulting in a vibrant range of colours. Weavers employed intricate techniques to create the distinctive plaid patterns, characterised by their irregular and lively designs.

During the 19th century, the popularity of Madras fabric soared, primarily due to its association with the Scottish influence on Indian textile production. Scottish soldiers stationed in India, particularly in the Madras region, developed an affinity for the lightweight fabric, which suited the tropical climate. The demand for Madras fabric skyrocketed, leading to the creation of plaid patterns specifically tailored to the Scottish market. As the British Empire expanded, Madras fabric made its way into international markets, gaining increasing recognition in Europe and the Americas. It was embraced as a vibrant and distinctive textile, capturing the fascination with Indian craftsmanship and cultural influences of the era.

A Walk In The Park by Kevin Fedarko

This is the tale of the author's self described obsessive attempts (and failures) to hike on foot in the Grand Canyon. He is seeking more than just adventure in this goal--he is seeking all sorts of things within himself when he embarks on this quest, and his chosen companion, photographer and long time friend Peter McBride, is not a good counter balance for him either. There are a lot of interesting tidbits of information to be gained while reading this altogether painful account of hiking the canyon--warning, do not read this if you are hoping for inspiration for your own hiking trip, you are unlikely to be tempted when all is said and done. There is a litany of information about the geology and stratigraphy of the Grand Canyon, From the billon year gap in the Great Unconformity layer, to the oldest exposed rocks in the world, his unrivaled explanation of their stargazing of the Celestial Vault, solidifying their three-dimensional insignificance, is a powerful portion of the narrative. So is the apparent movement of the stylized human figures painted on the rocks nearly 4000 years ago, where the canyon is alive and speaking to them. In between is the sad story of the local Havasupai tribe’s struggle for a voice in the fate of the canyon and the rampant Eco-tourism depicted by air traffic in Helicopter Alley. All told, this is well worth reading and thinking about, but for me it is also quite flawed in concept and execution in the trip itself.

Nancy Silverton's Best Peanut Butter Cookies

For the Toasted Peanuts 375 grams (3 cups) skin-on Spanish peanuts 3 tablespoons grapeseed oil (or other neutral-flavored oil, such as safflower) 1½ tablespoons Diamond Crystal kosher salt For the Dough 2 extra-large eggs 2 tablespoons pure vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract 140 grams (1 cup) unbleached all-purpose flour 130 grams (1 cup) sorghum flour 170 grams (1½ sticks) cold unsalted butter, cubed 270 grams (1 cup) creamy peanut butter 180 grams (about ¾ cup plus 2½ tablespoons) granulated sugar 110 grams (½ cup plus 2 teaspoons packed) dark brown sugar 1½ teaspoons baking soda 1 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt ½ teaspoon baking powder For Finishing 100 grams (½ cup) granulated sugar 270 grams (1 cup) peanut butter (preferably creamy) 2 tablespoons flaky sea salt method To toast the peanuts, adjust an oven rack to the center position and preheat the oven to 350°F. Put the peanuts on a large baking sheet, drizzle them with the oil, sprinkle with the salt, and toss to coat them. Spread the peanuts out in an even layer and toast them on the center rack of the oven until they are dark mahogany in color, 18 to 20 minutes, shaking the pan occasionally and rotating the pan front to back halfway through the toasting time so the peanuts brown evenly. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and set aside to cool the nuts to room temperature. (If you think they are on the verge of being overtoasted, transfer them to a plate so they don’t continue to cook from the residual heat of the pan.) Turn off the oven. To make the dough, whisk the eggs and vanilla together in a small bowl. Combine the all-purpose and sorghum flours in a medium bowl and stir with a whisk to combine. Put the butter in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle and beat at medium speed until the butter is softened but still cold, 3 to 4 minutes, stopping to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl and paddle with a rubber spatula whenever butter is accumulating. Add the peanut butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar and beat on medium speed until the mixture is light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes, stopping to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Add the baking soda, salt, and baking powder and beat on medium speed for about 15 seconds to incorporate the additions. Stop the mixer and scrape down the bowl and paddle. With the mixer on medium speed, gradually add the egg/vanilla mixture, mixing until the egg is completely incorporated. Stop the mixer and scrape down the bowl. Add the combined flours and mix on low speed for about 30 seconds until no flour is visible. Stop the mixer, remove the paddle and bowl, and clean them with the spatula, scraping from the bottom up to release any ingredients from the bottom of the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate until the dough is chilled and firm, at least 30 minutes. Adjust the oven racks so one is in the top third and the other is in the bottom third of the oven and preheat the oven to 375°F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. To finish the cookies, pour the granulated sugar into a small bowl. Remove the dough from the refrigerator. Remove the plastic wrap and reserve it. Scoop the dough into 21-gram (1½-tablespoon) portions and roll each portion into a ball. Roll the balls in the sugar to coat them and place 12 cookies on each of the prepared baking sheets, leaving at least 1½ inches between them. (Re-cover the remaining dough and return it to the refrigerator.) Press your thumb in the center of each ball of dough and turn your thumb to expand the divot slightly and make it round. Spoon 1 teaspoon of peanut butter into each divot and sprinkle a generous pinch of flaky sea salt on top. Place one baking sheet on each oven rack and bake the cookies for 4 minutes. Remove the baking sheets from the oven and pile a mound of peanuts (about 20) in the center of each cookie. Return the baking sheets to the oven, switching racks and rotating the sheets front to back, and bake the cookies until they are golden brown, have puffed up, and are just beginning to collapse, 4 to 5 minutes. (You want the cookies to be slightly underdone, so they will feel soft to the touch. They will firm up when they cool.) Remove the cookies from the oven. If any of the cookies have become misshapen during baking, gently cup your hands around the edges to reshape them. If the cookies spread so much that there are gaps between the peanuts, add a few of the remaining peanuts to each cookie so you have a pretty, abundant nut cluster on each cookie. Allow the cookies to cool completely before removing them from the baking sheet. Bake the remaining cookies in the same way.

Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors

I very much enjoyed this book, which is not overly long and not overly complicated, yet is able to deliver on some well loved themes for me. The four sisters Blue grow up in a tiny New York City apartment--the six of them sharing two bedrooms. So there is all the potential sibling rivalry at hand but it is subverted by an alcoholic abusive father and a mother who protects him over her children. So they are prone to wanting and needing to escape and they are more bonded to each other than might have otherwise happened. The story revolves around the accidental overdose death of the third sister from fentanyl and the grief that engulfs them in the aftermath. There is addiction in all sorts of manifestations, there is difficultly with intimacy, and there is generational grief, which is kind of a trifecta for a mental health professional, with general appeal for all.

Bianca Springer--Thanks I Made Them!

I skipped lectures at QuiltCon for a number of reasons—I wanted time with the quilts in the exhibit was the main one—between classes and the exhibit, I have no additional time. Then the auditorium set up is not my favorite for lectures—too big, too distracting and not enough bang for my buck. Finally, the on site experience is a sensory overload, whereas at home I can watch in an ideal environment. The only downside is that there is a limited time within which to watch the lectures, and this one was the last one I had a chance to watch. Bianca has a passion for garment making that is impressive. She is an inveterate upcycler who haunts thrift shops for vintage patterns as well as fabric, quilt tops, and quilts. She talked a bit about how she approaches making a quilt made by someone else into a garment. She tries to honor the spirit of the design the maker had in mind—which she is amazing at—and then points out that if she is buying it, no one who knew the maker is making space in their life for that quilt, so she is giving it a new life it wouldn’t otherwise have. She went on to walk the viewer through how to pick a pattern, how to make the garment, and the various ways you could make and embellish pieced clothing. It was very inspiring and I would seek out a talk by her in the future.

Tenth of December by George Saunders

This was on the New York Times list of 100 Best Books of the Twenty-First Century (so far, 25 years in), and there are two other of his books, one that I petered out on reading years ago and will get back to and one other. This is a collection of short stories, which are not my favorite, but I will say these are well written and enjoyable just not my particular cup of tea. The 10 stories in Tenth of December (the name of the last story and not anything else to do with these) are all about people. No matter the setting – a futuristic prison lab, a middle-class home where human lawn ornaments are a great status symbol –the stories are consistently about humanity and the meaning we find in small moments, in objects or gestures. He paints painful portraits of domesticity, of families, of death. The can be described as sadly happy, each story full of little truths that make us both amused and very uneasy. The author has a keen eye for detail and a way of portraying human foibles in hte kindest of lights.

Roasted Pork with Peach Sauce

This is a hands off meal, but requires long cooking--we were going our for the afternoon and popped it in hte oven before we left and it ws ready when we got home--we used some peaches we froze last summer for the sauce which worked beautifully. 6 to 8 pound bone-in pork butt 1/3 cup kosher salt 1/3 cup light brown sugar 1 teaspoon ground black pepper Peach Sauce: 10-oz frozen peaches (or use 2 fresh peaches) 2 cups dry white wine 1/2 cup sugar 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon rice vinegar 2 sprigs thyme 1 tablespoon whole-grain mustard The night before your meal, use a sharp knife to cut slits into the fat cap; 1″ apart forming a cross-hatch pattern, but take care not to cut into the meat. Combine 1/3-cup kosher salt and 1/3-cup brown sugar in small bowl, then rub over the entire roast (including the slits). Wrap roast tightly using two layers of plastic wrap, place of a rimmed baking sheet, and refrigerate until ready to cook the roast (but no more than 24 hours). The next day, unwrap and brush off any excess salt mixture using paper towels. Season roast with 1 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper. Spray your V-rack coated with non-stick cooking spray. Add 1 quart of water to your roasting pan. Place the roast on V-rack with the fat cap facing up and set aside while the oven pre-heats. Set an oven rack to the lowest position and pre-heat your oven to 325-degrees. Bake for 5 to 6 hours, depending on the size of the roast. Basting every two hours, adding more water after each basting to prevent the fond from burning. But don’t add so much water as to dilute the liquid. The roast will be finished when an instant-read thermometer inserted near the bone (but not touching) reaches 190-degrees. Place the roast on a carving board and loosely tented with aluminum foil for one hour. While the meat rests make the sauce. Pour the jus from roasting pan into a fat separator. After allowing the fat to separate for 5 minutes, pour 1/4-cup into a small saucepan. You can discard the remaining jus. Cut the peaches into 1″ chunks. Add your peach chunks, 2-cups white wine, 1/2-cup sugar, 1/4-cup rice vinegar, and 2 sprigs of thyme to the small saucepan with the 1/4-cup jus. Bring sauce to a simmer and cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. When the sauce has reduce to 2 cups remove from heat. Find and discard the thyme sprigs, then add the final tablespoon of rice vinegar and tablespoon of whole-grain mustard. Mix together and cover to keep warm. Cut around the bone (shaped like an up-side-down “T”) with a paring knife, then use a clean kitchen towel to pull it from the roast. Slice the roast using a serrated knife, and serve, passing the peach sauce separately.

The Anthropologists by Ayşegül Sava

This is a quiet novel. It is a meditation on modern life and modern love, with some juxtaposition between the older generation and the younger one, between those who immigrate and those who stay put, and finally between those on the brink of living fully adult lives, and those who are on the brink of it, maybe for some time to come. Asya and Manu have been living together in a foreign, unnamed city in a foreign, unnamed country for several years. Estrangement – from the city, from society, from the self – lies at the center of this story. Asya and Manu are not like their parents, who live in faraway countries and send dispatches, good and bad. They have a small social circle, but more often than not, it’s just Asya, Manu and their close friend Ravi who spend the days of their lives together – drinking, talking, dreaming, and revealing themselves in these still moments that they spend together.

Rachel Clark's Quilt Coats

I am taking a class with this artist in June and I wanted to watch her QuiltCon lecture to get a sense of both her work and what I am in for when I spend two days with her. She brought over twenty coats that were modeled by four different volunteers, and it was feast for the eyes. She grew up with garment makers in her family, but Rachel’s life as a quilter didn’t fully blossom until she got married to her husband, Gary, and moved from New Orleans, Louisiana to Watsonville, California in the early 1970s. After this long-distance move, she found herself without community for the first time.

Clark discovered that even though she wasn’t very good at approaching people and striking up conversations, she was very good at designing clothing that could serve as an excellent conversation piece. People will approach you to talk about what you wear—she did say in her talk that you should not wear it if you need to run through an airport—people who want to ask you about your jacket will just slow you down and you could miss your plane. Clark loved both dressmaking and quilting, and didn't feel the need to choose between the two. She explored the possibility of combining them to make unique clothes with quilting techniques. People were interested in her clothes, and in turn, interested in her. She used clothing to “invite people in.” Well, I share some of these traits with her—not the creative one or the garment maker one—the shy with people I don’t know one—and I hope this pieced garment phase I am about to enter will be a good one for me.

The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

It is hard for me as a mental health professional to be truly dispassionate about a popular literature book that summarizes information about mental health literature, but this has some really good points that I can get behind. The bottom line is that growing up is still complicated and increased access to technology and the increased obsession with social media doesn't do kids any favors, but--like smoking--tech companies have no incentive to shield kids and every motivation to hook them early, so it is up to us to suspend access for as long as possible. Recommendation summarized: Delay phone access: Put off smartphones until high school and social media until age 16 Make schools phone-free: Ban smartphones in schools Increase independence: Give kids more opportunities for free play, responsibility, and real-world experiences Replace screen time: Replace screen time with real-world experiences with friends and independent activities How to implement Model good habits: Parents can model the screen time habits they want their children to have Encourage independence: Encourage kids to take on tasks they've never done before, like going to the store by themselves Support kids: Be supportive and loving when kids take on new challenges Change laws: Change state laws to make it clear that giving kids independence isn't evidence of neglect Change norms: Change group-level norms by encouraging teachers to assign homework that encourages kids to try new things