05.15.23 The next chapter

They took my gallbladder and gave me socks

Last month I turned 60...and for the last 21 years I've wondered what it would be like when I became the age my mom was when she died in 2002.

There's a whole lot wrapped up in that...especially after a trip to the ER and a few nights in the hospital for emergency gallbladder surgery at 59 and 11 months.  It undid me more than a little. 

Fortunately, I'm headed for a full recovery, and except for losing a few weeks in the process, it appears I am going to be no worse for the wear.

As for being 60, here's what I can tell you so far...

Mom - in her late 50's

I look more like my mom than I ever expected to (I always thought I looked like my Dad)…I regularly catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror, or even a reflection in a window, and there she is looking back at me.

I'm healthy (gallbladder aside, I am in good health - or so my doctors tell me); I eat well, I exercise regularly...and while there are no guarantees, I don't expect this to be my last year...

…so, I'm trying to figure out who I want to be for the rest of my life. 

Covid changed all of us - but it's much more than that - and the transition started before the pandemic.  

In 2019, purely by coincidence, I closed my consulting firm (anticipating more travel and time in the jewelry studio...oh, well). 

It's been nine years since I was a full time parent - our youngest child left home in September 2014, leaving me lots of free time to start a blog and learn to make jewelry; and ten years since I was a daughter (my dad died just before my 50th birthday).

Life was going to be different; I was going to be different.  I just didn't know how...but I'm starting to get the idea...

The pandemic brought a lot of darkness, but it's also given me an extraordinary amount of clarity. 

I won't allow my time to be wasted. I no longer have patience for anyone who doesn't value my time, and I want to devote that time to things and people that matter. 

I've re-engaged with politics, but in a much more positive way.  Instead of writing angry Resistbots to my Senators who have no interest in my thoughts, I've been writing Postcards to Voters - over 1,500 of them - since I started in January of 2020.

I've continued volunteering and mentoring - much of it virtually - while things were really locked down.  It's been wonderful to grow and sustain those connections now that we can do things in person again.

I've also figured out what - beyond my family and friends - brings me joy.

Texas Farmers Market haul including flowers from Petal's Ink

Flowers bring me joy - I love having them in the house, especially knowing that every week when I have them delivered I am supporting a small, woman owned business. 

Cooking and baking bring me joy, again - before Covid, I'd pretty much given up (after doing it on a schedule for twenty years) - helps, too, that I'm shopping at the farmers market and have significantly upgraded my kitchen equipment.

With my friend Alaine at a recent WJA event
both wearing our Social Justice earrings

Even though I'm not making it right now, jewelry brings me lots of joy...so much so, that I am still a relatively active member of the Women's Jewelry Association in Austin...and of course, I keep buying it.

I didn't know what I would find when I started my journey down the jewelry path...it has turned out to be so much more than just shiny things.  I found a creative outlet - both at the bench and on this blog, incredible new friends, and with one of those friends made my children's wedding rings.

I don't know what else I'll be doing - but I'm looking forward to making, buying, wearing and writing about life and jewelry for the foreseeable future.

Until next time. 

02.07.22 Time in a bottle...or a jar

My Giant Microbes Covid, February 2022

Do you remember when and where you were when you first heard about Covid?

I do.  

I was at Chuy's - sitting outside because the weather was nice 

- not because being outside was safer - 

on the last Friday in February of 2020.  My husband and I were having dinner with my niece (an emergency room PA in Seattle) who was in town for a professional training.  We were talking about cases of a weird virus that was showing up in the Pacific northwest...

...we now know that was the beginning of what has become two very long years of dealing with this pandemic.

All the ingredients for morning glory muffins

Time has been very strange during Covid - and I'm marking it in ways that would never have occurred to me before - in particular, the consumption of baking supplies.

I've always cooked, but until the pandemic, I've never been much of a baker...the occassional batch of chocolate chip cookies, brownies from a box, and challah (but I made the dough in a breadmaker).  Like so many other things, that's changed.

There were two baking camps in the beginning - sourdough and banana bread.  I was definitely in the latter group.  

Samin Nosrat's focaccia with salt and rosemary

Like most folks, I started by using up the bananas I had in the freezer. Then I moved to muffins - and began adapting recipes - changing up the fruit, and adjusting the flour mix...flour that I started getting mail order, ten pounds at a time (remember there was a flour shortage!?) and have been ordering ever since.

But, what struck me the most, was the rate at which I was going through spices!  

I looked back over two years of Penzey's orders - I've used 4 cups of cinnamon and over 3 pints of vanilla - and have acquired bottles of numerous other spices, the most exotic of which is probably cardamom seeds.

I'm also going through dozens of eggs, and pounds of pecans - because in addition to a couple dozen muffins every three weeks or so...

Niloufer Ichaporia King's cardamon cake

I'm baking Samin Nosrat's focaccia with wheat flour,  a cake that Food 52 touted as Alice Water's favorite dessert...and next month for my husband's birthday...a German Chocolate cake. 

Turns out baking really is theraputic...

it's hard to be in a bad mood when the kitchen smells like butter, sugar and spice...

or when you turn the cake out of the pan and it looks just like the photo with the recipe.

