Weather-Proof.

I weather-proofed my suede boots today.

It's actually a very simple process. You spray on the stuff, let it sit for an hour, then wear the boots all the time, even while you're sleeping. Or...at least that's what I do.

Funny thing is, I tend to think of weather-proofing for shoes as if there will never be any more weather, ever. Like as soon as my boots are weather-proof, their little boot-lives are suddenly going to be weather-free. No more rain! No more snow! Just happy, sunny days forever!

Gosh. That doesn't make sense.

Doesn't make sense in my life, either.

And just because I've "weather-proofed" my life with the love of Jesus and the grace of God, doesn't mean my life is never, ever going to get rained, snowed, and thundered on. Doesn't mean it's sunny days until I die.

So why do I expect that?

The rain is going to fall just the same, and I have to live with it. But being weather-proofed means just this: I don't have to get sopping wet anymore. It rolls right off, eventually.

And that's alright.

Writing from a rainy season,
-The GLS

Bless the Bread.

It's been a uniquely culinary weekend, but I think the fairies are after me.

This morning, before church, I wanted to try a rumor I had heard about shaking heavy cream in a glass jar to make butter. It worked like a charm. It seems I have butter luck.

So when I got BACK from church I decided to do some major butter-making, only this time by using the closest thing I have to a butter churn: my dear Ada, the Kitchenaid Mixer. I ended up with a nice-size lump of pale, creamy butter. I added a pinch of salt and decided that my butter luck was absolute.

With some of the leftover pasty filling from last night, I made a pot of soup and two small loaves of brown bread. I dutifully blessed the bread (by cutting the traditional slices in it before baking), but I completely forgot to let the fairies out (by pricking the middle of each loaf).

Too bad, too. Because despite the fact that the bread, butter, and soup were all delicious, the fairies must have been a bit miffed at my culinary success and at having not been referenced in my making of the loaves.

As a result, they pinched one of my favorite earrings. Can't find it anywhere. I don't blame them for taking it, it's quite a pretty thing. But I would like it back.

If you have any suggestions on how to appease fairies once they've been offended, please feel free to share your expertise.

-The GLS

Teddy Oggin.

I guess I'm never really all that happy about my blog unless I blog about food. Plus, I watched Julie & Julia again tonight and it always puts me in a bloggy mood.

Luckily, I can offer you not only food...but PHOTOS of food, which is always exciting!

So, on we go...



This, for the uninitiated, is a pasty. Pronounced not as "pay-stee", but as "pah-stee"...at least in my family.

According to popular tradition, pasties come from the British Isles where miners would take them as lunches. They were filled with a stew-like mix of meat, veggies, potatoes, and a gravy, and packed into tough pastry that was rolled into turnovers. This made them easy to hold and transport, kept the hands warm, and kept the coal dust out of the food. Common tales insist that miners would discard the pastry after eating the stuff inside, mostly because it was dirty from their coal-covered hands but also as a sort of offering to the mean little sprites living underground that might lead an unsuspecting miner to danger. Apparently, mean little underground sprites like coal-dust-covered, second-hand pastry. Who knew?

My parents made a delicious pork roast the other night, swimming in onions and pepper and other such delights. With the leftover pork, my mom requested pasties. (And yes, for those playing along at home, it is NOT a REAL pasty if the ingredients are pre-cooked before going into the pastry. Thank you for pointing that out. Next time remind me not to link back to Wikipedia.)

I had never made pasties before. I made little venison pies a few weeks ago, which turned out alright but not perfect, so I was a little hesitant.

But digging in my Irish cookbooks I found a recipe for pastry dough that knocked my Connemara wool socks off (flour, butter, AND heavy cream.....what?!) and suddenly I had to try it.

Pork, peas, garlic (from the farmer's market), a gigantic fingerling potato (also farm-fresh), a carrot, some leek, canned mushrooms (we can't have everything we want, now can we?) and a whole lot of cooking sherry. My very first roux (!!) thickened it up nicely, and some dried thyme and black pepper gave it a little zip.

Granted, by the end it was not the desired consistency. I was hoping for more distinct pieces in a sort of gravy, but I added the pork meat WAY too early and it turned into carnita-like shreds by the time I was ready to stuff the pastry.

Boo and bother, it didn't matter one bit. Because they were DELICIOUS. Especially with some HP Sauce and some of my mom's famous salad.

Before:



And...after:



Notice that the HP Sauce has not moved much...but the pasty, broccoli, and tomatoes (in the salad) have all mysteriously vanished. It's uncanny, really.

In the end, I am full of goodness. Happily sipping chamomile tea while I surf the Internet for things I will probably never buy but enjoy looking at anyway.

Incidentally, this is cute.

-The GLS

How To Slaughter a Chicken.

My life is now learning how to slaughter chickens and forage for mushrooms, hang game and categorize watercress. It's like this is what I've been building toward my whole life long.

(Dramatic much?)

Tonight was a great capper to a fascinating week of yelling and general stress. I kindled new friendships, ate cream of kale soup with black pepper biscuits (delish!), played a bit of old-timey music and generally had a grand old time. This is what life (and Fridays) ought to be about.

And slaughtering chickens. Gizzards. Indeed.

-The GLS

Should I Sit In It, Or Eat It?

I am very full of cinnamon rolls.

Seriously, it's awful.

But also great.

I'm also thinking a lot of Jim Gaffigan-ish thoughts.

So here we go.

Goodnight.

-The GLS

Knit, Purl, Repeat.

Say you're knitting a scarf.

Say this scarf has a big fat cable running through it. Say this requires use of a stitch counter so you know when to cable. Say you're not entirely joyous about the product, but you're continuing just because it's something to do.

Now, say you lose your stitch counter. It mysteriously vanishes. You can't find it anywhere. Now you can no longer comfortably cable without marking your progress on a piece of paper or some other such bother.

Lesson: When your stitch counter vanishes and you can no longer easily cable, frog the darn thing (which was turning out fairly ugly anyway) and make stripes instead.

Somewhere a deep life lesson is buried in there. Something highly metaphorical. But I'm too cross-eyed from 1x1 ribbing to figure it out.

-The GLS

Don't Crowd the Pan.

Ahh, what a day. This is the sort of day that Saturdays were invented for, I think.

A quick sprucing-up of the room? Check.

A walk down to the final local farmer's market of the year? Check.

Using the ingredients from the farmer's market to make potato leek soup and beer bread? Check.

Taking said soup and bread to my sis-in-law's house for a visit? Check.

Squishing adorable baby niece? Check.

Coming home to sip wine and watch episodes of Julia Child's "The French Chef" with my mum? Check check.

Finding out that my Irish Fairy-Soupmother has three other cookbooks and feeling the overwhelming need to buy them? Check check check.

Lesson learned. Saturdays rule.

-The GLS