heirloom roots munchie patch logo!

reed drew this for me. he’s such a fantastic artist.

from the mouths of lions

baguettes, tapenade, mosaics, plants and sir gandolfo higginscotch.

we had a long stretch of wonderful weather...that ended today. it’s rainy, windy and chilly so i stayed in crafting and cooking all day.

last night i made baguettes. it’s only my third time making proper bread from scratch; i used to make “bread” when i was a kid, but i never measured the ingredients or even bothered to rise it for very long, so the result was rarely edible. i still have an aversion to measuring things, but i realize now that precision is sometimes important for baking.

the recipe i used is from food network, and it’s pretty intense. it calls for seven hours worth of fussing but i cut that down to four hours by skipping two of the rise times. i added a teaspoon of sugar to help activate the yeast but otherwise didn’t mess with the ingredients. the recipe is completely out of whack as far as baking times: 12 minutes at 500 and 25-30 minutes at 400? are you kidding me? i did the 12@500, but after i turned it down to 400 it only took another five minutes or so to get brown and crispy.

the misting technique worked wonders--the recipe says to leave a pan of water under the bread and mist the oven walls and baguettes a few times while baking to create humidity. it made such a perfect crust. the bread is just fabulous.

this afternoon i sliced some of it, sprayed it with olive oil and toasted it. i’m afraid of the “propellants” and other mysteries in aerosol oil sprayers like pam, so rather than using boatloads of oil i’ve started using the misto; it’s a great tool, you fill it halfway with oil then use the cap/pump to pressurize, and it sprays a nice light mist.

to go with the crostini i made olive tapenade with green and kalamata olives.

i used about 4 large green olives (pimentos removed), a dozen small kalamata, a drizzle of olive oil and a bit of the red wine/herb marinade the kalamatas came in. i pulsed the food processor 3-4 times, scraped the sides of the bowl, pulsed again, scraped again and so on until the olive pieces were the right size.

a couple weeks ago i finally finished my first mosaic project: a pitcher. i’ve started and finished other mosaics since then but this was the first one i began.

it took months because it involved positioning the pitcher just right, sticking on one or two tesserae, taping them down, leaving it to dry, then repositioning and repeat, ad infinitum. i couldn’t stick everything on at once because it wouldn’t stay stuck unless it laid flat, and i couldn’t effectively lay out my pattern beforehand so it’s amazing it turned out anything less than hideous. the grouting was a challenge too.

i don’t recommend doing a dimensional object like this as a first mosaic project, unless you’re ambitious and determined (crazy and stubborn) like me.

i also made this decorative tray, using a wooden tray i dumpstered and a beautiful hand-painted dish that i feel a little bad about having smashed now that i’m getting interested in food photography.

jessica’s article on creative planting containers gave me the idea to plant a salad basket. i lined the basket with a fine screen, filled it with soil and planted rouge d’hiver lettuce seeds. they just started coming up the other day, and now there are 30-40 seedlings sprouting.

yesterday it was painfully gorgeous out so i went on a long, leisurely bike ride. there are so many buds that are just so close...

i saw my first wasp yesterday, and the waterstriders emerged from their winter hiding places to abuse the surface tension on the pond in my front yard.

meet sir gandolfo higginscotch. bethany turned me on to the toy society, which is basically an adorable idea where you create a handmade toy, take a picture of it then leave it somewhere for a stranger to find. so sir higginscotch is going to be left somewhere on campus or possibly in freak alley downtown, as soon as bethany drives to boise so we can do our toy drops together.

he’s a ladybug, if you couldn’t tell, i know he looks a bit like a turtle. my criteria was to make something that would look appealing two-dimensionally, since it’s going in a flat ziplock bag. i also wanted to put in a lot of small details. it doesn’t show up well in the pictures but he has one orange eye and one red...that’s the least of his color eccentricities, of course. i used variegated purple thread for the stitching, purple embroidery floss for the antennae, glass beads for the eyes, black pleather for the backs of the wings, and black yarn with knots in it for the legs and feet. i planted a tiny jingle bell in his belly so he makes a high-pitched tinkling sound.

i hope someone awesome finds him and loves him.

boise state women's center bra project 2009

last friday was the sixth annual bra project put on by the women's center. this year proceeds went to st. luke's MSTI mammography fund for uninsured and underinsured idaho women. i don't know how much money was raised, but it seemed quite successful.

the format was both silent and live auction--31 pieces in the silent auction and 18 peices that were either carried around or modeled for the live auction. i was not expecting my sock monkeys to be part of the live auction, but there they were...

the crowd went wild when radica and doodica hit the runway. lindsey (who works in the women's center) said they'd had it on display, and everyone who came in made a big fuss about it. someone else from the women's center asked if i'd be willing to make another one for her to buy. after the auction a writer from the arbiter interviewed me about my "inspiration"--it was so cute.
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the bidding started at $70 but didn't stay there long--paddles were waving all over the place, i think it was the most active bidding of the night. i was absolutely flabbergasted by how much money it ended up going for: $190! one hundred ninety goddamn dollars for something that cost maybe ten bucks and took six or seven hours to put together. the only live auction bra that went for a higher bid was woman-of-steel zella bardsley's metal masterpiece, "heavy duty bra":

which took in about $25 more. it's a total work of art.

my knitted bra was in the live auction as well, bringing in $50 (about average for the live auction ones). i thought it looked really nice on the model, she wore it well.

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i'm completely thrilled to have been able to help raise $240 for such a great cause...i wish boise had more community art projects for charity. i wish the mend project would throw another recycled toy event, but i don't know if mend is even around anymore, their website has vanished and i haven't heard anything.

^"beautiful" by ginger vogt.

^this is "hooters" by fran finkbeiner. i met fran at the women's day poetry reading last march. she wrote a long, funny story about the hooters using more boob-related puns than i could count.

^"the beauty in beads" by esther ceja. some jerk in the audience shouted out that he would bid if the model came with the bra on this one...rocci johnson was emceeing this year and she made a joke out of it, but if that had happened last year when mel wintrow (my gender studies prof last semester) was hosting, she would have totally said something about how inappropriate and stupid that was (but in much more tolerant, "i'm-trying-to-educate-you" words than i just used).

^this bra was called "no war in MY rack!", by brandi benson, made out of the artist's old military uniform.

^"save second base" by brandi benson.

^"innocence" by brandi benson.

^"june is busting out all over" by christine howard.

"bra-barella and/or metal form" by kay seurat. i love this one. the artist photoshopped the bra into a couple of old movie posters for barbarella. this bra was bought by the person modeling it.

"tickled pink" by kay coughran.

"flowers, buttons and bows" by sarah crawford.

and now the silent auction pieces...

^bethany and sienna's bra totally should have been in the live auction, since it's wearable and awesome...but some lucky bidder got it for a steal at $15.

speaking of being way undervalued, this magnificent piece ("heirloom" by janie gates) went for only about $20. it looks like the artist constructed it entirely from scratch. the artist statement mentions tatting, so i assume she even tatted the lacework. i came very, very close to bidding on this one but i really didn't want to spend any money, and i didn't know what i would do with it if i bought it.

as usual, a lot of artists got extremely creative with their materials. this is "better than chocolate," a bra cake by amanda peña.

^"white orchid acrylic dimples," by ashley kennedy, made out of the dry paint from a tray liner.

^"growth" by paige weber. when i first caught a glimpse of this one at the women's center i thought it was made out of wood, but it's actually a pair of painted ribbon spools. very clever.

^"straining out breast cancer" by alan beckett.

^"it's not all black and white" by julie gerrard. the artist wove this fabric herself.

^"fischertechnic" by richard mussler-wright, made out of "a common children's manipulative found in germany" called fischertechnic. in the artist statement he writes:

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Fischertechnik is a hobbyist manipulative used to design manufacturing and robotic systems. It tends to be very functional in form. Most Fischertechnik components are limited to red and black colors, and there are few decorative components. The bra calls attention to the sometimes indifferent and mechanical ways we look at breast cancer, forgetting the person inside.

^another of my favorites, "wooden this be luverly" by sandra schow. the artist statement is very clever as well, advertising the features:

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Hefty wooden half-cup assures great support for the full-figured woman. Rigid material will not sag or slip. Wooden band definitely will not roll. Eliminates embarassing nipple show-through. Promotes excellent posture. Not least, a bra should be beautiful. What better than a lovely natural wood-grain finish, with delightfully feminine scalloped trim on the front of the cup and attractive brass detailing.

^"mardi party" by chris zahn. intentional avoidance of obvious pun "mardi bra"?

^"support" by rita abraham.

^"women of hope, courage and strength" by sarah crawford.

^"boise state broncos" by sarah crawford. i thought this one was truly hideous. it looks like it should be hanging in someone's RV at a tailgating party.

^"unyielding construction" by kyla heller.

^"american beauty" by the prolific brandi benson. i think she made a total of five bras. most of her artist statements have to do with something awfully depressing, like having cancer twice, her daughter dying at three months old, fighting in iraq... intense.

^"beauty" by adriane bang. she's the current director of the women's center, and she made a bunch of bras--seven total. most of them were little polymer clay pieces.

^"cowgirl up" by bonnie patrick.

^"groovy for your boobie" by lindsey evans and katherine mills.