January was a rough month for me, and I definitely responded to the stress by pulling out the mixing bowls and turning on the oven...which is just fine as long as I balance all the sweets with healthy meals, sourced largely from the farmers market.

Honestly, February hasn't been much better so far...it's still cold, and we've had an ice storm (although not like last year)...but we are headed towards spring, and hopefully to the end of this Covid wave.

Until next time.

03.15.21 Quarantinewhile* - The Kitchen

I'm pretty sure I've spent more time in my kitchen over the last year than in the previous seven (when our youngest child went away to college, and I started this blog).

Early on in the pandemic I realized I needed to clean out the pantry. I'll spare you the list of things with "best by" dates from the late 00's to the early 10's that went straight to the compost (and their containers to the recycling)...let's just say it reinforced how little cooking I'd done in that period.

It also rapidly became obvious that a lot of things in the kitchen were worn out. It wasn't long before kitchen appliances - large and small - started failing. 

We replaced the mixer, toaster oven, microwave, a refrigerator and two hot water heaters over the course of the spring and summer...just a couple of weeks ago, we had to have the "pilotless ignition" on the stove replaced...and this morning, as soon as I get this post up, I'm shopping for a new dishwasher (the panel on ours is now blinking like a pinball machine).

Despite all of that, I realized I was enjoying cooking and baking again...but, like my office, the contents of the kitchen needed to be sorted, purged and updated.

I started with baking pans.  Instead of sourdough, I baked muffins...but the pan I had dated to my days as a student. It was flimsy and rusty, and needed to be replaced.  I also bought some really nice (and just plain fun) odd sized measuring cups and spoons.  I think it's worth noting, that I am still baking several times a week, so these were good purchases.

From there, I moved on to cabinets and drawers...that was almost as big an undertaking as the office.  For years I'd just shoved things in where I could find space for them. There were threadbare linens that should have been tossed on the rag pile a decade ago, cheap bakeware with dented bottoms (metal) or chipped glaze, as well as sippy cups and plastic juice boxes (did I mention that my youngest child - referenced above - is in the third year of her PhD?). 

One of the most satisfying outcomes of this process is that now, when I open the cabinet that contains plastic storage containers, not only does nothing fall out...but I know every piece has a matching lid.

Last, there were the bookshelves...like the cabinets and drawers...they were overloaded.  I pulled everything off, and gave it all - the books, the tchotchkes, and the shelves themselves - a thorough dusting and wiping down.

I recycled years' worth of magazines that I had kept - for reasons I could no longer remember (or, because they contained a recipe that is now online) - which freed up a whole lot of shelf space, and made it possible to line the books up properly, with nothing stacked on top of them.

I don't think it's much of a leap to guess what I did with some of the newly available space...

...I upgraded!

Dented baking pans and cheap plastic utensils (from the same era, with melted spots on the handles) were replaced with deep ceramic pans and silicone untensils.  I traded frayed, faded linens for new, bright colored ones...and all those new tea towels (both the ones sent by friends, and those I purchased) fit in the drawers.

I'm really glad to have gotten rid of things I wasn't using, and not feeling any buyer's remorse about the new stuff. I'm going to be serving up three meals a day at home for the foreseable future.  This is the new normal - at least as far as dining goes - and it's nice to have things that are pretty and functional.

Now, you'll excuse me while I go whip up a marble pound cake.

Until next time.

*again, the disclaimer that I totally stole this term from Stephen Colbert.

08.17.20 The Right Stuff

Everything is better - and easier - when you have the right tools.

I've written about this before in the context of jewelry - and the same is true in the kitchen...where I am spending a whole lotta time right now!

I've had a well equipped kitchen for most of my adult life, but until a few months ago I had pretty much stopped cooking on a regular basis.  Since I've started up again, I've added a few things that have made me really happy.

I always start my day with coffee, and last fall we bought an espresso machine (to replace the tiny, manual one we got as a wedding gift going on 30 years ago)...and boy, are we glad to have it.

Part of the thinking, when we bought it (well in advance of the pandemic) is that it would pay for itself over time as I stopped getting my coffee on the go everyday.  At one cup a day for me, it was going to take a while...my husband's office had big, fancy machines, so he was making his espressos there (several times a day) during the week, and at home on the weekends...but now that we're both home 24/7 we feel like geniuses!

Since he has been working from home (for going on 5 months)...and we are going through a pound of beans a week!  Fortunately, our favorite local coffee roaster started shipping at the start of the lockdown. Now we get a big box once a month so we can stay caffeinated.

While I love my cup of hot coffee in the morning, during the summer I want cold brew in the afternoon.  Like so many grocery items, my favorite cold brew was hard to get curbside in the beginning, so I decided to investigate options to make it at home.

Photo credit: County Line Kitchen

I settled on a mason jar filter system from County Line Kitchen - and it works like a champ!  I had been drinking a pecan flavored cold brew, and discovered that HEB (the world's best grocery store - don't believe me, just ask Business Insider or Food and Wine) has a Texas Pecan coffee! I buy it ground, follow the instructions and it makes a delicious cold brew.

