We’ve got three solid months of sun and long days coming. My energy level is high and it’s a great time to cross some things off my to-do list. Oh, and enjoy the season. Here are my summer goals:
1. Be able to run 5K by Labor Day. I have essentially no endurance right now, so it’s going to take some work.
2. Relax by the lake. Instead of treating it like a big occasion, I want to take more quick trips to the lake this summer.
3. Become an ice cream master. I’ve already made mint julep sorbet, which was just okay. Tonight I’m going to make this lemon basil ice cream. I’m also excited to make coffee and mint chocolate chip flavors.
4. Have a garden party. Bocce ball, badminton, cocktails, and tiny peach pies. Who can resist?
5. Take more weekend trips. Camping, day hikes, insane adult playgrounds, and delicious restaurants are all within a day’s drive of Bloomington, and I want to experience all of it.
Last week on craft night, a friend and I made some adorable clay pots, using a tutorial from the lovely blog Say Yes to Hoboken. The tutorial is quite good, and I think they turned out rather well, considering it was my first time working with clay since the days when I would bring home lumpy pastel candleholders and expect my mom to display them proudly alongside her heirloom china.
This house seems to have sustained a bit of wind damage. I think it’s destined to be a pencil holder.
I made a pinch pot using the leftover clay, which makes a good home for my air plant.
They were super fun and quick to make, and would make a great mother’s day gift. And bonus, I’ve got some leftover clay, but I’m not sure what to do with it. Any ideas?
As I’ve mentioned, I’m working on a quilt sampler. For the quilt, I chose sunny, bright colors and paired them with graphic prints and florals. I’m about halfway through, and I can’t wait to spread this baby out in the backyard.
Called by its promoters the “greatest two minutes in sports,” the Kentucky Derby sometimes elicits strong indifference, and occasional revulsion, from people who are not from Louisville. Hunter S. Thompson’s famous article, “The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent And Depraved” nicely encapsulates the sometimes jarring experience of the opulence, drinking, and occasional tragedies of the derby:
“He had, after all, come here once again to make a nineteenth-century ass of himself in the midst of some jaded, atavistic freakout with nothing to recommend it except a very saleable “tradition.’”
Yes, there is a two-week festival complete with a parade, fireworks show, marathon, a silly bed race, and a steamboat race everyone thinks is fixed. All of this to celebrate a 2-minute horse race, a sport most people do not ever feel the need to watch. But who cares? People have found more ridiculous reasons to celebrate, and sometimes do so for no reason at all.
The Kentucky Derby, for all its faults, was part of my life while growing up. I remember having derby parties with my family and friends, rooting for horses we picked out of a hat by random. In school we’d make paper mache hats and decorate them with tissue paper flowers, and then the Friday before Derby we’d all have the day off to run around in the sun and pretend we were jockeys.
Of course, adults have their own fun on Derby day, the first Saturday of every May since 1875. Mint juleps, chocolate-pecan pie, open-faced hot browns, and more mint juleps.
When my grandmother passed away, I found in her basement boxes of derby glasses carefully wrapped in tissue paper. At Churchill Downs, where the derby is held, they sell mint juleps in these glasses, which have every winner’s name on it and a new design every year. Some become collector’s items, and every household in Louisville has at least a dozen, collecting dust or getting used as everyday glassware, depending on the family’s sentimentality.
To take part in a derby celebration of your own, I recommend putting on a floral dress, turning the radio to an AM sports station, and listening to the race while sitting on your back porch sipping a mint julep.
Mint Julep
Muddle several mint leaves with sugar in the bottom of a highball glass
Fill the glass with crushed ice, so it’s almost packed
Add 3 ounces of Kentucky bourbon
Stir, enjoy.
(Other Mint Julep recipes call for simple syrup, which you might not need depending on your tastes and the quality of your bourbon.)
I’m going to my local greenhouse today and buying some basil, mint and maybe even some dill, which I will pot and proudly display on my porch. Every spring, I promise myself that I’ll be an attentive gardener, watering the plants when needed and giving them exactly the right amount of sunlight. And every year, I watch as the basil dries and the mint grows sparse. I’ll realize I haven’t watered in days, but that realization quickly gets crowded out by other distractions. In other words, gardening has never been a priority.
But this, as every other year, will be different! Perhaps if I’m more dedicated, I’ll coax them into living a little bit longer than last year.
