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Showing posts with label shadow art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shadow art. Show all posts

Saturday, January 25, 2025

Walls have eyes and plarn, technical notes

This morning just for a couple of minutes, this eye image appeared on the fireplace wall.  

Above the middle there. It looked astonishingly like an eye. And it may be my overheated imagination.

I've resumed drinking one cup of coffee in the morning, now that I seem to be able to. I make a pourover, Melitta style cone sitting on the cup, strong enough to write its own blogpost.  It's a huge boost for my glum usual start to the day, and definitely gets me up. 

That first sip, steaming hot, powerful, so glad I can handle caffeine, is a daily wonderful event.  It may contribute to seeing images on the wall, too, come to think of it.

I was interested in the various plarn contributions yesterday, thank you. What I observed with the bread wrappers is that plastic has changed. 

A few years ago, they were more brittle and I crocheted and knitted fairly easily with them. It's not easy on your hands, but it was more doable than with today's bags. 

They're far more elastic and tough and rubbery and staticky, and quickly jam together in a way that earlier bags didn't. 

So that was an interesting finding. I don't have any plastic shopping bags, banned in this state years ago. There aren't even any caught in the trees in windy days!

But with a different warp thread, as suggested by  Leigh, I will cut up and weave the bread wrappers  as they come. I certainly like using them instead of feeling like a bad environmentalist when they arrive. And now I'm thinking of using other bits of plastic wrappers likewise, making useful things out of them. 

I think I'll warp up a big piece of cardboard, favorite loom material, with some of my cotton warp thread, and just add in weft as it arrives in the Misfits boxes. I fact I will go through my single stream recycle container before I take it out and see if I can reuse any of that, too. Potatoes and apples arrive in plastic and mesh bags.

Taking care of the earth is a form of close to home resistance. Anyway, that's my story.

Happy day everyone, resistance can be fun if you look at it that way. 




 

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Saturday, September 2, 2017

Rustic Apple Pie and Shadow Art 6WS

Out of bread again, and as usual wondering what sort to make. Not in the mood for actual yeast bread making, nor hot biscuits, but I found, via their Twitter feed, a  recipe from The Splendid Table  for Rustic Rosemary Apple Tart.  For which go here

That seemed pretty simple, no cutting and crimping, etc., and was a bit like clafouti, which I like a lot.  And involved fresh rosemary of which I have plenty.  And cooking apples of which I had a couple. So I embarked on it.

Now, in case you fancy trying it, be forewarned: rustic does not mean fast cooking.  In fact I am thinking of recommending a whole new way of presenting recipes.  You know how they name it, tell you why you will love it, list the ingredients,  then explain the procedure? 

One huge missing element is: the number and range of tools this simple item will require.  Then you could decide if it's worth it.  The way you look at a list of ingredients and decide if you're up for that many.  To some of us this is an issue.


Here is evidence:  this is the dish drainer containing nothing but the items required to make this rustic tart.  And it doesn't include the big bowls and knives I had washed and dried and put away already. Just sayin.  I did get to use my rolling pin and pastry cutter, which was good.  And my pastry scraper. And apple corer. And peeler. And pizza cutter.

That said, however, I did achieve a result that looked something like their picture, if a bit more rectangular



And had a first slice with afternoon tea.  With the Yorkshire tradition of a big slice of extra sharp cheddar on the side.


And found it was absolutely terrific.  My first shot at flaky pastry, and it was crisp and flaky and perfectly wonderful.  The apples were those Crisp whatevers, even better than Granny Smith, never thought I'd say that, and the tart works like a fruit Danish for breakfast, too.

Of course, being me, there were substitutions.  They wanted heavy cream and I said no, no, and used plain yogurt, needed a bit more than the recipe said, and it worked fine. And you could have used cinnamon, but rosemary is much better, so I used that. They don't mention parchment paper, but after a couple of annoying encounters of the sticking kind recently with the baking sheet, I did, and that was a good idea.

Handsome son is dropping by this afternoon and will also get to test this one.  It's about making and resting the pastry, and is a lengthy procedure largely because of all the waiting for the pastry to wake up, but now I think it's worth doubling the pastry recipe and freezing some for future use. This "simple" rustic recipe reminds me of those endless beauty regimens with the goal of looking natural..

Incidentally I think it's not fair when one of the list of ingredients is: one recipe of Flaky Pastry! which is another whole recipe in itself.  But okay, okay, the results are good enough to print this one out and put it in my Big Binder. 

And while I was polishing my nails on my lapel and gawking around vacantly while the pastry rested, I noticed the sun had come out, was shining through the hanging plants, and making a natural artwork on the green wall. 

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