Unlike the espresso machine, the mason jar and filter were only $25, so the return on investment was big and fast!

Next up was a new toaster oven.  Seems like a small thing...but the previous one was clearly at the end of its life. Sometimes it would come on when you pushed the start button, other times you had to toggle the start and stop ones - and maybe it would stay on until the bagel was toasted, maybe not.

I use it a lot for baking, too.  My muffin and banana bread recipes all call for toasted nuts (I like pecans in my coffee and my baked goods - so that's what I use), and with the old toaster I had to stand watch...otherwise I would end up not with enhanced flavor - but with charred bits that needed to go straight to the compost.

After the last burned batch of pecans, it was time.

Through the wonders of the internet, I was able to read reviews, comparison shop, and have a brand new one delivered to my doorstep.  

I looked at some really expensive ones - but the previous one had been a Black and Decker...and given how long it lasted, that's what we bought again.

We are now happily toasting bagels, reheating pizza, and prepping pecans for baking once again.

Even older than the toaster, was the muffin tin I had...it dated back to college.  Over the years it made a lot of muffins and birthday cupcakes to take to school and scout events...but when I pulled it out a recently I noticed it was in really bad shape; a little dented and rusted on the underside...so I decided to look for a new one of those, too.

In my search, I landed on the Williams-Sonoma page and discovered (ON SALE) the most wonderful measuring cups and spoons - they are odd sized!  This may not seem like a big deal to you - but I was smitten and had to have them!

The cups come in 2/3, 3/4 and 1.5 cup sizes; the spoons are 2 teaspoons, 1.5 Tablespoons and 2 Tablespoons...and I use them every time I make blueberry muffins (pretty much every other week).

...and finally (just a few days before this post - so I've added it) a new hand mixer. The one I've had since college stopped turning halfway through mixing a pound cake (baked it anyway...it was a little, uh, dense).

As with the pound cake, it seems wrong to write about the muffins, and not share the recipe...as you can see, the measurements for the first 3 ingredients all utilize my new odd sized cups and spoons.

Until next time.

Blueberry Pecan Muffins 
(adapted from Allrecipes.com)

1½ cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1/3 cup milk, or more as needed
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
1 cup fresh blueberries
3/4 cup toasted pecan pieces
1/4 cup Turbinado sugar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.

Combine flour, brown sugar, baking powder and salt.

Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and add enough milk to reach the 1-cup mark.

Mix this with flour mixture. Fold in blueberries and pecans.

Fill muffin cups add top each muffin with a sprinkle of Turbinado sugar (about a teaspoon per muffin)

Bake 20-25 minutes, or until a knife or toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

08.03.20 Cluck, Cluck, Goose

There is nothing good about the Covid pandemic - absolutely nothing - but fortunately I am still able to connect with people I care about and find new ways to do things that bring me joy and satisfaction.

I've shifted my creative energy from the jewelry bench to the kitchen counter...I am cooking almost every day, and baking - something I haven't done much of before - a lot.  As a result, I'm going through vast amounts of produce, and eggs!

Back in March, eggs were one of the things that turned out to be difficult to get curbside from the grocery store, and my friend Dorsey, who owns HausBar farm, had an abundant supply (because the farm to table restaurants she sold to pre-pandemic weren't buying as many anymore).

You might remember her, and her fabulous goose, Gustavo, from a previous post...Dorsey and I have been friends since college.  She and her mom wrote a book about her urban farm in Austin - narrated by Gustavo - which I highly recommend.  I went to the book launch party, and wore my speckled hen pendant, and then made a goose pendant for Dorsey...

but I digress...back to the eggs...I signed up for her "farm to neighbor" website - where I am able to get farm fresh eggs, veggies and flowers, with a bonus (socially distanced, masked) visit with my friend every week or so.

Having eggs is critical right now, because I'm doing so much baking.

I haven't hopped on the sourdough train, but I'm baking muffins to eat in the morning and pound cake (to have with fresh peaches, berries, whatever is in season) for dessert in the evening...so I'm going through eggs at the rate of about a dozen a week.

It doesn't seem fair to write this without sharing the recipe, so here it is - from the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook.

Until next time.

Sour Cream Pound Cake

INGREDIENTS

½ cup butter
3 eggs
½ cup sour cream or Greek yogurt
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon baking powder
⅛ teaspoon baking soda
1 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon vanilla

DIRECTIONS

Allow butter, eggs, and sour cream to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 325°F. Grease and lightly flour a 9x5x3-inch loaf pan; set aside.

In a medium bowl stir together flour, baking powder, and baking soda; set aside.

In a large bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Gradually add sugar, beating on medium speed about 10 minutes or until light and fluffy. Add vanilla. Add eggs, one at a time, beating on low to medium speed for 1 minute after each addition and scraping side of bowl frequently. Alternately add flour mixture and sour cream to butter mixture, beating on low speed after each addition just until combined.

Pour batter into prepared pan, spreading evenly. Bake for 60 to 75 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near center of cake comes out clean.

Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes.

Remove from pan; cool completely on rack.