Or maybe I should find a garden app that will ask me to post pictures of my growing plants, shaming me into patiently caring for them by broadcasting my failures. It will be like those running and weight loss apps that are meant to transmit your progress, or laziness, to your friends online. These days it does seem like a combination of patience and public humiliation might be the way to personal growth. And maybe even plant growth.
Make
It’s not as though patience completely escapes me. I’m an occasional quilter, accustomed to slow craft and measuring progress in small successes: straight seams, perfectly aligned points of a star, a harmonious matching of colors. I’m halfway done with the Summer Sampler from Fresh Lemons and friends, and so far I’m thrilled with the outcome.
I haven’t quite decided yet how precious I want this quilt to be. Should I let it outdoors, to enjoy picnics and sunbathing, or should I keep it safely inside, where it will stay clean, but will be used less often? I’m keen on the latter, and I hope my connection to the end product won’t make me second guess myself. This is the troubling result of the slow craft, isn’t it? The desire to preserve the time you lavished on the object, a desire that can turn it from something useful into, well, art.
Say
I’ve been on the hunt for a good novel for several months, and I’m happy to report I found what I was looking for in The Tiger’s Wife, by Tea Obreht, recommended to me by a friend. I’m about halfway through it, and so far I love the way the novel revels in family history and the sense of magic and self-discovery that comes with uncovering the childhood of your grandparents. My friend and I have a lot in common, but one of our stronger ties is the mutual desire to know and be known by our families; to move toward the past in the hopes that it will help us understand the complicated futures we have in front of us. I love that this book brings this desire into the light and examines it, although I have no idea where this impulse will lead the main character.
Drink
When I moved back to Indiana from New York, I had an unexplored but persistent interest in the homesteading life: kitchen gardens, dyeing fabric with natural vegetable dyes, spinning my own yarn, etc. Although I thought I had dispelled myself of that notion, this post has made me reconsider whether I’ve actually moved on, given that I’ve been talking about quilting, gardening, and the joy of slow crafts.
To pile it on even further, I’ve been thinking about making my own beer. I was thinking about getting a kit from the Brooklyn Brew Shop, but now I’m reconsidering, given that it yields about a six-pack of beer and requires a $50 investment up front, and $15 after that. Maybe I should find a partner I can make a huge five-gallon batch with. Any takers?
When I was growing up, marching bands were not cool. They were the refuge of the awkward but extroverted, and spawned many lonely teen movie characters (or caricatures, you could say). I never thought much of this unfortunate characterization. Until I moved to New Orleans.
In New Orleans, marching bands are beyond cool. They are the stars of every Mardi Gras parade. They are disciplined. The drum majors can seriously dance. If you’re young and you want to grow up to a musician, you join the marching band. These kids are seriously talented.
A year ago a friend sent me the trailer for a documentary on New Orleans marching bands called “The Whole Gritty City.” I revisited it this week because I needed a little pick-me-up. Watching these kids give their all, and then get much-deserved recognition for it during carnival season, is pretty uplifting. Apparently the documentary is still in production. I can’t wait to see it.
It’s hard to capture the magic of a marching band in a Mardi Gras parade, but I managed to find a video that gives you a taste. The action starts around :28.
Corgis are really having a moment. The internet abounds with corgis in suits, corgis on treadmills, and corgis belly-flopping into lakes. One of the editors at Buzzfeed seems to have a real corgi obsession; search their site and you can find a Corgi Gif roundup and 108 Reasons Why Corgis Really Are That Great (the list includes their adorable ears, which are sometimes so big its takes them a while to develop the muscle control to keep them up, resulting in one floppy ear).
As I mentioned in a previous post, I grew up with the hilariously-proportioned dogs, and I still find their giant ears and tiny legs incredibly charming. But when I was a kid, I’d tell people I had corgis and get a confused response; very few people were familiar with them.
As much as I like opening my browser to adorable corgi photos and gifs, I’m a little worried. When a certain dog gets popular, the market becomes glutted with the breed, with more and more puppies being bred by what one website calls “unscrupulous commercial breeders.” Let’s call it the 101 Dalmatians Effect. Back when that movie came out, lots of families bought dalmatians, which are a rather finicky breed that can be aggressive (or overly protective) if not properly trained. The result? Lots of dalmatians in shelters.
So if you feel the need to have a corgi in your life, please consider where the dog is coming from. Or, enjoy them on the internet! And seriously, what that belly flop video. So funny.
Last week my friend had a birthday party, and after we had eaten all the chips and dip we could handle, and had a few French Martinis, she asked the attendees if we’d play charades.
Not keen to disappoint the birthday girl, we split into teams, which just so happened to be split by gender. That made it fun, but hard—what the hell is the AMC Pacer, anyway?
I had a ton of fun playing charades, even though I was initially a little timid about the idea (the martinis helped me get over that). To be good at those types of games, you really have to let loose and lose your inhibitions, which is always a challenge for me. I did manage to successfully pantomime “Where’s the Beef,” but a few drinks later the word “corkboard” did me in.
It was a really silly evening, and at one point someone at the party said “we’re officially adults now,” because we were having so much good clean fun.
There are lots of fun parlor games that get sillier and more difficult as the night wears on. Another one I like is the bar-friendly game where you receive a card with a person’s name on it, and without looking at it stick it to your forehead. You go around the group and ask questions to guess your character, such as “am I a woman?” “Was I an athlete?” etc. I think it’s called “Who Am I?”
I also once played a game that is like charades, but requires you to go through as many clues as possible in the allotted time. There are three rounds, all using the same set of clues: the first round, you can speak aloud, and can say everything but the word itself. Round two, you have to pantomime the clue, as in charades. Round three, you’re all familiar with the clues, so you can only say a single word (followed by lots of emphatic but nonspecific gestures urging your team to just THINK!).
I am happy to announce that Michael has perfected the breakfast potato. Seriously, they are perfectly crispy nuggets of salty potato goodness.
Every Sunday, Michael puts together an amazing brunch for the two of us. It’s not terribly fancy, but it is incredibly delicious and also great for soaking up the previous night’s excesses.
To start, we make southern style greens, which are sauteed in oil and onions for a good long while. Our friend from Texas taught Michael how to make them, and funnily enough, the greens are the greasiest part of the whole breakfast.
We used to just fry up some Gimme Lean sausage, which was fine, but lately we’ve been making Tempeh Sausage crumbles from Post Punk Kitchen. They’re easy to make and the flavor is surprisingly complex.
My favorite part of the breakfast, though, are Michael’s breakfast potatoes. Now, I know breakfast potatoes aren’t incredibly difficult to make, and it’s pretty easy to find tasty ones at even the cheapest diner.
But if you’ve ever tried to make them at home, you know it can be hard to get them perfectly cooked, with just the right amount of crispiness and a good balance of seasonings. Here’s Michael’s recipe:
Red potatoes, cut to bite size pieces
olive oil
salt & pepper
garlic powder or minced garlic
onion powder
nutritional yeast
paprika
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.
Boil potatoes in a saucepan until they are soft.
Strain potatoes and then put them back in the pot. Add olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic, onion powder and nutritional yeast (everything except the paprika) to the pot. Just eyeball it with the spices, judging based on how much you like each one.
Shake the pot to mix together the potatoes and spices. This also gives potatoes a little texture.
Spread the potatoes flat on a baking sheet, and sprinkle with paprika. Bake for about 20-25 minutes, until they are crispy and brown.
Market Day! The unseasonably warm weather has made me anticipate the opening day of the farmer’s market even more than usual, so I’m particularly excited about picking up some herbs to plant and veggies to eat at the market’s first day.
There’s also a Handmade Market, which is always fun even though I usually don’t buy anything.
Make
I have been quilting like mad this week. I just started this fun Summer Sampler, which has been a great way for me to learn how to piece more traditional blocks and familiarize myself with some tried-and-true techniques in the process.
Say
Did you hear about the crisis in Harrisburg PA? The receiver, charged with fixing the city’s budget woes, left a Dear John note and fled the city. Planet Money’s recent podcast is a fascinating look at urban development, city budgets, and one man who “tried to save a broke city,” but ended up frustrated and is now nowhere to be found. Such a compelling story.
Drink
It’s spring, so I’m trying to move away from winter cocktails like Manhattans. Last weekend I broke out my tried and true whiskey + ginger ale mix for my friend’s birthday, but now that the farmer’s market is open, I’d like to try some of these fancy cocktails made with fresh herbs:
